Comments | penguinparity: Won't you be my Avatar?

penguinparity

Won't you be my Avatar?

Mar 23, 2010 02:35

Since the Oscars I have found myself in several conversations about the movie Avatar. Specifically, when other people have bemoaned the fact that the movie didn't win best picture and I scoffed because I hated the movie. In every single one of these conversations someone has expressed shock that I disliked the movie and demanded to know why, then ( Read more... )

review, wankery, so to speak, politics, look ma i got culture, meta

Comments 8

petronia March 23 2010, 14:35:55 UTC

Well, prettiness is actually the only thing the movie has going for it, so it's not surprising that that's the argument ppl make. XD;; Not only is the plot racist, it's also hackneyed, and I'd argue more ppl recognize the latter fact than the former.

penguinparity March 24 2010, 01:55:23 UTC

Fair point! The plot itself it pretty overdone is just about every genre.

mark356 March 23 2010, 20:23:53 UTC

The other problem I had with it was the one that Susie Bright pointed out on her blog: they depict this beautiful world where the natives have this mystical connection to the trees and they all see the forest as one living entity à la '90's environmentalists, a depiction that we can all agree has problems, they then show that same beautiful world as a battlefield, and they show the absolute destruction of that world and culture.

penguinparity March 24 2010, 02:02:55 UTC

Indeed. It made James Cameron's comments at the Oscars about the importance of the environment particularly ridiculous.

(The comment has been removed)

penguinparity March 24 2010, 02:03:54 UTC

Haha, very apt. Pocahontas was just as racist!

strigine March 24 2010, 03:00:45 UTC

I was very immersed in the movie when I was in the theater, but as soon as I came out and started thinking, I got angry about it on multiple levels. It's also, IMHO, pretty ableist. Yes, he's in a wheelchair, but he spends 7/8s of the movie escaping that body, and is ultimately rewarded for all of his heroism by being able to escape it for good.

One of the tropes that really bothers me about this kind of movie is the "hot native girlfriend with badass native boyfriend who ultimately acknowledges Our Hero's, uh, prowess". For all its failings, at least that's one thing "Dances with Wolves" didn't do.

fluffyduck March 24 2010, 07:34:01 UTC

It sooort of works when you view it as a Western, which is an inherently racist genre and covers pretty much all of your points. Most people I know also agree that the plot is identical to FernGully: The Last Rainforest. XD

But my personal beef with the movie is the matches. We can send people to another fucking planet, but all we have to create fire with is matches?! How are they even lighting when you need oxygen for combustion and nobody can breathe the air?? *holds head*