go see it--trust me, you'll get your five hundred million dollars' worth. then come back and read this.
* * * * *
like most everybody else in the theater that night, by the final third of mr. cameron's extravagantly gorgeous movie i totally found myself rooting for the primitive-yet-soulful blue people to rise up and crush the soulless, technologically-advanced white people [i.e., mr. cameron and me].
unlike most everybody else in the theater that night, i even got the irony: mr. cameron utilizing hundreds of millions of dollars' worth of cutting-edge technology to demonstrate to us, the unwashed, the evils of technology.
to take it a step further: while watching this film i easily managed to transcend a lifetime of indoctrination about our heroic taming of the american west to suddenly and vividly imagine how many horrifying, heartbreaking variations of avatar must've played out as the white man forged inexorably westward across the great plains, casually and wantonly destroying every native american culture that then existed.
yeah, mr. cameron, i get it.
and of course, he's right. we caucasians are a cold, clever, ambitious lot; from that dark day back in the dark ages when we retreated to our separate corners of europe, built our cultures and subsequently spread our pale, greedy tentacles across all corners of the globe, the world has never been the same.
* * * * *
there's a little game i sometimes trot out at gatherings when i find myself the odd man out (a not-unusual circumstance).
i'll smile in a non-threatening way and ask everyone if they were forced to live the rest of their lives in a country other than the U.S.--anywhere they wanted--what would their top five choices be?
[you can play this game at home--in fact, before continuing, pause for a moment, close your eyes and think about your own answers, ok?]
they'll make their lists, read 'em, compare notes; an interesting and illuminating discussion of the various alternatives will ensue.
it's not until i point out that almost all their choices are countries created and/or run by white people that i'm decried as a racist.
* * * * *
bad as we are, mr. cameron, i bet the world will miss us when we're gone.
11 comments:
Bravo!..
"from that dark day back in the dark ages when we suddenly quit fighting each other, retreated to our separate corners of europe"
I buy EVERYTHING you say, but not that.
I read history deeply and closely with an especial love of the period from the dissolution of the Empire of the West through The Migration Period (aka Dark Ages) to the beginning of the Renaissance. There was NEVER a time when the fighting stopped in Europe. The carnage was fueled by greed, the desire to dominate chunks of the continent politically or economically, dynastic power struggles and religious zeal.
The appalling perpetual destruction and slaughter was a major reason why the framers of the infant United States were anxious to keep it free of any involvement in European wars, which marched on with increasing scope and barbarism right through 20th century.
yhm: :)
will: of course you're right--i sacrificed historical accuracy for the sake of flow, and hoped no one would notice (and being shitfaced probably didn't help). upon sober reflection, i now see that if i just take out the offending clause altogether, the paragraph flows even better, so that's what i'm gonna do.
And indeed it flows very well that way. :-)
Was an entertaining movie . Your analysis was quite enlightening vis a vis the irony of the whole situation .
But most people won't understand that .
It's a kind of idiocy . I won't respect ivory tower-ers until they start living the peasant life they say we're depriving people of by setting up factories in their cities and attracting them with this thing called 'money' that can buy these things we call 'goods' for their families .
I saw iterations of this before . Ferngully , heck even pocahontas .
It made Cameron a lot of money , though , and gave him currency (see the double entendre I used there ?) with the younger crowd . It's what happens when a lot of 'whites' are too busy sucking mother nature's dick to realize that they're being screwed in the ass by cap and trade and media culture .
So what's a better movie to deal with the legitimate plight of the indigenous peoples ?
Watch The Mission .
byzantine boy: ah, but the arnold schwarzeneggers and al gores of the world will never cease traversing the globe in their private gulfstreams preaching the virtues of restraint--it's the human condition.
whatever--i'll look for "the mission."
[you might be amused to know that leonard cohen's "the future" came up on shuffle as i was composing this comment]
I would live in Mexico because it is the closest thing we have to Los Angeles in the world. I would also pick a number of island nations in the South Pacific including Tahiti, Fiji, and Bora Bora.
Your little test is difficult because most people do not speak anything other than English, so you are pretty much stuck with fewer interesting choices.
A dare for Guttermorality: Go to Costa Rica. I doubt you would be inclined to return. You might even learn Spanish.
noblesavage: yeah--lemme know how things go for you down in mexico. as for the south pacific utopias you mention, most people would be bored to tears in a week.
and language rarely plays a factor in the choices people make when i bring up this topic--france, italy, germany and japan are often at the top of many peoples' lists.
as for your last point, you might well be right.
here's a trailer for you :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PvWaD-NErlY
Interesting take. I haven't seen the movie yet but I've heard the fuss, most of which is about the special effects. I live in Colombia so I'm like the technologically-advanced white people living among blue people, and I see it as doing my best to bring them up to our level by leaving a big load of light blue shorties :)
bb: intriguing--i'll have to queue it up.
colin: ah, sperm with a purpose--don't see much of that around here ;)
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