Indigenous Issues with AVATAR | RANT

all right I'm gonna start off with a disclaimer if you like the Avatar films you're allowed to like it if you like the Avatar films and you are indigenous you are also allowed to like it now obviously you don't need my permission or anyone's permission to like a certain thing and I preface with that because a lot of the things I'm gonna say are obviously going to push a lot of buttons on a lot of people but without wasting time let's get to one indigenous person's thoughts on okay [Music] I know what you did [Music] so in the first Avatar film came out in 2009 I watched it in 3D with my mom and my grandparents and I thought it was cool I think many at the time especially where I was at where there was a larger Navajo population a lot of the themes were fairly familiar already to me like in the beginning I didn't really expect the navi to be like a stand-in for real life indigenous people like up till the up to that point I was like wait is this about us and I'll be honest I think a lot of other Natives and Indigenous people pretty much felt the same way and I would argue a lot of indigenous people liked the film because of that there was actually one scene in particular that I really latched on to when I first saw this film that quick shot of them on Horseback was just so visceral and epic it really tapped into that that kind of warrior energy I had in me at the time and I guess like when I saw it and I'd argue a lot of other natives when they saw that whole sequence of them fighting back it was just like it really spoke to like how our ancestors fought you know like it just it really tapped into that and I I thought it was epic I didn't argue it still is epic that whole sequence is just pretty awesome but then like of course even for me at the time the film was you know pretty much predictable hey and for a while I enjoyed the film I had it on my old iPod Classic had it like downloaded on there and I'd watch it every once in a while and then of course over time much like everyone else everyone kind of forgot about it and now finally 13 years later we have the much anticipated uh actually very anticipated a sequel Avatar the way of water and when I first saw the trailers I was a bit excited I was like oh cool yeah okay cool we get to obviously see what happens in the second one you know like what happened to Jake Sully and all that what happens to the future of Navi or the humans coming back whatever All Those Questions popped up initially when I saw the trailer and I was like okay cool this looks this looks fun this looks interesting I didn't think much of it at the time and of course there was a lot of talk about the progression of the CGI and a lot of the things that are pretty much changing in how we capture CGI and everything in the in the film industry right and this film is definitely kind of another turning point in that and there's a lot of talk about that as well so I was actually a little excited I wasn't like dramatically excited but I was a little excited until foreign [Music] [Applause] yeah so admittedly at first I was a little like wait what well duh like of course you know the first film is littered with you know white savior tropes and you know all of that like I was like yeah duh like that's what it what it is right akin to Dances with Wolves more on that later and originally I thought James Cameron's words were like taken out of context or were grossly exaggerated and so I went ahead and just read the article in which he says those words yeah it's definitely not exaggerated or taken out of context it really changed my perspective on both the Avatar franchise as a whole but also James Cameron as a filmmaker and of course since that article has you know resurfaced because I think it's from like 2010 and a few other things that he said of course many indigenous peoples have had their takes on the entire situation Asian and a lot of them I agree with I think they're valid there's a few that I think are just really out there and I honestly just don't agree with it but I'm not really here to talk about those at all I kind of just want to give my own opinion because there's a lot of other stuff here to consider about where James Cameron's coming from and then like the actual film itself [Music] so from that article and quite a few other articles and some interviews I was able to kind of gather and get a picture of where James Cameron is coming from in regards to his intentions with the Avatar Avatar franchise but also like where he is coming from and how he sees himself in the place of making this film and in our world or like real world I mean at least like a surface level but there are a few things to note here this is that James Cameron is an opportunist technological filmmaker he is genuinely good at directing and then obviously when it comes to like action he blocks everything well and edits it well like and he knows how to make back-to-back Blockbusters of the top 10 top grossing films of all time he has directed three of them so I mean it kind of tells you a bit about him as you know as a as a artist I mean I like aliens Terminator 2 uh True Lies you know I I enjoy those films a lot like they're very re-watchable with that being said this is more about I guess the context surrounding how the films were made so a few years after the first Avatar film was released he found himself going to manaus in Brazil to help protest against a dam it was called the bellomonchi dam it was gonna threaten and affect the people in the shingu forest now there's even a whole documentary he made post Avatar called a message from Pandora there's a couple of I think there's a few versions of it on YouTube you can find and uh that documentary is interesting but like in that documentary he goes in depth about like you know the construction of the dam its implications of how it's going to affect the wildlife