Actress Zoe Saldaña is taking heat for claiming that her character in the Avatar film series is “racist.”
The popular actress told CinemaBlend that her character, Neytiri, is filled with blind hatred.
“Let’s face it, Neytiri’s a racist,” she said. “And she just… and she loses sight because of this blind fury that she has.”
Saldaña added that she is blind to the dynamics of her love for Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) even as Sully tries to show her the error of her ways in the film.
“She loses sight that the person that she loves the most and respects the most in her life is her husband,” Saldaña explained, “and he is human, he’s a sky-person. And I think it takes a lot of courage for Jake to be honest with her and to force her — even knowing that she is broken, that he knows that she needs to face this, because he sees in the direction that she’s heading — and I think it’s much more familiar to him where Neytiri’s heading than for Neytiri herself.”
“So it was powerful. And I think that we really needed to go there,” Saldaña said. “But I can’t tell you enough how great it was to also take her off every evening and just put her on the side and just go home without her weight on me.”
In the series, Neytiri is a member of an alien race called the Na’vi. She is a fierce warrior and proud member of her tribe. But she falls in love with Jake Sullivan, a human who takes the form of a Na’vi in order to live in the planet’s atmosphere. Sullivan initially came to the planet to figure out a way to infiltrate and defeat the Na’vi for their war against human mining and military operations. But Sullivan eventually turns native and joins the Na’vi to oppose humanity’s encroachment on the harmonious planet.
Left-wing Avatar fans, though, are taking exception to Saldaña’s claim that Neytiri is racist against humans.
“She’s a what?! She ain’t a racist she is against colonialism,” one fan exclaimed, according to the New York Post.
Another left-winger chimed in, saying, “Nah I don’t like calling a character racist against colonizers that destroyed her planet, home, land, village, family and culture.”
Yet another plied the same “colonizing” rhetoric saying, “Racist???? her hate has NOTHING to do with race….? it’s because she’s sick and tired of her home being attacked and colonised.”
In fact, most of the criticism blasted Saldaña along the “colonizing” angle.
Other fans, though, scolded the naysayers for blasting the actress actually playing and familiar with the character.
The first Avatar film debuted on 2009. Now, 16 years later, the third film, Avatar: Fire and Ash is in theaters.
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