Avatar

I haven't seen the movie, and have absolutely no intention of ever seeing it, at least not willingly. I am a Titanic fan and always will be.

But I was reading about issues people had with Avatar.

Some of the issues had to do with religion, race, and politics.

Christians claim the movie is anti-Christian (shocker!), conservatives claim the movie is anti-American, and some claim that this movie is playing out the "white savior" theme.

Even though I haven't seen the movie, I can't help but wonder if people are looking a little too into this movie.

When it comes to the racial issue, some of the criticisms is that whites played humans, and blacks and Native Americans played the Navi. The underlying theme is supposed to be the "other" world from the point of view of someone in the majority. Critics say this leads to the whole notion of the white savior (you know movies like Freedom Writers and Dangerous Minds), where a race can only be saved by a white person. That they need the white person.

But if you think about it realistically, whites control America and always have. In all the trials minority races have suffered through, it was partly due to some whites standing up for them, did they finally get heard. In otherwords, the majority never listens to the minority until someone in the majority turns around and says "enough" to those in power.

As for the political issues, Cameron is a liberal...of course Republicans are going to find issue with the movie...maybe the problem with the Republicans is that their brand of patriotism eliminates realistic criticism and looking at the country from a real stand point and not a "I am so goddamn patriotic that i won't fix america's problems cause that is too unamerican to get off my lazy ass and fix the problems!".

Cameron claims the film is supposed to be about respecting each other's differences, but says that things such as the "noble savage", is part of the reason the film is so successful (yes Americans do seem to have a love for movies where whites are the heroes who "save" an entire race).

I have seen enough of these types of movies not to really care to see it, as I know how it goes (that and the fact that I refuse to betray Titanic).

As for the Christian critics...I can't put much weight into what they have to say these days as they seem to get upset about anything that doesn't praise Christianity as number 1. The same with the political issues in the movie that are being criticized.

Ithink that the critics have looked a little too much into this movie more than the average viewer would.

I also think the movie is lame and cheesy enough that it shouldn't even have made it past the millions.

But, there is a possibility the movie is racist in the end though because I am reminded of something, whites tend to flock to racist movies and set those movies as the standard examples being Birth of a Nation and Gone with the Wind. So with the success of Avatar, this could mean that it is racist, since lots of whites came out to watch it and tend to only do this kind of thing when the movie has racist themes. Who knows...I certainly wouldn't put it past whites thats for sure.