When Will White People Stop Making Movies Like "Avatar"?

[Temis the Vorta]

Watch V! It's Avatar in reverse. As a bonus, the Sam Worthington role (Ryan) is played by a black guy. The "native girl" he takes up with is also black, or maybe Puerto Rican, so the analogy isn't perfect but then what is? Maybe Ryan can dump her for blonde Erica. The girlfriend is incredibly boring anyway.

To complete the picture, while Avatar contains annoying hand-wringing librul bullshit, V contains annoying right-wing conspiracy zanyness. Nice seeing things balance out like that.

 

[Kegg]

They might be constrained to cast white guys as the villains, but we also get a white guy as the hero. It's the story about the guy who has black friends rather than the black guy, in a manner of speaking.

However, with Avatar, I think a somewhat legit case could be made against that. Jake Sully still fails to really excel at the Na'vi's culture, skills, and abilities, even by the end.

If you mean he doesn't speak their language... then yeah.

Spoiler: Avatar

Beyond that, though, he manages to master something only, what, five Na'vi in their entire history have ever done? Getting to ride the ferocious leopard-striped Turok, I mean. He also unites numerous the tribes under his leadership to actually oppose the human aggression.

 

[Stone_Cold_Sisko]

Whether Avatar is racist is a matter for debate. Regardless of where you come down on that question, it's undeniable that the film - like alien apartheid flick District 9, released earlier this year - is emphatically a fantasy about race. Specifically, it's a fantasy about race told from the point of view of white people. Avatar and scifi films like it give us the opportunity to answer the question: What do white people fantasize about when they fantasize about racial identity?

It would have been innovative and interesting if James Cameron had made the same film with no white actors. Want to talk about racism? How loud would the screaming have been if the actors had been exclusively East Asia or sub-saharan African? It is doubtful if Cameron could of obtained financing for the film unless he cast whites as the main villians.

It was perfectly fine for Hollywood to cast asians as the evil heavies during the thirties and forties, now it's the turn of the whites. And it's equally racist.

Apocalypto? That was a period piece though (sort of). I actually liked that movie.

 

[Arrqh]

But... it's still kind of disturbing in that in order for Jake to be truly a part of their civilization, he has to switch bodies.

The story was basically designed to excuse that... what with the legs and the toxic atmosphere and all. He would have been physically unable to join their society without the use of his avatar. And his main motivation at the start of the movie is to get the use of his legs back, so...

 

[Trekker4747]

As a white person, I don't think I have anything to "feel sorry" for. Yeah, what white people did in the past was terrible and disgusting and I hate it. At the same time I haven't done any of it and neither did any of my direct ancestors. So I've nothing to feel guilty or sorry about.

 

[T'Baio]

That's exactly why I've never understood all this "white guilt" poppycock. I haven't done anything. *shrug*

 

[Lt. Trull]

I thought what worthington brought to the Na'vi what that he was a warrior...
he was a United States MARINE...
everything else was gravy.

 

[Marc]

why is that people always look for some racist reason and don't look past it. The same crap was flung at RDM over Battlestar Galatica casting. Directors and producers will look at who turns up for casting and whether they will suit the role.

 

[Talosian]

What's the only thing worse than pressuring people to feel "white guilt"?

White people complaining about "white guilt". It's not only colored folks who need to get over it.

 

[DevilEyes]

What's the only thing worse than pressuring people to feel "white guilt"?

White people complaining about "white guilt". It's not only colored folks who need to get over it.

I like the quote from the first comment at the page with that article:

Speaking as a Left-Leaning White Guy™, I can't help but feel there's a culture of "white guilt oneupsmanship" in academic criticism these days. It's like a game to see who can be more guilty. "You think YOU'VE pointed the finger at racism? Ha! Watch now as I pwn your ass and prove you're just like all those other racist, imperialist honkeys!"

 

[David cgc]

However, with Avatar, I think a somewhat legit case could be made against that. Jake Sully still fails to really excel at the Na'vi's culture, skills, and abilities, even by the end.

If you mean he doesn't speak their language... then yeah.

Spoiler: Avatar

Beyond that, though, he manages to master something only, what, five Na'vi in their entire history have ever done? Getting to ride the ferocious leopard-striped Turok, I mean. He also unites numerous the tribes under his leadership to actually oppose the human aggression.

