Why You Shouldn’t Get Too Excited About Avatar

plfields — Wed, 30 Dec 2009 13:53:41 +0000

James Cameron’s Avatar is proving it can go the distance, in terms of dollars and cents anyway. Together with Sherlock Holmes, the two blockbusters drove ticket sales to an all time high this Christmas weekend. No matter how you feel about the movie it is impossible to ignore. A friend’s status on facebook reads “Avatar…the most INCREDIBLE movie I have ever seen…EVER.” While returning gifts at Guitar Center I over heard the salesman prattling on about how if any one starts a sentence with “I want to see” he immediately interrupts them with “–Avatar.” He seemed very proud of his clairvoyance on the issue after nauseatingly interceding that his co-worker wanted to see avatar. So Mr. Cameron you’ve done it again. You’ve created another megalith of intoxicating American culture. Unfortunately sir, I feel the absurdity of the whole situation is lost on you.
While most reviews acknowledge that the plot is a little weak (basically Dances With Wolves with twelve foot tall blue aliens instead of Native Americans), they all give it up for the special effects. However, I’ve yet to read anything that thoroughly points out the absurdity of the flower power message in this ultra high tech packaging. The moral of the movie is basically that pillaging the environment and people to get rich is wrong. Seems simple enough. Unfortunately, the movie costs somewhere between 300 million and half a billion dollars to produce and market. Never mind pointing out how many millions of pound of rice that could have bought for oppressed peoples around the globe the movie tries to teach us about (600 million pounds of rice if rice is $1000 per ton and the movie cost 300 Million, enough to feed 1/10 of the world for a few days). This statistic is superficial, considering the rise in price of rice from dumping $300 million on any given day in the market would likely hurt the worlds poor by driving up the cost. Also, the money spent on Avatar was an investment. Like all investments, it’s meant to yield a profit, not help the disenfranchised. Nonetheless Cameron chose to not just to make a visually stunning movie but also to preach an anti-imperialistic message, opening himself up to the criticism of believers and heretics alike.
So Cameron’s antagonist is basically the military industrial complex portrayed by the RDA Corporation and the U.S. Marine Force. They are pillaging the Na’vi and their home planet of Pandora to mine unobtanium. A fictional mineral that is extremely valuable back on earth. The Na’vi, however, are the predictable wise savages whose intrinsic appreciation for nature represents a truer Truth. This is all fine and good, but how pathetic is it that the average American needs a completely virtual world manufactured for them in order to listen to bedtime story about nature? Ironically this may be the trick to getting the masses to understand their own complex relationship with the environment. Perhaps the deluded drooling hoards need CGI blue aliens to tell them what they should have read in books. Perhaps it is a worthwhile investment.
Before we let Cameron completely off the hook, let’s ask if he knows what made the production of Avatar possible? Eh. You give up… okay, it’s microprocessors. Perhaps more specifically what is needed to make a microprocessor? One needs a super conductor for that. Where does this super conductor come prêt ell? It comes from Africa, the Democratic Republic of the Congo. In the war-torn nation Western backed factions are engaged in a fierce civil war for a mineral almost as farcical sounding as unobtanium. Columbite-tantalite otherwise known as Coltan is used in everything from your smart phone to your TV remote control. So quite literally Cameron’s movie about exploiting a fictitious alien people for their mineral wealth, would not have been possible (or at least not as cheap) with out the real exploitation of people for their mineral wealth. I am guilty too. These musings are brought to you via the same bloody mineral. I just wonder if Cameron understands the costs and the absurdity of his “revolutionary” and “ground breaking” film.
“I think the film is a plea for us to open our eyes to see each other as human beings, for what we are, to see past the cultural differences, to respect nature, respect each other, and to respect other cultures,” said Cameron. This is a great sentiment, but I wonder if gangly blue aliens really are needed. Cameron could have just made a movie about the actual Congo. Then again there wouldn’t be as much opportunity for special effects wizardry, Cameron’s forte. God forbid the audience would have been forced to sit through a movie that is reliant on his dialogue. Also a film that explains how cheap consumer electronics require the suffering of hundreds of thousands of people could negatively affect the bluray sales. Indeed, why would any major motion picture studio waste the time and money raising awareness for a real issue that effects real people when they could make up an allegory that leaves people conveniently ignorant about their own imperialistic tendencies. Real issues are sad. Fake issues are spectacular.
Furthermore, for all the money and razzle-dazzle packed in this film, Cameron fails to illuminate the audience past the point of triteness. He has the spiritual leader of the Na’vi remind us to empty our cup. Then Sigourney Weaver tells us there is an interconnectedness of all things. However, instead of explaining this interconnectedness as a real phenomenon (that you are the great magician who makes the grass green), he relies on his fantasyland. On Pandora the na’vi can connect to the network of energy that runs through the plants and “download and upload” knowledge about their ancestors. Cameron’s Buddhist new age philosophy fails to challenge the viewer past a third grad comprehension of reality. I doubt Cameron’s own philosophical inquiries have led him further than googling “Buddhist sayings” and reading an Inconvenient Truth. If they have he certainly doesn’t let the audience in on his ponderings. There are certainly plenty of sources (Lao Tzu, James Joyce, Robert Anton Wilson, Joseph Heller, Henry David Thoreau) Cameron could have tapped into, but apparently he was too busy tweaking his special effects to spend time learning about the ideas he was trying to express. In the end it appears that Cameron’s cup is indeed overflowing and Avatar was yet another pointless and absurd money rake. A common feature in our society, that leaves me rather unimpressed.

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Why You Shouldn’t Get Too Excited About Avatar