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Avatar looks badass. (pg. 22)
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| nefardec |
| quote: | Originally posted by SYSTEM-J
If you actually read the comments, that article pisses off non-whites for its perspective on race more than the actual film did. Sensitive (white) liberals never seem to spot the irony when they call out white-guilt fantasies as racist. |
I didn't say that the article was the pinnacle of race theory and criticism.
I just posted it because it's important to call racism out when it is latent, and not for 'oneupsmanship' or moral crusading, but simply because people should be aware of it You're probably right that there is white guilt in the article itself. Is the article annoying? Certainly. But that doesn't mean that racism doesn't exist, and that it doesn't exist in avatar.
as this black scifi writer says
| quote: | | [The group that talks openly about race is] tiny," says Nalo Hopkinson, 46, from her Toronto home, of the black sci-fi community. "And it's happening in an environment in which, particularly in the US, to talk about race is to be seen as racist. You become the problem because you bring up the problem. So you find people who are hesitant to talk about it. |
Obviously the woman who wrote the article calls it 'white guilt' because she is white. I imagine that people of other races could also feel the fantastical need to belong to another race as well. But, in the case of 'white guilt' there is an established hollywood tradition of exploiting this to make $$$
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/12/22/AR2009122203276.html (written by a black columnist)
http://prernalal.com/2009/12/avatar-eptiome-of-apologetic-whiteness/ (written by a south asian blogger)
also regarding some of the comments, which i did actually read, many of the people calling white guilt on the writer are themselves white, which is also ironic. You are mischaracterizing the comments.
| quote: | I completely agree with this article. When I was a child, my father had serious issues with the original Star Wars. As we were African American, he was concerned about the lack of non-whites in the film. He knew it would be a great influence on me and it bothered him that we were left out of Lucas’ futuristic vision.
When I had a discussion with several of my white 6th grade classmates about this issue, one of them said that Star Wars didn’t need blacks because it had aliens. I don’t believe this kid said this to me out of spite. He literally saw me as an alien.
The fact that Avatar borrows from numerous indigenous people and ethnic stereotypes for the depiction of the Na’vi is extremely disconcerting. Why is braided hair an ‘alien’ trait? It would appear that being white and western is what makes you a human being.
Why couldn’t the Na’vi have fought off the humans on their own? Why was a white guy required to inspire and educate them? Why was he the key to their ultimate survival? Why do we need to see the world of Pandora through his eyes so we can ‘relate’ to the Na’vi? All very serious issues.
Having seen the film, I have far more issues with it than the racist depiction of the Na’vi. The horrible dialogue (specifically the military characters) and blatant, heavy-handed message is worth discussing as well. |
| quote: | | Wow. That this debate is actually going on is great. That so many here think there's nothing wrong with the storyline is sad. The only reason why you wouldn't see a problem with it is that you've never been the 'Other'. And stating that you are the 'Other', and you liked it, so it must be good (etc) does not cut it, really. You can very easily be the 'Other' and not even realize it. That's one of the key features of otherization. Sure, the visual effects are awesome. But Avatar is racist, no doubt about it |
| quote: | Annalee - I haven't seen this film yet, but I had suspicions about it just after hearing the synopsis. The Pocahontas-revisited theme was obvious, but then something else dawned on me the more I thought about it.
The movie is called Avatar. Avatars are Hindu concepts for GODS taking human form - or occupying a human body. So in the context of the movie, humans are the gods, and the Na'vi are the "humans" (or mortals). Now cross-referencing that with the white = human and Na'vi = people of color analogy, what do we get?
White = God? Everyone else mere mortals? I figured I was extrapolating too far, but...your article makes me wonder just how far the white fantasy goes... |
| quote: | As a person of "color", I think that this and other white written articles tend to over analize these themes and get more annoyed than they should...
I liked avatar, it's not original, and it is preachy, but it's also kinda fun.
I too, however think you touch very valid points about the recurrence of white people becoming the most awesome native. Would I like it more if they used more original ways of dealing with "issues"? yup.
I just don't think this is one of those movies you should go to see expecting anything more than a pretty flick with fun action scenes |
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| SYSTEM-J |
| quote: | Originally posted by nefardec
also regarding some of the comments, which i did actually read, many of the people calling white guilt on the writer are themselves white, which is also ironic. You are mischaracterizing the comments. |
I'm not talking about any of the white people who commented. I'm talking about non-white people who specified themselves as such. |
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| Matt Es |
| i saw avatar in 2D on christmas day, it blew my mind...i went to see it in 3D and now im planning to go see it in IMAX. |
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| MrJiveBoJingles |
I like the comment section on that blog link:
| quote: | Charlene says:
December 28, 2009 at 4:40 pm
Well, you do have a point. The “good” white guy “saved” the natives, but only by embracing their culture. And the exploitation of Pandora’s natural resources did not take place. So, I don’t see anything imperialistic about the movie’s outcome. More like imperialism interrupted.
