Avatar: An Extension of White Supremacy

CMOT Dibbler wrote:

Can't sexism, racism and ableism exist in the same film?

They can but that doesn't mean they do.

Yes, but there was no sexism in Avatar that I've seen demonstrated anyway, and I've been reading a lot of critiques. The case that was mentioned in the feministing article was caused by the writer not understanding basic metaphors. There's a scene where Sigourney Weaver's character is dying, they're trying to revive her and so she's lying in a fetal position. The reviewer at feministing didn't get that the fetal position is meant to symbolize birth/death/vulnerability (I thought this was obvious...), and so she argued Weaver was placed in that manner to show off her curves.

CMOT Dibbler wrote:

Another thing: Why does jake have to be a man alone.  Why couldn't he have brought a caregiver with him, instead of having to rely on scientists on the base for his  care?

There is better treatment but he can't afford it. More expensive chairs would probably be expensive to transport all the way to Alpha Centauri.

As for a caregiver? This wasn't a socialist future. Cameron's future is a plausible one where we stay the course, remain capitalist, aristocratic, destroy our planet and spread our imperialism and exploitation to neighbouring star systems. Writing about the apocalypse is not equivalent to endorsing the apocalypse.

Catchfire wrote:

Why is "unobtanium" (ha!) valuable? What about the social appetite that demands it? What about the exploitive labour that turns it into a commodity worth exchanging? They don't even have anyone working on the damn mines, just a military that just kind of hangs around, occasionally killing the odd native.

For someone who has a master's degree in literature you know very little about science fiction. Cameron didn't invent the term Unobtainium, it's used satirically in a variety of places.

As for the second part, there's a lot of things Cameron didn't cover. It's a 2 hour movie in a completely new universe. Discussion of the social appetite on Earth that demands the mineral would have been a distraction. You can't answer every question. No original story ever has.

Catchfire wrote:

It's "environmental message" is less complex than WALL*E, and countless other big-budget films

How was Wall-E complex?

I thought Avatar had a sophisticated moment when Augustine is explaining how the trees talk to one another, and the project manager starts laughing saying, condescendingly, "people, these are trees". That's exactly how conservatives often undermine environmental messages, or messages in other domains. We have this ad campaign here promoting high fructose corn syrup, a smiling, laughing, attractive woman tells us it's just sugar.

pookie wrote:

On the previous thread CMOT said that the only reason the protagonist took the mission was to get new legs (in response to someone pointing out that he actually had a fair bit of determination and drive.) In fact he makes the deal for new legs partway through the movie.  It is possible that he is partially motivated to join the mission by the idea of being an avatar, but he clearly has no idea, beforehand, what it will be like to be in that existence and regain his mobility.

I don't think he was motivated by the new legs at all. When he's offered them halfway through the movie he agrees, but the impression I had is that he didn't want to contradict his supervisor... was he not mumbling when he agreed?

Viking77 wrote:

To stay on topic, I suggest that if Avatar is seen as racist then it is rather the age-old myth of the 'noble savage' that is perpetuated. i.e. the supposedly "positive" racism of the 19th century that sought to insulate 'other' innocent 'pacifist' cultures from decadent, corrupt Western influence - the greatest example of which being Apartheid.

Of course a positive stereotype is no less false, and no less racist, than a negative one. The presentation of the humans as rapacious, resource-hungry brutes is no more accurate than the presentation of the Na'vi as the opposite, if the movie is intended to portray them as human cultures at all.

That's exactly what some friends argued this weekend, that the movie perpetuated the myth (in their opinion) that native Americans were good to the environment.

The Na'Vi are not native Americans though. And we don't know that they're noble.

People who write these kind of semi-trollish commentaries to comment on racism have ulterior motives on their mind. One is trotting out white supremacy in a wholly inappropriate matter to gain attention for their posts. Another is to combine with neo-cons to tear down a film for no other purpose but to demonstrate their ultra-left bona fides. Neither helps people who are actually fighting the fights depicted in Avatar. 

