#racism on film

[ausetkmt]

Avatar Films Have Always Been A Gross Reimagining Of Colonialism

After 13 years, the sequel to Avatar(2009) has finally arrived. The original science fiction epic, written and directed by James Cameron, broke multiple box office records in its theatrical run and became the highest-grossing film of all time for a decade. Many will remember accompanying their families to sold-out theatres mere days before Christmas for a film that employed the use of groundbreaking technology which would change the art of filmmaking forever. However, Avatar (and its sequel Avatar: The Way Of The Water), is in fact a problematic analogy of indigenous oppression. 

To recap, Avatar follows disabled ex-marine Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) as he learns the ways of the Omaticaya clan of the Na’vi people in an avatar body that looks and functions just like theirs. Along with their culture, he falls in love with one of the Na’vi, a fierce warrior named Neytiri (From Scratch’s Zoe Saldana), and switches sides against the humans, subsequently leading the Omaticaya people in their war against Colonel Quaritch (Stephen Lang) and the Resources Development Association (RDA).

Many will remember the blue alien species facing adversity, but not many will remember (or have even noticed) that the central conflict in Avatar is an allegory for colonialism. An ignorant, aggressive, money-hungry corporation supported by military enforcement wishes to destroy the sacred homeland of indigenous communities in order to obtain valuable resources — sounds a little familiar to me. In fact, James Cameron has admitted that Avatar is based on the colonisation of Native Americans. In court documents from a 2015 plagiarism case where visual effects artist Gerald Morawski claims Cameron stole the idea from him, Cameron produced a sworn declaration detailing how he came up with the idea for the film. “Avatar is a science fiction retelling of the history of North and South America in the early colonial period,” read the statement. “Avatar very pointedly made reference to the colonial period in the Americas, with all its conflict and bloodshed between the military aggressors from Europe and the indigenous peoples. Europe equals Earth. The native Americans are the Na’vi. It’s not meant to be subtle.”

Indeed, Quaritch and the RDA are very obvious symbols of colonial whiteness; they even use a slew of derogatory, colonial verbiage, referring to the Na’vi as “savages” on multiple occasions. Sadly, this focal conflict follows into the sequel, with previously deceased Colonel Quaritch returning as the story’s villain via an avatar body that had all his memories stored in the event of his death. This time, he has one mission: getting revenge on Jake Sully. Colonel Quaritch is now even more bloodthirsty and dangerous, eager to destroy Jake and his new family, and he is willing to go as far as becoming the very beings he hates the most in order to exact vengeance. With the RDA and their weapons backing him, Quaritch lays waste to several Na’vi communities, burning down their homes and killing them in cold blood.

“The truth is, reimagining colonial violence and the suffering of indigenous people through the eyes of an alien species isn’t the epic story Cameron thinks it is.”

Indigenous people have taken issue with the themes in Avatar for years, but it’s only now with the increasing visibility of social media that there is a wider platform for them to share their opinions and continue a discourse about the problematic nature of this story. Now that indigenous people are being heard, some are calling for a boycott of the film’s highly anticipated sequel.

Much of the recent criticisms got louder following the resurfacing of a 2010 article by the Guardian that details the involvement of Cameron and Avatar’s Sigourney Weaver and Joel Moore in the Brazilian Xingu peoples’ campaign against the Belo Monte hydroelectric dam project. Acknowledging that the Avatar had created “a bit of a spotlight on [them] right now to raise awareness in certain key areas”, Cameron expressed his desire to make a 3D “experiential” documentary on the Xingu’s battle.

After watching indigenous ceremonies and meetings Cameron made extremely disparaging comments about the Lakota. “I felt like I was 130 years back in time watching what the Lakota Sioux might have been saying at a point when they were being pushed and they were being killed and they were being asked to displace and they were being given some form of compensation,” said Cameron. “This was a driving force for me in the writing of Avatar – I couldn't help but think that if [the Lakota Sioux] had had a time-window and they could see the future��� and they could see their kids committing suicide at the highest suicide rates in the nation… because they were hopeless and they were a dead-end society – which is what is happening now – they would have fought a lot harder.”