and the people living in that area he actually goes there and talks with the shingu people and the various little tribe there but I don't know like the whole thing was a bit surreal to watch but not in a good way and for him it was surreal to be in it but like in a fascinating and interesting way you know because he when he went down there he was quite embraced by some of this shingu uh tribal leaders and I'm not judging them at all like it's more about how he has kind of inserted himself into this situation and trying to be an advocate and everything and of course like being an advocate for these type of issues it's something that a lot of people do whether you're indigenous or not but in my mind he was living the events of his own film if that makes sense I mean he even says it though and back through the whole Colonial period and you know I wound up going to Brazil and all of a sudden I was living in Avatar This Is Our Land [Music] and so in in the article I think he even mentions a little bit too in the documentary about the fates of the North American tribes and in the article the part that everyone's citing this is what it says Cameron said witnessing indigenous ceremonies and meetings in the Amazon had made him reflect on the plight of the North American Indians and inspired him to attempt and give the quote Global Consciousness a heads up end quote he says 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 he said 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 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 harder end quote yeah there's a lot there's a lot to unpack here and you know of course I I I get what he's trying to say and it's frustrating and of course you can be offended about it what you with what you want of course a lot a lot of native people indigenous people saw that you know read that and were obviously offended I don't believe in like being offended for no reason but there's a lot of reason to be offended with what he said so he brings up like you know the suicide statistics among the Lakota and how they were and are hopeless You could argue that he's saying that they are still hopeless and I would say that this is his sentiment for a lot of North American tribes in particular I'm being hyperbolic here I'm just warning you on that but this is a narrative that I see all too often in a lot of places online especially in like mini documentaries on YouTube and mainstream you know news segments documentaries in the Indie circuits and it it's the genre known as poverty porn so poverty porn it's this genre of filmmaking or whatever me media that focuses on like the negative and unfortunately often true statistical stuff about a certain group of people and unfortunately the entire piece usually is like 90 of it is focusing purely on the negative purely on the bad and of course it's important to be aware of certain issues right but these this genre of media just becomes really oversaturated especially when it comes to minorities in Western countries or other people in other countries and third world countries they they just really reel in the the forsake these forsaken people in their poor state right the problem is it's like what these poverty porn pieces is that they kind of show us as victims only there aren't a lot of other pieces like that that really focus on the good that a lot of indigenous people may be doing or the good things that are happening or programs that are functioning well and if they do they're usually pretty quick you know they're not they don't Linger on as much and so that's that's something that's really hard to capture for clicks and for views unfortunately with that I think that James Cameron is channeling a lot of that same ideology with poverty porn coming from a sentiment of like yes these people are conquered people they they've lost in his mind they lost and you could argue that like that is the colonial mindset is that yes these people lost get over it and uh move on right and James Cameron I don't know I get the sense that he's moved on from North American tribes what did he say and again that's just me kind of bsing here but like that's the sentiment I get from his statements and I guess you could argue in a sociological or social political sense sure but like you know we are assimilated we use you know modern you know technology right a lot of us drive cars some of us have internet access to Internet and all that stuff it's the same he's he it's the same argument or the same stance that a western conservative will also make right is that like we aren't really native or indigenous you know I mean I've heard the argument a lot unfortunately and it's Erasure you know it's it's it's it's denying our indigenous reality though no we are still here we do exist in fact exists there are still a lot of indigenous experiences happening now in the modern world and but a part of me feels like that he went to the shingo people in Brazil because it's a very pretty much a black and white issue it's very it's a very obvious fight to latch onto you know it's it's really easy for him to do that and many other people like him and I'm not dismissing the fights like the shingo people and others like it I'm not dismissing them but it's more about how people like James Cameron and James Cameron himself who kind of insert themselves into these situations trying to be an advocate and just really lavishing in his involvement with these types of things and he you know captures it in his own films right and then that's the thing you know like he in his films he captures indigenous resistance how he thinks it should have been and how it should be which leads me to indigenous resistance in general you know like I mentioned where he says that they should have fought harder I think that stung a lot of people right indigenous people and I get like what he's trying to say right but even then the whole