photography
recent @ flickr / malloreigh
collections/sets:
365project: a year of daily self-portraits
recent
Avatar: Sexist, Racist, Ableist
When I saw Avatar – in 3D, pretty quickly after it landed in big-box theatres – I remember sitting in the theatre, watching this incredible dynamic, colourful, lush, computer-animated landscape move in front of and around me, wondering if I’d become too socially conscious to ever enjoy a Hollywood film again. Sigh. I tweeted about it, and received a snide comment or two in reply telling me that I need to learn to “turn off” my critical response mechanism and just enjoy a feat of technology.
Okay. Fair. But I knew I wasn’t alone. As the movie unfolded in front of me, I found myself growing more and more irritated – by the sudden weakness of the female main as soon as she was pair-bonded with the male main, and with the obvious white-American-colonial role of the humans in the film, and with the anthropologically unrealistic customs of the Na’vi. That’s why I was so glad to find this article – thank you, I’m not alone in being critical of this film! I mean, hell, it wasn’t as bad as Twilight: New Moon (during which I actually laughed out loud at several points, and immediately went into a verbal tirade upon the start of the credits)… but my reaction – my indignance – has similar motivations.
I believe that it is ethically obligatory for big box films – acts of media that reach as many people as both Avatar and Twilight – to be conscious of their reinforcement of racist, sexist, and otherwise ignorant ass-backwards ideas. These are the indoctrinatory systems we, as a culture, use to teach our children about the world. These are very powerful messages. Of course, I’m not about to suggest censorship, either. Maybe I should aim to be an ethical/social justice consultant for big media. Sounds like a great career option.
January 12th, 2010 at 1:49 am
I don’t think we should turn off our critical responses, especially not for the sake of entertainment. I think we need the opposite; more people that are more conscious of the media, and other products, they consume. The consumer dictates the market, after all, and our current marketplace is full of destructive fucking bullshit that will be the end of us.
But at least we had fun! Yay!
January 12th, 2010 at 3:33 am
I liked this post, but I can’t go into discussion on it until I see the movie this weekend. I do like that the movie is being brought into a controversial light. However, I don’t like how people seem to be coming at him from all these different angles prepared to cloak him in their own guilt. If someone offends your perception of the world directly or indirectly, you should be thankful a force like that exists. It keeps us in touch. It has to generate more interest among the masses in some way and through controversy it opens up a dialogue on important issues and helps people realign their focus on things that have real meaning. Admittedly, I have a bad habit of ignoring or overlooking important things in favor of something that is ultimately insignificant. Cameron seems to have found an elaborate but effective way of utilizing eye candy (something that is far too often used to enslave minds) to spark interest in real issues of our lives and give people some renewed sense of self worth. That is what filmmakers, musicians, and other artists have been able to do in the past in a limited capacity, but it appears Cameron is attempting to remove the limitation. I will see soon enough. This movie will likely (re)introduce me to things that I like and dislike, such is life, and no matter what, it seems to have established itself as something very important.
January 12th, 2010 at 3:47 am
oh how i enjoy your webitorials. not enough bloggers speak their true opinions!
January 12th, 2010 at 2:13 pm
“If someone offends your perception of the world directly or indirectly, you should be thankful a force like that exists.”
I do not believe anyone should be grateful that sexist, racist, ableist movies are still being made, despite the dialogue they create about sexism, racism and ableism. It was not Cameron’s intention to “spark interest in real issues of our lives and give people some renewed sense of self worth,” and the point of all the criticism of Avatar is that he did the complete opposite of that.
January 12th, 2010 at 10:39 pm
moneda – i agree – i doubt it was his intention. however, in the facebook-crossposted version of this blog post, my friend ryan mentioned that i should read the original treatment… i’m sure james cameron had to make quite a few sacrifices to make this film. i’m not blaming him directly for anything; i’m simply saying that i think production companies should be more responsible about the messages they send. most people WON’T read into it. most people don’t have the tools to critically analyse the media and pop culture; it’s unfortunate but i believe that most people won’t even have a nagging feeling that something’s off while watching this film. it reinforces colonizing-white-power myths that are incredibly destructive components of our culture.
