So, I thought this was a pretty good editorial, written by a white person, about how the new film Avatar seems to be about white guilt manifest, yet again. Kind of like a sci-fi <i>Dances With Wolves.  I enjoyed DWW as a child, but later came to recognize the fallacy in the narrative. This was thanks to George Orwell, who pointed out in an essay that the problem with my then-beloved Charles Dickens was that his solution to everything was benevolent rich people. Well, it seems that in the case of films like DWW, the solution to the poor natives’ problems is benevolent white people/master race.

The article notes that these films are about a white fantasy of not only no longer being oppressive but actually being the ones to solve the problems of people of color. Kind of like a massive Jesus/savior complex. The problem with this, of course, is that it violates the premise of autonomy — that communities should have self-determination. Ironically, autonomy is the thing that oppression destroys. So, the natives lose their autonomy just to have some white guy try to restore it for them? It doesn’t work like that, people.

Having said all of this, I haven’t actually seen the movie yet. But I’ll have to go on a day when I don’t want to relax because I suspect it’s going to involve 3 hours of being pissed off.

When Will White People Stop Making Movies Like “Avatar”? – Avatar – io9.