thing just comes off as ignorant and factually wrong because cause like I said like we are still here we we there are a lot of indigenous people still around and of course what you identify as indigenous whether that be through blood or from culture that's a whole another conversation for another day right but the fact is is like there's still tons of indigenous people still alive today especially North America language some languages are still being spoken some traditions are being held and preserved but to dismiss the Lakota people and other nations in North America as a dead end society and hopeless it's it suggests again that he himself agrees with that Colonial mindset that we are a conquered people and that we have stopped fighting I guess he forgot about the American Indian movement in the 1960s and 70s I guess that he forgot about the protests that were happening at that Standing Rock he has his view of indigenous resistance but the reality is that indigenous resistance in developed countries developed is still alive in here it seems that he thinks that like I can do indigenous resistance better than you people can't so what does this all have to do with Avatar [Music] so with all that in mind let's take a look at the pre-production and the story of the Avatar films it's been cited many times that the franchises you know Dances with Wolves in space and yeah sure right it's a it's a cheap critique but not wrong you could argue too that it's you know a general hero story and all that and you know the internet is very right now within the past couple of months very oversaturated with different takes that are for this film or against this film whatever you can find those yourself a lot of most of them are on YouTube there's a couple of you know Reddit posts that you can read or Twitter especially Twitter damn Twitter is just full of different tastes but I'm not really here to talk about a lot of them but there's one take in particular that really stuck out to me that was a little different than a lot of others and that's my YouTuber named sideways and if his video about the score for the first Avatar film has since gone viral since the release of the second one sideways he talks about film scores or music in general I'm a bit of a music nerd myself and so I really enjoy his videos even before the Avatar one came out he talks about how the score for Avatar was made or not made uh basically what it boils down to is that James Cameron wanted a score for this film that was non-western and alien and exotic right and so he hired James Horner and then in turn he also hired a music ethnologist so they were tasked with finding different sounds and different light motifs from different instruments around the world and they studied all this right to make the the soundscape and score sound different and every time they came to him for you know presenting this theme or the sound he rejected it every single time he rejected it he rejected oh it doesn't sound right it doesn't sound right and in the end he opted just to have James Horner do a pretty standardized Western signing score something that was that's familiar through a lot of Western years right in the end a lot of her work is gone just Snippets here and there and sideways I think he sums up the process of that film and I would argue this reflects the entirety of the film very perfectly right here but in the end it was specifically engineered to be as inoffensive as possible while sounding vaguely non-western let me see if I can get this straight for you a guy spearheading a project sponsored by a massive Corporation decides either directly or indirectly to hire a doctor who specializes in a field where their work might help legitimize the Project's intentions but at every opportunity for the sake of profit and easy accessibility this guy undermines the doctor and her work such that she is effectively forced out of the project and is only able to comment on the legitimacy of their actions from afar now where have I heard that story before and it's not like it isn't obvious when you go through the film with a fine-tooth comb it's kind of a disaster so yeah James Cameron couldn't help but like colonize and misappropriate the very fake indigenous culture that he himself created and of course he can do that he can do whatever the hell he wants right but like if the if we're understanding the thesis and the purpose of the avatars at franchise it completely negates all of it it completely is contrasting his own films you know like sideways says he's kind of like the dude in the film like he became his own antagonist but if your whole film is basically a blue version of Pocahontas Dances with Wolves FernGully and The Lorax it might do you a little good too I don't know maybe actually sit down with one of those stories and really think about what it's trying to say because the score in this film is the musical equivalent of strip mining yeah it made a lot of money but it came at a cost we are all worse off for not having a score that could have had all those different types of world music coming together at every twist and turn they mutated the non-western music that they'd collected to fit in with a western audience there's virtually nothing about the score that isn't just some permutation of traditional Western European music this stood to be one of the most amazing and awe-inspiring Hollywood scores ever on top of being James Horner's magnum opus but they just undermine the Duo's efforts over and over again I can't stress this enough everything about this film was artificially engineered to satisfy its audience's preconceived notions everything about this film is fake it's a veneer nothing about it is remotely genuine that's why Disney had absolutely no problem integrating it into the hyper reality of the theme parks this is not what non-western music sounds like this is what western audiences think