Cameron has since addressed the subsequent accusations of racism in a UNILAD article, noting that he wanted to “listen and to be sensitive to issues that people have.” However, Cameron has not apologised directly to the Lakota people for his degrading comments. 

Simply acknowledging people's feelings as “valid” is not enough. The truth is, reimagining colonial violence and the suffering of indigenous people through the eyes of an alien species isn’t the epic story Cameron thinks it is. It’s an appropriative and tasteless virtue-signalling of a traumatic issue that still affects millions of native people today.

Despite Cameron claiming that he wishes to move away from the white saviour trope, the backstory of Avatar’s central white character says otherwise. By positioning Jake as the Na’vi’s saviour, the film’s “fuck white people” metanarrative conveniently disavows whiteness as inherently bad. Even in Avatar: The Way of Water, despite bringing even more death and destruction to the beautiful land of the indigenous Metkayina tribe who provide a safe haven for his family, Jake pretty much remains the hero of the story.

This representation of Jake as one of the “good” whites implores people to view whiteness as an institution and a system, rather than individuals who can be complicit in a system of violence and oppression. In doing this, Cameron suggests that sometimes, whiteness can save us. It feels like some weird colonial wet dream that appoints certain well-meaning white people as the saviours of native people in the perpetual struggle against other white people. Both Avatar films’ metanarratives are framed as counter-hegemonic, but they ultimately end up reproducing hegemony by positioning white people as heroes — thus supporting and legitimising white supremacy. 

The franchise props up whiteness as something special and unique that enrichens and sets you apart from everyone else. In Avatar: The Way of Water, Jake and Neytiri’s kids are seen as outcasts, similar to Jake, because they were born with five fingers like humans instead of four like other indigenous Na’vi. Because of this, they are teased by other Na’vi. However, throughout the course of the film, the Sully kids are revealed to have special abilities; Kiri (Weaver) the daughter of the late Grace Augustine’s (also Weaver) avatar body, has a particularly special connection with Ewya, the Na’vi’s omniscient deity. It’s interesting that in both films, the characters that are connected to whiteness (apart from the RDA) are treated as different and special among the indigenous communities they make a home in.

Ultimately, colonialism is a real-life monster that has and continues to affect indigenous people globally for generations. Though the story of Avatar is fictional; its themes aren’t, and it’s imperative that we think critically about the on-screen representation of certain issues and groups because the media largely informs our understanding of the subjects depicted. It also informs our application of these issues — from individual to collective praxis. It’s even more important when you consider the global visibility of this film.

James Cameron most likely thought that this film would implore pro-colonialists and Western imperials to think about their empire’s history differently. But if he really wanted to fight for the rights of indigenous people, he could have directly provided aid, reparations, or any kind of tangible support to these communities instead of producing a multi-billion dollar franchise that emblematizes their trauma. His net worth is literally $700 million. But do the people whose struggle inspired filmmakers like Cameron and line his millionaire pockets see even a cent of those profits? No. Of course not. 

It’s true: Western colonialism begets a debt that cannot ever be repaid. But white Westerners, at the very least, can make a start — and putting a spin on indigenous trauma for profit isn’t it.

[omgellendean]

So, Sacha Baron Cohen recently endorsed Kamala Harris in a fittingly racist islamophobic manner, by bringing back his character Borat. Yes, it's 2024.

Anyway, here's a 2022 investigation of SBC's vile Zionism and connections to the USA and Israeli intelligence, as well as an insight into the role of the US-American cinema as a propaganda tool.

Article: https://www.mintpressnews.com/closer-scrutiny-reveals-close-state-power-sacha-baron-cohen-really/279355/

Archived link: https://archive.is/7dSTL

Some quotes:

When asked about the national security state’s role in shaping pop culture, the former intelligence officer [John Kiriakou] said that it is “far more cynical” than most people realize, explaining:

” There is a branch inside the CIA’s Office Of Public Affairs whose job is solely to work with Hollywood Studios. This is something that the FBI has been doing since the 1940s. They’ll cooperate and give the red carpet treatment to any Hollywood studio that’s willing to make the CIA look good. “ [...]

