Posted on 12/20/2009 8:27:16 PM PST by DogByte6RER
When Will White People Stop Making Movies Like "Avatar"?
Critics have called alien epic Avatar a version of Dances With Wolves because it's about a white guy going native and becoming a great leader. But Avatar is just the latest scifi rehash of an old white guilt fantasy.
Spoilers...
Whether Avatar is racist is a matter for debate.
Regardless of where you come down on that question, it's undeniable that the film - like alien apartheid flick District 9, released earlier this year - is emphatically a fantasy about race. Specifically, it's a fantasy about race told from the point of view of white people. Avatar and scifi films like it give us the opportunity to answer the question: What do white people fantasize about when they fantasize about racial identity?
Avatar imaginatively revisits the crime scene of white America's foundational act of genocide, in which entire native tribes and civilizations were wiped out by European immigrants to the American continent. In the film, a group of soldiers and scientists have set up shop on the verdant moon Pandora, whose landscapes look like a cross between Northern California's redwood cathedrals and Brazil's tropical rainforest. The moon's inhabitants, the Na'vi, are blue, catlike versions of native people: They wear feathers in their hair, worship nature gods, paint their faces for war, use bows and arrows, and live in tribes. Watching the movie, there is really no mistake that these are alien versions of stereotypical native peoples that we've seen in Hollywood movies for decades.
(Excerpt) Read more at io9.com ...
Oh, well it works!
Just like I have learned from the demographics of actors in McDonald’s ads that Caucasians are about 10% of our population...otherwise I would have guessed more.
/s
Exactly. The white liberal produces the film that he thinks is so progressive, and green, and most definitely anti-racist. Then the nonwhite liberal can come along and blasts the former liberal’s choice of subject matter. In the end they can both walk away feeling superior, which is all either really cared about in the first place.
It doesn’t matter to me whether it is racist or not. This movie will not get one cent of my money just as the other trash that Hollywood produces hasn’t. My wife and I have been to probably 10 movies in the 42 years that we have been married except for G rated movies that our children could watch when they were young. We do not have any pay tv channels either. When it comes to Hollywood, we would rather strike a match than curse the darkness. Quit supporting these scumbags with your dollars. That is the only language that they will ever understand.
An accusation of racism is the last refuge of the scoundrel.
I'm just as tired of white people shouting "Racist!" as I am of anyone else shouting it, but those denying this is anything but a popcorn flick are either ignoring what's staring them in the face or haven't the most basic ability to grasp theme or subtext.
The racial element is there because this is a scifi version of Dances With Wolves and all the movies that portray the Indian side of the settlement of America. One doesn't have to agree with Cameron and the other libs to admit that of course the natives of this country were given the shaft in many ways, but it's this bizarre attitude that somehow expansionism and folks fighting each other for something they want is unique to this situation. Folks like Cameron simply skip the inconvenient parts, about how Indians weren't Greens (never saw any stampeding of buffalo over cliffs, subjegation of enemies, etc.)
The reason for this is the REAL "race" angle here--Cameron and the Hollywood libs who've portrayed Indians in films aren't interested in portraying the Indians as real, flawed humans, because they don't care about Indians. They care about attacking what they see as the excesses of capitolist America.
This movie is about "blood for oil," shock and awe, idiot, evil military types (the white hero--gotta appeal to that white demographic to actually make money--and the Latina woman being the exceptions), and creating a situation so that the audience can cheer the slaughter of the military types in the climax. Action movies use the tool of having the villain "personalize" his evil to skip over the ethical dilemna of having the hero be judge, jury and executioner by having the villain do something more than the larger crime which could get him arrested--it's not satisfying enough to have the villain surrender and be arrested, so have him shoot the hero's pal and then try a last-second murder attempt, so the hero is justified in executing him.
Similarly in Avatar, the humans HAVE to be portrayed as completely evil capitalists run amok--destroying natural resources in search of oil, uh, energy--so that the climax can show them being slaughtered--they DESERVE it, in the context of the dramatic situation. So once again, the military is shown as stupid or evil, and the standins for the people who protect us are slaughtered in a liberal revenge fantasy.
But it's not about race, because the aliens are so perfect, they are inhuman. They aren't like real people of any color. All they have to be are the perfect creatures, so their survival justifies killing ANY human opponent.
