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shareNot really racism, but cultural differences definitely made him a target.
I could explain this in further detail, but I don't think it's necessary. His "decline" really comes from the massive success of The Sixth Sense, which made him a global figure before he'd really had sufficient time to find his voice.
I got this from another site:
If you look at the career of most filmmakers, they're able to build a fanbase and a reputation slowly, over a period of years. Christopher Nolan is a textbook example of this. He went from a micro budget film that got him some positive attention on the festival circuit, to an independent film that got him noticed by the critics. He then made a series of credible Hollywood movies that, while not enormous box-office hits, continued to grow his brand and introduce him to a larger audience. By the time of his first global blockbuster, The Dark Knight, he'd built up a loyalty and respect from his fans and critics, many of which had supported him for a period of eight years.
The same is true for Wes Anderson. It's only with his last two movies that he's been able to break the mainstream and score genuine box-office hits. Before that his films were financially unsuccessful, but they built and audience and a brand that people could explore and fall in love with.
The perception of Shyamalan is that he came out of nowhere. His first two films were obscure and hard to find. Most audiences had never heard of them and if they had heard of them they still wouldn't connect them to The Sixth Sense since both movies were semi-autobiographical comedy drama films, completely different to the somber supernatural melodrama of The Sixth Sense. All of a sudden all eyes were on Shyamalan. While Anderson and Nolan could make smaller films for an appreciative audience, taking time to find their own voice, able, in the case of Anderson, to fail (and fail again), Shyamalan was now the biggest director in the world and if he was going to fail (which, like most directors, he did) it was going to be a global level.
Because audiences were ignorant of his prior work, Shyamalan's films were widely misrepresented. The idea that he's a "one trick pony" and that "all his movies have twists" is based on the faulty notion that The Sixth Sense was his first film. It wasn't. And by the time he'd made The Sixth Sense he'd already shown more range and diversity than any other director of his generation. But the audience has already closed the book on Shayamalan; his fate has been written. He's the "twist-ending" guy, the "one-trick pony", the guy who "only made one good film", even if the entirely of his work contradicts these opinions, the public has spoken.
Someone once compared the success of Shyamalan (and by extension George Lucas and Michael Cimino) to that of a child star. The audience grows to love them when they're very young, before they've really matured into the person they'll eventually become. They're unable to mature on their own terms, like most young adults, since everything they do is being scrutinized and commented on by the populace. This breeds insecurity. Most child stars become resentful; they turn to drugs and drink, rebel against the image of eternal innocence that defines them. In short, their fanbase is divided between one half who never want to see them grow up and try new things and the other half who think they have a right to tell this person how they should behave.
The perception of Shyamalan, as with Lucas, is that his success was unearned. The public paid to see their movie, making it a hit and in turn giving them a career, and now these filmmakers owe them another life-changing movie experience. Just making a good or even average film is not enough. It has to compete on the same level as that earlier success, otherwise it's going to be rejected.
If The Village and Lady in the Water had been released by first-time directors, their public perception would be very different. After The Sixth Sense, audiences and critics stopped reviewing Shyamalan's films. They started reviewing Shyamalan himself. He became the subject, his career became the narrative and competing with The Sixth Sense became the objective.
In an alternate universe somewhere, The Sixth Sense only made $200 million at the box-office and Shyamalan, having never become known to the general public, is now one of the most interesting and essential cult filmmakers currently working.