Avatar as a cultural phenomenon is perhaps the biggest blockbuster to carry an explicit anti-imperial, anti-colonial message. While the film carries various time-worn tropes, it also breaks new ground in unflinchingly putting forward a storyline where the obviously American mercenaries are defeated. No other film really has come close to such an uplifting victory for the underdogs.

In China, the message is that of an unambiguous call to arms for community activists fighting against the seizure of their land by corrupt contractors and politicians. 

For Latin America, Avatar is an direct allegory for the fight against mines and development projects that are victimizing indigenous people.

Add to that that CCH Pounder, Wes Studi, Zoe Saldana, Laz Alonso play the Na'vi. While the ex-marine Jake Sully leads the charge, it is this transformation that is absolutely necessary for those living in the imperial centres to change course. So I say this strategic choice, while jarring, is the main point -- It's not about assuaging white guilt, but an active call to join the resistance against imperialism.

Read this: Anti-imperialism in 3-D
Ok, I get it that you would like to unplug from Hollywood or Bollywood or Tollywood or Nollywood for that matter, dis it as wholly and irredeemably racist, but change in the world does not depend on a few people who want to hide out  and sneer at all the popular cultural forces in the world, for good or ill. That itself is a a supremely elitist and counterproductive proposition. People are also responding to this film the world over, not just in the US.
And it is not those who enjoyed Avatar who are bringing up these tired discussions over and over again. It is this singular focus on Avatar by its detractors, mostly on the right, but also amongst the snarky holier than thou crowd whose academic high mindedness have driven their work into a bunker of stale avoidance of anything even smacking of popular forms of expression.
And utopian stories where underdog triumps are appreciated and NEEDED from time to time, lest our hearts rot in the dystopic visions that drive movements to nihilism and activists to self-loathing and recrimination. If it awakens even a smidgen of concern and outrage over what is happening in this world, then the film will have been a larger success in the social realm than all the Iraq documentaries combined.
Also as non-white person, I do think there is a place for "saving white people." For heaven's sake, they have to be saved just because they sit on top of the rest of the world. Try proposing any other solution.

See this post on Racialicious. Please read the comments by people who saw Avatar, enjoyed it, and have anti-racist and anti-imperial critiques of it too.

500_Apples wrote:

[

The Na'Vi are not native Americans though. And we don't know that they're noble.

That's an excellent point, we don't.

*not mentioning racial issues as promised*

I've read dozens of reviews at this stage and none have mentioned the ethics of using animals in war.

But there's also another issue that is not mentioned in the film: was any attempt made by the humans to buy or trade for unobtanium?

It raises an age old ethical question, particularly in that it's mentioned in the movie that the earth is dying and the resource is the only thing that can save it (?). If that were the case, and the owners of that resource refused to share/sell it - and given that self-preservation is a noble cause - would we be justified in trying to save our species through taking it by force?

Maysie wrote:

  See this post on Racialicious. Please read the comments by people who saw Avatar, enjoyed it, and have anti-racist and anti-imperial critiques of it too.

I read all the comments there wasn't much there. are you sure you linked to the right piece? Nobody in this thread or the previous is saying we shouldn't analyze the film and just enjoy it except for Catchfire.

ceti wrote:

Read this: Anti-imperialism in 3-D
Ok, I get it that you would like to unplug from Hollywood or Bollywood or Tollywood or Nollywood for that matter, dis it as wholly and irredeemably racist, but change in the world does not depend on a few people who want to hide out  and sneer at all the popular cultural forces in the world, for good or ill. That itself is a a supremely elitist and counterproductive proposition. People are also responding to this film the world over, not just in the US.
And it is not those who enjoyed Avatar who are bringing up these tired discussions over and over again. It is this singular focus on Avatar by its detractors, mostly on the right, but also amongst the snarky holier than thou crowd whose academic high mindedness have driven their work into a bunker of stale avoidance of anything even smacking of popular forms of expression.
And utopian stories where underdog triumps are appreciated and NEEDED from time to time, lest our hearts rot in the dystopic visions that drive movements to nihilism and activists to self-loathing and recrimination. If it awakens even a smidgen of concern and outrage over what is happening in this world, then the film will have been a larger success in the social realm than all the Iraq documentaries combined.
Also as non-white person, I do think there is a place for "saving white people." For heaven's sake, they have to be saved just because they sit on top of the rest of the world. Try proposing any other solution.