January 13th, 2010 at 3:50 am
Glad you’re posting about it! At this point, absolutely every one of my friends have some pretty intense criticisms of Avatar, so don’t ever think you’re alone in this. For some good discussions that focus on the racial aspects in particular, check out the discussions over at Racialicious… You may really get a kick out of the post And we shall call this “Moff’s Law””, the point of which is essentially that anyone who thinks we should just relax and enjoy cultural creations even if they’re oppressive, should just f*ck off. It’s pretty great!
January 13th, 2010 at 5:01 am
“….i’m simply saying that i think production companies should be more responsible about the messages they send. most people WON’T read into it. most people don’t have the tools to critically analyse the media and pop culture; it’s unfortunate but i believe that most people won’t even have a nagging feeling that something’s off while watching this film. it reinforces colonizing-white-power myths that are incredibly destructive components of our culture.”
Production companies take responsibility?
They’re responsible for profit.
Writers, Producers, and Directors?
They too want to see profit, but they also understand the importance of story, its message, and share responsibility for the impact their art has on an audience (sometimes – i.e. see art imitates life, life imitates art and the limited the limited role an artist plays in the process of simply pointing at it).
And yes, people are droned out and mostly incapable of critical thought, in large part due to systemic/societal variables that I don’t care to go into, however you should know that even when those people innevitably do undergo and express a critical thought process, there’s still a good chance that they won’t arrive to the same conclusions as you – which is the way it should be, because I don’t want to live in a world where everybody thinks and acts the same way.
People have a right to their beliefs, as they do disbeliefs.
“It reinforces colonizing-white-power myths that incredibally destructive components of our culture…”?
Okay, wait who’s culture?
Your culture?
My culture?
You’re pushing bold generalizations about this film based on your perception of the world which falsely asserts ownership over the identity of culture, its components, and their relationship to one another.
You could live 5 lives on this planet Mal, and still not come close to intepreting the breadth and depth of an entire world’s culture, though if you watch the movie Baraka, you might come close.
January 14th, 2010 at 7:04 pm
What people might have been responding to snidely is: “wondering if I’d become too socially conscious to ever enjoy a Hollywood film again.” Which is an incredibly obnoxious phrase. It’s a facile attempt to establish your position on the moral highground and is bound to annoy people.
January 17th, 2010 at 8:32 am
Yeah well this is the director who brought us all Titanic. Hollywood at its most teenybopperish target marketed money industry machine.
Seriously we took the money on these two films alone Avatar and Titanic we could probably feed Haiti for a year.
January 17th, 2010 at 8:40 pm
@dennis – yep, i’m an incredibly obnoxious person.
January 17th, 2010 at 9:54 pm
Malloreigh has a point, although perhaps the slightest stretch in claiming to perhaps never enjoying a Hollywood film again. Lets face it Hollywood generally releases at least one decent film a decade.
January 23rd, 2010 at 7:37 am
Saw your blog bookmarked on Delicious.
January 24th, 2010 at 2:14 am
@Dennis I don’t think that was an attempt to “establish her position on the moral highground” as much as a realization that once you’ve sharpened your critical mind to a certain point, you can’t turn it off. I had nearly the same thought during the entire movie, not because I think that I’m better than other people, but because I couldn’t keep myself from analyzing everything.
When we came out of the movie my mom’s first comment was how beautiful it was. I didn’t even know what to say to that because she was completely overlooking many of the issues in the movie. All I had ever heard from friends before seeing the movie was how amazing or awesome it was. I will admit that it was amazing technically and the character development (animals included) was well done, but that would not be my first thought about the film.
January 26th, 2010 at 9:17 am
And …. “unobtainium”? I mean, for $250 million dollars that’s the best name you can come up with for what they’re mining?
January 28th, 2010 at 12:36 am
@Melissa – you hit the nail on the head right there. I had trouble enjoying it because I couldn’t turn off my critical response. I don’t think that’s because I’m riding on a high horse that I refuse to get off of… I think it’s because I’m angry that there’s so much wrong and the people who have the power to change it are doing just the opposite.
