Avatards and Race Relations: Exposing a myth

One of the great myths spread by Avatards is that Avatar was successful because it had an "anti-racist" message, and was beloved by all minorities (especially black people) and that if you dislike the film, you must automatically be some sort of white supremacist racist inbred pot-bellied redneck sharecropper KKK member from the deep south who "doesn't want to see the truth" that Avatar provides. The only minorities who dislike the film are "Uncle Toms" (a submissive, weak-willed black person who loves white people and bows down to them), supposedly.

 Except, no. That isn't true at all.

A quick search on Google images for Avatar fans shows almost exclusively white people in costume, at conventions, or attending re-releases of the film. With one exception on page 3, it is like this for more than 20 pages (which is where I stopped looking) of ALL the results you see on Google images. Furthermore, a quick search on Google for White people + Avatar immediately brings up completely negative articles regarding the film and calling it "racist", "a feel good movie for white people", "patronizing", etc. Don't take my word for it though:

 Also interestingly, that first article, "When will white people stop making movies like Avatar", isn't just one that only came up because it matched the search terms; it is actually a very widespread article which many people believe and agree with. Look at how mnay times it has been copied to other sites on the internet; clearly, it isn't just an obscure/ignored rant made up by some lone crazy person:

 However, those results don't prove anything so much as that lots of people see a racist-condescending subtext in the film. There are people out there who will read racism into anything. Broad results like this don't prove that black people love or hate the film.

 But individual bloggers do.

The person who runs Truth First, a black power blog so outspoken some have called it satire, absolutely hates the film, and considers Neytiri "a white man's perversion" of African beauty.

 Now read some of the other posts on the blog.

 Does the person who runs "Truth First" sound like an "Uncle Tom" to you?

 Next we find the forums for Assata Shakur, black panther and mother of Tupac. This place has been described by some people as the "black version of Stormfront".

 While some members liked the film, the majority of them considered it condescending and a phony "peace offering", objecting to the character of Jake Sully and saying the film would have been better off featuring the Na' Vi as the heroes. One person even laughed at the reports of suicidal fanboys.

 Do those people, who consider white people a failed mutant race who suffer from undiagnosed insanity that makes them want to conquer other races, sound like submissive Uncle Toms to you?

 I'd be very interested in seeing an Avatard try to tell these people, in person, that they are Uncle Toms because they didn't love Avatar.

 Now we come to one of the only black guys I can find online who likes Avatar, Mr. Bunche, of the Vault of Buncheness blog.

 Vault of Buncheness exclusively reviews B-movies, sci-fi movies, porn and exploitation films, so it is inevitable that Avatar would be reviewed and, compared to a lot of the crap covered there, would come out looking good. Bunche did not LOVE the film, but he enjoyed it a lot and said he would see it again.

 I think it is telling that, for a film that "all black people everywhere" love, one would have to seek out an obscure sci-fi film blogger to find a black person who actually likes the film. Keep in mind too, that Bunche did not praise the film because of it's message, he thought the film was as cliche as the haters did; he just enjoyed it because he felt it was a technically apt, entertaining film and that there was no way the story could really be fresh, so he enjoyed it for what it is. Bunche also is known for enjoying the films of John Waters, as well as comedies like Soul Plane (which is widely loathed among the broader African American community as a "modern-day minstrel show").

 Clearly, he is a very hard man to offend, thus it makes sense that he wouldn't find Avatar problematic. I am not saying I am questioning his credibility because of the films he watches, in fact, I find it admirable that he likes "trashy" movies so openly, but clearly this is a guy who couldn't care less about the film's "message".

 So ultimately, we see from just these simple results that NO, Avatar is not universally beloved by the African-American community. At best, it was mildly enjoyed by ONE blogger who doesn't even view films in terms of race, at the most moderate, it was considered a well-meaning bone toss that was still extremely problematic and that would have been better if the main character was not present at all, at worst, it is considered a perversion of African culture and lambasted for it's racist, condescending use of the "mighty whitey" trope.

 And as for racists disliking the film...

 I've long used the term "chimpout' both online and in real life to describe people who fly off the handle because of stupid shit, but I've used it increasingly less because of a racist website called Chimpout.com, which is a site devoted to comparing black people to monkeys. Chimpout.com is interesting, in that it occasionally makes good points about double standards in media and is extremely tolerant of most non-white races, but it's still a despicable hate site. So, because of my personal dislike for the site, I decided to use it as my test to see just how much "racists" really "feel threatened" by Avatar.

In brief, they weren't.

 Most of them in fact, praised the film for not having any black people play human characters, several made defenses for the film saying it was harmless entertainment, one of them even liked the character of Neytiri and said they could ignore the fact that she was voiced by a black actress, one poster even approved of Zoe Saldana's casting by saying "who better to play a non-human than a non-human?" (which is as close to a compliment as they can give). Even the most vehemently negative of the posters still praised the film as a "technological triumph" and found good things to say about the film. Some even praised the Na'Vi as being better than actual black people.

 While I can't say that they all liked the film, for a forum whose entire purpose is to demonize black people, the posters on CO all seemed fairly ambivalent about the film. Clearly, they were not "threatened" or offended by it's message, several even defended it. Even the most negative feelings towards the film were calmly delivered and not filled with rage. All in all, that being the biggest thread on CO about Avatar, it was clear that not too many people cared.

 Objectively then, I would say that, when a website second only to Stormfront in infamy that has been called "the most racist website in North America" is ambivalent at worst towards a film, sometimes supportive (if in a condescending way), then that film is probably not "making racists everywhere feel threatened".

So who are the racists and bigots who discuss Avatar?

 Using the same logic that the fans do, I can only say that most racist and bigoted people who discuss Avatar are: The Fans.

 They make N-word jokes, check out this fan's username:

 He also clearly is not simply using the name as a term of endearment towards himself, he knows he's being racist, and laughing about it. Proof? He changed his username overnight because he didn't want to get called out for it:

  They also have no problem with other forms of bigotry, such as homphobia:

 They also quote racists in their signatures:

 Yes indeed, Gandhi was a racist. He even has fans on Chimpout.

 Yes, I know that "FinalFantasy_" was just joking around, pancake-eater was just issuing a common schoolyard taunt (although it does show how immature he is), and MuchToBeGratefulFor is not quoting Gandhi because of his racism, but still, this shows their hypocrisy.

 So what does this prove? Does it prove that I'm right? No, there are exception to every rule, but it does prove several things:

 -Avatar is not terribly popular with African-Americans to any overwhelming degree, and those who do praise it either couldn't care less about it's "message" or like the message but still find the film problematic. It is DEFINITELY not universally popular with them.

-Racists (and not just any racists, but ones from one of the most infamous racist websites of all time) don't have any particular hatred for the film, most are ambivalent about it, and some even support it. They are certainly not "threatened" by it.

-Avatar fans have no problem making racist and homophobic jokes, quoting racists, and telling people how they should feel. If anyone is the bigots, it's them.