{"id":35951,"date":"2011-06-30T10:41:22","date_gmt":"2011-06-30T15:41:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/?p=35951"},"modified":"2013-11-11T02:42:13","modified_gmt":"2013-11-11T07:42:13","slug":"avatar-as-a-tired-trope","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/2011\/06\/30\/avatar-as-a-tired-trope\/","title":{"rendered":"Avatar as a Tired Colonialist Trope"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I argued earlier that Avatar was not a story about a heroic people, the Na\u2019vi,\u00a0but a white savior<\/a>. \u00a0I summarized:<\/p>\n

Sully is not only a superior human being, he is also a superior Na\u2019vi. After being briefly ostracized for his participation in the land grab, he tames the most violent creature in the sky, thereby proving himself to be the highest quality warrior imaginable per the Na\u2019vi mythology. \u00a0He gives them hope, works out their strategy, and is their most-valuable-weapon in the war. In the end, with all Na\u2019vi contenders for leadership conveniently dead, he assumes the role of chief\u2026 and gets the-most-valuable-girl for good measure. Throngs of Na\u2019vi bow to him.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Avatar was heralded as a break-through movie for its technological achievements, but its theme is tired. \u00a0With the aim of pointing to how Avatar simply regurgitated a strong history of white, Western self-congratulation,\u00a0Craig Saddlemire and Ryan Conrad re-mixed the movie with other similar movies, including Blind Side, Dancing with Wolves, Blood Diamond, The Last Samurai, Out of Africa, Stargate, and Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.<\/p>\n

They go through several features of these narratives: awe at the “native” landanimalspeople, the decision that they are helpless and doomed without White, Western intervention, the designation of a White savior who devotes him or herself to their rescue, native self-subordination, and more. \u00a0It’s pretty powerful. Thanks to Lizzy Furth for sending the video along!<\/p>\n

<\/object><\/p>\n

See also: Formula for a successful American movie<\/a>.<\/p>\nLisa Wade, PhD<\/a> is an Associate Professor at Tulane University. She is the author of <\/em>American Hookup<\/a>, a book about college sexual culture; a textbook about gender<\/a>; and a forthcoming introductory text: <\/em>Terrible Magnificent Sociology<\/a>.\u00a0You can follow her on Twitter<\/a> and Instagram<\/a>.<\/em><\/span>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I argued earlier that Avatar was not a story about a heroic people, the Na\u2019vi,\u00a0but a white savior. \u00a0I summarized: Sully is not only a superior human being, he is also a superior Na\u2019vi. After being briefly ostracized for his participation in the land grab, he tames the most violent creature in the sky, thereby […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":51,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[155,232,2123,343,285,1758,1759,1760,1757],"class_list":["post-35951","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-animals","tag-cultural-imperialismneocolonialism","tag-environmentnature","tag-tvmovies","tag-raceethnicity","tag-raceethnicity-american-indiansaboriginals","tag-raceethnicity-asianspacific-islanders","tag-raceethnicity-blacksafricans","tag-raceethnicity-whiteseuropeans"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35951","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/51"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35951"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35951\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":58814,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35951\/revisions\/58814"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35951"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35951"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35951"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}