HEY, YOU GUYS, LET'S TALK ABOUT HOW MUCH THIS YEAR'S OSCAR NOMS SUCK!

[bookshop]

*Best Picture 2010 nominations list*
- Avatar <-- racist, imperialist white liberal guilt fantasy (everyone, native peoples, mountains, animals, trees and tree-nerve-endings, get exploited by white people, awesome!!)

- The Blind Side <-- i haven't seen this, but true story notwithstanding the trailer just me cringe. It really, really seemed

Comments

[nzraya]

Totally with you on Avatar (which I haven't seen, largely because know will hate and refuse to support with my $$ in any way) and District 9, which OMG I HATED -- I don't agree that it is a liberal white fantasy, exactly, or at least maybe it is one on a somewhat more meta level than usual (because the white-liberal-porn of the movie is in watching the white people behaving badly and going "OMG they are behaving SO BADLY! I would be SO DIFFERENT in that situation!"), but the part where you say:"oh no, war is bad! violence is bad! let's impress this somber point upon you with lots of cool explosions and flying body parts!" piece of CRAP war movie you've seen 80000 times before.
YES. THIS. I actually had a 100% Barbara Bush (senior) response to it, to wit: "Why would I waste my beautiful mind on something like that

[anatsuno]

I had very mixed feelings about Inglourious Basterds, which also left me feeling like I had been violently abused, and as a Jew am not certain how I feel about the revenge fantasy part because I don't WANT to be implicated in a revenge fantasy. I don't believe in revenge, I don't believe in violence, and to the extent that there is a certain grisly satisfaction in seeing Shoshanna's plan come to fruition, it is about as satisfying as a Big Mac: you feel somewhat full, but you know you'll be hungry again (or queasy, depending) in 5 minutes and you feel rather iffy about having knowingly consumed something so artificial and un-nutritious.

Also, it is way too fucking easy to hate on Nazis. Sure, go ahead, blow them up! That'll solve everything! Because of course all the people sitting at home in England and the US hating *equally* on Jews and Germans and refusing to let in ships containing Jewish refugees were IN NO WAY responsible for the Holocaust.

YES THIS OMG.

[soundczech]

i don't really think district 9 played on getting people to think "I would be SO DIFFERENT in that situation!". most of the horror of it was created by the uncomfortable knowledge that if it happened we would probably act exactly like that. most of the people i talked to about it agreed that it was depressing for that very reason.

[nzraya]

Yeah, this is very much a YMMV take. The main reason I didn't like it was I need there to be a reason for a story to be told and I just didn't see any reason why this story had to be told (if "story" is even the right word given that bugger-all happens apart from a lot of violence and no one changes or learns anything). I also personally really hate watch D9 ing violence and have a hard time getting into a story where there isn't a single likable character. I just end up like "Why did I have to go through that?" D9 didn't have an answer to that question that worked for me.

[nzraya]

You didn't find Christopher a likeable character? Off the top of my head, I can't think of anything he did that was truly repellent or unjustified.

[nzraya]

No, but he also wasn't much of a character. I mean, yes, he compares favourably to the humans in the film, but that's because there is literally no competition. What I got from Christopher was "loves his son, wants him to have a normal life" and that's it -- in any other film, that would make him a sketched-in role with no depth, not a character.