I think a lot of the criticisms of the movie are coming from people who are white, and not disabled for that matter. A lot of the comments left me with a strong distaste.

Anyhow, thanks for the review from Socialist Worker. It's one of the strongest reviews I've read on the film. I think the following is a strong paragraph:

Quote:

By slow degrees, Jake comes to identify with the "other" and their way of life. Once he becomes fully aware of the mercenary calculations of the corporation that will stop at nothing in its bid to extract the precious "unobtanium," Jake switches sides, as do the team of scientists led by the strong-willed Grace Augustine (Sigourney Weaver). To suggest that this act is little more than a demonstration of "white man's guilt" is, I think, to render meaningless the idea of solidarity.

Le T wrote:

Also, this idea that without white people, white technology, white knowledge, white medicine, etc. indigenous peoples would not stand a chance is a total myth that serves colonialism.

You wouldn't by any chance be referring to "evidenced-based" knowledge and technology would you, Le T? Some here might resent what you are implying. We know that that folkish hokish-pokish served mankind very poorly indeed until the white coats arrived. And then everything was good and right.

What's "evidence-based" technology? Anyway, that's a different discussion. Although it is illuminating that you associate white science, which includes phrenology, transcendental physics, eugenics, etc. with "evidence" and POC science with "folkish hokish-pokish." Use your illusion, I suppose.

Anyway, the world of the Nav'vi follows the same logic of the scientific utopia that began with Francis Bacon's New Atlantis in 1627. The intereresting difference in Avatar is that the "science" that delivers paradise is environmental attunement through evolution (and who says SciFi is about the future? Al Gore and Richard Dawkins couldn't be more present). But otherwise, the social dynamic is the same: social relations are simplified and uncomplicated, the constitutive force of society, human labour, is utterly absent. For me, this disarms it of it's otherwise fairly straightforward and much lauded (elsewhere) "anti-corporate" statement. Corporations are basically pantomime villains (although our CEO is allowed a final moment of regret, evincing his conscience, at the end of the film) with no interrogation of their presence and existence (like, say, in Serenity  or, even, the anti-consumerist message of WALL*E). I don't necessarily need this to think it's a good movie, but I don't see how a film can be anti-corporate without a robust representation of corporatism.

So I don't really buy the detailed SocialistWorker review--I don't see the anti-corporatism (more than crude caricatures) and I don't see how a movie, which more or less stands in for an advertisement for the MIC (aren't those exoskeletons cool?) can also be anti-military, even if it fills the military with more pantomime villains. Again, it is a perfect cocktail of politicially and popularly acceptable anti-war rhetoric: the kind that eschews Iraq for Afghanistan.

Quote:

What's "evidence-based" technology? Anyway, that's a different discussion. Although it is illuminating that you associate white science, which includes phrenology, transcendental physics, eugenics, etc. with "evidence" and POC science with "folkish hokish-pokish." Use your illusion, I suppose.

I'm pretty sure that jas is being sarcastic. There have been a lot of threads on who gets to call what science and he is referencing some of the more hardcore Eurocentric positions on babble.

ceti wrote:

Read this: Anti-imperialism in 3-D
Ok, I get it that you would like to unplug from Hollywood or Bollywood or Tollywood or Nollywood for that matter, dis it as wholly and irredeemably racist, but change in the world does not depend on a few people who want to hide out  and sneer at all the popular cultural forces in the world, for good or ill. That itself is a a supremely elitist and counterproductive proposition. People are also responding to this film the world over, not just in the US.
And it is not those who enjoyed Avatar who are bringing up these tired discussions over and over again. It is this singular focus on Avatar by its detractors, mostly on the right, but also amongst the snarky holier than thou crowd whose academic high mindedness have driven their work into a bunker of stale avoidance of anything even smacking of popular forms of expression.
And utopian stories where underdog triumps are appreciated and NEEDED from time to time, lest our hearts rot in the dystopic visions that drive movements to nihilism and activists to self-loathing and recrimination. If it awakens even a smidgen of concern and outrage over what is happening in this world, then the film will have been a larger success in the social realm than all the Iraq documentaries combined.
Also as non-white person, I do think there is a place for "saving white people." For heaven's sake, they have to be saved just because they sit on top of the rest of the world. Try proposing any other solution.

