An Avatar Awakening

[Joanne98]

For OpEdNews: David Swanson - Writer

Let's face it, if James Cameron had made a movie with the Iraqi resistance as the heroes and the U.S. military as the enemies, and had set it in Iraq or anywhere else on planet earth, the packed theaters viewing "Avatar" would have been replaced by a screening in a living room for eight people and a dog.

Nineteen years ago, Americans packed theaters for "Dances with Wolves" in which Native Americans became the heroes, but the story was set in a previous century and the message understated.

The Na'vi people of "Avatar" are very explicitly Iraqis facing "shock and awe," as well as Native Americans with bows and arrows on horseback. The "bad guys" in the battle scenes are U.S. mercenaries, essentially the U.S. military, and the movie allows us to see them, very much as they are right now in 177 real nations around the world, through the eyes of their victims.

People know this going into the movie, and do not care. For better, and certainly for worse, they do not care. Millions of people stand in lines, shell out big bucks, wear stupid-looking 3-D glasses, sit in the dark for three hours, identify with twelve-foot-high pointy-eared blue people, cheer as the credits roll, and simply do not care that actual human beings suffer the same fate as the computer-generated creations, albeit without miraculous happy endings.

Imagine if a tenth of the people who now sympathize with these bony blue beings were to take three hours to read a book or watch a movie about the people of Iraq or Afghanistan or Pakistan or Yemen or Iran. Our real planet would then be a different world.

When I saw "Avatar" in a packed 3-D theater in Virginia, and the crowd cheered the closing shot, I shouted: "And get out of Iraq too!" No one cheered for that. But no one called me a traitor either.

But will anyone in that crowd lift a finger to pressure their representatives in Congress to stop funding the evil they'd just seen sanitized, animated, relocated, and ever so slightly disguised?

Rob Kall at OpEd News suggested that we make flyers to hand out at theaters following screenings of "Avatar." Having now seen the film, I think he's right. Here's a flyer (PDF). Here's the text:

AVATAR

Did you know that the Na'vi people are real, their troubles are real, and you can be a hero who saves them? It's true!

The story of "Avatar" is the story of Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and other countries attacked and occupied by U.S. mercenaries and U.S. troops.

It's harder to think about that, than it is to sympathize with giant blue computer-animated creatures. But it's extremely important that you take the step to explicitly admit to yourself what you've just watched in this movie, and that you take the additional step of doing something about it.

You don't have to ride a dragon or shoot an arrow, but you do have to call this number 202-224-3121 and ask to speak with your representative in the U.S. House of Representatives and tell them that their career will be over if they vote another dime to pay for the evil depicted in "Avatar."

Tell them that investing your money in education, transportation, energy, or infrastructure produces many more jobs than investing it in killing. Tell them that diplomacy and aid work better than bombs, and that we do not need unobtainium, which is called that for a reason, although we know it as "oil".

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http://www.opednews.com/articles/An-Avatar-Awakening-by-David-Swanson-091227-371.html

[YOY]

1. Almost as bad as when Republicans look too far into things...

Really. It's just a movie. A GREAT movie at that in my humble opinion.

[mike_c]

2. yeah, that sort of thing doesn't happen in real life....

Really. Thank you for shopping, citizen!

[YOY]

6. Don't believe me? Torrent it.

Don't pay a dime for it. Then laugh at the comparison mentioned above.

[On the Road]

7. I Think There Was a Much Closer Parallel

to the age of exploration. Private organizations like the East India companies found a source of valuable raw materials (gold, spices, etc) and drove out or liquidated indigenous people whenever it was necessary. Sometimes a priest or naturalist on the expedition protested, but they were not in control and were generally overruled.

[YOY]

8. That and the genocide of the Native American population/Manefest Destiny.

There was a scene that was very reminicent of the "Trail of Tears". So close to the painting below that to call it was heartbreaking.



Any comparison to anything more is reaching. The OP above is REALLY reaching.

[On the Road]

9. I Think the Only Reach

in the OP or linked article was the claim that the Navi were "very explicitly" Iraqis.

No question there were conscious parallels -- for example, the phrase "we will fight terror with terror." Without the Iraq War, the movie certainly would have been different.

But it's a common scenario whenever more advanced civilations have encountered more primitive ones, and the parallels to European colonists are arguably closer.

[ensho]

3. kick

nt

[The Backlash Cometh]

4. NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

My Avatar thread was tons better than this one. Someone already posted this disgrace and got 34 recommends for it.

The Na'vi are not Iraqi types. They are more indigenous, more tied to the earth and environment. They have a system that respects women in important leadership roles. The list goes on.

[Syntheto]

5. Dave...

...you're freaking nuts. The plot of the movie is standard fare; evil government, evil military, so on and so forth... This movie won't go into history for the story - it's about the 3D technology. What you're saying in essence is that Al Jolson singing in blackface in "The Jazz Singer" is about the story, rather than the fact that it was the first 'Talkie'. If 'Avatar' was put out in anything but Cameron's new film-making technique, it wouldn't get a third of the money it's pulling in. Maybe Cameron can make an unambiguously anti-war movie (like 'Redacted' or 'The Valley of Elah' and any of half a dozen preachy movies that bombed at the box office and DVD sales) with this new technology. Hell, I say bring back smell o vision to it also, because there's nothing like the smell of rotting, gangrenous flesh that's been burned. Give people a real idea of what war is really like. But, you are really straining on this analogy. I don't know the guy's name, but an old time producer/director/studio head/whatever said something to the effect of "If I want to send a message, I'll use Western Union." That sums it up. Believe it or not, people want to be entertained for their hard-earned money, and not preached to. That's what cable news the Internet and the radio is for.

[proteus_lives]

10. Avatar in five panels.

:rofl:

No point in making a shitty movie into something that it isn't.