An invading colonizing force of foreign people invading a native people ... but the natives are incapable of helping themselves so they need a white saviour to lead them in the fight against their oppressors

It's basically cultural appropriation masked as a space opera

The worst part of it is how wealthy European people are still able in the most imaginative ways possible are able to monetize the misery and memory of oppressed people. Not only did they destroy entire cultures, they spend a good part of their time making money off of that memory and history.

The only thing I enjoy about the films is the AI, CGI and special effects ... beyond that, the writing is just another continuation of white people fantasizing about what it would be like to be a heroic Indigenous person who wins over colonizers ... a fantasy that has never been allowed to exist in reality.

[–] Ilandar@lemmy.today 15 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (1 children)

I completely agree with you. Cameron always gets so triggered whenever he's faced with this criticism as well, like all rich white American liberals. He doesn't even try to hide these views because he's so incredibly clueless:

In an interview with The Guardian in 2010, Cameron said the Lakota Sioux Nation was a "hopeless" and "dead-end society".

The interview was prompted by Cameron's visit to the Xingu tribe, located in the Amazon, who were fighting against the development of the Belo Monte hydroelectric dam.

During his time there he witnessed cultural ceremonies.

"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," he said.

He noted that 'this was the driving force' in creating 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 rate 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." Source

[–] TargaryenTKE@lemmy.world 1 points 5 months ago

Wow, that is a disgusting thing to say about ANY culture, especially one that you admit is facing its own issues. Also, comparing a tribe from the Amazon to one from the Great Plains is kinda like saying 'Wow, those people suffering in Estonia really reminds me of the people suffering in Ethiopia'. Not my best analogy but you get my point

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