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AVATAR - 2009
THRILLER
Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corporation, Dune Entertainment, Giant Studios, Ingenious Film Partners, Lightstorm Entertainment
Screenplay: James Cameron
Director: James Cameron
Producer (s): James Cameron, Jon Landau
SPOILER ALERT on AVATAR |
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“We’re telling the story of what happens when a technologically superior culture comes into a place with a technologically inferior indigenous culture..."
- James Cameron, December 9, 2009
Telegraph.co.uk.
Whether we are talking TERMINATOR, ALIENS, TERMINATOR 2, THE ABYSS or TRUE LIES, Cameron is a man seemingly uncomfortable with non-white people.
I personally don't know the man, never even talked to him. All I have to go on is his work.
For example, how does Neytiri know that Jake is fake? It seems that, in the future, nearly every human is white, save for a very few background extras, one soldier, Private Fike (Sean Anthony Moran, blink and you'll miss him), one scientist, Dr. Max Patel (Dileep Rao: DRAG ME TO HELL), who has about four lines and 30 seconds out of a 2 hour and 40 minute movie. So all of the hybrid-Na'vi like Jake, Grace, and Norm are thin lipped Na'vi hybrids. Cameron cast all of the lead Na'vi primitives using minority actors. Why would James cast only minority actors as all of the major alien characters in his movie HE wrote, Directed, Produced, Edited, and had full control over, unless he felt that minorities do a great job of physically appearing like primitive tree dwellers?
CAN YOU SPOT THE HYBRID-NA'VI MODELED ON A CAUCASIAN ACTOR AND THE REAL NA'VI MODELED ON A BLACK ACTRESS? YOU'RE SUPPOSED TO. |
You think I'm kidding?
Of the five lead Na'vi who have speaking roles, four of them are African American - Zoe Saldana (PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: THE CURSE OF THE BLACK PEARL), CCH Pounder (END OF DAYS), Laz Alonso (CONSTANTINE, CAPTIVITY), Peter Mensah (also dies in 300) - and one is American Indian actor, Wes Studi (DEEP RISING). Moran and Rao are basically background extras with a few lines. There is only one minority actor in this movie who plays a human who has an actual, pivotal role and appreciable time in this movie and that's Michelle Rodriguez (RESIDENT EVIL) who plays Trudy Chacon. So guess what happens to her?
She dies.
Lots of white people die, which makes sense during the battle scenes because virtually all of the soldiers are white anyway. Michelle's character of Chacon turns on her own people, the earthlings, and so is killed by the white folks as a traitor. True, she dies saving the good white people (in their Avatar bodies), but the heroic minority who martyrs themselves to save the white folk is largely part of the grand Racial Cliche scheme of things.
This is why AVATAR, like TERMINATOR, ALIENS, and TERMINATOR 2, gets the UNFAIR RACIAL CLICHE ALERT.
This makes Coincidence 86 and the fourth "coincidence" for James Cameron. It is what it is and there may be a very good, wonderful reason for why James makes movies that use this pathetic story telling tool. I just don't know that reason.
Politics plays in here because AVATAR Writer, Producer, Director, Creator James Cameron made this movie and these types of movies are invariably made by vocal supporters of left-wing politics. And every one of these movies are about the same thing: Conservative, Capitalist white folks are bad. It takes a liberal white, usually a man, to save the noble yet undeveloped, weak, and backward people, as they are too ignorant or undeveloped to save themselves. You must first wow them with your inate superiority (I ride the biggest most bad-ass dragon!) then speak to them in a patronizing language they'll understand "You are a great warrior, but I must lead your people!"
The White Liberal Hero must correct the wrongs of White Conservatives (may or may not be capitalist or religious) and babysit all non-whites. Only liberal, caring caucasians can lead the noble, savage, yet primitive non-whites to salvation.
It's not like every writer who writes a Vampire or Zombie story believes in such monsters. Yet when you look at some of the early writings of H.P. Lovecraft, the man was clearly a racist (read THE RATS IN THE WALLS and the name of his protagonist's dog!), regardless of whether or not he believed in his mythos.
When you make a movie like AVATAR, dedicate years of your life to it, stake your reputation on it, and when you do interview after interview extolling your passion for it and the message of your movie, it is because you genuinely believe in it. Cameron says that he dwelt on this story idea for decades. He calls it his most personal. So why would Cameron NOT believe in the moral of his movie when he says he DOES believe in it?
And of course, this patriarchal, looking-down-one's-nose at the adorable yet backwards non-whites and wanting to lead them is NEVER considered racist. No. No. No. No. No. Why, I must BE a racist for even pointing it out.
UPDATES: Others See it Too...
Annalee Newitz wonders aloud at io9, When Will White People Stop Making Movies Like "Avatar"?
Minorities = children in Avatar
"Sam Worthington, Sigourney Weaver and Joel Moore play three white characters who inhabit bodies otherwise occupied only by actors of color. I'm not normally one to invest much of anything argumentative based on what happens on a casting couch, but in this case, Cameron tipped his hand with all the subtlety of an overconfident drunk: the purpose of the avatars is to place white brains in blue bodies that would otherwise be inhabited by black ones."
Intentions be damned, Avatar is racist (as is praying for and/or to "JaMarcus Manning").
More on race and racialism in Avatar.
Copyright 2009 E.C.McMullen Jr.
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