CRITICISM OF THE FIRST AVATAR MOVIE IF YOU DON'T WANNA SEE SCROLL PAST
!! I have not seen any of the other movies so don't get on my ass about lore introduced in them. I am not saying that you can't enjoy the Avatar franchise, but I am saying that it isn't perfect. If you think I'm wrong, block me; I don't want to argue with you. I am also white so I am not the authoritative voice on this matter !!
Every time I think about the blue people Avatar movie I'm just slapped in the face by how Bad the writing is. The world is gorgeous, but if I think about the plot (and also some of said gorgeous world) for more than a second then I get overwhelmed by how racist (and also kinda ableist but I'm not going to expand on that) it is. It's such a white saviour movie that it's almost impossible to enjoy now—every time I see Jake onscreen all I can think is What Is That White Man Doing. Also, Grace and Co should have been more pissed off at Jake after the reveal that he was working for whatever the company was. Sure, she had suspicions, which is why they moved out to the middle of nowhere, but I do think that she should have at least punched him.
It's also so, so weird about the entire avatar body thing. All I can think of is how it's such an easy way for people to insert themselves into the world of the Na'vi while not suffering the drawbacks of entering that space as an Other—as a human, in this case. Through the avatar body, you look like them and move like them, and sure, you aren't exactly identical, but it's enough to let you get a foot in the door to their Super Cool Totally Alien Culture. You can, essentially, become one of the Na'vi in a way that you can't in real life with others' cultures. You can engage with their spiritual rituals easier than you could as a human, you can link/bond with the animals of the world, and you can even take up their important cultural roles (see Jake with Toruk Makto and becoming chief). AKA white people (the majority of the Avatar fans that I have seen) get to play at being Na'vi (of whom are a thinly-veiled stand-in for Native Americans). White people get to live out the fantasy of being accepted into a ~totally not native~ culture without the loaded history that comes with it.
