"No More Blueface"—Native Americans Call For Boycott Of 'Avatar 2' For Racism And Cultural Appropriation

One viral tweet by the user @asdza_tlehonaei garnered 7.3 million views and nearly 50k likes on Twitter. According to Asdzáá and other Native Americans, Avatar wrongly appropriates the culture of Indigenous groups. "Do NOT watch Avatar: The Way of Water," Asdzáá writes. She continues, "Join Natives & other Indigenous groups around the world in boycotting this horrible & racist film. Our cultures were appropriated in a harmful manner to satisfy some 🏳 man's savior complex. No more Blueface! Lakota people are powerful!"

Of course, some of the Twitter audience doesn't necessarily agree with this. @Black_ReaperKai shares a meme of Whinnie the Pooh inquisitively reading a piece of paper in response. "Well, there it is," the caption writes. "The dumbest f*cking thing I have read all day."

"They wanna be relevant so bad 😭 it’s just a movie," says @StolenShotz.

"Can someone tell her that is science fiction?" writes @nftnark.

"i speak for everyone when i say we do not care," comments @YankeePlug.

One user (@ImKable) adds, "I'll make sure I watch it about 10 times just to make sure she's right."

How Is Avatar: The Way of Water Seen as Cultural Appropriation?

The first Avatar movie became a groundbreaking film in 2009, with its stunning visual effects and astonishing plot. It promotes the idea that invasion and colonialism is unethical and evil, yet some people still believe that the portrayal of the blue people – the Na'vi – currently belittles Native Americans. The movie is seen by some as a means to glorify "white saviors."

James Cameron has admitted in the past that the Na'vi are, indeed, based on Native Americans. “Avatar very pointedly made reference to the colonial period in the Americas, with all its conflict and bloodshed between the military aggressors from Europe and the indigenous peoples," Cameron was quoted to have said. "Europe equals Earth. The Native Americans are the Na'vi. It's not meant to be subtle.”

He continues, “I felt like I was 130 years back in time watching what the Lakota Sioux might have been saying at a point when they were being pushed, and they were being killed, and they were being asked to displace, and they were being given some form of compensation. This was a driving force for me in the writing of Avatar – I couldn’t help but think that if they [the Lakota Sioux] had had a time-window, and they could see the future… and they could see their kids committing suicide at the highest suicide rates in the nation… because they were hopeless, and they were a dead-end society – which is what is happening now – they would have fought a lot harder.”

Cameron's statements are seen as "anti-indigenous" to the Lakota tribe. According to Asdzáá, "blueface" is the term to describe indigenous people that are played by non-indigenous people. "James Cameron is guilty of favoring non-Indigenous folks to play Na'vi, an alien race based on many Indigenous cultures he [appropriated] from," she writes. "This form of racist caricature known as 'Blueface' (coined after his infamous film in 2009, Avatar) where a creator appropriates many non-white cultures, blends them together indiscriminately or blatantly, and has White people play or voice them using fiction as a medium to necessitate and validate their worldbuilding."

She continues, "It is a combination of Redface, Blackface, Yellowface, and other racist tools creators use to justify not centering or [validating] the experiences, voices, faces, and bodies of Black, Indigenous, and other marginalized people of color."

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