Now that Avatar: The Way of Water is available on streaming, the movie has been dragged back into the limelight with people from every corner of the world weighing in on James Cameron’s box-office-breaking sci-fi fantasy epic. Like it or not, that includes misogynistic, racist blowhards.
One Twitter user has given The Way of Water a gorgeously hilarious new description in response to a YouTube video outlining why virtually every blockbuster starring a woman or a woman of color in the last several years is a flop, whereas films starring men or feature male-centric storylines (white men, mind you) are a win.
Expertly calling out Geeks + Gamers Daily, Twitter user @the_moviebob questioned why The Way of Water is on the “win” side of this ridiculous comparison when it is basically about how “Whales and indigenous people kill Space Whitey with Gaia Magic.” Is it because it’s directed by a white male? Because it’s centered around the white man savior complex? Your guess is as good as mine but either way that summary really gets to the meat and potatoes of the movie, so if we’re calling things “woke,” Avatar sounds pretty woke to me.
As you can see, Geeks + Gamers Daily curiously categorized Avatar: The Way of Water in the win category, alongside Tom Cruise’s Top Gun: Maverick, Chris Pratt’s The Super Mario Bros. Movie, and Chris Pratt’s The Terminal List. Aside from having an obsession with Chris Pratt, it’s clear as day what this “win” category represents.
On the other hand, The Little Mermaid, the sequel trilogy of Star Wars, Queen Cleopatra, She-Hulk: Attorney at Law, and The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power are all categorized on the “flop” side. Aside from the fact that Geeks + Gamers Daily’s examples undermine its own point (three of the five are television shows, not films), its misogyny isn’t even thinly veiled; it’s just outright bigotry.
As pointed out by several Twitter users in the comments section, maybe Zoe Saldaña’s Neytiri was put on the winning side because then the misogyny would be “too obvious.”
Then you have the pitifully weak argument that Daisy Ridley’s Rey in the Star Wars sequel trilogy was a flop. Box office numbers would disagree, as pointed out by another user.
As a matter of fact, yes, most of the films — ahem, excuse us, TV shows — did financially well. Maybe not as huge as Top Gun: Maverick but if that’s your baseline then everything is a flop, is it not?
At the end of the day, everyone is allowed their opinion, but when your argument is bigoted and baseless, it becomes hard to take you seriously.
Should you find yourself now interested in watching Space Whitey get overtaken by whales and alien indigenous tribes, Avatar: The Way of Water is now streaming on Disney Plus. Oh, also Max.
