Avatar 2: Way of Water has faced calls for boycott over it’s “tone-deaf” plot line and reportedly poor handling of indigenous cultures.
Fans have claimed the Hollywood movie features the “appropriation” of indigenous cultures as we’re welcomed back into the world of Pandora and its blue-skinned inhabitants, the Na’vi, whom we were first introduced to back in 2009.
Both Avatar films have faced criticism for seemingly combining aspects of Indigenous cultures while casting white or non-indigenous actors in the roles of the Na’vi.
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Native American influencer and co-chair of Indigenous Pride LA, Yuè Begay, publicly proposed a Way of Water boycott.
“Do not watch Avatar: The Way of Water,” they wrote on Twitter, after the film’s release. “Join Natives and other Indigenous groups around the world in boycotting this horrible and racist film.”
(Image: Courtesy of 20th Century Studios)
They continued: “Our cultures were appropriated in a harmful manner to satisfy some [white] man’s saviour complex. No more Blueface! Lakota people are powerful!”
One fan joined in on the discourse, writing: “Hey y’all, Avatar is terrible. Racist, cliché, half a plot yet still full of holes and dangling threads, and entirely too long.”
“Avatar 2 was f****** trash. It was super racist. Super cringey. Way too long. It’s full of stereotypical bulls***,” another angrily added.
(Image: 20th Century Studios / Avalon)
Director James Cameron came under fire for his comments made in 2010 when he appeared to suggest that Native American tribes should’ve “fought harder” against genocide.
He told The Guardian: “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.”
(Image: 20th Century Studios / Avalon)
James went on to explain that this was also his “driving force” for the Avatar films.
“This was a driving force for me in the writing of Avatar – I couldn’t help but think that if they [the Lakota Sioux] had had a time-window and they could see the future … because they were hopeless and they were a dead-end society – which is what is happening now – they would have fought a lot harder,” he said.
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Source: Celebrities - dailystar.co.uk
