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Avatar: Highest Grossing Movie of All Time ... & RACIST?

 
 
BillRM
 
  1  
Reply Tue 12 Jan, 2010 07:57 am
@djjd62,
Was not one of those two gentlemen complaining that of Tiger many girlfriend none was black?

That he should had cheated on his white blond wife with at least a few black women?
0 Replies
 
DrewDad
 
  1  
Reply Tue 12 Jan, 2010 10:54 am
@maporsche,
Quote:
But she said the film, which so far has the second-highest worldwide box-office gross ever, still reminded her of Hollywood's "Pocahontas" story " "the Indian woman leads the white man into the wilderness, and he learns the way of the people and becomes the savior."

"It's really upsetting in many ways," said Lee, who is black with Jamaican and Chinese ancestry. "It would be nice if we could save ourselves."

Annalee Newitz, editor-in-chief of the sci-fi Web site io9.com , likened "Avatar" to the recent film "District 9," in which a white man accidentally becomes an alien and then helps save them, and 1984's "Dune," in which a white man becomes an alien Messiah.

"Main white characters realize that they are complicit in a system which is destroying aliens, AKA people of color ... (then) go beyond assimilation and become leaders of the people they once oppressed," she wrote.

"When will whites stop making these movies and start thinking about race in a new way?" wrote Newitz, who is white.

A narrative device is racist? The whole point of having an outsider come into the culture is so that you can explain that culture to the "aliens" watching the movie.

And re: Dune: Paul is a messiah in that story. A prophesied savior.

When will SF critics stop seeing everything as being about race, and start thinking about literature as literature?
ebrown p
 
  1  
Reply Tue 12 Jan, 2010 11:04 am
@DrewDad,
Quote:

When will SF critics stop seeing everything as being about race, and start thinking about literature as literature?


Did you have the same attitude when feminists were complaining about the "helpless women" or "women as sex object" phenomenon in popular culture?

Intelligent people have been discussing how literature reflects and influences our society since the beginning of literature.
JTT
 
  1  
Reply Tue 12 Jan, 2010 11:14 am
@maporsche,
Avatar: Grossest Movie of All Time
DrewDad
 
  1  
Reply Tue 12 Jan, 2010 11:22 am
@ebrown p,
ebrown p wrote:
Intelligent people have been discussing how literature reflects and influences our society since the beginning of literature.

Intelligent people generally discuss subjects intelligently. Too bad the article's author failed to do so.
0 Replies
 
gungasnake
 
  1  
Reply Tue 12 Jan, 2010 11:43 am
Does anybody know whether Avatar has any sort of a happy ending like Apocalypto where the honkeys arrive in ships to put a final end to the cannibalism, human sacrifice, and devil worship??
0 Replies
 
engineer
 
  2  
Reply Tue 12 Jan, 2010 12:52 pm
@Joe Nation,
Avatar vs Pocahontas
http://images.huffingtonpost.com/gen/130283/original.jpg
0 Replies
 
maporsche
 
  1  
Reply Tue 12 Jan, 2010 07:51 pm
@JTT,
Because of the racism, or something else?
ossobuco
 
  1  
Reply Tue 12 Jan, 2010 07:58 pm
I'm sure I ran into Cameron or by him in the hallway in a not that large building where I used to have an office. I'm not a fan, though I don't hate him either, or not all that much, whatever my asserted gripes. As much as his interests aren't mine, I'd be surprised if he was personally racist. Very surprised - he doesn't have time for it.
maporsche
 
  1  
Reply Tue 12 Jan, 2010 08:02 pm
@ossobuco,
I wouldn't suspect he is.

This is all a big joke to me. Calls of racism are simply false here.
0 Replies
 
JTT
 
  1  
Reply Tue 12 Jan, 2010 09:18 pm
@maporsche,
The movie was schlock, of the shoddiest kind. People who produced **** like this in any other kind of business would be shunned, but obviously there are enough idiots around who'll oooh and aaaah and fork out their 10 bucks for any kind of crap.

Racism never even entered my mind, still hasn't - how could it?
0 Replies
 
gungasnake
 
  1  
Reply Mon 8 Feb, 2010 01:17 pm
@maporsche,
The white man's burden:

http://www.wsu.edu/~wldciv/world_civ_reader/world_civ_reader_2/kipling.html

Actually... There are a couple of contradictions in Avatar if you want to think that Cameron was supposed to keep the thing left of center all the way.

One is that the idea of a "tree of souls" is not compatible with evoloserism; another is that the Na-vi are not multicultural and do not tolerate outsiders well. That might be excused if you assume that the demoKKKrat party sees the Na-vi as a potential new victim group the way they view slammites now, despite the known slammite agenda to ultimately rid the world of all non-slammites. Logic does not really figure into that sort of equation.


rosborne979
 
  1  
Reply Mon 8 Feb, 2010 01:31 pm
@gungasnake,
gungasnake wrote:

The white man's burden:

http://www.wsu.edu/~wldciv/world_civ_reader/world_civ_reader_2/kipling.html

Actually... There are a couple of contradictions in Avatar if you want to think that Cameron was supposed to keep the thing left of center all the way.

One is that the idea of a "tree of souls" is not compatible with evoloserism; another is that the Na-vi are not multicultural and do not tolerate outsiders well. That might be excused if you assume that the demoKKKrat party sees the Na-vi as a potential new victim group the way they view slammites now, despite the known slammite agenda to ultimately rid the world of all non-slammites. Logic does not really figure into that sort of equation.

Or.... it was just a movie.
0 Replies
 
squinney
 
  1  
Reply Mon 8 Feb, 2010 01:59 pm
Excuse me while I agree with ebrown for a minute.

When I saw the movie I walked out thinking more of the global environment and humanity than what color or sex the characters were.

However, I do think it says something about us when we can see any movie theme or plot over and over again without thinking once (let alone twice) that the hero is an attractive white male come to save the girl/country/world/universe.

What color and sex are the movie hero's in Mexico? Europe? Africa? China?
0 Replies
 
 

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