Welcome to a new feature–The Ridiculously Maddening Quote of the Day! Today’s inaugural quote comes to us from James Cameron, director and screenwriter of Avatar (maybe you’ve heard of him?).
Quote comes from this article, talking about his activism and involvement with indigenous peoples in Brazil:
“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,” he said. “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.”
Wow, James Cameron. Wow. So, the contemporary Lakota are “hopeless” and a “dead-end society”? and the generations of fighting against colonialism and continued oppression weren’t and aren’t fighting hard enough? Talk about ignorance. He makes it seem like the Lakota just rolled over and let their land be taken away. Couldn’t be further from the truth.
Ugh. So hear that Natives? We should have just fought harder, and the state of our Native nations would be different. right.
Here’s the original article: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/apr/18/avatar-james-cameron-brazil-dam
Comments
Wow. Just saw this reposted on ontd. What the hell is wrong with that man!
http://community.livejournal.com/ohnotheydidnt/46027596.html
this guy is a douche. is that him up there, playing indigenous?
yep, that’s him. “saving” the tribes of the Amazon.
he don’t understand that his people put us in this condition, lying to our old ones and stealing our resources, we are still fighting, at least we won two battles which we are suffering for,proud to be lakota!!!!!!!!
What pisses me off is the ” They woulda fought a lot harder”.
Nice site,I linked from something on Facebook.I like the Cherokee (really!).
Good luck with your studies.
Haven’t seen Avatar likely will not now.
hmmm ok well I’ve been thinking about seeing the movie…NOT NOW! good grief WHAT an idiotic thing to say!! “they would have fought harder”?????? I think you were being nice, calling it “ignorance”…frankly I think its just plain STUPIDITY!
oh and now he’s saving the rain forest & the natives there? geesh!!!
UM… I think he meant well. I think he meant that “they would have fought to the death.” Which, of course, they did and are still doing. But this comment is a good illustration of how little the “new” Americans know about the lives being lived by Native Americans.
That picture told me all I needed to know.
Offensive in a lot of different ways, but what really stands out for me is that he puts the onus on the victims of imperialism to fight harder, rather than for colonisers to change their ways.