Linda,
Thanks for your post. I had forgotten about Gran Torino; it is definitely about learning to understand those around us. Prior to the film, I knew about the Hmong only because I work in education. I have not had the chance to watch The Visitor, but will definitely try. And how prescient of you, I had planned on touching on Avatar in my next entry. That film had many people of various cultural backgrounds working together: the voice actors for the Nav'ii (I think that is right) were not only African-American but Native American (Wes Studi) as well, Michelle Rodriguez is Latina, and the doctor that helped them is of Indian ancestry; however, most of the audience would only focus on the blue denizens of Pandora. The importance of the human interaction takes a back seat to special effects; I doubt Cameron's purpose was to issue a cry for greater understanding of different cultures, although one could easily argue that is exactly the focus of the film. Instead, like many, I felt it really dealt with our need to respect our environment (an idea that could become a separate thread to this current one since it still relates to our ever changing environ).
Also, your reiteration about how these films are "not for kids" hits another nerve. Many of our kid films emulate the fare for the adults - distinct separate experiences for different ethnic groups. A kid's film from the beginning of this millennium that flew in the face of this trend was Like Mike, the tale of an African-American boy in foster care, whose two best friends happen to be an Asian-American girl (they sadly never touch on her ethnicity, possibly feeling its target audience would not know the difference) and a young Caucasian boy (no hint of his lineage is mentioned either). These three kids solved problems together, and the film actually ended with the boys being adopted by an African-American single man. However, with the children's backgrounds not the main focus, it took the familiar path of looking only at individuals without attempting to start trying to understand the culture.
A film that somewhat had the potential to address this dearth in children films is the other avatar: M. Night Shyamalan's The Last Airbender. If you do not have children, you may not know the animated tale on which the film is based - three teenagers and one important pre-teen (Aang, also known as the Avatar or the Last Airbender) from three different nations of the world, each representing one of the natural four elements, unite to fight against a fourth nation bent on controlling the world. The film version has opted for the "economic" version of the cartoon in lieu of fidelity. The cartoon's protagonists in the animated tale all seemed to be of Asian descent; the film version has cast Caucasians in three of the four roles, causing an uproar in the Asian-American community, especially since the antagonist are all either of East or West Asian descent. Many people who followed the cartoon are dismayed by the casting. My own sons, avid fans who own the entire dvd collection of the series, have told me after seeing the trailer they are not very interested in seeing the movie because "that's not Aang".
Will not this continual lack of presentation or misrepresentation of various cultures impede the ability of future generations of Americans to accept and interact with each other?
