It looks like this year is a good year for Camerons:
James Cameron cashes in with his risible, racist Avatar film while the UK is faced with its own version of a blue, overhyped, and much-moneyed individual, David Cameron.
Happy New Year to all.
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Your thoughts are always welcome.
15 comments:
Having seen the trailers i'm pretty sure 'risible' is a fairly accurate discription but in what way is it racist?
I'm asking because there is no way i'm going to see it myself. I might be tempted out of curiousity but my wife point blank refuses to see anything with the merest whiff of Fantasy or Sci-Fi.
Probably for the best in this case.
Hi Czarny,
It's racist in the sense that it infantilises the 'blue people' (clearly a cliched reference to the indigenous peoples of the two Americas). It therefore also draws quite heavily on the image of the Noble Savage. That's why I used the word 'racist'.
It's a truly dreadful film.
And a happy new year to you too Olching!
Not having been to the cinema at all during the last 7 years (that's parenthood for you!), a 3-hour effects-driven sci-fi romp would probably be the very last thing I would choose to break my duck, but thanks for the warning, all this same!
As for "Heir to Blair", would you believe there are some conservatives who actively wish for him to lose the upcoming election, in order that they may regroup into a genuinely conservative (ie NOT neo-Liberal) party?
I think they have seen what happens when a party abandons its traditional value and don't want it happening to the them...
Yes, Pat, I do believe you. In fact, I think it's in everyone's interest to have clearly delimited parties.
While it is clear that 'Dave' will win the election, I'm sure you will be able to forgive me for the anticipatory glee of a huge fallout within and outwith the Tory party in an election or two down the line.
Look, party politics is at a nadir in the UK (and elsewhere I think) at the moment. Perhaps we are moving into a new era where the party politics of old simply becomes irrelevant and we become more and more reliant of 'buying into' brands etc...
Avatar, well as i said: A shocker. You've missed nothing.
Haven't seen Avatar..not fond of any films which cast "humanity" as the villain...they're all from the same "Straw Dogs / progress is an impossible utopian delusion" theme which play straight into our era of anti-politics. As you say: soon there'll be nothing left but brand loyalty...won't be long before they actually give us loyalty cards with Tax concessions when you clock up enough points.
Yep, I've seen Avatar - and the best part of that experience was turning around in one of the many dull moments (shit - but it was an interminably long film) to check out the audience all wearing 3-D specs - fuck, that was funny.
As a film-with-a-message, it was soporifically brilliant in its crassness - totally patronising in the 'noble savage' californicated crap of embrace (yeah - I know Cameron's hailed as Canadian but you just know that he's one of those Canucks that replays an iPod loop of Scott McKenzie).
Blue people - my arse! And their cartoon close association to the bonds of Gaia.
What's that Cameron? Nature only speaks to the primitive? - fuck off you patronising twat. Oh yeah - and we (the people) can heal paraplegic marines by embracing the hollywood sweat lodge, apparently.
Anyway - over here the focus is on said-disabled marine who is, by all accounts, an Australian actor - oh excellent, like that remotely important. Well, that in itself says a lot about the celebrity desire to be a part of an imagined vicarious ownership of 'success' - dickheads.
I thought that this movie was cliched, patronising, banal apologist hollywood crap. You know, the capitalists mining the deep riches of feel-good liberalism, but it seems I was wrong - according to right-wing commentators here it's all a leftist plot. I quote an Avatar review that recognises: "snarling vipers of left-wing Hollywood". Oh how we laughed, all those lefties making a movie without any sense of box-office success - you couldn't make it up.
Anyway - it's out there now - the film I mean - and I went to see it and paid the price :)
Apart from all that -Happy New Year olching
Hi Monkey,
I'm not sure humanity is the villain in the film. I think it's more what parallax says: It's a feel good factor for liberalism, a kind of hand-wringing apologia for exploitation. We take and then shed crocodile tears afterwards pretending to be remorseful in an attempt to cleanse ourselves from nastiness.
Hi parallax,
Loved your comment. The fallout from Avatar is, sadly, quite telling of our society: A kind of virtual reality politics and identity battle, but ultimately without any substance.
Hope all is well.
Well I can't say for sure..haven't seen it. I got the impression it was about the Neo-con 'earthlings' fucking up another Gaia for their evil rapacious needs and destroying a bunch of righteous, spiritually attuned tree dwelling ecosapiens in the process.
Message being..mend your evil ways...move into a teepee...and give up on any hope of a decent technologically advanced society..all your plans will end in shit..mind you..2 things have just occurred to me..
1) I should probably start watching films before I give my opinion.
2)..and this is worrying..I'm starting to come over all Brendan O'Neill
Monkeyfish:
"Haven't seen Avatar..not fond of any films which cast "humanity" as the villain...they're all from the same "Straw Dogs / progress is an impossible utopian delusion" theme which play straight into our era of anti-politics. "
I can't speak for the film (as I haven't seen it either), but I think what mention is indeed part of you growing trend to see the human race as, well, a bit rubbish, really.
While I was back in Blighty over Christmas I took my son to panto (Little Mermaid, since you ask) and, in amongst all the slapstick and innuendo, the "serious" theme was that the horrible humans were despoiling the otherwise pristine sea. The fact that our kids are constantly receiving the message that they have transgressed against nature simply by being born can't be healthy, can it?
I think the "Spiked" crowd are decidedly creepy but they do have one thing in their favour and that is they do a good job in highlighting the all-pervading misanthropy which underlies a lot of "post-political" thinking.