non-western music sounds like it's like they didn't even bother to watch their own movie because the story behind this soundtrack is ironically familiar and I think this this is reflected the same thing is reflected in you know the aesthetic and the casting and the story overall For Better or For Worse Papyrus is widely used to represent indigenous themes as well as all things organic natural and new agey was the decision to use this font in Avatar at all inspired by its Association today with Native American culture Cameron's answer is rather glip claiming it was a decision by the art Department he didn't really look that hard at clearly Cameron is no Wes Anderson and there are a lot of like indigenous themes and truths that these that the navi are carrying and are presenting to the audience that are true for a lot of indigenous cultures around the world but the unfortunate thing is is that like the score it's how because like sideways mentions that like the score is how a western audience thinks that an alien soundtrack would sound like or like but within their world view the same goes for the design of the navi and the the teachings that they have right and all of it is just sounds like a very wishy-washy woo-woo wisdom right and it sucks because some of these things are very true for a lot of indigenous peoples but like for the indigenous people there's a lot more stuff to it there's a lot more layers to it when you know a typical like hippie or a liberal person will latch on to kind of those surface level teachings with their Western background but maybe not really fully understanding that and that's what this film does and the the so the navi are these forests and ocean people who are exotic and commune with nature and are one with their Earth who is personified as like a literal being like AWA is like a is like Mother Earth personified right and but it's like they're they're like so exoticized the design of the naive woman or females were intentionally designed to be very sexually appealing and James Cameron mentions like well of course because a human like Chick-fil-A had to be sexually attracted to her for the story to work yada yada yada so yeah that's that's the weird part too it's just like even even a fake indigenous female group couldn't help be sexualize and exoticize it had to happen apparently you know so so with that you know James Cameron claims to have a myriad of influences in his life some of them being from like you know his experiences as a child and then others from original ideas that he had growing up and because of a lawsuit claiming the legitimacy of his original idea he had to specifically quote a lot of his influences and those influences are Lawrence of Arabia the man who would be king the Emerald Forest Medicine Man the mission The Jungle Book FernGully and the works of Edgar Rice Burroughs rooted Kipling and H Ryder Haggard and already just from looking at that list it's like the white savior tropes are already there like he's not really helping his case here in my opinion they're like okay I can see why the film is the way it is your influences are definitely yeah that's it right there and so that leaves me to talk more about the indigenous input and influences in these films so then like why does why does that all that matter you know with James Cameron and how he made the film and all that well it lies in a mixture of where he's coming from which I just covered and the indigenous influence and inputs in these films now I'm not saying that there isn't any indigenous influence from indigenous people in these films at all I'm not saying that but unfortunately I'm just saying that is there isn't enough especially for what these films are about in both films there are a total of three predominantly indigenous actors um just three out of the two films you have West Duty who plays the chief in the first film and then Cliff Curtis who plays uh the chief of the water nugget in the second film and then one of his sons is played by a young Maori actor named Duane Evans and they both had their inputs in this film West Duty was initially asked by The linguists Who created the navi language to kind of consult on like how you would go about you know speaking and like inflections and stuff like that and I'd argue like when he speaks it like you can it sounds like he's speaking in like a natural language to him building the navi language I I was happy to have been included we had both a linguist and a voice coach to teach everyone the language and the meanings of the words that really make a difference in terms of your performance what word do you use the most where do you punch the dialogue they asked me to come in in terms of any ideas that I would have about the development of a sound is there a sound like whoosh for something that goes by or you know how does a language develop in terms of making up sounds that can be shared between people and they convey meaning and that was more or less how he was consulted I think they were looking for someone who was fluent in indigenous language who was an actor in this film to kind of help guide the other actors who obviously don't speak an indigenous language a non-western language and how he could help them speak that language right and of course Cliff Curtis man I give a lot of a lot of props to uh Cliff Curtis uh from the very beginning he I think he he went full force into letting the producers know and James cameras know that like this is my intent my intent is to I want this to be as respectful and and nuanced as it can be about my people because these Navi are obviously inspired by the Maori people the producer even goes on to talk about how far he went with it so at the core of our movies is a story of family and Cliff Curtis who we only used in performance capture uh asked me if he could come give a blessing on our first day of live action filming here in New Zealand