The movie is a Gaia fantasy, with all the life on the planet joined as one, so any violation of ANY element of nature--in the quest for energy--is the same as trying to kill the native residents. Of COURSE it's right to slaughter American/human soldiers, if you don't you're guilty of allowing genocide to proceed--even if the goal is "unobtanium" because hurting the planet is killing the world--aliensl, animals, plants.
This movie is based on Cameron's sappy romance, using awful dialogue, to support tons of special effects that are the cutting edge of the industry. But it looks like an effects demo reel. Star Wars wasn't the most original story ever, but its USE of older elements was indeed new and different, putting western heroes, samurai, Naziesque villains, etc. all in the same universe. Avatar looks highly derivative of a much narrower source--video games using imagery derived from SF illustrations of Roger Dean,Michael Whelan, etc., and characters that are ALL old SF cliches.
This is a PC tract wrapped up in Cameron's fascination with military equipment, made palatable to his intended audience by playing up to their college-dorm comic book simple politics. Anyone denying this is either blind or deceptive.
How much cooler if Cameron used the same imagery to tell a tale of humans and aliens who don't make the mistakes of the past, showing how such a situation as our settling of America could be learned from. Imagine if this were a tale of humans exploring the planet, trying to work with the aliens, and, I don't know, another alien race or SOME humans and SOME aliens were the antagonists. That would make for surprsing drama--what if the conflicted hero sympathized with BOTH aliens and humans, isn't that much more dramatic than having him see his side as "bad" and just switching sides?
A movie this big can handle more thematic complexity than a rah-rah America bash for the simple minded. And the fetishizing of "cat people" is, frankly, juvenile and creepy.
Other than that, I don't have much to say. ;)
there..that's a little Better.
** Avatar a version of Dances With Wolves **
Mix Dances with Wolves with the disney Ferngully - the last rainforest...
Many in the biz are referring to it as ...
DANCES WITH SMURFS
Sorry for the length and repeating a paragraph in there. But Cameron repeats a lot, too. :)
I heard a guy talking about it on Savage - and according to him, this is just another anti-American, anti-Military, anti-Capitalism movie .. Hollyweird doesn’t know how to make anything else.
Bingo! White liberals see themselves as the saviors of their inferiors.
Probably fantasize about not being blamed for everything wrong in the world.
I just got back from the movie here are some thoughts
1. Humans are the bad guys. Well the military is, the scientists are all good guys. Cliché lines like “tree hugger”, sock and awe” and a few others can be found throughout the movie.
2. The natives are obviously patterned after Native Americans in speech, belief, and action. They even ride horses.
3. The visual was stunning, but over the top. Every fricken plant glowed like one of those cheesy fiber optic plants from the 80’s
4. The flying sequences were awesome.\
5. Military guys are “contractors”.
6. They were hired by “the company”
The movie did have a condescending tone, and a self loathing manner. It took away from what could have been a great flick. You don’t leave the movie feeling like a winner. Unless you’re a lib.
BTW humans have badly designed weapon delivery systems and unit tactics that would be considered poor form in a paintball match.
The plot was oblivious and acted to a mediocre standard. It’s Dances with Wolves, Aliens, and Battle of the Little Bighorn all in one.
Nuke the site from orbit, it’s the only way to be sure.
I saw something on PBS the other day that was for me a little showstopper.
Everyone who follows UN imbroglios knows how deeply ideological NGO's have penetrated the UN General Secretariat because the UN wastes money like crazy and so is always short. So the UN brings in the NGO hotshots, who are glowing in the dark to get their hands on policy anyway, to do the legwork for free. The cost is borne by eleemosynary foundations like the MacArthur, Pew Trusts, and so on.
Like the Visigoths and Huns who served in Arcadius's administration, ther NGO's are infiltrating and barbarizing the empire -- the UN Empire.
Last week the video clip I saw that arrested my attention was of an "operation" against/for some UN "cause" in national parks of some eastern African nation, in an insecure area contested by rival armies (some of them private) as well as poachers, and here was this collection of armed African park rangers and soldiers getting their buttons pushed and marching orders endorsed by some first-world blonde female NGO propraetor who was telling them all what to do, how, and in what order. It was surprising and arresting.
This is what the NGO's and liberals want -- to walk into your City government, or state park, or county commissioners' meeting, and start barking orders, because "I'm from the UN, and I'm here to help, and this is your agenda this morning."
THat ain’t the only ad like that.
It’s getting a little tiresome...
In fairness, “ferngully” was 20th Century Fox, not Disney. I highly recommend “The Nostalgia Critic” and his review of that godawful movie...
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