Avatar was a good, entertaining movie. I enjoyed it. The point of it wasn't plot, it was visual effects and it was stunning. I'm not bashing the movie, I was being tongue-in-cheek about it and the main point of my post was that it's a huge movie that lots of people clamor to see, yet the people who write it get treated with little appreciation from the general public.

I am a sci-fi/fantasy writer, I also write fan fiction for James Cameron's TV show Dark Angel, ergo I really like sci-fi and fantasy. I was commenting on my experiences explaining to people that I write about monsters and aliens and other creatures.

"White guilt" refers to the theme of guilt in media of white colonists destroying the land they came to (usually America) and wiping out the native populations to feed mercantilism. Avatar is an allegory of Europeans colonizing America. It's a fairly common theme, like the "magical negro." There is nothing wrong with showing the dirty side of colonialism -- where did I say that? I'm not white either, for the record.

My point overall was that singular sci-fi/fantasy icons on a large marketing venue are considered acceptable because so many people have access to it, but in general it's not often considered to be a genre that is taken seriously.