with his family and he came not with three or four or five other people he came with a busloading of it half full of people who had traveled eight hours to come give a blessing to our set and they came and they did it in Maori they sang They blessed and they presented gifts to us and the emotion that was felt not just by me and Jim but by our entire crew but by seeing the celebration of what it means to be family by celebrating what it means to be of an indigenous culture and sharing that culture with others and embracing the uniqueness of that um and the gift Cliff gave me is still hanging in my office today and it was a carved oar to help steer the ship as we went into production so you know but the thing is the thing that is just wild to me if you really look at it again like I said these two films are in the top 10 top grossing films of all time multi-million dollar Productions they're making so much more after the fact with these two films that are about indigenous resistance that have all these themes about indigenous people and environmentalism primarily these two men West Duty and Cliff Curtis bore so much weight to having whatever they could offer to this film it's just wild to me it's just two men and I would say that their influence definitely helped a lot but and I I would argue that the second one is a little more has a has their ear to the ground just a little bit more it's it's pretty obvious that the producer definitely wanted to have more a Maori input uh in this film but it's just it's just wild to me like there are no indigenous writers or producers in either films which you know an indigenous producer and a writer would have the greatest influence on you know how how the navi and all the indigenous mannerisms and Indigenous teams would be created and portrayed on screen none it's literally just James Cameron a couple other writers and this one producer and that's it that's really it I don't know if they had cultural Consultants but as far as I can tell like it with the first one like West Studio was probably the closest they had the second one may have had a few Maori Consultants but I don't know I just don't know I have to find out more about it you know but for example I'd like to include a Haka uh in in one of the Avatar films and and before I do that I'll I'll go to uh the ewe in the Wellington area where we'd be shooting and ask for their permission and support to do that we I have already done that in the past we were going to include Oaxaca in in the first avatar but it wound up getting cut out for length we even did the performance capture on it but for me I guess that indigenous input or like the lack of it antithetical to the the whole thing compare that with again I'm being biased here but combine compare that to prey where you had a non-indigenous uh director who wanted to make a really interesting film about indigenous characters brought on indigenous Consultants you know strive to have an all indigenous cast and even change the script based on those consultations and input so you compare the two prey had like so much more indigenous input than Avatar had it's just wild to me you know like it's very obvious you know and like this the the projects that I'm working on you know I'm involved and I'm trying to involve other indigenous voices too so it's like you know you lose so much from not having that input so that leads me a bit a bit deeper into why indigenous input matters with these films in particular some people have a deep abiding respect for the natural beauty that was once this country the mission for these Avatar films is very blank and James Cameron isn't sugarcoating it he has said multiple times that these films are meant to be a lesson or like a warning of from this fictional future of like what is to come to pass if we don't respect our environment and Indigenous peoples who live in those environments like it's super obvious he's said it many times pretty much right at the Inception of Avatar it was going to be an environmentally themed film [Music] and I was thinking I was making a kind of a historical comment if you will on what had happened in in North America in recent history but you know 100 years ago 130 150 years ago right and I guess like why it matters so much that there's hardly any indigenous input is that like that's the whole thing the characters are meant to be indigenous people it's reflected by real life like the the navi in the second film or obviously been meant to be based off the Maori people but I find that all very fascinating and the Avatar films are a celebration of indigenous culture not just Mario obviously but but uh you know cultures in South and Central America Africa the uh Plains Indians you know the Native Americans First Nations people in Canada it's all kind of rolled in you try to find common themes that will resonate with uh indigenous societies everywhere that's kind of what what Avatar is and it's not I'm not saying that Chris Cliff Curtis isn't enough or that West Studio Isn't Enough by themselves but like they they they themselves weren't in a position to have a huge influence on the story or have a huge influence on what and how things were portrayed and that's the that's that's the unfortunate thing the whole process for making these films is completely antithetical to what these films are about you could argue that yeah I know it's just a it's just a fantasy you know it's a sci-fi fantasy film about blue people blue people fighting for their you know Lorax style stuff by putting it on another planet you kind of make it not anybody but everybody you know which is something that fantasy and science fiction can do kind of just like butt in right here basically like well I guess what I'm trying to say and I forgot to say before is like if the navi are meant to be a pan-indigenous representation you know like like he said and not not everybody but everybody