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Prerna says:
December 28, 2009 at 5:17 pm
Hello, thanks for stopping by.
Seems like you got a surface understanding of racial politics and narrative structure. The idea that white people can somehow redeem histories of oppression and exploitation by ‘embracing a culture’ is preposterous. The fact that Sully becomes their leader and is better than them at their culture, is also ‘reaching’ and to be nice, quite racist. The imperialism continues, only it is neo-imperialism.
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Charlene says:
December 28, 2009 at 8:08 pm
As a 56-year-old African American woman, I’d say my experience and understanding of racial politics goes a little deeper than the surface. |
Whoops! Somebody was a bit quick pulling the trigger on the "shallow understanding of racial politics" gun.
:stongue: |
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| Halcyon+On+On |
| Nono, pretentious college-age white kids who read about racism in a book and take off doctormartinluteherkingday every year definitely know what true racism is and can effectively point it out in a critical analysis of children's movies. If you question this, you're obviously a stupid racist, and probably a neo-con, maybe even a ******. |
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| Lebezniatnikov |
| Eh, I don't know. Just because you're part of something doesn't necessarily mean that you understand it completely. Yes, it was quick to play the "well you don't know what you're talking about card" but her identity doesn't necessarily connote depth of analysis. |
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| Nostalgic |
| quote: | Originally posted by Halcyon+On+On
Nono, pretentious college-age white kids who read about racism in a book and take off doctormartinluteherkingday every year definitely know what true racism is and can effectively point it out in a critical analysis of children's movies. If you question this, you're obviously a stupid racist, and probably a neo-con, maybe even a ******. |
Basically 90 percent of this site right? |
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| MrJiveBoJingles |
| I think the fact that Sully ends up leading the Na'vi is a function of the plot being typical action movie fare, not of his being white or James Cameron's supposed latent racism. If they had cast a black or Asian man as the protagonist, I bet the story would have gone in the same direction. But I doubt people would be calling it a "black power fantasy" or "Asian power fantasy" in that case. |
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| Cloudburst |
I don't understand the "fun" in analyzing movies to death, searching for underlying messages and political agendas.
Meh. |
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| nefardec |
| quote: | Originally posted by SYSTEM-J
I'm not talking about any of the white people who commented. I'm talking about non-white people who specified themselves as such. |
same, and i quoted some of their comments in my previous post. |
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| nefardec |
| quote: | Originally posted by MrJiveBoJingles
I think the fact that Sully ends up leading the Na'vi is a function of the plot being typical action movie fare, not of his being white or James Cameron's supposed latent racism. If they had cast a black or Asian man as the protagonist, I bet the story would have gone in the same direction. But I doubt people would be calling it a "black power fantasy" or "Asian power fantasy" in that case. |
yeah except they didnt cast a black or asian man... duh. and even then it would still have been racist. the race in question is an invented race that combines aspects of several historically oppressed races in America.
that's like saying that slavery isn't a black cultural tragedy because it could have been whites or asians who were enslaved. THEY WEREN'T, so it is a black cultural tragedy.
wtf man? |
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| Halcyon+On+On |
| quote: | Originally posted by Lebezniatnikov
Eh, I don't know. Just because you're part of something doesn't necessarily mean that you understand it completely. Yes, it was quick to play the "well you don't know what you're talking about card" but her identity doesn't necessarily connote depth of analysis. |
A fair enough point, but I find it quite ironic that people harping about racist undertones can be simultaneously ignorant to the inherent imperialism in insisting that absolutely everything that can produce a racially-relevant metaphor is doing so at every moment. Story-telling is an innately cultural process - when answering the who, when, where of ANY plot, people naturally draw upon their own experiences and knowledge of the world to form a (hopefully) coherent script and string of scenes with the intention of- well, lots of things, but I very much doubt James Cameron was trying to make some sort of statement about Africans. I mean, I guess they were the first people to ever braid their hair, right?
I quite understand that a work can be racist without its creator intending to come off as such, and yeah, works like that can be damaging insofar as they establish a basis in literary or otherwise culture which takes the platitudes of yesteryear for granted, but people avoid the issue entirely by merely labeling things as "racist" or "acceptable". Race is not God's inconvenient and politically incorrect up - it's the source of much conflict and history within our species, and as such, the source for a great deal of storytelling and completely legitimate cultural transmissions - to reduce this to a sort of pass/fail basis is to ignore a great deal of completely relevant and unresolved arguments.
Perhaps Cameron really was trying to make a point, and it was that racial tensions - no matter how perverse they must seem to our standards - are in constant flux and reform, especially in the face of conflict over resources. Kind of dumb, right? Well that's my analysis of a movie I haven't even seen, but I can justify my opinion via emotionally-enabled platitude du jour, so you have to take me seriously. |
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