The Politics of Avatar: America Bad

i thought it was more like Pocahontas. in that movie there was a taking tree. i don’t think it’s like the iraq war because the marines are not intentionally killing civilians(terrorists don’t count as civilians. and the marines are not mining. if the war in iraq is for oil(which is it is not)they only way that oil companies(i hear George W Bush has shares in oil companies, not sure)can benefit is by raising the price.

but Avatar is just like Pocahontas. only diff is that some of the aggressors tried to be peaceful with the natives and in Pocahontas only Thomas cared.

The gist of your comment: America Bad, only makes sense if you identify the country with the occupation of Iraq. Most Americans clearly don’t (viz. election of Obama, despite his failure to withdraw the troops). Also, of course, Cameron’s real metaphor was more closely related to the genocidal founding of America (massacre of the native people to take land and resources) than with the present day occupation of Iraq.

In my opinion (for what it’s worth) I was surprised to say the least- if not offended by some of the political undertones in this film. Firstly, I was shocked that any director would ask his audience to despise the human race (which last I checked, is a race to which Mr. Cameron so proudly belongs). This is quite a tall order to demand from your viewers.

I recall an interview on one of the Aliens special edition disks in which Cameron stated that he felt the Marines needed to be treated with more respect in future films as a close relation had recently joined the Marine Corps. I was disapointed to see the callous treatment of such men and women here. In nearly every scene the soldiers were depicted as cavalier meat-heads who’s lives were idily cast aside. I think it is difficult to deny the connection to the Iraq war and our men and women serving there (such as the “shock and awe campaign”) and knowing some of the individuals giving thier lives for the future of the Iraqi people I was offended that an American would produce a film depicting them as such. These are human beings with families and loved ones and I think we need to seriously evaluate the statement Cameron is making here.

As for me, I will not be purchasing the DVD :)

LOL @ cousinpaddy789
You are taking it way too seriously! Are people forgetting they were MERCENARIES in Avatar? They were not part of any government, they were ex military working as paid merc’s for a corporation. Anyone who takes this film as some huge affront to Armed Services is making a mountain out of a molehill! Offended by the movie? Come on, your phony outrage is hilarious. And you are also making things up, James did not ask anyone to “despise the human race”. People will manage to concoct a grievance out of everything these days! Some are in perpetual victim mode it seems!

As for me, I WILL be purchasing the Bluray for its great entertainment value.

Also, in my eyes the movie showed the Marines in a great light!

The two characters definitively identified as ex-Marines, Jake and Trudy, were the ones who upheld the honour of the military by making an ethical decision, rather than following unjust/illegal orders. For a real world example, look up the My Lai Massacre and the heroic actions of Chief Warrant Officer Hugh Thompson and his helicopter crew, who opposed superior officers and threatened to shoot other American troopers when said troopers crossed the line and began murdering innocents during Vietnam

If there was an honest-to-goodness military presence on Pandora, rather than RDA’s hired guns, I suspect a large number would have taken up arms alongside the Navi, based on the Military Code of Conduct and Military Ethics

you are all so dumb this is not like the iraq war!!!!!!!!!
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

In this war ppl are invading a planet/country and killing them to take their resources. this is what the British did when they colonized north america(Canada and USA, they did not colonize mexico)like i said it’s just like Pocahontas.

If you were to make this movie an analogy for the war in iraq you would have to make a lot of changes. there needs to be a group of blue ppl that terrorize the rest of the population. the bad blue ppl attack a country and then they invade the blue planet. now the country that invades the blue planet overthrows the crazy blue ppl and then befriends the other blue ppl and they both fight the bad blue ppl.

ohh and James wrote the screenplay b4 he even shot a frame of titanic

Well I stand corrected on some accounts- ie: the military was indeed not the Marines (my memory is not the best). My outrage was not phony however. I talked about this quite a bit with a group of friends who saw the movie with me. In the context of the metaphor on the Iraq war I was disliked that the human beings were killed off with little care given to the fact they were human beings. But once again I stress that is in the context of the political metaphor which I thought spoke pretty plainly.

I imagine Cameron could give 2 s@%#s about my “grievance” I just wanted to state my opinion about his political message in the film.

Finally, even if dispise is too strong a word, ultimately the director did ask the audience to side against his/her own race. Which is personally too much to ask of me.

Hope this clears up some of my errors and better explains why I didn’t enjoy the film.

It is not a metaphor for iraq!!!!!!!!!!!! get that. camron is not going against his race. this has nothing to do with any wars that we can relate to atm. It is Pocahontas in the future, if anything it is based on how countries colonize other countries. like the British did. In Canada they said that if a Christian does not own the land than it can be colonized, therefore just buy raising a cross they took over the country. in the film they plowed into the country. it has nothing to do with anything that is currently happening(except whats going on in Tibet) but you did not think about that

cousinpaddy, sorry if I came across as mean towards you, that was not my intent.

It also wasn’t about turning against your race, it was about turning on “evil” people. Should I agree with humans when they do horrible things, just because they are human?

RDA’s (RDA was the corporation in the movie) grunts in no way upheld the spirit of any professional military organization (from any nation) – they were composed of washouts, retirees and rejects who were being egged on by Quaritch to ‘kill em all’, rather than professional soldiers who are indoctrinated in a Code of Conduct that states it is a crime to blindly obey illegal orders

You focus on what you want to focus. Leftist agenda. Hate against America and the marines. Why not focus on that other crucial part of the story? Jake Sully is an ex marine right? And look how he behaves throughout the story. How he made morally right decisions! If marines were bad per se, he wouldn’t have acted the way he did.

enemy2k your are the wisest person on the interwebs.

will you be my allie and not my enemy lol :)

No harm no foul enemy2k! For what it’s worth your comments about Jake being ex marine did make me think and change my mind in many respects :)

And blackeagle i suppose the metaphor about Iraq is subject to intrepretation. I won’t lie though, my eyebrow raised when they described the killing of the tree of life as a “shock and awe campign.” It at least leaves some room for such intrepretation. In the end I will say it was more like Fern Gully in space lol. Overall kind of a bad script for taking 10 years….

Haha thanks blackeagle, you will by my ally to! Good to hear that you read my different take on things cousin, take care.