PROMETHEAN ANTAGONIST

(This is not intended to be a movie review but a mere appraisal of the political concepts intentionally – obviously – symbolized in a current popular movie. It's written with the assumption that the reader has seen the movie and it is therefore lacking details regarding the plot and characters.

It should also be noted that this was a hastily put together rather random expression of my thoughts on issues related to the movie and is therefore not a very well-polished or organized essay style).

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Before ripping on James Cameron and his splendid sci-fi movie, “Avatar” I first need to note that I think it's a good movie – absolutely beautiful if you like “eye-candy” and sappy romance (which I do). I recommend it. Besides spectacular visual effects, the story itself is lush and moving (though basically simple – really simple). The occasional appraisal of the movie as a cross between “Aliens” and “Dances with Wolves” is definitively accurate and it contains some of the best and worst attributes of both films. If it weren't for such an obvious attempt on the part of the movie's director/screenwriter to proselytize his idealistic left-wing political philosophy, I'd love it 100%.

In today's media environment; news, films, and songs not only continually prod us to an “awareness” that we use too much, but also that we need millionaire directors and musicians to remind us so. Avatar's director (and screenwriter), James Cameron, may be a nice guy (actually, word has it that he's a downright mean and oppressive director to work under) and he makes some fun and even spell-binding entertainment, but he's no insightful philosopher (anyone can have a philosophy). But philosophy is what he is selling and he's got the money, medium, and skill to do so.

The bad guys in this movie are bad. No sane person would take their side in the context of the movie's characters and plot line. In many contemporary films we are often led to believe that America (or a capitalist worldview) is just brimming over with cruelty and would like nothing better than to slaughter innocents and destroy natural beauty, but Hollywood's main purpose has always been to indulge the imagination. Most real people – conservative or liberal – don't relish the idea of laying beauty to waste or harming people who have done no wrong to them. One line in Avatar (among many ridiculous and simple caricatures) says something to the effect that when someone is sitting on something you want they're you're enemy. Uhh, okay, presto!, we fought with North Vietnam over their great coffee beans – or was it oil? With contemporary standards for entertainment vs hard history being what they are, I'm surprised the average person doesn't think the native populations of America were subdued for...oil (!).

Cameron's latest slight of hand, is typical of Hollywood's propaganda / entertainment hybrids today. Evil characters transparently symbolize the West, corporations, the military, and most obviously, America and its materialistic culture. The noble, commune-with-nature, pure at heart, and good guy Aliens are native Americans, Iraqis, ...old ladies in wheelchairs et al. There are enough in-your-face “PC” references to contemporary events to nudge the viewer into realizing that the noble good side (the Na'vi) are kin to today's misunderstood terrorists, environmental idealists, hippies, or just garden variety leftists whose purity is under assault from...people who don't share the director/screenwriter's view of the world.

The movie's most absurd attempt to insert its director's worldview into what could be a decent relatively non-polemic sci-fi flick is when the brutal military commander notes the need to use “terror” against “terrorists.” Up to that point there is nothing even remotely similar to terrorists in the indigenous people the film's villains are fighting, and no reason for the bad guys to see them as such. I guess at that point we're just supposed to imagine that a docile tribe of good people are in some way similar to Al Qaeda – equally innocent and undeserving of our twisted “labels.” I was reminded of a made-for-TV film about Hitler a few years back where he consolidates power by blaming the Reichstag fire on “terrorists” (a word that he and most people of the time never used).

We know the villains of Cameron's movie (again, us..or, U.S.) are fighting to obtain a rare and valuable element, “unobtainium” – like oil perhaps? (the symbolism is beyond obvious) – but we don't know why the element is valuable or what it's used for. For all we know, it's the prime ingredient of a life-saving drug that will preserve humanity. But that's not important, it's basically like oil – we want it, we're greedy and cruel, so we're going to hurt lots of doe-eyed peaceful natives to get it. I'll note here, as I've noted in a few posts back, that America's “take” in oil from Iraq is pretty lame thus far. For all America sacrificed in money and blood, it looks like all we got is what we said we wanted; a (relatively) democratic and friendly Iraq – China got the first oil bid, but that's another story. Oil and the acquisition of other material resources are now seen by most (educated in government schools and entertained by leftist media) as evil. We are led to despise oil companies for their greed but never prodded to contemplate the fact that we willingly give them money in exchange for our own desire to possess not only gasoline but synthetic fabrics to cloth our children, plastic containers to eat our lunches from, and CD's to pacify the cravings of spoiled brats wanting the latest tune that denounces capitalism and wealth. I wonder how much oil was used directly or indirectly to make Cameron's latest film epic (not to mention the cars used by many driving to see it)?

