this past weekend my wife and i went to see avatar after hearing some great reviews of the movie and hearing good things from friends. even though we saw the movie in 2-d, i still really enjoyed it (i heard the best way to see it is in 3-d). i was curious to read some reviews of the movie when i got home since i now had seen the movie and could throw my own two cents into the fray.
one review that i read charged the movie with being racist. the reviewer saw racism on several different levels.
first, the na’vi are presented as being savages. they are portrayed as being less than human throughout the movie.
second, the beliefs of the na’vi are not taken seriously until they are proven scientifically, thereby showing that western ideology and methodology still reigns supreme.
third, the savior of the na’vi savages was a european male, conveying the idea that the savages could not save themselves, but needed a european to save them.
in case you think this is a joke…it’s not. i don’t want to link to the review in question because i think it is utter nonsense. i think it is nonsense because if you watch the movie without the urge to whip out the race card at any and every turn, you’ll see that each of the points that the reviewer makes could be taken from any number of perspectives and not be seen as being racists in the least. in fact, i took the complete opposite view on the movie and think that it is promoting racial awareness and uses the medium of an interesting story line (though, it is not a new storyline), spell binding special effects, and a fascinating new world to slowly chip away at how people think about other cultures and the oppression that may be taking place in our capitalist economy.
i’m always weary of those who whip out the race card any chance they get. in my opinion, doing so weakens the real arguments against racism. racism, as well as the the oppression, exploitation, and social injustice that comes along with it, is still alive and well. but that does not mean that it is found under every nook and cranny that one looks. to make a saturn-sized planet out of issues that one has with a movie in the name of fighting racism doesn’t make you look informed or intelligent. it makes you look daft. what is worse, it can cause collateral damage to those raising awareness of real racial issues and cause people to think that those people are also making something out of nothing. we see this all the time in christianity, a recent example being some christians who swear that our president is the anti-christ. they make stupid statements that don’t only make themselves look like idiots, they tend to make people think that all christians are idiots. the same kind of thing can happen when people rant and rave about racism being in places where it is not. many times the only racism that is found in these things is the result of the a person reading racism into everything with which she or he comes into contact.
for instance, the reviewer’s three points can be taken from other perspectives where race is not an issue.
yes, the na’vi were presented as a different culture with different ideals, values, worldviews, practices, etc. that is no different than the elves being presented differently than the hobbits in the lord of the rings. they are presented differently precisely because they are different, not because the one presenting them is racist.
yes, the na’vi’s beliefs were not taken seriously until they were shown to be proven scientifically. that, however, is not racist. it was, quite to the contrary, an indictment on those who only take the beliefs and practices of other cultures seriously if they can benefit from them. the real motives and desires of the people exploiting the na’vi were brought to the surface: they were there for their own benefit. if the na’vi’s belief system turned out to be scientifically proven and could benefit those who were seeking to exploit pandora, then they would take their beliefs seriously. it was a plot point that was meant to show the arrogance, ignorance, and greed of the oppressors. apparently this point was missed by the reviewer.
yes, the na’vi were saved by jake, who is presented as being a caucasian male. i’m not quite sure that this can be considered racist since he had to adopt himself to their culture and incarnate himself as a na’vi in order to save them. taken from a different, more religious, angle, this could be seen as a picture of the gospel…unless, of course, you think jesus was racist because he thought the jews couldn’t save themselves and he, therefore, had to become a jew in order to save them.
i thought avatar was a good movie. it was entertaining, the visuals were extremely interesting, and the storyline was decent. do i think it was racist? no, i don’t. i think racism could be read into the movie by those obsessed with finding racial issues under every rock, but that is not as much an indictment on avatar as it is on people obsessed with reading issues into everything they see.
what did you think about the movie?
4 January 2010 at 3.07 pm
I’ve expressed what I thought of the movie on my blog (not trying to spam here, just saying
), in short, I think the storyline has been done, many times, but it’s visually appealing. I’m not someone who thinks a movie is great solely on great special effects… I like substance.
