Racist Aliens
Well we’ve just added another color to the racism spectrum; blue. Why? you might ask…
Because of a movie (Avatar) about a fictional race on a distant moon who encounters human beings attempting to mine a substance called “Unobtainium” for profit to be made back on Earth.
How is this movie being perceived as racist?
The “hero” is white. And he’s not even much of a hero, in my eyes at least. He was a crippled ex-marine of average intelligence with simple, borderline crass, communication skills who relied heavily upon the deeds of the supporting members of the cast to be propelled into the “white messiah” status he’s being given. Pardon me for being different, but if that’s what we’re calling a hero, then I’d much rather be in the supporting cast. The kick-ass, helicopter pilot; the dedicated scientists/researchers (who, by the way, make every effort to do no harm to any living being or thing), the Na’vi high priestess/shaman to name a few examples. Heck, I’d rather be one of the flying creatures, or a tree than the actual “hero”.
To circle back around to the topic of this entry, I just didn’t get racism from this movie. It may have been there, but far more apparent to me was the humans’ destruction of the fantastical natural environment and their complete lack of concern for it. Instead of taking time to research and study the native environment and cultures, they stopped once they found one thing of value and completely fixated on it with no regard to what was destroyed in the process. Hasn’t THIS theme been repeated over and over again on various regions of our own planet? Does this not still continue to this day? I’m sorry to those this may offend, but racism takes a backseat to the loss of that which sustains life of all races; our natural resources.
So what did I take away from this film? What was most sad to me (and I hope others)? That even with the amazing advancements to technology that are going to surface in the future that will enable the human race to explore other planets, will also come the rape and destruction of those planets and their life-systems.
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I thought I would throw into the pot a news story about “Avatar” from the disability perspective. ABC News did a story about it, found at: http://is.gd/6CDsJ
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