This is not a movie review. It is an impression of a creative endeavor.
I can see why ‘Avatar’ was nominated for nine Academy Awards. It’s a visually stunning masterpiece. Yes, it’s a masterpiece visually, but the movie itself is really nothing more than an expensive propaganda poster intended to insult and demean America, and the American military. And had it not been visually stunning it probably would have still been nominated for its politics. Hollywood loves this self-loathing, America-hating political pablum, but claims that the awards are given on merit alone, that there are no social politics involved whatsoever.
And the sun doesn’t set in the West.
I saw ‘Avatar’ yesterday. If I’m not mistaken, it took eight years to make, and cost about 250 million dollars, and sometime before I even get this blog posted, it will break the all-time record for dollars earned, breaking the record set by ‘Titanic’, which was also made by James Cameron. It’s been reported that many people leave the movie feeling dizzy, disoriented, and depressed. Although I understand why so many leave depressed, I just left angry. The movie’s feelings-based politics, and social ideology, were insulting to anybody with the courage to subjugate their feelings to the reality, and truth, of historical context.
Let’s see, according to the film, the American military has invaded, plundered, and permanently occupied almost every other under-developed country and territory on the face of the earth; and now they have begun to plunder the wealth of indigenous populations on other planets as well. Of course, every other civilization on earth, and in the universe, is comprised of sensitive, loving, kind and compassionate people; enlightened people who just want to live in peace. It is only America that is ignorant. It is only America who oppresses, enslaves, and slaughters the innocent. It is only America who intends to dominate every living creature, and to subjugate them to its own will. It is only America that is too stupid to learn anything of value about itself.
Well, I remember thinking the same thing . . . . . . . . . when I was about fourteen or fifteen years old. I’d lapped up all the anti-America/anti-military propaganda that was floating around the fringes of my world at that time. I was anxious to believe it. After all, I had an oppressive father also, so it suited me well to extrapolate that oppression, that re-pression, and place it squarely on the shoulders of my country (Big Daddy), and embed it in the brutal fist that he, supposedly, so indiscriminately wielded (The Military).
But you know what? I grew up over the years, something James Cameron , obviously has, as of yet, failed to do; and his adolescent ideology is perpetually reinforced by the Hollywood community. In fact, they probably consider him to be heroic for having had the ‘courage’ to make such a ‘bold’, political statement. Courage? Bold? Please! It’s bold, and it’s courageous, in today’s world, to actually tell the truth. See how long he’d be a Hollywood darling if he were ever to do that.
Hollywood is dishonest, but no less dishonest than anybody else who clings to, and propagates, ideology over logic, reason, experience, and historical accountability.
Yes, I grew up, I read history, I listened (and listen) to the wisdom and perspective of my elders, and I research what I don’t know until I’m satisfied that I’m no longer as stupid as Mr. Cameron still seems to be today.
America is, quite simply, the greatest defender of the oppressed, and the greatest contributor to the welfare of mankind, in the history of recorded civilization. If you don’t believe me, take your own walk back through history. And should anybody tell you different, it is your moral imperative to insist that they do their own honest research, rather than simply continuing to parrot the shallow bias of the ignorant, and the misinformed.
Mr. Cameron thinks nothing of indoctrinating a whole new generation of impressionable young people to his own myopic, and dishonest perspective. This, from a man who has become filthy rich plundering the wallets, but now the minds, of Americans with his movies. Talk about biting the hand that feeds you? Talk about self-loathing? Talk about a guilt complex driving an ideology? I feel sorry for the man.
Yes, Mr. Cameron probably should win an Academy Award for Avatar’s visual brilliance, and for other creative aspects of the movie, but the script should be acknowledged for what it is. It could have been written by a thirteen-year-old girl who was mad at her daddy for hurting her precious feelings.
Creative thinking? Or shameless Propaganda?
You say, "C’mon, it’s just a movie."
And I say, “Oh really?"
