Oh, gawd, it's to laugh:[quote]Conservatives Take Aim at Movie's Anti-War, Nature-Loving, Religious Tone James Cameron's "Avatar" may have smashed box-..."/>

REAL WORLD EVENT DISCUSSIONS

The Politics of 'Avatar:' Conservatives Attack Film's Political Message

POSTED BY: NIKI2
UPDATED: Friday, January 8, 2010 12:20
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Wednesday, January 6, 2010 12:42 PM

NIKI2

Gettin' old, but still a hippie at heart...


Oh, gawd, it's to laugh:
Quote:

Conservatives Take Aim at Movie's Anti-War, Nature-Loving, Religious Tone

James Cameron's "Avatar" may have smashed box-office records, but it's receiving less-than-stellar reviews from some conservative writers who have panned the movie's blunt political messaging.

James Cameron's gamble pays off as his "Avatar" passes the billion-dollar mark."I call it the 'liberal tell,' where the early and obvious politics of the film gives away the entire story before the second act begins, and 'Avatar' might be the sorriest example of this yet," wrote conservative movie critic John Nolte.

Filmmaker Cameron does little to hide the political nuances in his $230 million hit, which has grossed more than $1 billion worldwide and is on its way to becoming one of the top 10 highest domestic grossing movies of all time.

From its portrayal of the corporation that wants to take over the natural resources on the planet Pandora -- a not-so-subtle allusion to the likes of Halliburton and defense contractor Blackwater -- to distinct religious, anti-war and pro-environment themes, the film's political messaging has rubbed many conservatives the wrong way.

"I wasn't infuriated by 'Avatar.' I was infuriated by the way it framed the culture-war debate... as if there are no secular people on the right," Jonah Goldberg, editor-at-large of the National Review, told ABC News.

Some conservatives have panned the movie not just for its overt political tones, but its criticism of American actions.

"'Avatar' is a thinly disguised, heavy-handed and simplistic sci-fi fantasy/allegory critical of America from our founding straight through to the Iraq War," wrote Nolte. "It looks like a big-budget animated film with a garish color palette right off a hippie's tie dye shirt."

The inhabitants of the planet Pandora in the film, the Na'vi, live in harmony with their natural surroundings and have strong faith in the powers of their goddess Eywa. But the RDA corporation, run by humans, sets up shop on Pandora to exploit its mineral resources. It will do anything to obtain Pandora's "nobtainium," even if that means destroying the Na'vi, their habitat and their faith.

Some conservative writers say they are outraged by strong religious undertones in the movie.

"Like the holiday season itself, the science fiction epic is a crass embodiment of capitalistic excess wrapped around a deeply felt religious message," Conservative writer and blogger Ross Douthat wrote in an op-ed in the New York Times. "'Avatar' is Cameron's long apologia for pantheism -- a faith that equates God with Nature, and calls humanity into religious communion with the natural world."

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/politics-avatar-conservatives-attack-mo
vies-political-messaging/story?id=9484885





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Wednesday, January 6, 2010 7:50 PM

FREMDFIRMA



Always seemed to me that the volume of such howling escalates in direct proportion to how accurate the pin you just stuck em with was...

Besides, as I mentioned in another thread, they were shortsighted and stupid about the whole shebang, but that's the neo-feudo-fascists for ya.

Not that the globalists are much better, just better at hidin it.

-F

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Wednesday, January 6, 2010 7:56 PM

CHRISISALL


I'm sick of humanist movies- I want to hate the bad guy & see him wasted- that's it!

Not that I'm a simplistic dumass or nuthin'.




The laughing Chrisisall

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Wednesday, January 6, 2010 8:36 PM

GINOBIFFARONI


Quote:

Originally posted by chrisisall:
I'm sick of humanist movies- I want to hate the bad guy & see him wasted- that's it!

Not that I'm a simplistic dumass or nuthin'.




The laughing Chrisisall



I think this movie had both, I was sad when at the end they let the stooge American companymen go home...


I would have been looking for trees to hang them from.




Either your with the terrorists, or ... your with the terrorists

Life is like a jar of Jalapeño peppers.
What you do today, might Burn Your Ass Tomorrow"

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Thursday, January 7, 2010 6:01 AM

FREMDFIRMA



I would not have let them leave, either, well, not, yanno, obviously...

I would have re-programmed their destination coordinates for the nearest sun and then played stupid native and told any following expeditions that the jungle ate em.

Sooner or later, they'd take the hint, or at least the shareholders would.

-F

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Thursday, January 7, 2010 6:15 AM

BYTEMITE


For Avatar, it's the writing and dialogue that leaves me unimpressed, not the message.

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Thursday, January 7, 2010 6:15 AM

KWICKO

"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." -- William Casey, Reagan's presidential campaign manager & CIA Director (from first staff meeting in 1981)


Quote:

Originally posted by chrisisall:
I'm sick of humanist movies- I want to hate the bad guy & see him wasted- that's it!

Not that I'm a simplistic dumass or nuthin'.




The laughing Chrisisall




Wasn't it you who started the thread about how mean that bad ol' Captain Kirk was for seeming to take joy in wasting Nero? ;)


(And yes, I realize you were being snarkastic at least one of those times.)