About the racism issue… I agree with you. There are people out there who are fanatical for the sake of being fanatical. That guy probably wrote such a review because he wanted it to be controversial and therefore get a lot of hits. I doubt he cares that he’s contributing to making things difficult for people who try to call attention to real instances of blatant racism.
4 January 2010 at 3.35 pm
http://io9.com/5422666/when-will-white-people-stop-making-movies-like-avatar
4 January 2010 at 3.51 pm
I felt the overt paganism to be disturbing and over-the-top (i.e. Na’vi bowing down and praying to a tree), and I thought the anti-Bush lines in the script were so blatant and unnecessary that it uncomfortably ripped you out of the fantasy world, but I enjoyed it as an enjoyable and entertaining movie with amazing visuals.
I’ll echo Art: certainly not racist, and if anything promotes the opposite by criticizing Western culture and portraying it as evil.
4 January 2010 at 5.13 pm
I actually agree with the reviewer in part. The movie relied too heavily on good old fashioned stereotypes about “them savages” versus “them bad white folks”.
Yes, it’s a story about the real historical issues of colonialism and environmental destruction, but the imagery it employed is all to obvious, and is more fitting of a disney film for children. My main point being that is lacked sophistication or nuance. Granted, the visuals were pretty, but the plot and simplistic characterisations let it down.
4 January 2010 at 5.23 pm
elnwood,
I must say that the idea of a “Na’vi bowing down and praying to a tree” sounds more biblical to me than pagan, well at least a biblically enshrined pagan practice. I guess all I am saying is that I’m sure Elijah would have appreciated the literary allusion.
Nick
4 January 2010 at 6.45 pm
Nick, as far as I know, bowing and praying is “biblically enshrined” insomuch that this was the worship practice of many (all?) religions in the bible, including pagan religions, and is not particular to Judeo-Christian practice.
Does anyone have any thoughts on the name of Na’vi deity “Ehwa”? I thought it could be a reversed vocalization of Yahweh. Also, in Japanese Buddhism, the attainment of heiwa (peace) is the highest goal.
4 January 2010 at 6.58 pm
@phil: i hear you and i agree that the storyline is old, the plot was simplistic, and the film lacked nuance. it is, after all, a hollywood film. one should not really expect more from a community that has brought us howard the duck.
my main point, and i hope this came across clear, is that racism isn’t necessarily part of the film. i see how people can view it that way, but it is a subjective thing. to say a movie is racist without concrete evidence that the film was created to promote such a viewpoint may be entertaining, but it lacks substance and veracity.
if you’re looking for racism (or sexism or homophobia, etc.) then you will find it anywhere. that doesn’t necesarily mean that everything is racist.
it would be interesting to see how someone on the third world would view this film. would they view it as racist? not a question we can really answer, but an interesting one to think about.
sent from my iphone.
4 January 2010 at 8.44 pm
I just love the irony of Avatar merchandise being placed in McDonald’s happy meals. “Hey kids, Western capitalism sucks — now how ’bout some burgers and fries with that Avatar toy made in some third world sweatshop?”
4 January 2010 at 8.49 pm
Good movie for its 3d effects…I wouldn’t watch it other wise. Over the top tree hugger theme. They ripped off the matrix, star wars, dancing with wolves, alien and president Bush (“shock and awa”…really?!) and created a movie.
4 January 2010 at 9.17 pm
I think you’re right that Avatar actually seeks to reject rather than promote racism, but I do think that is undermined somewhat by the fact that it was the white male human who ends up saving and leading the Na’vi. Your comparison to Jesus is interesting though, and like everything else could be taken two ways: either as more proof of our white messiah complex, or as a nice image of what it means to “take up your cross and follow me.”
This is a blatant plug, but I think the latter perspective would fit well with the film’s resurrection imagery, which I emphasized in my review.
5 January 2010 at 9.43 am
oh course the white guy would think it’s not racist… classic.
5 January 2010 at 10.31 am
@sam: i think plenty of things are racist. just not this film. i can see how some people come to that conclusion (and the reviewer is actually a white male…perhaps driven by white guilt?). i just don’t buy it. like i said before, it seems to me to be the result of reading into the movie or, at the very least, being a subjective issue, like art or music.
i don’t think the color of my skin is really the issue here. unless you’re just making it an issue to attempt to prove a point. if so, which of us is the racist?
sent from my iphone.
