A Past, Denied

Kirk Cameron’s—wait, no—James Cameron’s latest epic Avatar is now playing, and if you’re like me, you’re thinking to yourself “big fucking deal.” I can’t see myself watching it anytime soon. Cameron’s work generally bores me to tears, and Avatar looks like no exception. I don’t care about his fancy-pants VFX; the trailer simply bored me. People I know who have seen it in 3D rave about its epic visuals, but from what I hear about the basic storyline my initial reaction to the trailer is being confirmed.

When I watch the trailer, I see absolutely no emotion in the CGI characters’ face. None, and that’s the dealbreaker. Looking into the CG characters’ eyes, I see the same dull expressionlessness I saw in the characters of

Robert Zemeckis’ 2007 atrocity Beowulf (which had to be stopped less than 20 minutes in). In 2009, if you spend 10 years making a film and you can’t even match the emotional quality of Gollum in Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (2002), then you did something horribly wrong.

Other than the ostensible style-over-substance quality of the film, something about the story itself makes me loath to give both time and money to this movie. One review online has convinced me that I am right to not waste either: When Will White People Stop Making Movies Like “Avatar”? by Annalee Newitz. Newitz sums up Avatar as a film where “a white man who was one of the oppressors [of those fancy blue creatures that are thinly veiled stand-ins for North American indigenous people] switches sides at the last minute, assimilating into the alien culture and becoming its savior.” In other words, it’s Dances with Wolves, but in space!

Avatar is a fantasy about ceasing to be white, giving up the old human meatsack to join the blue people, but never losing white privilege. Jake never really knows what it’s like to be a Na’vi because he always has the option to switch back into human mode.

Sound a little heavy for an analysis of a sci-fi movie? If you think that movies are just movies and that their sole contribution to our social schema is entertainment and therefor critiquing their treatment of race is absurd, then I’m guessing you are both white and really need to read this from the comment section to Newitz’s piece (comment posted by Moff):

Of all the varieties of irritating comment out there, the absolute most annoying has to be “Why can’t you just watch the movie for what it is??? Why can’t you just enjoy it? Why do you have to analyze it???”

If you have posted such a comment, or if you are about to post such a comment, here or anywhere else, let me just advise you: Shut up. Shut the fuck up. Shut your goddamn fucking mouth. SHUT. UP.

First of all, when we analyze art, when we look for deeper meaning in it, we are enjoying it for what it is. Because that is one of the things about art, be it highbrow, lowbrow, mainstream, or avant-garde: Some sort of thought went into its making — even if the thought was, “I’m going to do this as thoughtlessly as possible”! — and as a result, some sort of thought can be gotten from its reception. That is why, among other things, artists (including, for instance, James Cameron) really like to talk about their work.

Now, that doesn’t mean you have to think about a work of art. I don’t know anyone who thinks every work they encounter ought to only be enjoyed through conscious, active analysis — or if I do, they’re pretty annoying themselves. And I know many people who prefer not to think about much of what they consume, and with them I have no argument. I also have no argument with people who disagree with another person’s thoughts about a work of art. That should go without saying. Finally, this should also go without saying, but since it apparently doesn’t: Believe me, the person who is annoying you so much by thinking about the art? They have already considered your revolutionary “just enjoy it” strategy, because it is not actually revolutionary at all. It is the default state for most of humanity.

So when you go out of your way to suggest that people should be thinking less — that not using one’s capacity for reason is an admirable position to take, and one that should be actively advocated — you are not saying anything particularly intelligent. And unless you live on a parallel version of Earth where too manypeople are thinking too deeply and critically about the world around them and what’s going on in their own heads, you’re not helping anything; on the contrary, you’re acting as an advocate for entropy.

And most annoyingly of all, you’re contributing to the fucking conversation yourselves when you make your stupid, stupid comments. You are basically saying, “I think people shouldn’t think so much and share their thoughts, that’s my thought that I have to share.” If you really think people should just enjoy the movie without thinking about it, then why the fuck did you (1) click on the post in the first place, and (2) bother to leave a comment? If it bugs you so much, GO WATCH A GODDAMN FUNNY CAT VIDEO