keywords: video, mashup, remix, racism, whiteness, going native, film criticism, media literacy, collaboration.
project description: A.V.A.T.A.R.
(Anglos
Valiantly
Aiding
Tragic
Awe-inspiring
Races) is
a
fast‐paced
media
mashup
that
highlights
the overplayed
racial
tropes
of
Hollywood
cinema
using James
Cameron’s
multimillion‐dollar
epic
Avatar as
its visual
anchor.
The
hilarious
visual
juxtapositions
and accompanying
soundtrack
of
baffling
one‐liners
spliced together
from
nineteen
films
are
both
a
humorous
jab
at racism in our supposedly liberal popular
culture, as
well as
a
media
literacy
tool
for
deconstructing how whiteness and Other-ness is
portrayed
in
mainstream
films
about humanitarian crises. This piece builds on Craig’s previous
work,
300 Epithets, which
analyzes
the
archetypes
used in the nationalist right-wing film, 300.
collaborators:
craig saddlemire
documentation: