Imperial Camera Gaze and the Irony of the White Liberal Imagination in Dances with Wolves and Avatar

Abstract

This essay studies the twentieth-century film Dances with Wolves (1990) and the twenty-first century science fiction movie Avatar (2009) from textual, contextual, and cinematographic, perspectives. It identifies the imperial gaze implicit under the white liberal savior’s ironical, fantasy through a scrutiny of the camera’s Eurocentric concentration on specific characters and props in particular scenes. Unlike the critics who regard these two films as pro-Native by promoting the ―more-Indian-than-the-Indians‖ white protagonist, this essay analyzes the imperial camera’s gaze and its on-screen focus that constructs a superhero image of the white protagonist by marginalizing the Indigenous people. In both films, the camera eulogizes the Western hero at the expense of the Natives’ dignity. Many film reviewers associated these two films noting their similar theme, plot construction, and characterization of Western heroes ―going native.‖ Yet, no critic identifies the camera’s imperial function or the ―camera’s omnipresent mobile gaze‖ that says more than the actions on screen. Though these films are widely accepted as anticolonial films, it is important to examine how these Western films instigate neo-imperial gaze in the guise of assimilation into native culture by employing cinematic apparatus. This essay, thus, reiterates the importance of real revisionist films that resist the Eurocentric re-making of imperialist movies about Indigeneity.