Even though the films “message” is right for the “progressive” crowd, like Cameron's others, it fails to have (leftist) snob appeal. I remember defending Titanic many times against the insults of many an intellectual snob. The only redeeming value they saw in that film was its references to “class” issues; relevant but barely noteworthy to the film's drama but, leftists are never ones for simple romance and adventure. It's always gotta be about oppressor, oppressee and the dry sterile ideologies that address such issues.

If a film like Avatar would be made with complete historical honesty, I would wonder why the Na'vi require “great warriors” in the first place and just how well the different “clans” of their moon/planet got along. Do they have disease? Have any of them tried to “make a better world” and sought to impose this better world upon others (which, in turn, had to defend themselves)? Are there things they treasure and are willing to fight for or conquer to acquire? Of course such questions wouldn't fit into a plot that merely seeks to demonize the western Classical Liberal tradition and idealize an inconsistent... ideal. If the Aztecs had only been able to continue their slave trade and sacrifices to nature, oh what a better world it would be.

We really don't know anything about the Na'vi people of Pandora beyond the fact that they look cool (the women are oddly similar in features to the sex imagery in Japanese manga) and they are “at one with” nature. Considering their state of development, that's easy to do. Nature is always beautiful until it starves you, infects you, or rips your house down. Of course, pretty flowers always trump poisonous reptiles as poster children for “nature”®. Incidentally, why do some people seem to give a pass to the primitive killing technology of bows and arrows (a more “humane” method of killing perhaps)?

It's not reading too much into the movie's plot-line to see that, once again, humans in general (beyond the U.S. specifically) are villains, after all, “they killed their mother [Earth].” But that, like so much of left-land's world view is B.S. Humans are actually OK I think. For every act of aggression, violence, and cruelty there are at least thousands of kindness, affection, and solace, and even more daily behavior that is plain, banal, and neutral in the battle between good an evil. For some, this is neither obvious nor acceptable. For them, humans – especially one's operating freely for their own self-interests – are a “virus” (as Mr. Smith tells us in the “The Matrix”). Humans, as a species, must be seen as evil by some, or at least overwrought with wrong-doing, so that individual moralists (leftist ideologues) can view themselves as somehow above it all. If paradise and altruism can just be enforced with their blueprint then we can all shake off the right-wing capitalist elixir that has so tarnished the non-reeducated.

I'm sure an irony was lost on most viewers of Avatar – as it was plainly by its director – that a movie which so bitterly caricatured the evil of corporations should end its credits with a lengthily list of big...corporations. There was also the firm warning that Avatar is a piece of private intellectual property and one better not dare try to use it without first forking over some more cash to James Cameron's multimillion dollar capitalist enterprise...but, it's all for a good purpose. Film good / energy products and Wall-mart appliances bad.

In a movie full of idealist cliche's, my favorite was subtle. With increasing frequency, Hollywood's greedy movie villains are now often depicted holding a cup of coffee while directing cruel acts against extremely likable victims. How heartless can one be? Killing and drinking coffee?

The most pathetic of Cameron's list of nonsense idealism and disconnects is that he apparently failed to realize that in the world he wants, with no greedy corporations, military, or technical advancement beyond bows and arrows, there would be no movie, “Avatar” and no job for him beyond hunter/gatherer (and perhaps some experience with starvation and submission to the elements – eg. “nature”).

Avatar is a beautiful piece of fiction...and a pathetic exercise in self-indulgence by a typical Hollywood hypocrite. If you want to see a great entertaining film see Avatar, but do have the good sense to realize that within the interesting story and special effects is just another typical leftist's attempt to demonize our existence so that he can perhaps feed his own delusions of innocence and moral superiority.