RA Movie Thread (Read 5918 times)

http://io9.com/5422666/when-will-white-people-stop-making-movies-like-avatar

Too long, includes spoilers/

First off, why wouldn't we expect that a movie written by whites would have a white perspective? What's wrong with the movie being about white guilt?

Second, I think her reading breaks down because she asks the question of why it is that the movie couldn't have made a Navi character primary. This question has a clear answer: Cameron's audience is the folks who go to see blockbusters: the bourgeois middle class--folks who can and should identify with Jake. I think it is important to acknowledge that in times of cultural conflict, it's the people who cross the borders between cultures that are forced into leadership roles, people who use the power of the dominant culture to alter or change it. This is a necessary truth. The movie concentrates on Sully, but there are many border crossings: Grace, the Navi Queen (who speaks English), the Latina army pilot who betrays the marines, the Navi girl he falls in love with, and even crossings between animal, biological, and humanoid forms.

The challenge of the movie, insofar as it is about race, is not to pay homage white guilt, but of course to bring that emotion forward and to relate it to current events, to our relationship with technology, to our relationship with the biosphere, and to our relationship with other cultures, right now. The author of this piece makes the movie into "Dances with Wolves," but as I was watching I thought much more about Afghanistan, global warming, the military industrial complex, the way in which global politics is driven by powerful corporate interests, the way in which people are losing touch with their bodies, the tension between steel and flesh. This is a long and ongoing story of colonization--not an event that happened in the past that we ought to feel guilty about, but an event that is repeating itself and needs to be altered now.

So, I agree with the blogger that the story is about race, among many other things. But she has not made the case that it is a racist movie. In fact, she gave us no criterion for determining how or why a movie might be called racist. Or what makes a movie about race into a racist movie.

Indeed, the fact that this movie is generating a new way of discussing race and colonialism seems to me to be a sign that it is not a racist movie--as racist movies tend not to generate talk about race or tend to repeat tired patterns of discussion of race. Can a work of art be racist? It seems to me that it is only the interpretation of the work of art that can be racist, and our blogger has not done her homework on how Avatar has actually been interpreted, and how these interpretations vary according to the viewer. The fact that the movie generated feelings of white guilt in her is no argument that this is a general reaction or a necessary feature of the movie.

That said, kudos to her for creating discussion (though my sense is that it is the predictability of this reaction from certain feminist-academic quarters, the snootiness of the tone, and the negativity of the review in the face of such critical acclaim that is the cause of the success of the blog post, rather than the originality and depth of the analysis.)

/sorry

Quick summary: I like the movie. It's complicated and not reducible to a term like "racism." You should see it!

http://io9.com/5422666/when-will-white-people-stop-making-movies-like-avatar

Unobtainium???  Isnt that the name of the metal they used to build the ship in teh movie "The Core"?

 The book was completely dreary.  

That was kind of the whole point of the book.  There was nothing to live for except to just be alive.  I can't see how the movie would be any different. 

Oh, and Avatar...I think it would have been an impressive movie (at least in terms of visuals and sound) on a standard screen.  But, holy fuck...IMAX 3D--my hubby, son, and I were all rendered pretty much speechless.  I want to see it again in that format, but every danged show is pretty much sold-out until it's gone from the theater at the end of the week.  I can't imagine watching it without the 3D, at the very least.  The little details that seemed right in front of my face...amazing.

We sat next to a guy who saw it on a regular screen a couple of weeks ago and thought it was a really good movie...but after seeing it today he said the 2D version couldn't begin to compare, even on the DLP projected screen.

Story was pretty hokey, but this was maybe the only movie I've seen where a goofy story didn't distract me.  Usually effects-driven films without a good story annoy me, more than impress me (I'm looking at you, Transformers 2), but that 2.5 hours really flew...even though I had to pee for the last 90 minutes.  I couldn't tear myself away...I was very careful not to sneeze, though.

I am watching Convoy.

Yep. Convoy.

I am watching Convoy.

Yep. Convoy.

Wow, there's a blast from the past. DW saw Valentine's Day this weekend. Great movie!