The problem is that the term popular culture is misnomer it suggests that a cultural product is somehow organically generated or requested ignoring the reality that the popularity is something that results from the manipulation of desire and the manufacture of demand. It would be more accurate if we referred to these products as they are Corporate mass culture to differentiate them from something that is truly created from the bottom up as in terms of folk culture. It is convenient to conflate corporate culture with popular culture because then it is possible to declare critics of corporate culture as being elitist. It is ironic that one is called elitist for pointing out that "popular culture" is being produced and deciminated by the economic elite. Is it elitist to point out that fast food is toxic crap? Then why is it elitist to point out that hollywood blockbusters are also toxic crap.The author of the Socialist worker piece can project revolutionary fantasies onto Cameron's work but he himself denies any deeper political meaning to his work. Perhaps this is the sign of a truly successful product of mass corporate culture that so many people can project their fantasies or values onto the product going to the extent that they become deeply emotionally attached to the product and alienated from a genuine expression of their values. I do not think that we should depend on or expect a system of mass corporate culture to tell our stories or to offer up alternatives. "The revolution will not be televised" This is not a matter of being "holier than though". I am not criticiing people for sometimes engaging in corporate mass culture but I am definitely challenging the belief that products of corporate mass culture are socially, culturally or politically valuable.

You seem to be saying that the only option we have is to accept or engage with corporate mass culture resistance is futile we must except the narratives that are constructed for us. OF course this hides the realitiy that there are counter narratives, folk culture, alternate cosmologies and it is actually possible to find these alternative and celebrate them rather than depending on second hand fantasies produced by a multimillionaire embedded in the depth of corporate mass culture. I don't really need utopian fantasies of underdog truimps when there is at this moment in reality stories of triumph against neo-liberal corporate monoculture. In Venezuela there is a leader of african and indigenous background who has done just that. This story is not just about one man either it is about a movement on deep level in existence in communities that are expressing their voices, resisting and presenting an alternatives to what has been fed to them for so long.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=5832390545689805144#

Interesting too that this movie(The revolution will not be televised.) was made by white people too but they didn't feel the need to cast themselves in roles of heroes or saviours. This is the central point being made about Avatar that its champions continue to deny why is it necessary for the white person in the film to be the saviour the rescuer of the culture. This is not solidarity it is another expression of the need to control and conquer. It is insulting that the white person in a short period of time becomes to understand and master anothers culture, custorms and cosmological system to the extent that he is able to outperform that other culture. This sort of behaviour is common dynamic between white people and other cultures in reality, the conception of those who wish to be allies but only on the condition that they have leadership roles or their needs are seen as central above and beyond the community that they are trying to help. It happens often with white anti-oppression, social workers or liberals rather than standing in solidarity, being an ally the need is to rescue and control

In terms of "saving white people" this is the problem as in the film the only way white people can concieve of themselves of being saved is by becoming the saviour for the "other". However in reality salvation occurs in the opposite way in actually being able to not be compelled by the continued construction of the white ego and its collective expression and an ability to not have to be in position of control power and privlege. But that (as they said in hammy hamster) is another story..

When socialists start making 3D action films I will watch them. Until that day, I'm going to keep going back and imbibing the poisoned chalice of non-revolutionary corporate hyper-evil entertainment.

Documentary video making is a bit different from a fictional/fantasy genre. The Revolution Will Not Be Televised is definitely one of the greatest documentaries with enough powerful scenes. There was no real chance to insert the Irish filmmakers into the thick of things. 

Also, the "white saviour" is one dude. In one possible plot, Jake could have been used for his intel and then kept safe away from the battle as opposed to getting the dragon in a perfunctory and abbreviated scene to lead the resistance. But Cameron made his choice to be as blunt and unsubtle as possible. 

