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With success comes criticism, and Avatar has been no exception. One of the more popular articles critical of this movie is by New York Times journalist David Brooks and can be found here: (Link)

I think some of what he said needs to be addressed, so here it goes.

David Brooks claims,

“It rests on the stereotype that white people are rationalist and technocratic while colonial victims are spiritual and athletic.”

Not all of the people who were invading were white, nor were all the humans who decided to help the Na’vi. I think Brooks is confusing a culture with a race.

Since strong female characters have been a recurring theme in James Cameron’s films (Ellen Ripley, Sarah Connor, etc) it would have been great to see that continued in Avatar, or expanded upon by having a strong Latino or Black woman be the main character, but I don’t think it’s rational to call the movie racist just because Sam Worthington (a white man) was chosen for the role. Worthington was living in his car before auditioning for Avatar, so it’s nice that Hollywood’s money isn’t going to only rich people all the time.

I personally would have liked Avatar better if the hero of the story was one of the natives (that’s why I loved “Apocalypto”) but Cameron wanted to make a movie about self maturation and acceptance, so he had to use a human as the main character; because, if he had used a native then he/she would have already had the correct set of beliefs (environmentalist, non-corporatist) and there wouldn’t have been a process of maturation.

Cameron’s choice to use a human as the main character also helps the majority of the audience members relate to the story better, so they can understand the error in Jake’s original way of thinking, and can then arrive at the correct set of beliefs themselves. This may be less creative than using a native as the main character, but it helps to make the movie much more popular since more people can relate to it.

Also, by the end of Avatar it’s pretty clear that the mother/daughter pair are the Na’vi leaders and that the Humans who switched sides aren’t “saviors” but were just correcting the situations they had actually set into motion. Jake had obviously become very influential, but it is usually the case with popular action movies that things turn out well for the protagonist so the audience can feel triumphant through the lead character.

David Brooks goes on to say,

“It rests on the assumption that nonwhites need the White Messiah to lead their crusades.”

The movie doesn’t display the natives as being helpless. They benefit from Jake joining them because he knows more about their enemy than they do (because he was one). Any side of a conflict could benefit from knowing more about their enemy, no matter what their culture or race happens to be.

Brooks claims,

“It rests on the assumption that illiteracy is the path to grace.”

Of all the beautiful qualities that various tribal cultures have, Brooks decided to cherry-pick this particular aspect, totally ignoring the fact that tribal cultures often have very advanced sign-language and oral forms of communication (or in this case, a freaking global neural network) that more than make up for their illiteracy. Brooks is being completely ethnocentric here.

He continues,

“It also creates a sort of two-edged cultural imperialism. Natives can either have their history shaped by cruel imperialists or benevolent ones, but either way, they are going to be supporting actors in our journey to self-admiration.”

He’s using the word “imperialists” interchangeably with the word “whites”, implying that “white” people are one homogeneous culture throughout the world that are inherently imperialistic. He’s conveniently ignoring that there have been non-imperialistic European cultures.

Yes, the last several hundred years of imperialist crimes have been committed almost entirely by nations ruled by white people. This has nothing to do with anything inherent in “white” behavior, and everything to do with the historical events leading up to European colonial expansion; most notably the death of Ogedei Khan, preventing the conquest of Europe. If you don’t have time to read about that in an encyclopedia, then there’s a comedic summary in the middle of this article: (Link)

So, if Avatar isn’t about white “self-admiration” as Mr. Brooks claims it is, then what is it about?

Here’s just a few of the themes:
It was against corporate greed, it was against destroying the environment, it was against imperialism, it was against violating people’s rights, it was against ethnocentrism. It actually portrayed tribal cultures as being positive instead of pretending that they’re all barbaric cavemen.

With all these themes that go against the status quo, of course there are going to be people who dislike this movie, especially self-proclaimed pro-war Republicans such as David Brooks.