Mike

Work is the curse of the Drinking Class.
- Oscar Wilde

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Thursday, January 7, 2010 7:08 AM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


Ahhh... so much right with the movie (visually stunning, a tour-de-force, makes nasty example of imperialist wars including a reference to shock and awe) and yet... so much wrong!

Natives that look like humans, act like idealized patriarchal American Indians and dress like Masai. 'C'mon, where's your imagination, folks??? I kept tripping over lost opportunities and stupid mistakes. For example, tribes generally don't marry within tribes... its a recipe for inbreeding. Patriarchal tribal cultures either steal women from other tribes or otherwise arrange marriages outside of the tribe.

White man changes alliegances and saves the day. Where have I seen this before? Dances with Wolves and about a hundred other movies?

The everlasting myth of "the hero". As long as people keep waiting for one, nothing will change.

The "charge of the light brigade". Not much good leadership there! Inferior numbers win by guerrila tactics and sabotage.

The natives "win". C'mon, you know that if there is something as precious as Unobtainium, the imperialists will keep coming... and coming... and coming. Better have a backup plan to handle their superior numbers.

ETA Clifford Simaks All Flesh is Grass was the originator of the plantetary neural net. Ursula LeGuin created the tre--chopping character in The Word for the World is Forest. The Home Tree came from Ferngully.

Although the movie challenged some basic paradigms, it kept many other equally corrosive ones intact. Although I suppose this is about as 'far out there as' most Americans can handle (and some can't even handle that).


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Friday, January 8, 2010 11:20 AM

KWICKO

"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." -- William Casey, Reagan's presidential campaign manager & CIA Director (from first staff meeting in 1981)


Quote:


ETA Clifford Simaks All Flesh is Grass was the originator of the plantetary neural net. Ursula LeGuin created the tre--chopping character in The Word for the World is Forest. The Home Tree came from Ferngully.



None of it came from Larry Niven's The Integral Trees? I'm surprised by that.

Mike

Work is the curse of the Drinking Class.
- Oscar Wilde

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Friday, January 8, 2010 11:39 AM

STORYMARK


Quote:

Originally posted by SignyM:

Natives that look like humans, act like idealized patriarchal American Indians and dress like Masai. 'C'mon, where's your imagination, folks???



A movie of this scale would never be funded with non humanoid characters. They're not going to risk hundreds of millions on characters that people can't relate in any way to.

Plus, Cameron has said there is a specific reason the Na'Vi are structurally different from the other life forms on the moon.


Quote:

I kept tripping over lost opportunities and stupid mistakes. For example, tribes generally don't marry within tribes... its a recipe for inbreeding. Patriarchal tribal cultures either steal women from other tribes or otherwise arrange marriages outside of the tribe.


And here, after complaining that they're too human, your complaining because they don't follow human traditions....? As it was stated in the film the Na'Vi have no DNA, inbreeding may not be an issue.



Quote:

The natives "win". C'mon, you know that if there is something as precious as Unobtainium, the imperialists will keep coming... and coming... and coming. Better have a backup plan to handle their superior numbers.


Yes, of course the end tells the whole story, and they'll just not try again. They didn't have superior numbers THIS time because, if you recall - it's a bitch for humans to get there. Of course they'll try again - but did you want the movie to be 5 hours long?



"I thoroughly disapprove of duels. If a man should challenge me, I would take him kindly and forgivingly by the hand and lead him to a quiet place and kill him."

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Friday, January 8, 2010 11:53 AM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


For all I know, it came from that, too. There is another book... and I'll be damned if I can remember the title or author... in which a small human colony is stranded on a plant where ALL of the vegetation is linked... trees, grass, everything.

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Friday, January 8, 2010 12:20 PM

FREMDFIRMA


There's also a nastier variation of that in David Drakes Cross the Stars where the plant life is sentient, linked in that fashion, and somewhat exploitive.

Quote:

The Toler colony could afford to be larger than its conspecifics which depended on lower life forms to advance their needs. Each of the five hundred trees in the spaceport colony had deep-well irrigation and courtyard walls to break the force of the winds. Subsurface runners welded the colony together. The sorm trees were none the less discrete individuals whose life did not depend on that of the other members of the colony.

Whose life or death was individual.

Slade shifted his aim to a distant tree. The outlaws had probably not scattered too far from the ship in their quest for pleasure. The first bolt blew chunks from a wall coping. The second, after Slade corrected his aim, shattered another sorm. The courtyards were not built high enough to protect the trees from the gunman's brutal pruning.

Another hit. Another. Three shots in a row before the next tree sagged away from a half-severed trunk. Another hit. A miss, and Slade's hand slipped a fresh magazine from his coveralls to reload his weapon. The iridium barrel glowed, setting dust motes adance above the sight plane.

"You have to stop!" screamed the blond official from the ground. His face and teeth were white.

"Turn them loose," Slade called back. He locked the magazine home with the heel of his hand. "I'll give you time enough to stick a bloody root back in your skull. But if my people don't start coming back in the next five minutes, it's gone—every curst tree in this colony." He raised the powergun and clapped its fore-end for emphasis.

The Toler official blinked, struggling to form coherent thoughts. Then he began to shamble toward the building in which the nearest undamaged sorm still grew. To his back, Slade shouted, "I don't care cop about what you do with other ships. But you leave my people alone!"



Something to bear thinking about, just cause something is sentient, doesn't mean it's nice...

Take humans, for example.

-F

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