at the same time I guess for me it's just like if you're gonna do that then at least have a variety of different voices or have a small group of writers or a producer or two from different indigenous backgrounds to have some input and you know and I understand that probably is kind of complicated to do it it would make the production process more complicated but I'm not gonna lie like if you have this much money and you have this General Vision of what you're looking for then why not take the risk to do that then it becomes a bit problematic I'll actually very problematic when you hardly involve the voices that you were trying to advocate for it doesn't make me angry per se it just kind of makes me sad [Music] like the missed opportunities are there you know like I I have a I just feel like there could have been a lot more deeper themes or had there there could have been a way more intimate feel with the messaging of this story had there been more indigenous voices involved in the writing process or producers involved right I I just you know I I think about like what if Martin Scorsese directed his Chandler's list and of course I think that film probably would have been very good to begin with right it probably would have been very effective but the fact that Steven Spielberg directed Schindler's List you can feel you can feel or how personal that film was to Steven Spielberg because it is about his people I've mentioned this before you can feel how intimate that story is based on Steven Spielberg's Direction and how he went about making that film and that's the thing this film James Cameron claims it is his most personal film yet but unfortunately it just doesn't have the intimate and personal input of the people he is trying to advocate for it's unfortunate too because like he has indigenous friends in Canada and even them I don't know if he can consult with them or not brought people on I don't know he had the opportunity like he's that's not enough for this indigenous filmmaker she says her late brother worked with Cameron on environmental causes and that a true Ally could have brought more indigenous filmmakers on board he has a number of different indigenous friends he had the opportunity to connect with indigenous people and get them involved in the making of and I'm a little disappointed in him for that yeah that that's just it's the it's a it's frustrating and sad that because of obviously we're seeing where he comes from the lack of indigenous input from this film mixes and creates and like what the film is the films are trying to be about it just becomes artificial the whole thing it becomes very artificial and uh becomes just another white hippie liberal fantasy about what they think indigenous and environmental uh Harmony looks like sort of boils down to so then we have like this this is another thing I wanted to talk about is the outrage versus the non-outrage you know this goes back to my disclaimer at the beginning of the video there's been a lot of uh brought up by a lot of indigenous people you know calling for a boycott of the film but like yeah good luck like that's that's just the realest in me I'm not doing pessimistic but it's just you know you can't stop this film from getting big because not everybody in the world is gonna understand basically everything that I just explained in my opinion it's it's not about boycotting it no I personally think I don't think that the the the quote unquote indigenous outrage against this film is like a bandwagon for some it is you know but like I think all of this the talk around this film by indigenous people and non-indigenous people it it's a byproduct of just the era we're living in now uh it's you know people online are having more conversations about everything you know the media literacy of the everyday person is increasing a bit especially among the youth and you know some people have stated like well where was the outrage with the first one well if you were paying attention there was quite a bit but it didn't get the amount of exposure that it has now a lot can happen in 13 years especially in this technological Revolution that we're experiencing right and so social media has definitely been able to amplify certain voices a lot easier now and a lot of places are pushing certain opinions out for clicks to get more money and obviously stuff like that and so you know all these clickbaity articles about you know people trying to boycott the Avatar films and Indigenous outrage blah blah blah that's just a byproduct of the arrow living in now and like you know discussing the media we consume is almost a norm now like even for older people and like you know people who hate mainstream media even they'll get online and talk and complain about it too like you know it's just a reality of where we are now and another thing to consider too is like the West in general Western Society is leaning a bit into a more postcolonial Society at least in a cultural sense right and I'd argue the post-modern movement definitely helped a lot of people critique more and more particularly minority groups in Western cultures it allowed them to be more vocal and more critical of a lot of things in their cultures in social media mixed in with that has Amplified those discussions in those conversations there are a lot of people that I know indigenous who love these films and I can totally see why and like like I said when I saw the first one I enjoyed it right and there are a lot of Maori people and other Polynesian groups who enjoy this second film and for them it's seeing themselves on screen presented in in a pretty much you know for them compared to other depictions by you know mainstream media better than nothing right you go back and watch my video of native receptions of native depictions video I talk a lot about how a lot of groups and I use obviously native people as an example of how we