I was surprised that Avatar didn't win. The film was essentially the Hollywood worldview crammed into two and a half hours and combined with good CGI. It was about a human who allies with peaceful alien natives and fights off an evil human corporation and miliary to protect them. It was almost as if the writers had went to TVTropes.org, found all of the tropes they could use to promote their anti-white, anti-male, anti-Western, anti-capitalist, environut views, and blended them into a script.
The entire thing was supposed to be an allegory for the Western treatment of various "natives." White people find a verdant paradise. White people move in. White people defile the paradise. White people steal the resources. White people kill the natives. Only this time, the natives fight back and defeat the evil white people! I wonder when Hollywood will get around to making an allegory showing how the blacks who inherited the prosperous lands of Rhodesia, South Africa, Haiti, and Detroit proceeded to wreck them. Or an allegory about the epidemic of black on white crime, in particular black on white rape. Or make an allegory showing the "noble" savages as, well, savages, which is what many "native" people throughout history were. Maybe they could show that "native" people aren't always environmentally-friendly, too.
In addition to being anti-white, it was anti-male (anti-white films tend to be - those two views frequently go together in Hollywood). While the good humans and the Navri included both males and females, the bad guys were entirely male from the leaders to the common soldiers. There was only one female bad guy, Michelle Rodriguez's character (an action girl, like most of the characters she plays), but she ended up helping the good guys. So the only good (morally) soldier was a woman and vice versa. Did a feminist write the script? Actually, this is pretty common, as in most movies the good guys will be diverse while the bad guys will be all men (usually all or mostly white, too). I was just surprised that considering that women in the world's militaries are very common even today, it was odd that they were basically nonexistant in the military in a movie set in the 22nd century, when women are supposed to be even more "equal." I guess we know Hollywood's idea of equality now. (I'll be writing a more general blog post about this trope sometime in the near future.)
The sad thing about the movie was that so many white men were enamored with the special effects and topless blue alien women that they were oblivious to the message directed at them: you are evil. Some liberal men undoubtedly saw the message, but agreed with it. I guess the 13 years of multicultural, feminist brainwashing (17 years for university students) must be pretty effective.
Even libertarians are buying into the Avatar-worship - Lew Rockwell is complaining that The Hurt Locker won and there were plenty of posts on the LewRockwell.com blog when Avatar came out praising it and its message.
One more thing: Spearhead ran an article in January critical of Avatar and its themes. The authors views are similar to mine, but though the article goes into much more depth: check it out here. It's a pretty good article.
A lot of writers like you are too critical of Avatar. It was just a Saturday morning cartoon come to life, which to me was amazing. It reminded me of the old 1970s/early 80s cartoons when sci-fi cartoons were huge and the sex with aliens fantasy was mainstream. The obvious liberal message of the movie is just standard fare for such a mindless action fantasy. I've come to expect these common types of themes in movies and try not to be overly analytical about such productions that are clearly intended to be popcorn flicks. I thought the movie was fantastic escapism where it's expected that real world truths are not self evident.
ReplyDeleteThe problem is, with Avatar the "white men are evil" message permeated the film from the plot to the casting of the good guys compared to the bad guys (which I wrote about above).
ReplyDeleteI've pretty much given up on movies. Clint Eastwood's films are pretty good, but other than that most movies are either trash or have a liberal message that overpowerers their aesthetic value.
I prefer video games for my escapism. Video game developers seem to scorn political correctness and rarely have overtly liberal messages. That's probably why much of the liberal establishment, especially the MSM and feminists, hate them.
I used to be like you, so I can understand where you're coming from. You obviously are jaded and it's easy to get to this point especially since you seem to be a high IQ individual that sees the world differently than the average person. It takes a great deal of work to separate yourself from your cynicism and enjoy things from a strictly emotional and child-like manner.
ReplyDeleteThe thing that made me come to the realization that I needed to change my ways was that I was most often the person that ruined others' enjoyment of films with my nitpicking and critical attitude. They say that ignorance is bliss and you might think that it's impossible to detach yourself from the knowledge that you have, but it's not. That's why it's called escapism. Just let go of your preconceptions, drink a highly caffeinated beverage and turn off your mind for 2 and half hours and let yourself be carried away by the pure auditory and visual spectacle of the film.
It's probably too late for that to happen with Avatar, but you should try to make a habit of doing this with other films and you'll be the happier for it. Some films are cerebral. Most aren't. You have to approach each one with that understanding.
Plenty of feminists didn't like Avatar either. Hell, I even wrote a review on how stupid the movie was: http://lovelettersinhell.blogspot.com/2009/12/avatar.html
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