My criticism is only of white saviour aspect. There is this genocidal force but in the process of defeating it, a rogue turncoat from said force plays a monumental role and without him victory would have been impossible. There are defectors in wars of liberation but in this movie the importance is definitely inflated.
Fullmetal Alchemist does the same thing somewhat but you can argue there that the humonculus folks infiltrated ruling class and affected the genocidal nature into existence so it’s a bit of a tossup.
I am not sure why they do this. Maybe if you don’t show a white dude cosplaying as an alien as the main character and jump straight to the alien part, the white audience might not like it? I don’t know for sure.
The movie also sticks to the “savage noble” trope with how the aliens are portrayed. But since the aliens are imagined from the ground up I don’t know if this criticism holds.
Apart from the I enjoyed the action sequences. I am a bit stupid so I enjoy movies like this.
I see the white savior and noble/exotic savage tropes in the film from two perspectives - first, as a bit of a ‘necessary evil’ on Cameron’s part to fit in or appeal to audiences and the industry, as well as to actually communicate the narrative in a coherent fashion, and secondly as an actual subversion of what those tropes typically present as.
At its core, Avatar as a franchise is essentially an anti-colonialist and anti-imperialist story. I feel as though the ‘white savior’ criticism doesn’t fully engage with how Jake as a character is presented in the film. From a narrative standpoint, it’s necessary to have the main character be someone from the outside, otherwise it would be much more difficult to introduce Pandora and the Na’vi in a way that makes sense. One criticism I’ve seen is that Jake is a bland character, but it seems to me that this is actually sort of the point - he serves as a vehicle for the audience to experience the story. On the other hand, it’s clear that Jake isn’t invested in the project that’s taking place on Pandora - he’s already alienated at the start, and takes the job basically as an escape from the horrors of living on Earth.
It also doesn’t follow the typical formula of the ‘white savior’ because, in some sense, Jake isn’t an outsider that comes to the aid of the Na’vi through some sense of righteousness or morality and retains his original identity in that conflict… By the end of the story, Jake has actually rejected his former humanity (whiteness, in the metaphor) entirely, obviously something that isn’t possible in the real world, but that’s where the narrative goes. It’s addressed directly in the film in the video log montage as he describes the shift in feeling like his time with the Na’vi is the real world and his time as a human is the dream.
As for the whole ‘noble savage’ thing, I feel like Cameron did as well as he could have, both with constructing the Na’vi from a variety of influences and, well, they’re the good guys, so of course they have to be ‘noble’ in some sense.
i’m trying to think of other white savior tropes that maintain their whiteness, but I agree it seems these recent films definitely make a conscious objection to whiteness, as best as they allow at least.
on the other hand, we have Heart of Darkness or Apocalypse Now absolutely running the trope ragged with the maniacal cult leader, denying the agency, intelligence and cultural respect of native people to even consider taking a leader like that
and perhaps an indigenous reclaiming, and probably the best “white dude escapes to the jungle and there are consequences” fictional work i’ve known? Embrace of the Serpent (2015)
The movie is technically well written. The writers clearly knew drama, narrative, and their Shakespeare. It’s structurally a lot better than most other blockbusters.
I like it a lot. I like James Cameron’s world building, and rendering of extreme amounts of detail. The effect is fantastic things seem plausible. For example, pay attention in Aliens to all of the warning signage on doors, equipment, weapons, etc, and also the unique sounds design of e.g., alarms. The weird looking interstellar space ships in Avatar are based on a feasible propulsion concept.
As many have pointed out, it’s not that unique of a plot. But I guess that’s not why I like the movie.
US imperialism criticism hidden behind a relatively OK story (predictable tho) with decent graphics. Fair, but not groundbreaking.
Idk, I watched it a number of times when it was on TV, amazing monsters and fights, but the rest not much, it has anti-colonialists message tho, same for 2nd one.
Jurassic Park 1 deserves top of box office list, not Avatar or Endgame for that matter.
the conspirative biology was really cool, but the movie was also really racist
I’m tired of the accusations of the movie being racist, but I understand why other BIPOC feel that way.
Graphically it reminded me of Crysis but it was otherwise forgettable.
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So dull and plodding I nearly walked out of the cinema
I thought it was just me and I thought I’d seen a different movie with all the continuous rave reviews.
Dances With Wolves but in SPACE
I don’t get this criticism.
despondent settler-colonial soldier warms up to exotic and courageous natives, falls in love, and defects to fight against the army that once benefited him
also see: The Last Samurai. stories of the “noble savage” winning the heart of the colonizer, often with gratuitous fetishization, white saviourism, and liberal-esque disgrace-to-honor redemption arcs.
To be fair, the Na’vi were already fighting against the RDA. Jake just acted as a rallying symbol. And you have fair points, though I feel many stories can be summed in a few sentences. Sorry if I’m not making sense, I’m still drinking coffee.
Now that you mentioned that. It does make me think of Americans defecting to the Philippines.
“We will call him Jackson. Jackson was silent, morose man, who had few friends in the battery. He was evidently of good education, and he spoke Spanish fluently. Ordinarily, he was a first class soldier, doing his duties efficiently. He had one failing, however, that made him unpopular. Occasionally he would break out in a wild spree, always ending in the guard-house. When drunk, he was a fighting lunatic, quarreling with everyone.
