James Cameron’s ‘Avatar: The Way of Water’ unites Canada’s Indigenous population — in dislike for this movie

OK, picture it in your mind. A movie about a soldier sent out to pacify the local Indigenous people. Soon, he becomes disgusted with his own people and joins the local Native population, eventually becoming a better Indigenous person then the new people he rides with. Typically, he becomes one of their leaders. There was a term in literature/history for people who did this. It’s called “Going Indian.”

At the climax of the film, he leads the Indigenous forces against his former army mates and wins. Throw in some love, beautiful scenery, faux spirituality and you’ve got a popular movie.

So the question is: is this “Dances With Wolves” or “Avatar”? Or its sequel, now out in theatres, “Avatar: The Way of Water”? All you pretty much had to do was exchange the copper-toned hue of the Lakota characters for a more Lapis Lazuli or Cerulean blue motif of the Na’vi.

Granted, the movie is pretty, full of imagination and colour, like a motel painting on acid. It’s also rather conventional in its own way and somewhat boring. Predictable. I’ve been involved in crooked card games with a less foreseeable storyline. Of course, in both movies, most of the Indigenous population were the good guys, they wore the metaphorical “white” hats. The Caucasian/Earthling soldiers in each movie wore the “black” hats. It’s very woke while, at the same time, somewhat offensive. It’s an interesting combination.

One unique byproduct of “Avatar” for director/writer James Cameron: he’s developed one of the few ways to unify the collective consciousness of Canada’s (and probably America’s too) Indigenous population. It’s through their dislike for this movie.

His earlier version of “Avatar” was based on his interpretation of the Lakota (there’s that “Dances with Wolves” influence again). “They were being killed and asked to displace and they were being given some form of compensation. This was the driving force for me in the writing of ‘Avatar,’” he said in a 2010 interview with the Observer, also saying “ … they could see their kids committing suicide at the highest rates in the nation … because they were hopeless and a dead-end society.” This does not exactly make you want to run out and buy a box of popcorn and put your suspension of disbelief on hold.

In this more recent creation, Jake Sully and his family run from the colonizers, leaving the forest wonderland and seeking refuge in the faraway reefs and oceans of a sister tribe who seem (via Cameron’s imagination) to have incorporated unique elements — i.e., tribal tattoos and intimidating facial expressions — of the Maori culture from Aotearoa, formally known as New Zealand. It makes one wonder if, in “Avatar 3,” we might see some Smurf-coloured Scandinavian Sámi or robin’s-egg Adivasi from India?

In all fairness, the movie does offer up some politically correct concepts for the audience to munch on with their popcorn: Indigenous rights, the power of family, and enough Gaia/ecological discussion to make even the most ardent follower of Ralph Emerson, Al Gore and David Suzuki squeal in delight. But the depth and awareness of the approach had about as much nutritional value as that popcorn.

What Cameron is trying to do is indeed admirable in his own way. These are indeed important topics. It’s the approach that’s problematic. It’s a unique combination of wokeness feeding on itself, or it’s so woke it’s become anti-woke. It’s that sense it’s trying to spread that Indigenous people are more interesting, more virtuous, easier to sympathize with than the dominant culture.

No argument here. But we try to be modest about it.

In the context of these films, no longer are we simply the “other.” We are the cool “other.” We are the “other” that the dominant culture is trying to deguilt themselves about. So we are now, for lack of a better term, superheroes, who are in their own way “others.” We, the Indigenous, may not be physically superpowered, but in these movies we are culturally and morally.

It’s the hypocrisy of the “Oops. Sorry about that. Let’s put a Band-Aid on that” philosophy that annoys many First Nations people. You could almost say it’s an accidental, and subconscious, attempt at reconciliation but, like an arrow caught in a crosswind, it missed its mark. Over $342 million (Canadian) was spent on this movie. That’s a lot of potential reconciliation money down the drain. Almost reminds me of the government of an unmentioned northern country.

Add to that the story is told, explored, experienced through the eyes of the “White Saviour.” Again, Kevin Costner from “Dances with Wolves” and Daniel Day-Lewis from “The Last of the Mohicans.”

As a result, one of the potentially unfortunate drawbacks of the backlash against this movie might be a general reluctance by the general moviemaking community to do anything Indigenous-related, for fear of a cultural backlash. Let’s hope not. The more movies about us, the better. “Avatar” was a movie symbolically about us (and the Maoris), but not with us. If you’re gonna talk about us, try not to paint us blue and put us on another planet. We understand metaphor, but we could use better metaphors.

There is an ancient Anishnaabe saying, spoken by the Elders for generations, that best describes my reaction when I saw this movie: “Geget na?!?! Miinwaa na?!?!” It means “Really? Again?”

It may lose something in the translation.

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