But none of that was really due to any kind of super-human badassery. The one was simply because he was the new guy, and didn't have the cultural experience preconceptions that probably kept most Na'vi from even trying, and the other was because he understood that the RDA couldn't be dealt with the same way the Na'vi handled other obstacles in their world, so he knew it would require more cooperation. Remember, the second one wasn't shown to require any real convincing or negotiation.

But... it's still kind of disturbing in that in order for Jake to be truly a part of their civilization, he has to switch bodies.

The story was basically designed to excuse that... what with the legs and the toxic atmosphere and all. He would have been physically unable to join their society without the use of his avatar. And his main motivation at the start of the movie is to get the use of his legs back, so...

Yep. The story was shaped so that it was more of a symbolic (and literal) rebirth than it was "I have to sell myself out to be with the one I love."

 

[Kegg]

The mechanics of the plot are more important here than the justification. Of course Jake's action makes sense (due kudos to Cameron, honestly); but it is also a useful way to put the new kid on the top of the food chain.

As far as symbolism goes, I did like the film's suggest that the contrast between the two bodies was that of a sleeper dreaming. It's also a story about a sleeper identifying with his dream and evaporating into it, as surely as a chubby guy and his WoW avatar (...okay, me).

It's not insignificant that one of the first comments in the film is Jake noting the absence of dreaming while in space.

 

[Cartoonist]

Seems to me there were some flare ups after the Vulcans landed. Also aren't the Vulcans the "white man" in that first contact senerio?

I'd say they are. Anyway, according to Enterprise, we DID attack the Vulcans and steal their technology in the mirror universe, but I guess that's a little off-topic here...

We'll tell these stories as long as colonization exists. It exists today in a different form: it's done by businessmen in suits instead of soldiers with bayonnets, and we're not settling other people's land, we're strip-mining it or we're hooking their governments on loans they can never hope to repay.

I'd rather see a more nuanced treatment of that that doesn't cast the victims as idyllic, noble savages, but then I'm really not watching Avatar for the story, anyway. This one's pure eye-candy for me, just like Tron when I was a kid (I have no idea what that movie was about, but damn those light cycles were cool).

 

[Lookingglassman]

When are whites going to learn that nuking an alien species from orbit and then taking what they want is better than wasting time trying to con them?

 

[David cgc]

November 1, 1831.

 

[Nerys Myk]

When are whites going to learn that nuking an alien species from orbit and then taking what they want is better than wasting time trying to con them?

Radiation poisoning sucks. Makes the value of the stuff you want go down too.

 

[The Borgified Corpse]

It would have been innovative and interesting if James Cameron had made the same film with no white actors. Want to talk about racism? How loud would the screaming have been if the actors had been exclusively East Asia or sub-saharan African? It is doubtful if Cameron could of obtained financing for the film unless he cast whites as the main villians.

It was perfectly fine for Hollywood to cast asians as the evil heavies during the thirties and forties, now it's the turn of the whites. And it's equally racist.

It reminds me a bit of how Nichelle Nichols & Brock Peters were both very uncomfortable with a lot of the racial themes in Star Trek VI. In fact, Uhura was originally supposed to say the "Guess who's coming to dinner?" line. Nichols vehemently refused and the line was given to Chekov instead.

 

[Australis]

Ummmm...

What if the white guys had been, say, Asian? Or Arab? Or black?

Wouldn't there have been accusations of racism then? "Imagine portraying the bad guys as slanty eyed yellow devils" or similar. Sadly, it has to be de ebil whaite maan.

 

[Robert Maxwell]

It would have been innovative and interesting if James Cameron had made the same film with no white actors. Want to talk about racism? How loud would the screaming have been if the actors had been exclusively East Asia or sub-saharan African? It is doubtful if Cameron could of obtained financing for the film unless he cast whites as the main villians.

It was perfectly fine for Hollywood to cast asians as the evil heavies during the thirties and forties, now it's the turn of the whites. And it's equally racist.

It reminds me a bit of how Nichelle Nichols & Brock Peters were both very uncomfortable with a lot of the racial themes in Star Trek VI. In fact, Uhura was originally supposed to say the "Guess who's coming to dinner?" line. Nichols vehemently refused and the line was given to Chekov instead.

I think there was also supposed to be a line where she asked, "Would you let your daughter marry one?" referring to Klingons, and she refused.

 

[Nowhere Man]

When the guilt goes away, so never. America is still pulling the same shit, just in the mid east, just like we did in Vietnam and all other times before.