When I first saw Avatar in theaters, I distinctly remember my family expressing extreme annoyance towards the movie's portrayal of the Na'vi. Although it is pretty clear the Na'vi are alien, their culture and racial markers don't stray too far from ones used in other media. The blue skin and cat-like features were enough to signify "other", but we can still see some recognizable cultures similar to those of Native American or African tribes. examples: the beads, feathers, clothes and the bows&arrows of the Na'vi.
Morrison describes black characters in American literature as ornamental, used "for a bout of jungle fever, or a bout of local color ... to supply a needed moral gesture, humor or a bit of pathos" (15). Although the Na'vi are not black characters, they are the "other", and represent a lot of racial markers that resonate with the black identity. While the film does move toward an idea of a "new world", through its liberation of the Na'vi - the people will still be marked as other.
I can recall my family wishing that James Cameron was creative enough to create a culture that was unrecognizable and not so easily linked to cultures of Africa or Native Americans. Even the Na'vi language borrows elements from the Ethiopian language, Amharic. The actors who portray the Na'vi, interestingly enough, are Dominican, Native American or African.
Side note - there is a scene which I thought was really interesting. When the primary antagonist, Colonel Miles Quaritch, is pumping up mercenaries for killing some Na'vi they were predominantly made up of people of color. I always think that's an interesting scene and kind of want to talk about that image.
I'd like to discuss why images of the future use racial imagery to evoke the past. The Na'vi, whose survival symbolizes a better future, resemble a Native American tribe (my friend called this movie a science fiction Pocahantas), associated with older, yet wiser, ways than the more progressive Europeans / Earthlings. They also have a goddess, which is both a marker of a primitive pre-patriarchal society and a society that has evolved beyond the injustices associated with patriarchy. In addition, Kee seems to play the roles of both Mary and Eve; the fact that she reveals her pregnancy amidst a bunch of cows suggests the nurturing qualities that associate her with the nativity story and the proximity to our creaturely roots that associate her with nature. The black woman is a symbol of the primitive and animalistic, yet she is leading the world into the future.
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