Avatar Was Inspired By The Indigenous Communities As Per James Cameron(Photo Credit –Still From Avatar: The Way Of Water)
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James Cameron’s Avatar: The Way Of Water has created ripples in a way that they still continue to be very much visible across the globe. The sequel to the monster film that made a disruption at the box office 13 years ago that it found its place on the topmost pedestal. The filmmaker released the sequel two weeks ago and the movie now continues to break records and impress fans across. But seems like some are not impressed by the representation.
Avatar is a story set on the fictional planet of Pandora where blue humanoids live and worship the forest they dwell in. In the past Cameron while talking about the references for his world-building had claimed that he took inspiration from the lives of the Native Americans who had to build a life amid hardships. But while doing so he used some wrong words regarding the Lakota Sioux.
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Looks like these comments have a comeback to haunt James Cameron because the Native Americans are now calling for a boycott of Avatar: The Way Of Water for calling Lakota Sioux a hopeless, and dead-end society. Read on to know everything you should know about the same.
As per Movieweb, in the past talking about his inspiration behind Avatar and Avatar: The Way Of Water, James Cameron said, “the movie very pointedly referred to the colonial period in the Americas, with all its conflict and bloodshed between the military aggressors from Europe and the indigenous peoples. Europe equals Earth. The Native Americans are the Na’vi. It’s not meant to be subtle.”
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James went on to talk about the Lakota Sioux and said, “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.”
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This comment left the Native American activists agitated as they feel the ideas promoted by James Cameron are dangerous revisionist history, but his showcase of the Na’vi folks is racist cultural appropriation. There is also a term especially coined for the movie, Blueface.
Read some reactions below:
Do NOT watch Avatar: The Way of Water
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
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— 🌽Asdzáá Tłʼéé honaaʼéí🌽(She/Her)🌽 (@asdza_tlehonaei) December 18, 2022
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Bruh as a native we ain’t gaf about avatar speak for yourself boycott your fridge
Reminder to boycott Avatar because Cameron literally said his driving force to writing it was thinking about the Lakota Sioux were a “hopeless” and “dead-end society”, and they could have “fought a lot harder.”
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— 🎄オーラガイド dan | comms open ! ʚϊɞ °◦ﾟ◦❄️ (@Lemonyzed) December 27, 2022
Hey Cameron, I'm guessing you would like to see the money of some toxic males for this movie, huh? After your comments, I won't even watch this garbage on #Netflix 🤣 #BoycottAvatar#Avatar2
I walked out of Avatar: the Way of Water twice: once, to pace the halls, miserable; the 2nd time, permanently. Someone who loves me thought I'd enjoy it because I'm a water protector + ally to impacted peoples & marine life. Now I see Indigenous people asking for a boycott! https://t.co/sBYXQVPd14
Avatar: The Way Of Water has not created a dent like the 2009 predecessor but it has managed to roar very proudly at the Box Office. Stay tuned to Koimoi for more.