@JC – I’m using culture in a broad and, I think, justified sense. “Our culture” refers to the cultural products we consume, the unified experience that a group of people share that is, at least in this case, greatly influenced by (maybe defined by) the advertisements, films, tv shows, and whatnot that we consume in common.
January 28th, 2010 at 7:05 am
The song Zyklon B movie by the subhumans is basically how I see the north american film industry.
January 30th, 2010 at 8:46 am
the story of the movie made me think of what the canadian mine companies do in Central America every day. At the same time all indigenous groups here are often idolized and portrayed as completely harmonious with nature, which is also a misconception.
February 10th, 2010 at 12:47 am
Ok saw Avatar and thought it was great and as you can see above I’m normally extremely critical of Hollywood to the point where its once in a blue moon that I watch an actual Hollywood film.
I don’t think it was racist, sexist or ableist. As a matter of fact I think this is one of the most blatantly and powerful pro-disabled films ever made.
It was also one of the most pro-indigenous and anti-racism films made in recent times.
If there was any racism, sexism or ableism in the film it was used to show the negative prejudices in our colonialism and needs to be seen in that context. In the context it was, it was promoting them by showing ourselves under the microscope and making us question invisible values. If you look at this movie from a narrow framework expecting to focus on your particular issues then you’ll come in with a perceived expectation of victimization and come out with your expectation filled even if it isn’t there and you’re probably watching the wrong film anyway.
The film’s actual message however was very good. Ok it was a bit comic bookish here and there, the character study could have been more in depth, but really? Who cares? This film was a highlight in special effects and to make it a deep Tarkovsky/Dostoevsky like soliloquy of PC character study would have been a total waste of special effects. This was not that movie, but it was something different and totally new and the social commentary was great, albeit a touch simplistic, but again who cares. Cameron is getting this message out on a mass scale which is going to reach a lot of people who otherwise might miss out were it a Tarkovsky masterpiece worshipped esoterically amongst the film quality obssesed.
Bravo Cameron.
February 10th, 2010 at 5:29 pm
really? hmm. so why does the disabled guy get to walk again at the end? why is his driving purpose to “get his legs back”? that has been the plot point that was called out as ableist. did you read the article i linked?
February 11th, 2010 at 1:22 am
So a disabled person dreams of walking and gets to walk at the end. Great Christopher Reeve’s ghost!
I dream of flying and it would be great if I sprouted wings one day, does that make me bipedalist?
Again if you’re looking for victimization you’ll find what you’re looking for since that’s what you’re focused on.
Iread the article and I’m sorry to say, but its full of it.
“It also became apparent that the invading scientists and military personnel were not just similar to the implied historic white colonial rule, but were, in fact, almost entirely white actors. A true analogy that reflects the human race as a colonizing power would include more actors of color.”
There were lots of actors of different ethnic background as part of the invading force. Seriously they might want to take another look at the film.
“Na’vi bodies themselves sent an interesting message: standing nine feet tall, lean, with long legs, no hips, and small breasts among the women, they reflect components of the impossible body type projected on women in America.”
They’re fricking aliens. They can be anything.
Its interesting, because you can take anything from anything. On the one hand you have feminists saying its sexist, on the other hand there are feminists who say its the greatest female empowerment movie in ages. So whose right? I’d imagine somewhere in the middle, as in neither is right.
Its just a film, not a documentary.
“And later, even the human bodies in the movie seemed unnecessarily sexualized. ”
So let me get this straight in the paragraph before in the article its complaining about sex shame and then its talking about how shameful it is to “unneccessarily sexualize” the characters.
How bout this the person write the article make a movie of their own totally PC world in every aspect completely being out of touch with reality as possible, since the world and universe is not perfect and see how many people enjoy it much less find it exciting at all.
“Cameron’s movie does appear to be a white guilt fantasy, ”
And if it wasn’t there would be an article denouncing that it didn’t address the issue of white guilt that we still fail to face.
