Of course, I’m not the first or only one to comment on Avatar’s racial dynamic. Sci-fi site io9 says it best:

[Movies like Avatar and District 9] are movies about white guilt. Our main white characters realize that they are complicit in a system which is destroying aliens, AKA people of color – their cultures, their habitats, and their populations. The whites realize this when they begin to assimilate into the “alien” cultures and see things from a new perspective. To purge their overwhelming sense of guilt, they switch sides, become “race traitors,” and fight against their old comrades. But then they go beyond assimilation and become leaders of the people they once oppressed. This is the essence of the white guilt fantasy, laid bare. It’s not just a wish to be absolved of the crimes whites have committed against people of color; it’s not just a wish to join the side of moral justice in battle. It’s a wish to lead people of color from the inside rather than from the (oppressive, white) outside.

Meanwhile, Avatar is yet another story of a male knight in shining armor running to the rescue of oppressed “savages.” Sure, they do much of the work themselves, and there are strong female supporting characters, but the movie is very clear that without Jack, the Na’vi would have been screwed. Likewise, from GlobalShift:

As preferred as the Na’vi culture obviously is, they still need the help of Jake to decide on allowing their women to have any say in marital arrangements. And, given that Neytiri is precise in addressing the final step of a warrior is to choose “his woman,” it becomes abundantly clear the film is likewise heterosexist. Cameron bragging about slapping prosthetic breasts on non-mammal females doesn’t help, either.

To be clear, I’m not trying to pretend I didn’t enjoy the movie. I liked watching it a lot, and would recommend it to anyone looking for an escapist fantasy. (And seeing it in 3D, for which we had to wait another hour past the non-3D showtime we intended to see, was worth it. This is a very pretty movie.) But I do think it’s unfortunate that a movie with such revolutionary technological storytelling power was a rehash of the same white-man-saves-noble-savage trope.

Finally, for some delightful fridge logic, isn’t the ‘victory’ at the end of the movie incredibly hollow? Sure, they kick the humans – “except for a special few” off-planet. But there must be another mining ship on its way, and sooner or later (within about 10 years, if the ~5 year transit time indicated in the movie is accurate) the humans will be back with much heavier firepower.

What, you didn’t think conquering the colonialists actually works, did you?

(Bonus links: Avatar at TVTropes and Cameron saying (paraphrased) “Yeah, it’s Dances with Wolves in space.”)