In 2009, 20 years after the discharge of his global sensation “Titanic,” James Cameron captured the world’s attention again with “Avatar.” With its advances in motion-capture technology and pioneering use of 3D, the film earned $2.92 billion on the box office and received multiple Oscar nominations and awards.
In 2022, Cameron released the sequel “Avatar: The Way of Water,” which has to date remodeled $2 billion globally on the box office and this week nabbed several Oscar nominations, including best picture, production design and sound. However the film shouldn’t be without some controversy.
The backlash to the film centers on the best way it portrays colonizers clashing with Native cultures. How exactly that plotline is handled by Cameron, and who exactly tells those stories, has been the topic of great critique on social media and elsewhere. Some Natives ask the query, “Why is a white man telling our story?” But are non-Natives even aware this movie has any similarities to Indigenous cultures in any respect?
The First ‘Avatar’
The primary “Avatar” movie begins in 2154, when Earth is dying and humans must find their resources elsewhere. Scientists discover a moon called Pandora that’s wealthy in unobtainium, a superconductive energy source. The Resources Development Administration (R.D.A.), a large mining operative and military force, goes to Pandora to mine and convey unobtanium back to Earth for profit.
Are non-Natives even aware this movie has any similarities to Indigenous cultures in any respect?
The moon can also be home to a species called the Na’vi. They’re 10 feet tall, blue and are deeply connected to their land. Eywa is the Great Mother of their ecosystem. The Na’vi imagine in living in sync with Eywa by physically bonding themselves with their nerves to all life on Pandora. Thus, the R.D.A.’s mining activities are destructive each to the land and spirituality of the Na’vi.
Enter Jake Sully. An ex-Marine, he joins the R.D.A.’s Avatar program: a scientific achievement that enables for the consciousness of a human to be placed in a Na’vi body. Jake and others are enlisted to infiltrate Na’vi society to assist locate large amounts of untapped unobtainium.
Though he starts out because the enemy of the Na’vi, Sully learns about Eywa through the Na’vi woman Neytiri (also a future love interest). He switches sides within the fight, and eventually helps the Na’vi win of their war against the humans. The R.D.A. goes back to Earth, and Jake becomes a totally assimilated Na’vi.
Return to Pandora
In “The Way of Water,” the R.D.A. returns to Pandora greater than a decade after the events of the primary film. Its aim is to restart their mining operations and colonize the moon with latest cities as an escape from the still-dying Earth. Jake, back at war with the R.D.A., decides it is not any longer secure for his partner Neytiri and their 4 kids to remain of their current home. He and his family flee to a distinct region on Pandora to cover out with the Metkayina clan, Na’vi who live along the reefs.
As a Lakota woman, I discovered the connection between the past of my ancestors and what was being played in front of me devastating.
This was the second film I saw in a theater for the reason that lockdown of 2020. I used to be excited to once more enjoy a superb flick with a big bucket of popcorn. Because the movie played, I munched happily until one scene hit me like a punch within the gut. As a Lakota woman, I discovered the connection between the past of my ancestors and what was being played in front of me devastating.
As with the primary movie, the R.D.A. are destroying the Pandoran ecosystem in quest of one other blood-diamond-esque natural resource. On this case, it’s a golden liquid called amrita that stops human aging. The one solution to collect amrita is from the innards of tulkuns—aliens analogous to whales—that are sacred to the Metkayina. This was shown in a wrenching scene with the violent harpooning and harvesting of the tulkun, followed by the R.D.A. hunters wasting the remainder of its body and leaving its calf to die an orphan.
The primary “Avatar” movie shared some similarities with my people’s history, but I used to be not expecting this.
Our Lakota history
Growing up on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota, we were educated about our history and the way we were forced off of our territory and onto a portion of land 1 / 4 of the dimensions we used to inhabit. We went from a territory that covered parts of current-day North Dakota, South Dakota, Montana, Wyoming and Nebraska to living on a bit of land roughly the dimensions of Connecticut.
Lakota were forced to develop into depending on the very government that placed us on the reservation.
The Lakota people based their lives on the buffalo, moving their camps in accordance with the migration of the herds. When a hunt took place, it arose out of necessity, not for profit or sport. Every bit of the sacred animal was used for food, clothes, tools, medicine and other necessities.
When the Lakota were sure to the reservation, our lifestyle was taken away from us. We were forced to develop into depending on the very folks that placed us there. As an alternative of counting on the natural resources of the land, we now relied on resources provided by the US government. We weren’t allowed to go away the reservation to hunt buffalo, but were only given ingredients foreign to us resembling lard, flour and sugar. We went from buffalo meat to fry bread.
When colonizers began moving into Lakota lands, they killed the buffalo, harvested only their fur and left entire carcasses to rot on the plains. It was not nearly turning a profit. It was a solution to exterminate the Lakota people entirely. “Kill every buffalo you’ll be able to,” declared a U.S. army colonel. “Every buffalo dead is an Indian gone.” With these continuous and heartless acts, my people were dying.