“Jackson fell in love with a pretty mestiza girl who, with her mother, conducted a cantina in the plaza. In time they were married in church by the native padre. After that wedding, Jackson was shunned by his comrades. There is an unwritten law among soldiers that a white man must not wed a native.
“The artilleryman resented the scorn of his fellow-soldiers, become more sullen, and spent more time than was good for him in the company of the Filipinos. One pay-day he went on one of his mad sprees. While fighting madness was on him he attacked a young lieutenant, striking him in the face.
“To attack an officer is a grave crime in the army. Jackson was court-martialed and sentenced to six years in military prison. While he was confined in the guard-house awaiting transportation to the United States to serve his sentence, a member of the guard permitted him to escape. It is a hard duty to mount guard over a friend and treat him like a caged animal.
“Jackson was supposed to make his way to Manila and stow away on an outgoing steamer for the China coast. Instead, he made his way by night to the casa of his wife, and together they stole away to the insurgent army.
“A few weeks later we began to hear stories of the white renegade. He was in command of a company of insurrectos. He moved like a ghost about the country, appearing in the most unexpected places. Again and again his command attacked American outposts. On one occasion he captured two army wagons loaded with supplies, killing several members of the guard.
“For months we were kept busy chasing Jackson. The natives protected him, and he was always warned of our approach. One night the main army of insurgents surrounded the town of Imus and made a general attack. The fight continued for several hours in the darkness.
“As I lay in the trenches, I could distinctly hear the voice of Jackson swearing and calling to his troops to advance. The insurrectos were driven off, and by daylight they had disappeared.
“Months later, when I was with the native scouts, I witnessed the tragic end of Jackson’s career. A column under General Swan attacked the Filipino trenches near Noveleta, west of Imus. The scouts were in the advance guard.
“When we went over the trenches, we found Jackson lying by the roadside. He was twice wounded, - through the lungs and abdomen. Although it may read like a fiction, it is a fact that his native wife was crouched in the mud of the road, holding his head in her lap. He refused to speak to us and died defiant, fighting against the flag he had sworn to uphold.
“A few months later his wife became the mother of a blue-eyed boy. She always seemed to hate the Americans, and would never afterward speak to an American soldier.
“An interesting sequel to Jackson’s story followed in the visit of an American lawyer to the Islands sometime later. He hunted up several of the men who were present when Jackson died, and asked them to aid him in locating the body. It had been buried in a trench with about sixty Filipinos who died in the fight. The lawyer had the body exhumed, placed in an iron coffin, and shipped back to the United States.”(O’Reilly, 102-104)
wow! it’s amazing how on the nose this historical account is to Avatar, Dances with Wolves, or The Last Samurai
Its irredeemable trash.
James Cameron allegedly offensive comments were dug up last week after several Native Americans were furious at his words that their ancestors ‘could have fought harder’ to avoid displacement and genocide.
James Cameron’s ‘Avatar: The Way of Water’ is not only minting money on a global scale but has also got into trouble on social media for an old comment by the filmmaker. The campaign demands the boycott of the sci-fi sequel to the 2009 blockbuster.
“Join Natives & other Indigenous groups around the world in boycotting this horrible & racist film,” Yuè Begay, a Navajo artist and co-chair of Indigenous Pride Los Angeles who is behind the campaign’s resurgence, tweeted. “Our cultures were appropriated in a harmful manner to satisfy some [white flag emoji] man’s savior complex," reads the comment.
More than 40k users liked the tweet. The Native American had demanded the boycott of the film after the prequel’s release in 2009. The furore became far more intense after James Cameron made comments about the Sioux nation, including the Lakota people, which the campaign refers to as ‘anti-indigenous rhetoric’.
In 2010, The Guardian had mentioned that James Cameron’s efforts to oppose the Belo Monte hydroelectric dam, which led to the displacement of Indigenous people living in the Amazon. In the article, Cameron said that he learned to reflect on the indigenous people in North America and said the Native American history was the ‘driving force’ behind writing the script for the 2009 film.
“I felt like I was 130 years back in time watching what the Lakota Sioux might have been saying at a point when they were being pushed and they were being killed and they were being asked to displace and they were being given some form of compensation,” Cameron told the Guardian.
He further added, “This was a driving force for me in the writing of ‘Avatar’ — I couldn’t help but think that if they [the Lakota Sioux] had had a time-window and they could see the future … and they could see their kids committing suicide at the highest suicide rates in the nation … because they were hopeless and they were a dead-end society — which is what is happening now — they would have fought a lot harder.”
His allegedly offensive comments were dug up last week after several Native Americans were furious at his words that their ancestors ‘could have fought harder’ to avoid displacement and genocide.
“James Cameron apparently made Avatar to inspire all my dead ancestors to ‘fight harder,’” tweeted Johanna Brewer, a computer science professor at Smith College. “Eff right off with that savior complex, bud,” he tweeted.
Meh imo
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Just watch Fern Gully instead lol
or Princess Mononoke, or Nausicaa: Valley of the Wind. even Bambi was more coherent lol