In fact, going back to the Karate Kid (or even any political film dealing with non-Western cultures or countries), I have grown accustom to this film trope, to the point it no longer surprises or even irritates me. I remember having heated discussions about this 20 years ago, but I really don't care anymore about Hollywood's exigencies. I did think Last Samurai was a good film, despite Tom Cruise. While there is obvious "othering" going along, I have gone beyond looking at that cliche, to the meat of the film which I believe is the overall politics found in the characterization of protagonists and antagonists. 

Indeed, identity politics have become so degrade that they converge with right-wing politics by carving up and suppressing points of possible resistance. That is why you have right-wing commentators gleefully picking up this trope and "new age" religious overtones to attack the film.

Regardless, the plot of Avatar is a surprise, and wholly due to Cameron's vision and ability to untangle himself from direct US Defense Department relations that colour most action films through the use of CGI. In fact the original script would have made a far more nuanced film, but would have led to a four-hour movie.

Just wanted to back track to a post, made by whom i do not remember in the last thread, about him wanting new legs, and how some perceived that that was ablest thinking. Which I take it to mean that those that can use their legs think others who can't, should want to be able to and that this is wrong ablist thinking.

Would like to suggest it isn't ablist thinking at all.

Polunatic2 wrote:

I rented District 9 the other day and was surprised at some of the similarities with Avatar, e.g. the big fighting machines. Wonder who stole from whom. I'll have to check back-babble to see if there was any discussion about D9 (which I also enjoyed). 

They both stole them from Starcraft, which stole them from Mechwarrior, which stole them from Robotech, which stole it from Getter Robo, which stole it from silver age marvel comics villains and heroes like iron man, whose name and idea was stolen from the story cycle of iron man, which stole it from earlier works, and so on. ;)

p-sto wrote:

I think District 9 was brought up early in another Avatar thread and was described as being equally racist.  I haven't seen Avatar so I can't really compare but I do think that even if District 9 displays racism it's an improvement over many similar movies.

I say this for the following reasons.  The main white character (I can't remember his name) is hardly a hero at any point he the story.  He acts primarily in self interest and during a key point in the movie he actually frustrates the alien cause by chasing his self interest.  He does this after living through the same conditions of the aliens and suffering the same way they have.  This reinforces the idea even if he's been there a priviledged individual can't properly understand and properly identify with the oppressed.  In the end it's still the alien that has the chance to save his own kind by escaping to tell the others what is happening on earth.  The most heroic thing the main human character does is realise that his self interest is getting in the way of a greater cause and stand up against the humans to support the aliens.  In turn he is rewarded by being supported by the aliens as a group.

It's quite possible that missed some very relevant themes in the movie but in my eyes it seems to be a least a step towards a formula where the oppressing white man realises the folly of his way and humbly sets his ego aside to support what he learns to be right.

 

ETA: The fact that the main human character was in fact put in a leadership role in human society yet was shown to be a weak and inept leader, who in fact only had the position due to his father in-law's place in the company, could be interpreted to imply that the status enjoyed by privledged is in no way due to merit but often due to the luck of circumstance.

District 9 racist?

It did the exact opposite of what people are calling Avatar racist for. Instead of a white man becoming leader, he becomes a helper, and then is forgotten. He doesn't enjoy the fruits of leadership, he suffers the crap his new people suffer due to the system he helped implement.

He's not being rewarded by the aliens as a group. He's just another prawn at the end. He was only rewarded by one alien.

These are the first intelligent aliens we've seen who are not just imitations of human beings. They're fundamentally different in psychology, something never done before by Hollywood.

When armchair critics who didn't even watch the movie in a state of consciousness and faux progressives who need to demonstrate their bonafides throw these terms around too much, it damages the overall left. It makes us look ridiculous.

500_Apples wrote:

ceti wrote:

Regardless, the plot of Avatar is a surprise, and wholly due to Cameron's vision and ability to untangle himself from direct US Defense Department relations that colour most action films through the use of CGI. In fact the original script would have made a far more nuanced film, but would have led to a four-hour movie.