“And precisely because it was a lifetime dream of his to write and produce Avatar, the superiority of humans to the indigenous characters, exotic indigenous bodies, and “salvation” from disability within the movie are unsurprising given that he first dreamed of Pandora five decades ago.”
And this writer is totally off their rocker. Seriously what do you really think there is going to be a universe where there is no technological discrepency between aliens? Yeah ok la la land, just like there is a technological discrepancy in the real world and always has been.
The quesion of the film was not that there was a technological discrepency, but how technology could be abused with a colonial mindset, but that obviously flew right over the head of the writer of that article, since they took everything in the film literally.
February 11th, 2010 at 1:26 am
if you can point me toward a feminist argument FOR avatar saying it’s a great female empowerment movie, i’d love to read it. that entirely goes against my immediate gut feeling as soon as i watched the movie. i’m NOT looking to be offended, but i was very offended as i watched this film.
February 11th, 2010 at 1:29 am
Sorry just read this one again and noted just how much it makes no sense whatsoever.
““Na’vi bodies themselves sent an interesting message: standing nine feet tall, lean, with long legs, no hips, and small breasts among the women, they reflect components of the impossible body type projected on women in America.””
So women in America are upset that they can’t have small breasts??? like is portrayed in Hollywood LOL Maybe if they weren’t all getting breast implants they could be a little more like the Navi. What an unfair world!
Secondly they’re complaining that aliens show a body type unobtainable for women in America. I should certainly hope so. They’re aliens!
Thank the non-existant heavens for Monty Python.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sFBOQzSk14c
February 11th, 2010 at 1:40 am
“if you can point me toward a feminist argument FOR avatar saying it’s a great female empowerment movie, i’d love to read it. that entirely goes against my immediate gut feeling as soon as i watched the movie. i’m NOT looking to be offended, but i was very offended as i watched this film.”
http://thegirlrevolution.com/avatar-is-art-female-characters-empowering-for-women-andgirls/
Again it doesn’t have to make sense, but the argument that it was sexist doesn’t hold up much either.
You’re obviously focused on a particular aspect of social justice, but in doing so you’re getting a tunnel vision that everything is about that particular issue. Avatar wasn’t.
The type of film you might enjoy is Vagabond by Agnes Varda a neo-realist film about a young woman travelling in France going from place to place without any goal in mind. It reminds me a bit of you actually and a bit of myself. And especially “The Gleaners and I.” Its a film about freeganism by Agnes Varda.
February 11th, 2010 at 1:43 am
“the Navi female lead was attractive but not hyper-sexual, instead she was a warrior and hunter and in line to be the next village spiritual leader. The head human scientist was science fiction genre-queen Segourney Weaver, the human female supporting actress was a fighter pilot, the village spiritual leader was a wise and holy matriarch.” from that article.
but SERIOUSLY. both of those characters completely lost their personalities after their introductions. at one point the male lead takes the na’vi female lead by the arm and she says “where are we going” and he doesn’t even reply. just let him handle it! trust the man who just showed up 3 months ago in your community and knows shit all about the forest to take care of you! it just doesn’t seem realistic. if she’s such a strong female character, wouldn’t she be independent and assertive even after forming a pair relationship with a male character?
anyway, obviously we have differing viewpoints, and i’m not really attempting to defend mine.
February 11th, 2010 at 1:51 am
“but SERIOUSLY. both of those characters completely lost their personalities after their introductions.”
That’s a plot trick. First you make the viewer like or dislike a person, then through character development they get to know the character and they come to think diferently about the character.
One of the best directors for that is Atom Egoyan.
“at one point the male lead takes the na’vi female lead by the arm and she says “where are we going” and he doesn’t even reply.”
And the male character in the film was not perfect and that was part of the film. He came in there with a colonial mindset and came out changed.
About her character losing her strength, I noticed that myself, then again she saves his life at the end through her warrior abilities, so its a bit of both, and no one can be strong at all times and no one can be weak at all times, again if we are to be realistic here.
February 11th, 2010 at 2:00 am
““at one point the male lead takes the na’vi female lead by the arm and she says “where are we going” and he doesn’t even reply.””
She also did the same thing to him at the very beginning.