perceive ourselves in media we can either we can either oppose it or resist it we can negotiate it or we can embrace it and that's the thing I mentioned how for some people if it's a decent depiction of natives they'll take it and they'll eat it up and they'll love it and that guess what they can do that you can do that it's fine you know like you don't have to agree with me on all of this but I think it's important to have these conversations about you know the issues surrounding these Avatar films because one they're huge they have us because of the budget because of the budget with the marketing and it's just the Outreach is ginormous it's gonna go around the world and that matters because it these films have all these indigenous themes and all these indigenous topics and it's important in my opinion that these themes you know be held and guided by indigenous voices but unfortunately they just aren't very much it's being advocated for by a Westerner it's that simple so again I don't want to dissuade you if you like these films you can enjoy them you know the second one you can enjoy it you know it's it's just it's not all or nothing I'm not trying to boycott it or anything like that and again if you try to good luck it's gonna take a lot for something like that to happen it leads me into like I guess the Silver Linings of all this if anything these films work to inspire all everyone around the world to question the status quo of you know Colonial occupation and all the bad things that it does to the environment and to to indigenous peoples around the world I mean like I I think of like you know people in Asia and East Asia southern Asia I'm curious what these messages will bring to them to talk about you know a lot of good stuff the messages are good I'm not complaining about the messages and obviously how we can move on to to better our society with our Earth by looking at our ancestors you know looking for the good and the bad of all of it all and if anything these films because they may or not Inspire indigenous people could Inspire indigenous creators to kind of go off and do their own thing to create something that very similar to what Avatar has been is trying to do right and I you know I might be grasping on straws here but like and yeah I mean I'm not trying to be entirely pessimistic about the whole thing and the last thing too is like I just hope that for the third and the fourth film because I know for a fact that they've already shot scenes for the third one but I hope that Mr James Cameron will kind of open up a bit more of letting letting go of some control having more indigenous voices be a part of these stories because again like it just is frustrating you know uh I like to say that these films are like a whole 30 years late um these films would have been great in the 90s with Dances with Wolves and the Last of the Mohicans and Thunderheart Pocahontas like but because we're living in a leaning more towards post modern society in a post-colonial society where people are just kind of critiquing pretty much everything almost to a detriment right but it's still valid to critique it just blows my mind that there isn't way more indigenous input with these films it just blows me away I'm just like wow and these films are meant to be a way to advocate for indigenous people and our environment and unfortunately I feel like they don't because of the processes they just it kind of nulls itself and becomes a cool story to watch that's that's my spiel so that's it everybody like I it was a lot to talk about this is probably gonna be a longer video than I intended but I had a lot to say you know I initially was not even gonna think about right um making a video addressing these topics but the more I thought about it the more I realized you know what like I need I need to talk about it like it's it's important to me and especially what this channel is about and me as a creative like how I want to go about making my own things right and so I don't want to be completely pessimistic about the whole thing but if anything this kind of helps Propel the conversation more about is this my story to tell right if you have a really good story but you don't come from even it's about a certain group of people and you don't come from that group consider you know is this my story to tell and if you feel like it's your story to tell or if you feel like you're the best one equipped to do so get the people from the freaking group that you're making a movie about or a book or a video game or whatever get those people involved get their perspectives because they have a lot to say that you may not even know about I always think of that scene and Good Will Hunting you're an orphan right do you think I know the first thing about how hard your life has been how you feel Who You Are because I read all of the twists does that encapsulate you personally I don't give a [ __ ] about all that because you know what I can't learn anything from you I can't read in some [ __ ] book James Cameron doesn't know what it's like to be an indigenous person in 21st century or even how it was for him when he was a youth in the 60s and 70s he doesn't know in the end guys uh I have a couple other uh videos set lined up for y'all that I'm still working on I just needed to get this out there and uh I hope it kind of can spark more conversations I don't want this to be purely about me complaining you know I don't want it to be about you know you know James Cameron is a racist blah blah blah like I believe people can change and can can try to drive good things forward so that's what I'm trying to do right so I'll update you all more on other stuff but for now I have to go and I'll see you guys in the next video

Channel: Native Media Theory

Views: 26,322

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Id: lMwKQmrNsKg

Length: 47min 39sec (2859 seconds)

Published: Mon Jan 23 2023