Bullet point summary of differences from the author:

- Earth and its environmental problems are explored

- We see Josh Sully's Avatar being born
- It's revealed the Avatar program exists to train Na'vi to be an indigenous workforce for the Corporation, since it's so expensive to send human workers
- There are more humans, including a bioethics officer on the take, a video journalist, a head of the Avatar program and a second military dickwad
- There is an Avatar controller who is burnt out because his Avatar died with him in it. He committed Avatar suicide because he had fallen in love with a Na'vi girl who had been killed by the military
- The Avatars have a Na'vi guide named N'Deh, who is sleeping with Grace
- Grace survives the soul transfer
- Josh Sully gains the Na'vi trust by being a member of the community. He also excels in a major hunt
- Josh Sully shows his leadership not by taming a dragon but by leading a raid on Hell's Gate to rescue prisoners
- Josh Sully isn't the only Na'vi to ride a big dragon
- Pandora is a living entity and it sees the humans as a virus; it has been mobilizing the plants and animals to attack all along because it wanted to force the humans out
- There is no unobtainium beneath Hometree. The military just wants to wipe out the local Na'vi to send a message to all the tribes that they must be obeyed.
- Some of the humans and the Avatar controllers rise up in the final big battle
- Josh Sully tells the Earth that Pandora will give any humans that return a disease that will wipe out humanity

***********
***********
***********

Damn, that sounds like an amazing movie. Now that Cameron has earned tons of cash he can include this in his sequel.

Now, I feel robbed.

I'm further pissed off now,

This original 4 hour movie answers virtually every single criticism Babblers have been able to come up with. What is now a good movie, would have been one of the greatest movies of all time.

I really liked the movie. I was very surprised the "US" lost in the end. The way the economy is going I bet we see more black water type paramilitary security groups (mercs) in the future.
That's how it was explained in the movie too though wasn't it? It wasn't the US persay but ex soldiers just looking to collect a buck. I was still surprised.

I wonder what wold have happened if the "hero" was african american?
Would this be viewed as a good thing? Or would people complain why does the african american have to be in a wheel chair? Why can't he be a hero in his own right why does he need to embrace someone elses culture to win?

I didn't find district 9 racist. If anything I see how the humans treated the squid people as the same way races treat each other on earth. I found it rather eye opening. It's going to take something like that to make humans realise how dumb we are.

Good point... but can you blame us humans for having a human-centric view of the universe at this time? While, through science, we know we are not at the center of the universe we also know that as of now we are the only space fairing spices around.

Also would this discussion be different if the main human character/characters were Black?

Sven wrote:

Could it be that, instead of a racialized view of the universe, Avatar is simply a reflection of our human-centric view of the universe?

al-Qa'bong wrote:

I'm still trying to figure out how William Shatner was able to speak English to all those aliens in all those different galaxies.

They kinda try to address that in Enterprise.  Apparently the univeral translator is quite univeral.

Quote:

We are probably only capable of looking at the universe from largely, if not exclusively, a human-centric perspective.

There is no such thing as a "human-centric perspective". There are many human perspecives and to say that James Cameron's Avatar is a representation of one, united "human-centric" perspective ignores the essense of anti-colonial analysis.

Well, all cultural products are in some way "human-centric" in that they are simply manifestations and expressions of "what it means to be human." In the case of Avatar, this means that questions of enviro-politics, disability, colonialism, imperialism arise because they are pertinent to the anxieties and concerns of the Western world at the moment. This is to say that the myths perpetuated by the film are the same myths perpetuated in the dominant cultural politics of our time. This is also nothing new.

We should also be careful to distinguish between Cameron's intentions for the film and the story it ends up telling. Just because Cameron wanted to make this a film about "respecting others' differences" doesn't mean that's what he ended up doing. More interesting is to ask why this film with these themes performed in this way has hit so many cultural hotspots so as to attract such a massive audience. Also, what does it mean to dress up old colonialist tropes with eye-boggling special effects?

There is a tendency to view Sci-Fi as some sort of prediction copy for the future. Since the beginning of science fiction at the beginning of the seventeenth century, I know of no Sci-Fi writer who succeeded in this, with the possible exception of Jules Verne, and even then, only marginally. Consider al'qa-Bong's comment about Kirk's English. Is this really about possible worlds, or about our own? I like to think of Science Fiction as always about the here-and-now, only moreso.  So when I say this film is about Al Gore and Richard Dawkins, both cultural touchstones of our current historical moment, I mean the dynamics and inherent contradictions of their politics are being dramatized in Cameron's film on an amplified level.

