http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20100630/REVIEWS/100639999

...even worse than I expected!!!

First of all, DeeDee Rickets is not even her real name.
Like every jewish person in Hollywood, she changed it.
These are just some examples:
Isadore Demsky became Kirk Douglas
Allen Konigsberg became Woody Allen
Alan King was born Irwin Alan Kniberg
Tony Curtis was born Bernard Schwartz
Paul Muni was born Meshilem Meier Weisenfreund
Leonard Alfred Schneider changed his name to Lenny Bruce
Melvin "Mel" Kaminsky become Mel Brooks
Gene Wilder was born Jerome Silberman
Dyan Cannon was born Samille Diane Friesen
Frank Oz was born Richard Frank Oznowicz

The last 2 "Hollywood White Wash" controversies for the covers of Vogue and Vanity Faire magazine were also brought ot us by jewish photographer: Annie Liebowitz.
Her late partner called the white race "The cancer of human history" so uh, no; I don't think she prefers whites. She's pretending to be stupidly racist to piss people off. She's race-baiting.
By all means: PLEASE ban this movie! They don't deserve a DIME.

basically, any qualifications/certifications this guy claims to possesses are now invalid.

let this serve as the Audioshocker's official burn notice on M. Night Shyamalan and DeeDee Ricketts.

http://io9.com/5504967/shyamalan-addresses-airbenders-race-controversy-and-answers-your-questions

my personal favorite parts are:

1. when he says that the Airbenders are all mixed-race. so great, basically, all the dead people will be diverse. good message.

2. that the Earth Kingdom will be part "African-American"... uhhh so that means that the Earth Kingdom will specifically have pockets of people with African ancestry BUT they had to be raised in America! haha what the hell! black, Shyamalan. it's okay to say black. or you know what? say African. you say that the the other Earth Kingdom people are Chinese, not Chinese-American, right? WTF. this is such a sad, sad, sad mess. i want to cry.

go to (thx Ross!)
http://www.ugo.com/movies/frank-marshall-clarifies-key-issue-in-racebending-controversy

AND scroll down to the comment from Sharkman Jhones.

I'll post the comment here so everyone can see what I'm talking about:

TITLE: Way get nearly everything wrong. (in response to the content of the above article)

"Executive producers, by definition, have absolutely no creative control over the movie. They're entirely business and legal issues, and barring that, it's often given to writers who have their work adapted into a movie, but otherwise have no creative control or say. Comic Con 2008 also was before the casting was revealed (December 2008) and before filming even *started* (March 2009) so that quote you said is impossible. Also, they're not authors of a book, they don't own Avatar, Nickelodeon does because they did the series for Nickelodeon. If Nick wanted to, they could make an entirely new Avatar series without their help at all and Mike and Bryan would not be able to lift a finger to stop them. You're also lumping Asians into one group when the show took things from China, Japan, Korea, Vietnam, various Inuit Tribes and more. That's just as diverse as putting Spain, Britain, France, Holland and Germany together, but Asia, the largest continent in the world holding the vast majority of the world population, isn't? Ringer isn't mixed race. I'd love to see where you heard that, outside of M. Night saying he had a "mixed quality." If he was actually Asian or of mixed race, the production would have been quick to point this out, just like they were quick to trumpet the roles of "Earthbending Boy" and "Earthbending Father," two roles filled by Asian actors that were so important, they didn't even warrant getting a name. Characters played by white actors in this movie include: Aang, Katara, Sokka, Gran-Gran, Pakku, and Roku (even though he's Fire Nation.) Sokka's two "exotic" love interests are played by partially white actresses (the actress for Yue *is* of mixed heritage, but identifies as white on her MySpace so it's about as worthwhile as Cameron Diaz being Cuban.) So if you're a Fire Nation antagonist or an unnamed background character, then the character is played by a non-white actor. But if you've got a name, and you're a protagonist in the movie? White. That's not diversity, it's tokenism. Racism is alive and well, unless you've ignored the recent illiegal immigration debate (Being Mexican and living on the border, ignoring it is something I don't have the luxury of doing) or all the crap surrounding Obama's election, with people saying he wasn't even born here. Just because it's gotten better, doesn't mean the struggle is over. Lastly, M. Night being Indian doesn't make him immune from making discriminatory decisions. He's not some Indian Spike Lee where his movies are all about what being Indian American is in urban America, he hasn't even cast a non-white star for a single one of his movies." - Sharkman Jhones

Here's a good quote from DeeDee that sort of sums up everything that's wrong with the Airbender production:

"Night doesn't know what it is he wants, but he'll know it when he sees it."

Hmmmm, I think Avatar: The Last Airbender was clear enough to give a good blueprint for M. Night. Not really that complicated. Fill your lead roles with a diverse collection of people and make the rest of the casting match. It's just too little, too late from this whole production team to try and turn around the stupid decisions made early on.

I also like how this article says "What do members of the Earth Kingdom look like? Like they're from Mongolia. Or Cambodia or Laos. Something like that. Exotically Asian, at least." That's just embarrassing for this entire production.

nice outcry in the comments on this article

http://thedp.com/node/58123

and if she is seriously the person in charge of costumes, then that makes it even worse because the whole thing she got wrong was the culture-costume connection!!!

"If you're Korean, wear a kimono. If you're from Belgium, wear lederhosen."

those aren't my words. that's DeeDee's quote from the newspaper article about Airbender casting. Lederhosen is German, not Belgian. Kimonos are Japanese, not Korean.

Old blog-- good comments
http://www.aceshowbiz.com/news/view/00021651.html

Oh if ONLY if she meant "headshot" the way I think of it, we wouldn't have to worry about her further butchering the Avatar cast.

at the end of the day, though, the whole thing is just nuts. i think they need to rethink how this entire project is getting produced.

part of Avatar's charm and a huge component of its success is that it presents a different type of worldview for a fantasy epic. i think that appeals to both kids and adults. and, from how it looks so far, the production team of this film is stripping away that unique worldview and replacing it with the same old Hollywood fantasy movie bullshit.

and this DeeDee Rickets... Total bonehead.