History repeating itself
Watching “The Way of Water,” I felt like I used to be seeing the history of the Lakota repeat itself. I used to be mourning a spot in time that can’t be modified, and a lifestyle that was stolen in a blink of an eye fixed. There was nothing I could do but sit at nighttime theater and cry.
“Kill every buffalo you’ll be able to,” declared a U.S. army colonel. “Every buffalo dead is an Indian gone.”
During a battle scene within the movie, Neytiri’s sons participated and fought alongside their father and helped defend against the intruders. They used not only their very own weapons of bows and arrows, but guns confiscated from the R.D.A. It was one other striking similarity to my ancestors.
The colonizers who inched their way across the western United States had a large advantage over Native Americans. Warriors who used bows, arrows, clubs and axes, were being met with guns, canons and other forms of artillery. Until Natives themselves began to confiscate guns and ammunition from their enemies, every battle was a one-sided battle. Anytime a mother would send her son to satisfy his role as a warrior, there was a superb likelihood he wouldn’t be coming home.
Knowing the Na’vi were at a grave drawback through the battle scenes, I sank into my seat. Anxiety and grief flooded through me. As a latest mother, this scenario had develop into all of the more real as I contemplated the chance that Neytiri’s sons, a present to Pandora and from Eywa, would never arrive home safely, would never be reunited with their families.
James Cameron said in 2010 while making the primary Avatar film, that he felt he was looking back 130 years on the Lakota people being displaced and killed.
Calls for boycott
These similarities between “The Way of Water” and my very own Lakota history have stirred up criticism of the film; one Diné woman, Asdzáá Tłʼéé honaaʼéí, issued on Twitter a call for a boycott of the film.
Brett Chapman, a Native American civil rights attorney, called the primary film “a white savior story at its core.” Crystal Echo Hawk from IllumiNative, a Native American social justice organization, stated, “It’s a level of arrogance once more that a white filmmaker can just by some means tell a story that is predicated on Indigenous peoples higher than Indigenous peoples ever could.”
It’s unlucky that “The Way of Water” uses a Native American storyline with little Indigenous representation within the forged or on the writing team. To the film’s credit, Maori actors were forged to portray the Metkayina people, including Cliff Curtis as Tonowari, the leader of the clan. However the filmmakers could have also forged Polynesians, Natives with a seafaring history and culture, within the roles of the Metkayina.
James Cameron said in 2010 while making the primary Avatar film, that he felt he was looking back 130 years on the Lakota people being displaced and killed. Yet he forged no Lakota people within the film.
I’d like to see Lakota actors forged in roles that don’t have anything to do with the proven fact that they’re Native.
Still, I don’t think the discrepancy between James Cameron’s film and our desires for Native representation needs to steer to a cultural showdown. As an alternative, it could actually be a place to begin for dialogue and education. It could possibly proceed a conversation that has been ongoing within the creative world. If we’re going to portray Native people and our stories, why not use them because the actor, directors and writers? Who can tell the story higher than Indigenous people themselves?
Currently, shows resembling “Yellowstone” and “Reservation Dogs,” are using Native actors to truly play the roles of Natives. The film “Prey”—an alien sci-fi story that was also released last 12 months—featured Native actors playing Native characters. This can be a place to begin, but more must be done.
I’d like to see Lakota actors forged in roles that don’t have anything to do with the proven fact that they’re Native. The standard places we show up onscreen are in shows that center on ecological protection, tribal politics, cultural oppression or reservation life. I need to see Native actors portraying lawyers, detectives, surgeons in ways in which don’t center on the proven fact that they’re Native. Allow us to see a brooding defense attorney or a wry sitcom mother who just happens to be played by a Native actor.
We also need Native Americans telling their very own histories. In 2003, ABC aired the mini- series “DreamKeeper,” a set of Native stories that was played by a completely Native forged. Pride swept over me watching the show as I saw someone with my skin tone and history on television. It gave me hope. Hope that perhaps someday someone from my reservation, my community and even I, might be on the massive screen. This might be the spark to the fireplace that brings more Native Americans into the highlight; a latest generation of Native actors to honor those (Graham Greene, Michael Grey Eyes, Tantoo Cardinal, Irene Bedard and others) who’ve paved a path for us.
We were the primary nations to inhabit this land. It’s our responsibility to coach those that got here later in regards to the beginnings of this country and the individuals who built it. We’d like to attach with those that, due to their very own education system or upbringing, don’t understand Native American cultures. Platforms like film and tv generally is a tool to assist show people of this country that Native Americans have their very own stories.
When Native Nations are represented as greater than only a desolate and oppressed people—not only within the entertainment world, but in society as a complete—we’re showing our ancestors that their stories and legacy aren’t forgotten.
