Avatar's Savage Message
• The Atlas SocietyTAS's Executive Director Edward Hudgins reveals the 'tired, mind-numbing leftist clichés embedded in old, reactionary themes' of James Cameron's latest film.
TAS's Executive Director Edward Hudgins reveals the 'tired, mind-numbing leftist clichés embedded in old, reactionary themes' of James Cameron's latest film.
Saw it... liked it. The 3D technology will bring a wave of new movies and remakes with another layer of 'engagement' for the audience.
The 'Mother Earth/Gia' theme was well done without angering me,... and since it was another whole planet with an entirely new set of conditions we were exploiting the message was easier to relay without earthly concerns.
I didn't have a problem with the message. "There are those that just want to be left alone,... and there are those that just won't leave them alone".
I agree with Ernest's comment about the movie. If you haven't seen it yet, you should. Here's my take on a lot of the reviews I've read about Avatar including the one from this article...
Neo-cons have a real problem with this movie. While they harp on the themes of nature vs industry, spirituality vs secularism etc, I think the thing that really pisses them off and that they never mention is the theme of private property. The theme is present in the fact that the Na'vi had a moral right to their home regardless of what substance was underneath it. The invading company used military force to take their home from them and trying to rationalize this theft because of the seeming lack of technical development of the Na'vi is just a lame attempt to excuse the US government of the moral verdict due it's world-wide imperialism.
Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.
My husband HAD to see this film so I went, expecting all the worst about nutty environmentalist tree-hugging and the tale of Nasty White Man vs. Noble Native. But it didn't happen that way for me. True, there was a LOT of environmental propaganda - tree spirits and the like - but it seemed more a "Dances with Wolves" in outer space rather than a crude condemnation of all things white and American. And, in fact, as a Christian, I take seriously our stewardship of the planet as opposed to the present environmental movement which is run by the left and cares far more about power to the government than saving the earth.
On the whole, the film was very much a colorful reiteration of the fate of the American Indian at the hands of the American Government and, frankly, there is no way that that situation can be "cleaned up" to favor the Government! Was there political correctness? To a certain extent. Two of the "earthling" heroes were women and the villains of the piece were a corporate bully and a sociopath Colonel (both white males) - but there were male heroes too - and they were - surprise, surprise! - white.
To me, the main theme was distinctly PRO-American - or at least the America of the Founders rather than the Empire we became after the War of Secession. It was a matter of the rights of people NOT to be coerced at the point of a gun into giving up their property and their sovereignty and to bow down before a rapacious Central Government offering them worthless trinkets in return for their national soul. As much as it was an "Indian" thing, it was also very much a "Southern" considering what happened to the people and states of the South when they tried to leave an ever expanding collectivist nation whose power would be centered in Washington rather than in the States and the People as the Founding Fathers had determined within the Constitution.
Frankly, I enjoyed AVATAR. It did have its "messages" that will be applauded by the left, but if one watches with discernment, it has messages that will applauded by the "right" as well - or at least that segment of the right that does not believe that "America" is always right - right or wrong and that things diametric to the Constitution are fine as long as they're done by "our side". Patriotism does not mean accepting every evil that is imposed upon us by those who wrap themselves in the flag. As a People, we have to be discerning.