Monday, December 21, 2009


An Avatar is a form used by a deity to reveal itself to the people. The White people in the movie were called "Sky People" and the bodies that they used to reveal themselves to the indigenous folks of "Pandora" were called "Avatars."

AVATAR the movie is little more than the "White man as Chosen One" motif. This model is ever as popular as it's always been but has taken to involving the white man "Chosen One" taking the form of the oppressed in order to play savior. District 9had a similar twist. The "Chosen One" is a white man who is inflicted with a disease, he is becoming the "alien!" Even the Blockbuster Surrogates plays with the idea of the white-man becoming the other with male users of female surrogates and white uses of Black surrogates abound.

Waking up OTHER has long been an obsession of whites and in both movies the fulfillment of this obsession is realized. But fantasy and nightmare are combined because while I fantasize that the physical prowess, the colorful culture, the secrets, the innovation, the magic/technology of the oppressed can be mine my nightmare is the price of living the rest of my life in the OTHER-LAND/Hell that me and mine have created for them. Doesn't this smack of the schizophrenia of white racism?