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Some see racist theme in alien adventure 'Avatar'

tyler811

tyler811

Diamond Member
What the hell ever 🙄

Robinne Lee, an actress in such recent films as "Seven Pounds" and "Hotel for Dogs," said that "Avatar" was "beautiful" and that she understood the economic logic of casting a white lead if most of the audience is white.
But she said the film, which remained No. 1 at the box office domestically for the fourth straight weekend with $48.5 million and is second among all-time top-grossing films worldwide, still reminded her of Hollywood's "Pocahontas" story — "the Indian woman leads the white man into the wilderness, and he learns the way of the people and becomes the savior."
"It's really upsetting in many ways," said Lee, who is black with Jamaican and Chinese ancestry. "It would be nice if we could save ourselves."
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Near the end of the hit film "Avatar," the villain snarls at the hero, "How does it feel to betray your own race?" Both men are white — although the hero is inhabiting a blue-skinned, 9-foot-tall, long-tailed alien.
Strange as it may seem for a film that pits greedy, immoral humans against noble denizens of a faraway moon, "Avatar" is being criticized by a small but vocal group of people who allege it contains racist themes — the white hero once again saving the primitive natives.
Since the film opened to widespread critical acclaim three weeks ago, hundreds of blog posts, newspaper articles, tweets and YouTube videos have made claims such as that the film is "a fantasy about race told from the point of view of white people" and reinforces "the white Messiah fable."
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http://www.charter.net/news/read.php?rip_id=%3CD9D5EJIO0%40news.ap.org%3E&ps=1016&_LT=HOME_LARSDCCL5_UNEWS
 
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I agree, certainly a legitimate critisicm. I just don't care.

The movie was ridiculously clicheed, recycled, and contrived. Maybe I'd like it if I were 9.
 
When you choose to view the entire world constantly checking for racist things, you'll find them. Imagine if the protagonist guy was an African American, though, and they spliced his DNA with an alien's... would you have a dark-skinned Na'vi (whatever those guys were called) running around? That's racist! Or would he be the same color as the rest of the aliens and avatars? That's racism!
 
I for one saw that from the beginning, for me its a rehashing of the Tarzan narrative. See David Brooks piece in the NYT:

