"Avatar: The Way of Water," the much-anticipated sequel to James Cameron's 2009 sci-fi blockbuster, isn't subtle in its message about the ills of colonialism and imperialism. But despite its lofty aims, some Native filmmakers and viewers feel the franchise doesn't live up to those ambitions.
It's part of the trope that the white savior is absolved of being a bleach demon so the audience doesn't have to confront their own complicity in racist structures. White savior narratives aren't a problem because they show mayos joining an emancipatory cause, that's fine and good, actually. They are problematic because they still center the colonizer's perspective, do not make a white audience challenge their own role in racist and colonial systems, rob nonwhite people of agency and present benevolent white people as the only way forward for oppressed racialized groups. The first Avatar hits all of these notes and if Way of Water still has Jake Sully as the protagonist, i don't see it changing anything about that.
That doesn't make Avatar a bad franchise leftists aren't allowed to enjoy, i really liked the first one and will watch Way of Water the way James Cameron intended (as a camrip on my phone with a pokeball burned into the cracked display).
It just means that as a big holiday blockbuster movie following established hollywood narrative structures, it has problematic ways of telling a story about imperialism that should be pointed out. If we do not do that and engage with the subject honestly and critically, such stories maintain the systems they are criticizing instead of challenging them. Doesn't mean that you and me aren't allowed to cheer for Sully saving space whales or w/e, just means that we should take a step back afterwards and reflect on what we've seen.
Yeah, I think the movie would have been better if Jake had helped the Na'vi by doing things like smuggling them weapons and feeding them intel rather than being better at blue cat things than all the blue cat people.
Real missed opportunity to do a Ho Chi Minh path and a Battle of Dien Bien Phu as well. Honestly, the earthers have been there since forever, i already would've given the na'vi rifles adapted for their physique at the very beginning.
It's like yeah it's a white savior movie but it's also the best white savior movie ever made. He's also barely even in the scene where they're killing the Americans, and he doesn't kill the main bad guy either. So the main "white savior" thing he does is unite the different Na'vi groups. I think people focusing on the white savior aspect of it get boosted because people would rather not hear the anti-US message of the movie.
There's so many random criticisms of these movies that you don't hear about anything else. People being like "Avatar is just a hippie dippie environmental movie" even though there's only one scene that really references that. That it's a white savior movie, that it's this and that... The POINT of the movie is that the white supremacists are unmistakably the bad guys. People should be pointing that out more. Is it such a sin that the white guy who is "one of the good ones" has such a central role?
i havent seen the second one but that was the first one in a nutshell
I mean he literally kills his white body at the end of the first one.
It's part of the trope that the white savior is absolved of being a bleach demon so the audience doesn't have to confront their own complicity in racist structures. White savior narratives aren't a problem because they show mayos joining an emancipatory cause, that's fine and good, actually. They are problematic because they still center the colonizer's perspective, do not make a white audience challenge their own role in racist and colonial systems, rob nonwhite people of agency and present benevolent white people as the only way forward for oppressed racialized groups. The first Avatar hits all of these notes and if Way of Water still has Jake Sully as the protagonist, i don't see it changing anything about that.
That doesn't make Avatar a bad franchise leftists aren't allowed to enjoy, i really liked the first one and will watch Way of Water the way James Cameron intended (as a camrip on my phone with a pokeball burned into the cracked display).
It just means that as a big holiday blockbuster movie following established hollywood narrative structures, it has problematic ways of telling a story about imperialism that should be pointed out. If we do not do that and engage with the subject honestly and critically, such stories maintain the systems they are criticizing instead of challenging them. Doesn't mean that you and me aren't allowed to cheer for Sully saving space whales or w/e, just means that we should take a step back afterwards and reflect on what we've seen.
Yeah, I think the movie would have been better if Jake had helped the Na'vi by doing things like smuggling them weapons and feeding them intel rather than being better at blue cat things than all the blue cat people.
Real missed opportunity to do a Ho Chi Minh path and a Battle of Dien Bien Phu as well. Honestly, the earthers have been there since forever, i already would've given the na'vi rifles adapted for their physique at the very beginning.
i mean i would too for myself its defective gimme that 10 foot tall blue booty :crazy-frog-trans:
how does that change what i said
It's like yeah it's a white savior movie but it's also the best white savior movie ever made. He's also barely even in the scene where they're killing the Americans, and he doesn't kill the main bad guy either. So the main "white savior" thing he does is unite the different Na'vi groups. I think people focusing on the white savior aspect of it get boosted because people would rather not hear the anti-US message of the movie.
There's so many random criticisms of these movies that you don't hear about anything else. People being like "Avatar is just a hippie dippie environmental movie" even though there's only one scene that really references that. That it's a white savior movie, that it's this and that... The POINT of the movie is that the white supremacists are unmistakably the bad guys. People should be pointing that out more. Is it such a sin that the white guy who is "one of the good ones" has such a central role?
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Don't the Navi save him?
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Dang I totally forgot all that :(
Ok