James Cameron exists just to piss me off.
First of all, fuck Terminator.
Second of all, Titanic was not about the Titanic. Titanic was a romantic tragedy set on a sinking ship; the same god damned narrative could have been told in a film titled "Lusitania". Except "Lusitania" is a far stupider title than "Titanic" and torpedoes are far less metaphorical than icebergs.
Thirdly of all, Dark Angel. Jessica Alba as a super soldier / secret agent who doesn't get tied up? Fuck that noise. Even the jackasses behind Idle Hands realized this simple truth: Tie up Jessica Alba.
And now we have Avatar, the quintessential "God damn you, James Cameron" movie.
Yes, the movie is pretty. Yes, it is an innovative use of [insert name of technology they used which will be outdated in 10 years]. And, yes, the CG / Live Action crossover was impressive. But as we learned in the early 90s, graphics do not make the game; pretty, aesthetically pleasing shit is still SHIT.
Which brings us to the story.
I've seen Fern Gully. I have read The Lorax. And I saw An Inconvenient Truth. So, I get it, ok? Nature good, Industrialization bad. Trees > Painless Dentistry. And while that sounds great and happy and precious the simple fact of the matter is that we have iphones, atomic bombs, and vibrators; we aren't giving this shit up. In the exclusive disjunction of (Laptop V Daisies) we are picking the fucking laptop. And while this may piss off that hot little fairy, the Lorax, and Al Gore? They can suck it; we like modern conveniences.
So when Avatar gets its hippie on and tries to craft a narrative within which the industrialized, mechanized white people are the villains and the nature-attuned, holistic blue people are the good guys? You would think this would piss people off, right? The movie is saying "industrialization bad" so, you would think, people in the audience who live in an industrialized society would be irritated, right? Except, no, it does not piss the people in the audience off. WHICH PISSES ME OFF!
Why? OK. Here's what is going to happen when you go see Avatar: You'll be sitting there minding your own business. Then, via the narrative, you will slowly be lulled into a sense of sympathy for the blue people. Those big, mean, industrialized white people want the blow up the blue people's tree and, man, those blue people are pretty damn great! So, when the white people start throwing gigantic metallic explosive shitbombs at the blue people? People in the audience will boo the white people. And then when the blue people start to fight back and kill white people? Members of the audience will cheer.
Members of the audience cheer when white people are killed by blue people. Members of the audience, who are white, industrialized, resource-mongering, colonializing, imperializing, white people cheer when white people are killed in Avatar.
Which is the point at which you, the reasonable viewer, are completely justified in standing up and bellowing at the top of your lungs: "WHY ARE YOU CHEERING WHEN THE WHITE PEOPLE DIE?!?! YOU'RE THE WHITE PEOPLE, JACKASS! YOU DON'T GET TO SYMPATHISE WITH THE NATURE ATTUNED HIPPIE FUCKS AND THEN DRIVE YOUR SUV TO BURGER KING YOU UNOBSERVANT, IGNORANT, SHIT! YOU'RE THE FUCKING BAD GUY! YOU ARE THE WHITE PEOPLE!!!"
That's the fucking "god damn you, James Cameron" quality to this shitflick; the movie places the audience in the role of the villain. We are the villains! The white people in the movie? They're blowing up blue people for the sake of obtaining the resources which occur in the blue people's native land. The white people are going to war to obtain resources; they are killing native people to obtain resources.
Spoiler alert! The white people are European Caucasians. The blue people? The blue people are indigenous tribes, Native Americans, Iraqis. The blue people were minding their own fucking business when the white people showed up with their mechs, gunships, and smallpox and starting blowing the living shit out of them. So then the blue people fight back and the audience, composed of the descendants of the Europeans who kicked the shit out of the Native Americans and who are members of the society which went to war with Iraq for oil, start to cheer their little hearts out...for the Blue People / IRAQIS!
You enter the theatre with your European-descended brethren and leave surrounded by jihadists...who then get in their SUVs, drive to Burger King, and talk about how those poor blue people were just minding their own business when the white people invaded and started being assholes. Never, in the entire process, realizing that they, themselves, are the fucking white people.
It boggles the mind, really.
Look, I like trees; I appreciate nature. I like to engage in imaginative flights of fancy within which I drink from streams, hunt native game, give thanks to the earth mother, and fuck a hot little wood nymph under a clear moonlit sky full of stars. But I also realize, since I am not fucking retarded, that one cannot have both the happy-go-lucky natural lifestyle and a polio vaccine. And since I do not want to die of polio? I am comfortable accepting that I am the product and member of an industrialized society the functioning of which is reliant upon disenfranchising blue-people-hippie-fucks.
So when I watched Avatar? I cheered for the white people. Because I am a white people. I am not a blue people. If I cheer for the blue people? I am cheering against myself. And that would be not only moronic, but also exactly what James Cameron wants me to do.
So, I do not mind if you pay $10 to see Avatar. I don't even care that much if you like the film. But for the love of fuck, at least cheer for the white people. Recognize that the only reason you are alive today is because your ancestors did to Native Americans, black people, and brown people EXACTLY what the white people in the movie do to the fucking six-foot tall smurfs.
Because if you start empathizing with and cheering for the blue people? I'm going to take your shit, smash it in front of you, and then march your ass out to the woods with nothing but a bow and arrow and a loincloth. Because, apparently, that's what you really want if you think those fucking blue people are so god damned awesome.
Or I'll just call you a race traitor; that would be far simpler.
