AVATAR: The high-tech “blueface” minstrel show
Kudos to James Cameron: through his mastery of technical filmmaking, he’s achieved a kind of movie magic, but not perhaps the kind of magic he intended. With CGI sleight-of-hand, he’s managed to bedazzle a vast number of worldwide moviegoers (and more than a few critics) with pyrotechnics so flashy that they effectively conceal the ideologically and imaginatively threadbare story at the film’s core.
Take away the eye-popping and immersive 3-D environment, and AVATAR is basically the story of a white man who dons “blueface” in order to save a race of noble savages whose primitive ways teach him what’s truly Important in Life. If this seems too reductive a view of AVATAR’s story, try this experiment: Imagine how the AVATAR story plays out if you replace all the CG wizardry with real people in real locations.
If the Na’vi were portrayed on screen by black/brown actors instead of depicted as 10-foot blue cats – in other words, if the onscreen casting reflected the voice casting – the story of AVATAR would be recognized for what it is: an unabashedly juvenile, pro-colonialist, messianic, white man’s fantasy of saving – and even bedding – a tribe of exotic Others. It’s the Pocahontas myth on steroids.
But because the black/Native American actors have been disguised as tall, blue aliens, we’re suddenly expected to shrug off any misgivings about the exotification and fetishism on display. As impressive as the effects are, AVATAR’s underlying story/message further bolsters the case that this planet’s popular culture has been and will forever be dominated by the expression of white male sensibilities. As we enter 2010, it is lamentable that technology can still so thoroughly trump storytelling that most people will either give a pass to Cameron’s worldview or won’t even be able to recognize how utterly limited - and limiting - it truly is.