In the end, “Brüno’s” production company did interview someone they claimed was a terrorist (in the Letterman interview, Baron Cohen described the man as such eight times in the space of three minutes). However, the person in question – Palestinian grocer and NGO worker Ayman Abu Aita – vigorously denied he was a terrorist at all. He claimed that Baron Cohen had told him the interview would be about his peace activism and that his life and business had been destroyed as a result. Abu Aita sued for nearly $100 million. The case was settled for an undisclosed sum in 2012. [...]

Even from an early age, Sacha was reportedly obsessed with the Jewish state. “He was very Zionist, very involved in Habo,” recalled one friend, referring to Habonim Dror, a left-wing Zionist group of which he was a member. Others remembered him as “a very nerdy, very funny, Israel-oriented guy” who went to live on a kibbutz in his youth. He appears to idolize Shimon Peres, traveling to meet him in 2012 and sharing quotes from the former Israeli president on his social media accounts. Peres, of course, oversaw the genocide of Palestinians in 1948, attempted to sell nuclear weapons to Apartheid South Africa, and carried out the ethnic cleansing of the Galilee region. [...]

Unsurprisingly, Baron Cohen has also campaigned fiercely against the Boycott Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement, presenting it as viciously antisemitic. “Boycotting? Yeah, fantastic. As long as they are Jews, it is alright. I’m not a racist, but keep the Jews out,” he said, in an attempt to satirize their position. [...]

Much of the movie is actually spent “on location” in “Kazakhstan,” where Borat takes the viewer around an unimaginably poor-looking village, making fun of how backward “his people” are. There are no Western egos or ignorance being punctured here. In fact, it was shot in a gypsy encampment in Romania, where locals were paid around $3 each to be humiliated by a man who spoke to them in a language they did not understand. The villagers were told they were appearing in a sympathetic documentary highlighting their lives. “Borat” made over $262 million at the box office. [...]

The racism was further amplified with the 2020 release of “Borat Subsequent Moviefilm.” Within the first two minutes of the sequel, Borat informs us that Kazakhstan has canceled their traditional event, “the running of the Jew,” but fortunately his country still has Holocaust Remembrance Day, “when we commemorate our heroic soldiers who ran the camps.” Borat also received an award, which he stated will be “put in our national museum along with other treasure we have confiscated from Jews.” [...]

In actual fact, as many have pointed out, Kazakhstan was a haven for Jewish people during the Holocaust, not a perpetrator of it, saving thousands of Jewish lives by taking in people from Eastern Europe and other states of the U.S.S.R. Today, the country is commended by Jewish groups as a model of tolerance. It is also, notably, not a helplessly sexist nation; Save The Children ranked it higher than the United States in its list of best countries to grow up female.

This is a rather inconvenient truth for the Israeli state-building project Baron Cohen supports. Ironically, perhaps the most shocking and newsworthy case of exposing bigotry Baron Cohen has documented has never been revealed. While in character as Brüno in Jerusalem, Baron Cohen was beaten nearly to death by an enraged crowd of homophobic Israelis, who, angered by his camp and sacrilegious attire, started stoning him, on camera. Baron Cohen was reportedly “nearly killed.” Kiriakou told MintPress that Baron Cohen told him that a rabbi even spat on him. It was the only time in his career that he broke character and desperately yelled that he was an Israeli Jew, not a homosexual foreigner. The comedian fled for his life and found refuge in a nearby store bathroom. This footage has never seen the light of day. Perhaps it sends the “wrong” message.

[mysharona1987]

[marisatomay]

Anti-intellectuals are always making up a cinephile that can’t shut up about experimental short films that only screen once every ten years at a specific theater in Toronto and no you’re not invited because they’re better than you meanwhile the Criterion Channel and I are both trying to get people to watch Cocktail (1988)

[deadgodjess]

i want a fantasy or scifi movie where all the human/human-skintoned fantasy/scifi races are played by actors of color and all the fantasy/alien races with non-human colors/are fully cg/under heavy face concealing prosthesis played by exclusively white actors.

[icedsodapop]

[elvisqueso]

Pocahontas (1995)

[shesnake]

Christopher Cote, an Osage language consultant on the project and one of many Osage members who attended its Los Angeles premiere Monday, told THR he was “nervous about the release of the film; now that I’ve seen it, I have some strong opinions.

