Listen to this article
Estimated 6 minutes
The audio version of this article is generated by AI-based technology. Mispronunciations can occur. We are working with our partners to continually review and improve the results.
Avatar: Fire and Ash, the third installment in James Cameron’s sci-fi action blockbuster franchise, is finally here.
Avatar and its sequel, The Way of Water, both made billions of dollars and earned their rightful place in box office history. Since the history-making first Avatar film, however, the franchise has received criticism from Indigenous critics for the ways it fails to represent the lived experience of Indigenous people with specificity and authenticity.
Today on Commotion, film critics Jesse Wente, Sarah-Tai Black and Jackson Weaver join host Elamin Abdelmahmoud to discuss what Avatar: Fire and Ash adds to the franchise, and whether it makes any strides toward positive Indigenous representation.
We’ve included some highlights below, edited for length and clarity. For the full discussion, including a conversation about Disney’s new agreement with OpenAI, listen and follow Commotion with Elamin Abdelmahmoud on your favourite podcast player.
Elamin: Sarah-Tai, you are coming off a binge watch of all three [Avatar films]…. How’d you feel about Avatar: Fire and Ash?
Sarah-Tai: What can one say? So much blue, everything’s so smooth. One thing I was really thinking about, as someone who is completely new to the series, is … the violence and the language of the film — not that there’s a lot, but there’s enough to signify that these films are directed for adults, for teenagers, for mature tweens. But if that is that, why is it that its story world, its characters, the relations to one another are all so lacking in depth and impact? And if this is, as James Cameron has said himself, a “retelling” of, or reimagining of the early colonization of the Americas, why are the films so naive, so coddled, so bland, so sapless in even that minor “retelling” of part of history which, even on paper, is so incredibly urgent and so incredibly affecting?…
I was thinking a lot about Killers of the Flower Moon while I was watching Fire and Ash, and how, in my opinion as a Martin Scorsese lover, he should not have directed that film. I think there’s a lot of colonial violence being reenacted by that film. But there’s also a few moments in that film here and there where Indigenous being and Indigenous spirit kind of breaks through…. There’s none of that in the Avatar movies. Cameron doesn’t even care to give us those moments of lived life. And I don’t know why we would expect that considering he made this, like, ragtag buffet of Indigeneity, where it’s like we’ve got Igbo, we’ve got Māori, we’ve got Cree — everyone’s there, and it doesn’t matter who they are. There’s no care for specificity….
It makes me wonder what that means for us in terms of that history, of showing or telling that history on screen, for those of us still in the wake of that history watching it. I just felt there was no heart. There was no spirit. There was no soul to this film. I felt nothing. I didn’t even feel anger. I didn’t even feel, like, contrived sadness — and I am … an easy cry. I love the cinematic emotional manipulation. And since I got out of the screening of Fire and Ash last night, I’ve just been thinking about, like, what is the political function of all of that?…
Elamin: Basically what James Cameron is doing is a lot of invocation, a lot of folding in of history that doesn’t necessarily belong to him…. We’ve heard a lot of Indigenous critics say that this franchise has fallen short not just in that reimagination of this period, but also it’s also fallen short when it comes to potential collaboration with Indigenous filmmakers, with Indigenous creatives, in terms of trying to tell that story. Where do you stand on that criticism, Jesse?…
Jesse: I mean, I don’t think that’s the intent…. I think I’m glad that the films are now framed this way, that it’s inescapable, that even Cameron has to admit it [is about colonialism]. But if his intent is to have some sort of reckoning with colonial history, I mean, these films are an utter failure. And I don’t actually think that is the intent. To bring about language I used in my original review 16 years ago, these films are colonial fantasy. These are movies where non-Indigenous people embody Indigenous people, and become the heroes of the story. This film is not about Indigenous people. All of the central characters, save for the women — which is an interesting thing that one might really want to think about, in terms of how Indigenous women are so often the targets of colonial violence, and yet they’re the only Indigenous folks really at the heart of this story…. The hero men in the story are not Indigenous. They’re all non-Indigenous people in costumes. That is a fantasy. And not only are they in costumes, they’re our leaders….
We’re just celebrating the 10-year anniversary of the release of the final report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. This is … the single largest effort in truth-telling in the history of this place. Very little action has been taken to address any of the concerns that that report raised. And this film does an incredible disservice to the actual history because of its lack, as Sarah-Tai pointed out, of specificity. You want to tell this story? Be specific. You want to reconcile this? … We need to be really specific, if you actually want to confront this history properly. Bluewashing it, like these films do, so that it’s all comfortable because it’s aliens and the colonizers are positioned ultimately as the heroes, and the only chance for salvation for the Na’vi … is just so old-fashioned.
You can listen to the full discussion from today’s show on CBC Listen or on our podcast, Commotion with Elamin Abdelmahmoud, available wherever you get your podcasts.
Panel produced by Ty Callender.