5 January 2010 at 11.07 am
I’m just glad that blue americans are finally being given leading roles in movies. It’s been hard for hollywood to get over their fear of the “blues”.
5 January 2010 at 1.29 pm
@ken: no worries about the plug, so long as you continue to plug well written posts as you have done hear. i really liked your take on the film.
5 January 2010 at 4.37 pm
I am confused by your statement that the tree was proven by science. I thought that the woman only finally realized that Ehwa was real when she died and experienced her in a non-scientific subjective way. When was what they did “proven” by science?
5 January 2010 at 4.47 pm
@danny: when dr. grace augustine (sigourney weaver’s character) is arguing with parker selfridge (giovanni ribisi’s character) in the control center of the ship, she tells him that they cannot destroy the tree of souls because she had proven by scientific tests that there was an interconnectedness to all the life (na’vi, animal, and plant) on pandora. this causes him to hesitate in his plans to destroy the tree of souls and is only convinced to do otherwise when corporal lyle wainfleet takes control of the situation.
6 January 2010 at 2.15 am
as to Aoki, it would be good to have the fight,
6 January 2010 at 9.45 am
sarcasm alert bro LOL
6 January 2010 at 10.51 am
@sam: hahahaha, I should have known!
8 January 2010 at 4.15 pm
Hmm. I thought the racism – even if in the subtext – was still pretty smack-you-in-the-face obvious. It’s as if James Cameron’s never heard of post-colonial theory: Said, Spivak, Fanon, Minh-Ha, etc.
8 January 2010 at 8.09 pm
I am saying this without seeing the movie, so take this comment with a grain of salt. (definitely will see it now)
I am not sure what the specific reviewer was referring to, but from what I know of the plot, it very much exemplifies colonialism, which is often a proxy for racism, intended or not. The point is that along the lines of many other Western cultural themes— the na’vi (ie- native tribal groups) need to be saved by a white man. (dances with wolves) Try and view the film in that broader context and you may understand the reviewer’s perspective.
This quote says a lot:
“yes, the na’vi were saved by jake, who is presented as being a caucasian male. i’m not quite sure that this can be considered racist since he had to adopt himself to their culture and incarnate himself as a na’vi in order to save them. ”
Thematically… think about it from the flip side… the na’vi could not be saved on their own, they needed Jake to do it for them. Think about other movies with the same theme, that are taken very differently depending on your cultural background.
One of my favorite movie’s is the British soccer film bend it like beckam.. on the surface, it’s a cute soccer love story about the clash of the immigrant and dominant culture. What is interesting, is that the member of the dominant culture (white soccer coach) changes things about himself to appeal to the immigrant culture… but, ultimately, the ones who have to make the big change are the immigrants themselves– not the coach. An unstated, but subtle theme is that the immigrant family “needs” the white coach to properly fit into British norms. While i love this movie, my friends who are first or second generation immigrants absolutely cringe at it. That doesn’t mean they are “seeking racism under every rock,” it means their perspective is different.
The point is that those in power or dominance have the option to “switch” teams when others do not. When they do, they become the hero. When they don’t, they don’t lose much either.
8 January 2010 at 9.37 pm
I admit that as I watched it, I thought to myself several times, “Isn’t this kind of racist?” in Todays nytimes, David Brooks articulates it well, I think. Describing what he calls the Hollywood trope of the “White Messiah,” he says this:
“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.”
I’d be interested to hear your thoughts on the whole piece:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/08/opinion/08brooks.html?em
17 February 2010 at 4.30 pm
Have you seen this?
22 February 2010 at 11.15 am
Driscoll apparently thinks that neo-paganism is a bigger threat to Xy than consumerism is. In the middle of his rant against the worldliness of Avatar, Driscoll boasts that he has “two home theater systems and three TiVos.” Interesting.
27 February 2010 at 11.31 am
Haven’t seen it, don’t care.
3 March 2010 at 10.38 pm
thanks for the insightful comment.