I agree with both of you to a point. I don't like the top-down misanthropy at all that is near enough all-pervasive. But that must not mean that we limit our ability to be self-critical.
The real problem for the Spiked (or Sp!ked) crowd is that they apply their pattern so religiously, like a one-trick pony. A lot of it reads quite well, but it's a dogma that does not allow for subtlety. This means that they are quite often wrong on their take (I think their cultural stuff is usually quite good, as is their stuff on the 'Greening' of politics, but they're quite weak on the essence of environmental destruction).
I don't think that Avatar is really about that, though it does espouse some sense of middle class faux-guilt.
I shouldn’t judge a film I haven’t seen, but I just don’t GET James Cameron. Whilst I like some retro fantasy/sci fi like The Outer Limits or The Twilight Zone, which had clever plots, I think George Lucas and James Cameron have ruined the genre. And even outside the genre, James Cameron still has Titanic to answer for.
Anyway, I visited to see if Olching had anything to say about Nick Cohen’s recent eggy fart of an article on CIF (didn’t see any of his comments, but he said on Neil Clark that he’d been edited). Really, I was cheered to see the comments. But one just made my head hurt:
'Have the conspiracy theorists come up with a more convincing motive than the old "war for oil" nonsense yet? If not, I have some suggestions:
1) Saddam had just built the perfect hippy commune, and the evil forces of capitalism were determined to snuff out all knowledge of this socialist utopia before it spread.
2) Israel. They called in a favour from their western lapdogs. Why? Do they need a reason slaughter sweet little babies?
3) Political correctness gone mad. No further explanation needed.
4) Bush and Blair teamed up with Gordon Gecko and devised a devilish plan to strip Iraq of it's sand which would be sold to countries in need of artificial beaches, then leverage the cost of the war onto the Iraqi government. Need proof? Blair's spin doctor Alistair Campbell was once photographed at the beach. QED.'
Now is this guy a crap left wing satirist or a crap right wing satirist? I’m so confused. By an fghj, if you know who that is? The disturbing thing is he had 48 recommends.
As for the anti-humanist theme in Avatar, my own personal view is that there is no logical reason why human life is special or why the life of a pig should be worth less than a human’s. If intelligence is what counts then the Unabomber is worth more than most of us.
Of course, I do take the view that human life is very special, but I dislike the way that humanists imply that they are some type of Vulcan when their own views are subjective. I think John Gray’s great. (But I’m not going to ‘debate’ this point, because I generally find that humanists are like libertarians in their intensity of opinion, feeling of victimhood and proselytising zeal).
Hi Gregor,
Well, as always, I think Cohen's feeble attempt to legitimise his horrendous war-supporting stance is repugnant.
The problem with Cohen is that he isn't stupid like perhaps some other sympathisers of supporters of the war. He fully understands the arguments but has taken a position and will not back down.
The worst thing about this (as Neil Clark has made explicit on numerous occasions) is that he utilises the destruction, death, and tragedy of Iraq (in this case Iraq) to score points and entrench his views further. Like Alistair Campbell, it's all an abstract game (for Cohen it's become an abstract game, for Campbell - a nihilist - it always has been).
That's what's truly unforgivable.
Oh yes, the pathetic posts (one of which you cite) are truly illuminating. The fact that there are people out there who live their lives day in day out according to some incredible fantasy is a bit frightening, frankly.
Spiked.
I quite like O'Neill, he's a good polemicist (even if his lines of argument don't always bear too much scrutiny), Furedi is a bore, and as for Mick Hume, I just can't get past the fact that he's a Man U fan from Surrey. I can forgive most things in a man, but not that.
Iraq.
I never comment on Iraq articles on CiF because I genuinely do not know why we went to war there. None the conventional arguments seem to fit, so I stay quietly confused.
Ideological point-scoring.
There's a lot of it about at the moment on CiF over Haiti, that's for sure.
Gregor: as olching says the problem is that the policy makers see it as an abstract game - that's why they can pontificate eulogies until the cows come home because they do not (cannot) imagine themselves in the field - they are on the hill watching the battle.
See the difference between those that determine and those that die for the people who make that determination?
This is where (this is theory rather than action - so I already see the pitfalls - but then again we're talking about people who determine rather than 'do')we have to bring in social theorist Jean Baudrillard who talks about people that don't understand the difference between real and abstract.
Baurillard talks about simulacrum (the video-game-playing of life) - he argues that a simulacrum is not a copy of the real, but becomes truth in its own right - Campbell and Cohen talk about the impact of policy as though they are issuing commands to conquer - they do not/ cannot imagine that the body-count is anything other than a game score. People are numbers - not people.
cheers
Well I thoroughly enjoyed the film warts and all.
Essentially it was about the "culture" of death versus the culture of life.
It is therefore interesting so called conservatives (especially those that presume to be religious) loathed the film.
Meanwhile The Navi were almost on the brink of defeat, the resistance organized by Jake had failed.
The only "thing" that saved them was the collective power(s) of nature which were invoked via their prayers to their Sacred Tree.
Not unlike the Ents in The Lord of the Rings.
Plus the Avatar figure did not emerge until the very last frames of the film.
The former Jake, woke up as a completely new Being (and possibility). A being that implicitly embodied the world-views of both the Navi and the Earthlings.
I Enjoyed the film because it resonated with what is communicated in these essays by a Real living-breathing-feeling Avatar.
www.aboutadidam.org/readings/bridge_to-god/index2.html
www.fearnomorezoo.org/trees/sacred_trees.php
www.dabase.org/p2anthro.htm
www.dabase.org/p9rightness.htm
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