The Washington Post has a story on the buzz surrounding the Last Airbender movie, covering a recent local casting call in Virginia searching for "authentic Asians" to populate the movie's Asian-inspired cartoon fantasy world: In Va., Casting About For Mongolian Actors.
The article has a pretty good overview of the controversy surrounding the production since the made the initial announcement, from the outcry, mobilization and protests by online Avatar fans, to the recent public denunciation of the movie's casting by organizations like East West Players and MANAA.
There's apparently a significant population of Mongolian Americans in the Arlington area, and I guess the Avatar casting folks were looking for some real live Mongolian (as well as Cambodian and Laotian) specimens to be potential members of the Earth Kingdom.
Funny how this painstaking concern for authenticity fails to extend to the movie's principal cast... which is mostly white. But hey, at least they'll acting in front of the most authentic Mongolian-looking background crowd in the history of Hollywood.