The Messiah Complex

By DAVID BROOKS
Readers intending to watch the movie “Avatar” should know that major events in the plot are revealed.
Every age produces its own sort of fables, and our age seems to have produced The White Messiah fable.
This is the oft-repeated story about a manly young adventurer who goes into the wilderness in search of thrills and profit. But, once there, he meets the native people and finds that they are noble and spiritual and pure. And so he emerges as their Messiah, leading them on a righteous crusade against his own rotten civilization.
Avid moviegoers will remember “A Man Called Horse,” which began to establish the pattern, and “At Play in the Fields of the Lord.” More people will have seen “Dances With Wolves” or “The Last Samurai.”
Kids have been given their own pure versions of the fable, like “Pocahontas” and “FernGully.”
It’s a pretty serviceable formula. Once a director selects the White Messiah fable, he or she doesn’t have to waste time explaining the plot because everybody knows roughly what’s going to happen.
The formula also gives movies a little socially conscious allure. Audiences like it because it is so environmentally sensitive. Academy Award voters like it because it is so multiculturally aware. Critics like it because the formula inevitably involves the loincloth-clad good guys sticking it to the military-industrial complex.
Yet of all the directors who have used versions of the White Messiah formula over the years, no one has done so with as much exuberance as James Cameron in “Avatar.”
“Avatar” is a racial fantasy par excellence. The hero is a white former Marine who is adrift in his civilization. He ends up working with a giant corporation and flies through space to help plunder the environment of a pristine planet and displace its peace-loving natives.
The peace-loving natives — compiled from a mélange of Native American, African, Vietnamese, Iraqi and other cultural fragments — are like the peace-loving natives you’ve seen in a hundred other movies. They’re tall, muscular and admirably slender. They walk around nearly naked. They are phenomenal athletes and pretty good singers and dancers.
The white guy notices that the peace-loving natives are much cooler than the greedy corporate tools and the bloodthirsty U.S. military types he came over with. He goes to live with the natives, and, in short order, he’s the most awesome member of their tribe. He has sex with their hottest babe. He learns to jump through the jungle and ride horses. It turns out that he’s even got more guts and athletic prowess than they do. He flies the big red bird that no one in generations has been able to master.
Along the way, he has his consciousness raised. The peace-loving natives are at one with nature, and even have a fiber-optic cable sticking out of their bodies that they can plug into horses and trees, which is like Horse Whispering without the wireless technology. Because they are not corrupted by things like literacy, cellphones and blockbuster movies, they have deep and tranquil souls.
The natives help the white guy discover that he, too, has a deep and tranquil soul.
The natives have hot bodies and perfect ecological sensibilities, but they are natural creatures, not history-making ones. When the military-industrial complex comes in to strip mine their homes, they need a White Messiah to lead and inspire the defense.
Our hero leaps in, with the help of a pack of dinosaurs summoned by Mother Earth. As he and his fellow freedom fighters kill wave after wave of Marines or former Marines or whatever they are, he achieves the ultimate prize: He is accepted by the natives and can spend the rest of his life in their excellent culture.
Cameron’s handling of the White Messiah fable is not the reason “Avatar” is such a huge global hit. As John Podhoretz wrote in The Weekly Standard, “Cameron has simply used these familiar bromides as shorthand to give his special-effects spectacular some resonance.” The plotline gives global audiences a chance to see American troops get killed. It offers useful hooks on which McDonald’s and other corporations can hang their tie-in campaigns.
Still, would it be totally annoying to point out that the whole White Messiah fable, especially as Cameron applies it, is kind of offensive?
It rests on the stereotype that white people are rationalist and technocratic while colonial victims are spiritual and athletic. It rests on the assumption that nonwhites need the White Messiah to lead their crusades. It rests on the assumption that illiteracy is the path to grace. It also creates a sort of two-edged cultural imperialism. Natives can either have their history shaped by cruel imperialists or benevolent ones, but either way, they are going to be supporting actors in our journey to self-admiration.
It’s just escapism, obviously, but benevolent romanticism can be just as condescending as the malevolent kind — even when you surround it with pop-up ferns and floating mountains.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/08/opinion/08brooks.html
 
If one looks hard enough, they could probably find people criticizing the Movie for all sorts of reasons. Communism, Fascism, Satanism, Al Queda, Anti-X, Pro-Y, whatever.
 
I can't believe some one wasted their time trying to find racist themes in a film that has a pile of cliches stitched together for a plot. Just eat the damn popcorn and watch shit blow up idiot.
 
Liet said:
I agree, certainly a legitimate critisicm. I just don't care.

The movie was ridiculously clicheed, recycled, and contrived. Maybe I'd like it if I were 9.
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I agree that is is a recycled story. I don't agree with not liking it.

Let's be honest, most films can be broken down and followed back to just being a rip off of another story. Think of how many movies that come out are pretty much rip off's of Romeo and Juliet... and hell that was a rip off of an old greek myth. Which was probably a rip off of some other myth.

So we saw the story before, it can still be just as interesting especially coming from a person who knows how to tell a story.
 
Liet said:
I agree, certainly a legitimate critisicm. I just don't care.

The movie was ridiculously cliched, recycled, and contrived. Maybe I'd like it if I were 9.
Click to expand...

no kidding...such a broad movie, anyone could take away what ever they want from the. some say it's about the attack on Christian principles, about attacks on musilims, attacks on native americans...how native always need a white savior to come to their aid and protect and lead them to victory.

The whole time I thought...this movie sucks...so predictable (yes, even more than Titanic, and I knew the ship was going to sink the whole time!)...lame story, nothing emotionally tying you to the character or the plot. The movie was only held together by sometime amazing CG...
 
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