Some years ago, in the essay entitled, Ezili's HLLN Counter-Colonial Narrative on Deforestation, I wrote:
"Once Haiti's natural zones for agriculture were confiscated by big agribusinesses and pushed off their ancestral lands, disenfranchised peasants had no choice but to go into the harsher lands in the mountains or wherever they could, to try to grow some food to feed their families, while a small group of the world's rich - such as the procession of US lumber companies in the 19th century and then, in the 20th century the procession of US lumber, sugar and fruit companies paid large sums to corrupt government officials to cut down pine, mahogany, cedar, oak and other trees for access to the Haitian forests and peasant lands in order to pillage Haiti's resources, under the guise of "development," "job creation" or "anti-superstition.""
Yes, the Avatar movie is a good analogy to colonialism, and the role of the missionaries, development folks and USAID experts of modern day and may be seen in that light.
Jake Sully, played by Sam Worthington is the white hero who enters the Navi's land, learns, in three months, all their secrets, becomes a super-Na'vi and is able to return and save them from the attack of his crazy nation's war mongers.
It's relevant to note that the main Na'vi characters are voiced by four Black actors: Zoà « Saldaà ±a who plays the warrior princess Neytiri; CCH Pounder who plays Mo'at, the Na'vi priestess and Neytiri's mother; Laz Alonso who plays Tsu'Tey, the young warrior prince, Neytiri's betrothed and heir to the chieftainship of the Omaticayas, Neytiri's clan; and Peter Mensah who plays Akwey, leader of a plains clan of Na'vi; as well as Wes Studi, a Cherokee, who plays Eytukan, the father of Neytiri and the supreme leader of the Omaticaya clan of Pandora. The evil humans are white.
The movie is a fantasy from the point of view of white people. At the end the white man leads, just as he would lead as a colonizer, but this time he leads the natives from the inside. The hero is always a hero in any world and he's always white. That's why Danny Glover found it impossible to do a movie about the Haitian revolution with Jean Jacques Dessalines and Toussaint Louvertures as the heroes.
Frankly, I found the Avatar movie patronizing and no, Jake was no more than a white outsider who comes in and does his Tarzan thing. The racial subtext of the movie was extremely blatant.
This was my first 3-D experience and that was dazzling and I agree the scenery is spectacular...at the beginning.
The 3-D IMAX is stunning viewing and combined with the lush green scenery, the message that we need to protect our environment, wild life, respect other people's cultures and way of life, and control the profit-driven military-industrial complex makes Avatar worth the time. But it gets so, so typically racist, violent, violent, violent - literally and psychologically - and despicably so.
When the Omaticaya clan's Tree of Voices and the Ancestors fell, that genocide resonated. It reminded me of how the Catholics in Haiti, destroyed the mapou trees in Haiti because in Haitian Vodun each village compound/Lakou, each family had a tree with the spirit and life of their ancestors. But in the 1940s rejete massacre in Haiti, the US sponsored the burning down of the most sacred of trees and the psychological devastation still hasn't left the Haitian psyche to this day. So much so that trees became, for many, just wood for charcoal burning! I cringed when that Navi tree went down. The Will Heaven and Annalee Newitz reviews have it correct, this is no more than a white savoir movie where the "assimilated white" becomes the messiah for the "savages."
Here's a few other parts that grated my nerves to no end:
In the movie, the white man is the ONLY one who can pray to the Na'vi's mother goddess (Eywa) and she HEARS him, not her own people 's prayers and grief but HIM. The Jake character prays to Eywa to intercede on behalf of the Na'vi in the coming battle and when the battle seems lost, suddenly the creatures of the forest start to help attack the expendable corporate soldiers fighting for blang - (Gold and sugar in Haiti and the Americas during the African Holocaust and oil, gold and iridium right now under UN proxy occupation for the US). We hear Neytiri yelling "Eywa heard you Jake, Eywa heard you!"
The white man mates with Neytiri, the most beautiful, most powerful warrior princess in the realm but he expects her intended, Tsu'Tey, the young warrior prince, the king-to-be to meekly accept the fait accompli and fly with him because now he's a super-Na'vi after having been the ONLY one to tame and ride the Toruk, an immensely powerful red flying beast that only five Na'vi have ever tamed in their history.
The Toruk is recognized by the Na'vi people as the most ferocious beast in their realm. When Jake, the white hero character, swoops down from above astride the red Toruk, he becomes not just a mythical hero, he becomes Eywa the mother Goddesses' - chosen one, the white messiah, and now he wants the young warrior king of the Na'vi people, Tsu'Tey whose character is voiced by the Black actor, Laz Alonso, and whose princess, voiced by the Black actress, Zoà « Saldaà ±a, he's mated with to meekly ACCEPT, submit to him as leader of the Na'vi battle AND to TRANSLATE FOR HIM as he addresses the new King's people and revs them up for war against the humans! The parallel emasculation of the Black man here cannot be more obvious.
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