Colonization in Avatar

Tonight I agreed to go with some people to Avatar in 3D. Before going to see the movie, I was pretty unaware of what it was about. I had passed over much of the press that was surrounding the film, blissfully unaware of everything dealing with other than that it was a movie James Cameron had been working on for nearly a decade, it was primarily CGI, and it was science fiction. Now, I am loathe to pass up a scifi movie (I have sat through both Jumper–painfully terrible–and D War: Dragon Wars–so bad it is hilarious–on opening weekend), so it took little coaxing to get me to go.

Preface aside: the movie was beautiful. The CGI was stunning. The scifi environment was beyond belief (which is a good thing). The storyline was wonderful; its plot was somewhere between Ferngully and Starship Troopers. And, if this were strictly a movie review I would give it 4 ½ out of 5 stars. But this is more than that; this is a critical analysis of the social issues at play within the film. This analysis will appear after the jump, and I warn you that there are spoilers, I will try to keep them to a minimum but in discussing a movie it is difficult to forego a focus upon its plot. So, here goes:

Illegal and Racist! But it Happened Anyway: Interracial Couple Denied Marriage License

In Louisiana this week, Beth Humphrey and Terence McKay were denied their right to marry by justice of the peace Keith Bardwell because they are an interracial couple (she is white and he is black). Bardwell stated that he would not marry the couple because he was afraid for the children the union may create, because he has come to the conclusion that interracial children are not accepted by either black or white culture. Bardwell said that he’s not a racist, BUT he “just [doesn’t] believe in mixing the races that way.”

Humphrey and McKay are not the first interracial couple he has refused to marry, as he told reporters that every time someone calls on him to marry them he first asks if they are a mixed race couple, if they are, he refuses to sign their license, estimating that he has refused to marry about four couples in his career. By doing this, he was breaking the law, as the Louisiana “Supreme Court ruled in 1967 that ‘the government cannot tell people who they can and cannot marry.'” The American Civil Liberties Union of Louisiana has gotten involved, asking for the Louisiana Judiciary Committee to investigate Bardwell’s case, looking for “the most severe sanctions available.”

What do you think? Are you surprised to see this still happening 40 years after the Civil Rights movement?

I was surprised, though upon thinking about it, it’s not that surprising–I know that racism still exists in the United States, and I know the nation doesn’t provide marriage rights to everyone (last weekend there was a National Equality March for that very reason… 20 Best Signs Here).

Source: Yahoo! News