“As an Osage, I really wanted this to be from the perspective of Mollie and what her family experienced, but I think it would take an Osage to do that,” Cote said, referencing Lily Gladstone’s character in the movie. (Historical spoilers from the film ahead.) “Martin Scorsese, not being Osage, I think he did a great job representing our people, but this history is being told almost from the perspective of Ernest Burkhart [played by Leonardo DiCaprio] and they kind of give him this conscience and kind of depict that there’s love. But when somebody conspires to murder your entire family, that’s not love. That’s not love, that’s just beyond abuse.”

He continued, “I think in the end, the question that you can be left with is: How long will you be complacent with racism? How long will you go along with something and not say something, not speak up, how long will you be complacent? I think that’s because this film isn’t made for an Osage audience, it was made for everybody, not Osage. For those that have been disenfranchised, they can relate, but for other countries that have their acts and their history of repression, this is an opportunity for them to ask themselves this question of morality, and that’s how I feel about this film.”

[alwaysbewoke]

[nero-neptune]

“I’m not a hero, I’m just a dancer.”

WHITE NIGHTS | 1985 | dir. taylor hackford

[jabeur]

"not surprising that players in the locker room don't like her" actually i think these white women are just mad that a young asian woman is talented and can, has and will again beat them

[mysharona1987]

Dwayne Johnson literally made an entire $200 million action movie about how angering Samoans was an incredibly bad idea.

[the-blueprint]

The Slap Heard ‘Round the World. The film ‘In the Heat of the Night’ contains one of the most important moments in cinema history. The moment in reference is when Sidney Poitier’s character in the movie slaps the character Larry Gates in retaliation to being slapped by him. This was a very rare depiction back in the sixties as it was very uncommon to show a black man standing up for himself to a white man much less striking him in the face.

The scene was particularly powerful for Nelson Mandela. Mandela took interest in the slap scene after it had been censored by authorities and had the moment removed when he first watched the movie while imprisoned. Mandela eventually found the clip and was inspired by the scene “because he felt this would never happen in a film in South Africa.” What do you think? Let us know and don’t forget to follow @filmaticblack for more dope content!

[365filmsbyauroranocte]

Nothing But a Man (Michael Roemer, 1964)

[rebel-girl-queen-of-my-world]

“Anglo neighborhoods” tells you everything you need to know. But watch politicians and the media lie and drum up outrage and fear among those who aren’t paying attention!

As a Jew I’m disgusted by so many of those who claim my culture and religion. This is one of many reasons why. All Jews should be outraged by using our houses of worship as cover for the selling of ethnically-cleansed land, in clear violation of US law AND international law, while hurling racist, Islamophobic epithets and physically assaulting people.

ALL SHIT WE MUST STAND AGAINST IF WE’RE UPHOLDING JEWISH VALUES.

Repost from @savannimalz

“Imagine a world where stolen land is sold to create “Anglo Neighborhoods” and people didn’t go out and say that that was wrong.

Imagine a scenario where these absurdly racist and violent threats were met with no challenge. Those brave enough to stand up to all this are on the right side of history.

No amount smearing them will change that.” -@thesamueltaylor

Please support independent journalism!

Credit to:

@btnewsroom

@filmthepolicela

And I got information on the ground from @kate_burns_chad who covered the entire event and was assaulted, sexually harassed and targeted.

[snowballthekitteninwonderland]

Rewatched Gilda (1946) recently, and immediately thought of the bnnuy and doggo husbands. The movie is so good, there's literally only ONE issue, which I *know* would be 100% solved if the Freelance Husbands were the main characters (will probably get into why that is in a different post tho) and so, a couple or more AU ideas were born....(Including a canon divergence/never met as kids/met as young adults AU, for which I also have a fic WIP)

Really wanna make an animatic redoing the whole Put The Blame On Mame scene but with the freelance husbands, with of course, Max being Gilda. There's even an excellent song cover from Alexandre Covers at YT, a Max animation is practically begging to be made....I really wanna do it qjhHUaj.