Yes

by Takuan Amaru

Created on: April 26, 2010

"Burn Hollywood Burn!" was a popular song by the politically driven, Black Power group Public Enemy.  In this classic Hip Hop track, the song ends with Flavor Flav being offered a "step-in-fetch-it" role by an unknown film executive only to have Flav defiantly reject the offer once he was told he would not be depicting a strong revolutionary character such as Huey P. Newton or H. Rap Brown.

The first full length Hollywood film, "The Birth of a Nation" was a glorification of the Ku Klux Klan; the most famous movie of all time, "Gone with the Wind", reminisces with glee the "good ol' days" of slavery.  "Tarzan", "Dances with Wolves", "Shogun", "The Last Samurai", is that enough examples, because I could go on for days.

Hollywood is about racism; Hollywood has always been about race bias and stereotypes. They are not shy about this.  Believe it or not, this is not a knock or criticism on Hollywood nor the owners of these movie studios, etc.  I am merely writing to the topic of the debate and stating the obvious.  We all know this to be true but are conditioned by society to ooh and ahh at the "Emperor's New Clothes".

Of course Avatar promotes racist themes.  Many Hollywood movies promote racist themes.

In order to enjoy movies, I accepted this about movies long ago and just learned to filter it.  Many experts illustrate the parallels between the themes of current movies and current events and find uncanny similarities.  An example would be to compare Avatar with the U.S. "intervention" in Haiti.   

What do many of these types of movies have in common?  In a nutshell, a European hero goes into an ancient, foreign culture and not only is crowned "the man" among the natives, but is accepted into the society and quickly escalates to the highest levels within the hierarchy.  And, he always leaves with the most desirable female.  How many movies fit this description?  Does Avatar fit the bill?

Jake Sully is accepted as a Na'vi warrior after he beats up the number one warrior in front of all his peers.  Later, the defeated warrior says he wants "to fly with" Jake.  Jake rides the huge, fearsome flying creature, a feat not accomplished since the legendary warriors of the past.  He is the one that links the current generation back to their glorious past...even though he is an outsider.  He makes love to the king's daughter, saves the day and survives to possibly become the next leader. 

In Shogun, Richard Chamberlain, as "Anjin-san", becomes the Shogun, Lord Toranaga's right hand man, being promoted from prisoner status to royalty in a matter of a couple years, passing by thousands of capable warriors almost effortlessly and takes another samurai's wife, Mariko-san.  In "Dances with Wolves", Kevin Costner does basically the same thing. 

The only thing unique to these movies is the ancient culture being infiltrated and the European actor doing the infiltrating / conquering.  This is an onging theme in Hollywood and this kind of movie is made on a regular basis.  In about 5 years, there will be a new movie about another super human European who enters some other indigenous culture, real or imagined, teaches them how to live, shows he is stronger and wiser than everyone in the culture, woos the princess, and becomes the leader...old hat.

To bring the situation home for those readers not yet convinced, imagine if there was a block buster movie where Jet Li or Denzel Washington goes into England and saves the country, kicks the strongest European man's butt in public, makes love to the queen and becomes the undisputed leader of Britain adored and loved by all the Brits.

Now imagine another movie like that coming out in a couple years and no movies with strong, European heroes in the interim... 

Exactly...you can't.  It's goes against the mental programming.  The European saving the day has been promoted as somehow being natural.  Indigenous people can't do anything for themselves; they are "primitive" and backward.  Any movie theme going against this established grain is rejected.  Many people don't know that the long running television show in the 1970s, "Kung-Fu", which starred David Carradine (he couldn't even fight!), was written by Bruce Lee and he was originally slotted to be "Grasshopper", but was deemed "too small" and "too Chinese" by the Warner Brothers and ABC TV executives...and Bruce Lee's mother was a half German, Catholic woman with European features!

Always remember, if you wish to know if an unfair bias exists, you have to ask a member of the group that is being victimized, not someone who benefits directly or indirectly by the bias being in place.  They don't have a reason to notice it.  For example, as a man, if I wish to know to what degree sex discrimination exists, I won't ask another man.  He may not notice it because he is not potentially victimized; but it would be difficult for a woman not to notice unfair or discriminatory policies leveled against her.

James Cameron, when asked about the Black people in Avatar said, "they are all blue in my movie".

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