James Cameron’s “Avatar: The Way of Water” caused a global stir with its release two weeks ago. The sequel to the successful “Avatar” film from 13 years ago, the movie has been breaking records and impressing fans. However, some people have taken issue with the representation in the film. “Avatar” is set on the fictional planet of Pandora, where blue humanoids live and worship the forest they inhabit. In the past, Cameron has mentioned that he drew inspiration from the lives of Native Americans in building the world of Pandora. Still, Cameron used some inappropriate language when discussing the Lakota Sioux.
Twitter user asdza_tlehonaei shared multiple tweets explaining why Avatar is culturally inappropriate and should be boycotted.
Do NOT watch Avatar: The Way of Water
— 🌽Asdzáá Tłʼéé honaaʼéí🌽(She/Her)🌽 (@asdza_tlehonaei) December 18, 2022
Join Natives & other Indigenous groups around the world in boycotting this horrible & racist film. Our cultures were appropriated in a harmful manner to satisfy some 🏳 man's savior complex.
No more Blueface!
Lakota people are powerful! pic.twitter.com/NmHVU565u3
While talking on camera, James Cameron gave several statements that people thought were victim-blaming and offensive to the indigenous tribes.
“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.” “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… 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.”
Via – fandomwire
