Avatar sequel’s Na’vi portrayal criticized as cultural appropriation

Avatar: The Way of Water, the long-awaited sequel to the highest-grossing movie of all time, has Indigenous people calling for its boycott.

Michelle Robinson is the host of the Native Calgarian podcast and is one of many calling the movie out for its imagery, saying they are racist, and is a form of cultural appropriation.

“Just as you can have blackface, in the Indigenous community, we’re saying this is a form of red face where you have a depiction of Indigenous people without actually using our voices.”

Brett Chapman, a Native American rights attorney and citizen of the Pawnee Nation says the imagery of indigenous people is being appropriated.

“At the end of the day, they’re appropriating what appeals to the white gaze historically about indigenous people they’re appropriating that, and they’re putting that in outer space to make a movie and sell movie tickets,” Chapman said.

Read More: ‘Avatar 2’ makes waves with $134 million domestic debut

Parts of the movie were shot in 2018, long before the death of George Floyd, which sparked a racial reckoning, but Robinson says that’s no excuse.

“Our elders talked about this in the TRC under media representation and sports representations,” Robinson said. “What it is is it’s ignoring the indigenous voices purposely.”

Concerning comments made by the film’s director James Cameron in 2010 have surfaced.

“This was a driving force for me in the writing of Avatar – I couldn’t help but think that if they [the Lakota Sioux] had had a time-window and they could see the future… and they could see their kids committing suicide at the highest suicide rates in the nation… because they were hopeless and they were a dead-end society — which is what is happening now — they would have fought a lot harder,” Cameron commented.

“The comments made by James Cameron 12 years ago didn’t really raise any eyebrows. Well, a lot of stuff has happened in the intervening 12 years, and I think it’s a really positive thing, that people are starting to see the wrong in what he’s said,” Chapman said.

Meanwhile, Robinson says, “I’ve never seen an Avatar movie, and I never will – and I won’t see it because I live it. I live it every single day.”

According to estimates from the studio, the sequel earned around $134 million from North American theatres and another $300.5 million internationally for a total of $434.5 million on its global debut on Dec. 18.

The third and fourth sequels are planned, with Avatar three coming out in December 2024.

-With files from The Associated Press.