Cavalier put up a good post about how people are viewing this movie:[quote] people are basing their interpretations of the movie on narratives that they'..."/>

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'Avatar'--is it racist? Is it making people sick?

POSTED BY: NIKI2
UPDATED: Monday, February 1, 2010 12:06
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Monday, January 11, 2010 9:44 AM

NIKI2

Gettin' old, but still a hippie at heart...


Cavalier put up a good post about how people are viewing this movie:
Quote:

people are basing their interpretations of the movie on narratives that they've wholly imported to the experience of the film and imposed upon the existing narrative. What's more, they seem merely to "scan" the existing film for a few key characteristics and once they've isolated these, they can impose their cherished narrative upon the film and, really, stop perceiving, stop taking in any new information.
This is another "view" of how people are interpreting it. I agree with him; it's weird.

I know it's been debated here with many different views, but I usually like to see movies as simply movies most of the time, enjoyable for themselves, not get into politics and subtext, because everyone's gonna read into it from their own veil. So I find the earler article about how conservatives view it, and this one about it being racist, as amusing. Your mileage may vary (in fact probably WILL).

Quote:

Near the end of the hit film "Avatar," the villain snarls at the hero, "How does it feel to betray your own race?" Both men are white — although the hero is inhabiting a blue-skinned, 9-foot-tall, long-tailed alien.

Strange as it may seem for a film that pits greedy, immoral humans against noble denizens of a faraway moon, "Avatar" is being criticized by a small but vocal group of people who allege it contains racist themes — the white hero once again saving the primitive natives.

Since the film opened to widespread critical acclaim three weeks ago, hundreds of blog posts, newspaper articles, tweets and YouTube videos have said things such as the film is "a fantasy about race told from the point of view of white people" and that it reinforces "the white Messiah fable."

The film's writer and director, James Cameron, says the real theme is about respecting others' differences.

(SPOILER ALERT) In the film a white, paralyzed Marine, Jake Sully, is mentally linked to an alien's body and set loose on the planet Pandora. His mission: persuade the mystic, nature-loving Na'vi to make way for humans to mine their land for unobtanium, worth $20 million per kilo back home.

Like Kevin Costner in "Dances with Wolves" and Tom Cruise in "The Last Samurai" or as far back as Jimmy Stewart in the 1950 Western "Broken Arrow," Sully soon switches sides. He falls in love with the Na'vi princess and leads the bird-riding, bow-and-arrow-shooting aliens to victory over the white men's spaceships and mega-robots.

Adding to the racial dynamic is that the main Na'vi characters are played by actors of color, led by a Dominican, Zoe Saldana, as the princess. The film also is an obvious metaphor for how European settlers in America wiped out the Indians.

Robinne Lee, an actress in such recent films as "Seven Pounds" and "Hotel for Dogs," said that "Avatar" was "beautiful" and that she understood the economic logic of casting a white lead if most of the audience is white.



...and maybe new technology is something it takes a while to get used to...

http://abcnews.go.com/Video/playerIndex?id=9371074




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Monday, February 1, 2010 11:05 AM

SPOOKI


I wouldn't say the film is racist, but I love playing the video game and killing those blue monsters.

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Monday, February 1, 2010 12:06 PM

STORYMARK


The racism claim always hits me as funny. Would it be racist if they made the exact same movie, but with Will Smith as Sully?

"I thoroughly disapprove of duels. If a man should challenge me, I would take him kindly and forgivingly by the hand and lead him to a quiet place and kill him."

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