So, while the environmentalism of Gore and atheism of Dawkins et al. are powerful, progressive messages (both of which doubtless present in the film) their inextricable association with neo-liberal policies and the attendant imperialist and colonialist narratives are also undeniably present. We might ask how the film negotiates these contradictions: like why the evolutionary prowess of the Nav'i is presented as quasi-spiritualism, or why the benevolent scientists who value the Nav'i on a personal level need a grunt-style marine to really bridge the gap. These are not questions we necessarily want to answer outright ("Cameron needed a marine because it made the movie more action-packed") but rather their asking makes the historical dynamic of the film more apparent to us.

Actually, I have read Neuromancer, and I think there are few better novels that prove that exact point I was making. Gibson is not predicting technology--what did he predict that didn't already exist at the time he wrote? Gibson is writing about the effects and dynamics of late capitalism on a global, even cosmic, scale. Didn't he simply give a name to what was already happening around us?

Catchfire wrote:

Well, all cultural products are in some way "human-centric" in that they are simply manifestations and expressions of "what it means to be human." In the case of Avatar, this means that questions of enviro-politics, disability, colonialism, imperialism arise because they are pertinent to the anxieties and concerns of the Western world at the moment. This is to say that the myths perpetuated by the film are the same myths perpetuated in the dominant cultural politics of our time. This is also nothing new.

We should also be careful to distinguish between Cameron's intentions for the film and the story it ends up telling. Just because Cameron wanted to make this a film about "respecting others' differences" doesn't mean that's what he ended up doing. More interesting is to ask why this film with these themes performed in this way has hit so many cultural hotspots so as to attract such a massive audience. Also, what does it mean to dress up old colonialist tropes with eye-boggling special effects?

There is a tendency to view Sci-Fi as some sort of prediction copy for the future. Since the beginning of science fiction at the beginning of the seventeenth century, I know of no Sci-Fi writer who succeeded in this, with the possible exception of Jules Verne, and even then, only marginally. Consider al'qa-Bong's comment about Kirk's English. Is this really about possible worlds, or about our own? I like to think of Science Fiction as always about the here-and-now, only moreso.  So when I say this film is about Al Gore and Richard Dawkins, both cultural touchstones of our current historical moment, I mean the dynamics and inherent contradictions of their politics are being dramatized in Cameron's film on an amplified level.

So, while the environmentalism of Gore and atheism of Dawkins et al. are powerful, progressive messages (both of which doubtless present in the film) their inextricable association with neo-liberal policies and the attendant imperialist and colonialist narratives are also undeniably present. We might ask how the film negotiates these contradictions: like why the evolutionary prowess of the Nav'i is presented as quasi-spiritualism, or why the benevolent scientists who value the Nav'i on a personal level need a grunt-style marine to really bridge the gap. These are not questions we necessarily want to answer outright ("Cameron needed a marine because it made the movie more action-packed") but rather their asking makes the historical dynamic of the film more apparent to us.

It's very typical of lit snobs to condescend towards sci fi. It's a fundamental part of their stereotype. I think you can do better.

In the oscars for example, not a single science fiction movie has ever won best picture. Not Star Wars, not Dark Knight, not Wall-E. This year that District 9 was produced and is very deserving, they might give the award to Avatar which is undeserving, so as to pretend they're not snobs. Sci-Fi is also snobbed by the people who make awards for novels.

Check out what the condescending Guardian said about Battlestar Galactica:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/tv-and-radio/2010/jan/12/50-best-tv-dramas-buffy

To call it the greatest modern sci-fi series would be to damn it with faint praise – it's so much more.

Here are some things predicted by science fiction:

Satellites

Computers

Learning computers

Cellular phones

Instant video conferencing

Cures for infertility

Also the politics and sociology in Brave New World - they're spot on.

The liberal sexual politics in Robert Heinlein novels... a couple decades ahead of a society which was debating whether Playboy should be banned.