Avatar 2: prepare a boycott against the film for the statements of James Cameron in 2010

The movie Avatar, the path of water, which is the second part of the saga of the blue beings directed by James Camerongoes through, shortly after its premiere, a true box office hit, Y also from criticism. But not all of it is good news for this film, since these days, American Indian groups have incited to boycott the production, since they consider it fiction. “awful and racist” and in which it is exercised the cultural appropriation of the native peoples.

The reaction of the indigenous people against the second installment of Avatar -the first was released in 2009- has its origin in statements made by the director of the film no less than a dozen years to a British medium.

The movie saga Avatarin which the Na’vi, blue men who live in harmony with nature on the planet Pandorasuffers invasions from other civilizations -in the first, human beings- who come to steal their resources, was compared in numerous analyzes with American colonial history.

was his own James Cameron who raised this parallelism in an interview he conducted for the English newspaper The Guardian in 2010. Then, the filmmaker pointed out, in relation to the first installment of Avatar: “I felt like I had gone back 130 years in time seeing what the lakota sioux they could have said at the moment they were expelled, killed or asked to move giving them some kind of compensation”.

“I couldn’t help but think that if they had been able to see the future through a temporary window – continued the director – and they would have seen their children with the highest suicide rates in the country because they had no hope and they were a society with no way out, they would have fought a lot more.”

The lakota They are a people that are part of the Sioux tribe and that in the days prior to the so-called conquest of the west inhabited large areas north of the Missouri River, in the current states of North Dakota, South Dakota and Nebraska, among others.

These words from the director of the saga of Avatarapparently said with good intentions, were taken as a lack of respect for the indigenous tribes and as proof that there had been in history reflected on the big screen a appropriationby the white man, of the indigenous culture, through a racist caricature that they called Blueface (blue face)in reference to the characters of the film.

She was the Amerindian activist and artist Yue Begay the one who shared on her social networks the request for a boycott of the film on behalf of indigenous and native cultures. Both in your account instagramlike in Twitterthe woman uploaded a series of images calling to turn her back on the movie of cameron and wrote in his post: “Don’t look Avatar, the path of water. Unite with natives and other indigenous groups from around the world to boycott this horrible and racist film”.

Later, in the publication, the activist explained the reason for the boycott request: “Our cultures were harmfully appropriated to satisfy the savior complex of some white man! No more! bluefaces! The Lakota people are powerful!”.

In the images you uploaded the indigenista to its publication You can see one in which a frame of the film is clearly covered with a prohibition symbol while giving the reasons, similar to those stated in the comment. In another of the postcards of the post, the mentioned statements by Cameron from 2010 are reproduced and, in the following photo, the appropriation, by the director, of indigenous cultures through the blue characters of the film, whom they define as a “racist cartoon in which the creator appropriates all non-white cultures”.

The statement adds that the film “mixtureall those cultures “indiscriminately or brazenly”, and, in addition, “it makes white people interpret or give them a voice using fiction as a means to satisfy or validate their construction of the world.

And then, in the same post, Yue Begay adds a series of actions that can be carried out to support native or Afro-American communities, ranging from not looking Avatar, the shape of water to use the money from the tickets to contribute financially to a cause of these groups.

Finally, the communiqué of the indigenista woman, which obtained several thousand “likes” on both social networks, culminates with a list of books and films that were made by or faithfully reflect the native cultures.

James Cameronfor his part, did not want to escape this controversy, and in an interview he gave to the Unilad medium He spoke about the reaction of the indigenistas towards his film. “People who were historically victimized are always right. It is not up to me, from a white privilege perspective, to tell them that they are wrong. I have to listen and I have to say, ‘Okay, if you feel that, that’s what you feel, and it’s valid.’ It doesn’t make any sense for me to say, ‘Well, that was never my intention.’”

Finally, the director celebrated the way of seeing the world that the original communities have. “I see the indigenous peoples that still remain in our world as the people who are most connected to nature, much more than we are in our industrialized world. The film aims to celebrate those philosophiesThat spirituality. If we offend anyone in the process, I can only apologize, but we are doing what we can.”

THE NATION