Have you seen Avatar? Hey miss, yes you down there, have you seen that Avatar movie?
Many people will be asking each other this obvious question, and have been doing so since James Cameron’s first film since Titanic was released about a month ago. It has become the highest grossing movie of all time (A friend informs me Gone With The Wind, if one accounts for inflation, is the real champ) and the seeing public are, officially, losing their shit over it.
I’ve seen Avatar (yes, hypocrisy stains like no other) and in 3D, so I can count myself knowledgable on the subject to a certain degree. I enjoyed it, but I know of others, sane people with brains, who put on their Twitter feeds and Facebook that ‘Avatar is life changing’ or ‘I’ve just seen the best movie ever made.’
Seriously, what the fuck? From a visual point of view, it was spectacular, I will give it that. However, who was the best actor in the movie? My vote goes for the Colonel…at least he was sincere and awesome when destroying his perceived enemies. The film’s themes of earthiness, and being one with the earth, green is awesome etc. are noble (and important int he current global context), but from a plot point of view, it’s very passe.
While there have been many deities of commercialism that are actually a load of ass (90s pop music being an example along with George W Bush), the more important question is why so many people get suckered into becoming one of the herd even when the reasons for doing so do not go beyond exatcly that. It’s commercial peer pressure, and especially Western orientated societies, are suspectable to this type of brain washing. Those who sit on the extreme right in the US might say the same of Obama, which might sound cracked but at the moment he fooled a lot of people considering how he has been performing (the bar was placed to high perhaps?).
Avatar, while championing the environment, was approved by the studio for filming because it would do one thing and one thing only: make money. It’s a case of irony to the largest degree. The film states that we are one with the environment but the film would never have seen the light of day unless a profit could be made.
That, essentially, is the contradiction in terms popular media is facing today: ship in or ship out, otherwise go get fucked.
It’s all a load of sour grapez to me.
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