"Avatar" is unquestionably the most important cultural phenomenon in the US of the past year, if not a decade. With it, James Cameron made our nation look in the mirror and be appalled at what we see. He made us cheer when Americans are savagely killed, he made us give an unequivocal answer: "It feels good" to a question, "How does it feel to betray your own country?", he made us feel triumphant when defeated and pathetic Americans are driven out of the land they tried to conquer. This is the most culturally subversive movie of the year. An absolute pleasure to watch.Americans, driven by our usual force, greed (or interests of shareholders, as they are referred to in the movie), try to destroy a primitive aborigine culture on a distant planet in their desire to mine a very valuable mineral. When the locals refuse to give up their land and resources voluntarily, the Americans start a full-scale military operation against them... and lose. American war cry is, "We are going to fight terror with terror!" (rings the bell?), and the aborigines' only hope of winning is that they "know these mountains better" than the Americans do. In other words, the movie all but literally evokes our wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and cheers our imminent defeat. But the genius of James Cameron is in not tying the plot to a specific historical moment, or a particular military conflict - but rather turning the movie into a parable which can be interpreted as an archetype for a variety of situations, including Israel's war against Palestinians, and any future conflicts the Western world may be involved in against indigenous populations of various countries blessed with natural resources.
The movie presents a special challenge to our mainstream media. Given its astonishing commercial success, the media cannot possibly just ignore it and pretend it never happened. Nor do they dare to analyse its message - again, given its remarkable success (does this mean that Americans are buying the message and are attuned to it? or does it mean that Americans are rather stupid and they just don't read more into the story than the sci-fi plot?). Actually, I mostly see just the reports of dollar figures on the ticket sales while calling the movie "a sci-fi epic." I understand the media establishment's predicament, and enjoy watching them wiggle their way out of it.
The movie "Avatar," - if it is truly understood and accepted by the American public - can be a very significant step in us taking a critical look at ourselves as a country and changing the course, rather than staying it. The movie is as much an important cultural phenomenon as the media's attempt to divert its significance by trivializing it as another idiotic "Star Wars" or "Lord of the Rings."
Both, the movie and its commercial success, make me hopeful for the future of our nation.
I do believe most people understand the tale of the movie. It has been blatantly published in multiple local newspapers. The god in the movie is named ewah which sounds very close to allah. I have yet to meet anyone that does not see the political implications, and all agree with the film.
ReplyDeleteWe see that America got itself into a war that may be more about resources than any virtue of freedom. Americans do get upset every time more troops are sent. But I do not think the people's voice matters anymore when it comes to this. The military "knows more". The only fear that haunts some now is that we have made eternal enemies. The kind that will always seek revenge and our only control over it is attempting to keep them busy in their own country.
Horrible mess.
There are some here that even believe that the government made up the resource shortage just to make us react in fear. And pay more. reduce supply, create more demand. Good strategy for the government to get more money out of a suffering economy.
Imagine what would happen if they claimed a water shortage.