Invisible Children’s YouTube phenomenon Kony 2012 promises to do just that. Except it lies.

Kony 2012 is not only misinforming the hottest demographic in the world it seeks to target, teenagers and yuppies, it is paternalistic and pure old-school Western racism. If anything, it is a classic disinformation programme. Remember the ‘Nurse Nayirah’ incident?

Nayirah, a young nurse in Kuwait, was flown in to the United States’ Congress in 1990 to testify before them the horrors of the atrocities committed during the Iraqi invasion in her country. She recounted stories, as she choked emotionally before Senators and millions of Americans watching, of how the barbaric Iraqi soldiers broke into hospitals and threw babies out of their incubators to die on the streets. In months leading up to America’s involvement in the First Gulf War, George H Bush would invoke Nayirah’s testimony on every platform he appeared as a rationale to seek public support for joining Kuwait in the war. This is just what they needed to claim the moral backing of the American public, and as public opinion polled in favour of the war, the US started wantonly bombing Iraq. As it so happened, ‘Nurse’ Nayirah was no nurse at all – she turned out to be the daughter of then Kuwaiti Ambassador to the United States who was coached to rehearse her testimony. The whole media circus of her testimony and influencing public opinion in support of the war was brought to the American public by one of the biggest PR firms in business at its time – Hill & Knowlton. By the time this knowledge became public, Kuwait was on its way to ‘liberation’, and Americans had once again learnt it the hard way that the first casualty in war is truth.

So how do you make sure if Kony 2012’s moral compass is pointing in the direction of justice? Let’s start with Uganda.

The incumbent Ugandan President, Yoweri Museveni, has gladly accepted ‘structural adjustment programmes” for his country proposed by the World Bank and IMF since the 1980s, that encourage Third World countries with dictators and ‘natural allies of the West’ to keep borrowing more credit. It means ‘growth’ for Uganda in the long-run, achieved by speculative and export-oriented agriculture and liberalizing trade at all levels. It’s no surprise that Uganda is suffering a food crisis too, because that’s how the Washington Consensus works – the Third World, which now imports basic sustenance crops, produces crops for the First World, with scant regard to local temperatures and geographical factors. In a sharp reaction to this inequality in India, journalist P Sainath once remarked – “The dream of the Indian farmer is to be born a European cow“, because the latter are the most food-secure creatures on the planet thanks to the generosity of the former. With the recent discovery of oil reserves in Uganda, it won’t be long before Big Oil kills more Ken Saro Wiwas there.

If economic terrorism isn’t good enough for you, then let’s take a look at Museveni’s downright terrorism. He’s Family International’s ‘key man’ in Africa. Family International is the largest fundamental Christian evangelical organization from the West; the Book of Revelations Nazis, if you will. They’ve had every American President in their pockets since WWII. On the very first day of his job, the American President, including Barack Obama, has presided over the National Prayer Breakfast organized by the FI, where he vows to “end suffering and bring Christ’s message around the world”. That’s why they’ve been instrumental in shaping the world in many ways; be it attempting to crush liberation theology that seeks to connect the poor and the meek to Christ’s original gospels in Latin American countries through the 1980s, funding rebel groups such as the Contras in Nicaragua, lobbying with the US government to support Israel’s occupation of Palestine or simply bringing down ‘un-Godly’ communism in Poland.

There’s no other reason why he’s been described as ‘a new breed of African leaders’ by the West.

One might wonder, with Museveni boasting of a devil’s resume, things are bound to be in shambles in his own country, which is exactly what Kony 2012 doesn’t inform you about. Yes, what Joseph Kony does as the leader of the Lord’s Resistance Army by abducting children and raising an infantry is obviously terrible and sad. Those kids need rehabilitation and justice as much as any other victims around the world, but let’s not lose context, for it helps connect the past to the present and identify the real problems that foster Konies around the world. Like several countries around the world, Uganda’s at war with itself. The ethnic-conflict caused by unbalanced socio-economic factors between the North and the South is an inheritance of British colonialism, which has been left untouched by successive governments post Uganda’s independence in the 1960s. Fifty years of marginalization and deprivation of North Ugandans might be border-line genocidal, and that is exactly what has driven the LRA to take up arms. I am not advocating the moral high-ground of the LRA; I’m merely suggesting the Ugandan problem needs a Ugandan solution, an indigenous peaceful negotiation to come from within, not the West and not anybody. India should know this so well that it should stand up to the world and shout – Story of my life, man!

There is as good a chance tomorrow for some pasty-white kid with a camera to mobilize the world to ‘Make the CPI (Maoist) Famous’ and get NATO troops deployed in the forests of central India to save the Invisible Tribals. I hope when that day comes, we know better. It is good to study other countries’ atrocities and bring attention to them, but it is our primary duty to look at our own atrocities and rectify them. It is the moral duty of the Americans today to call Invisible Children’s bluff and for the Ugandans to ask hard questions to themselves and their government.

The West’s attitude towards Africa, Middle-East and Western Asia is reflected in the words of John Mill Stuart’s (East India Company official) on India– the barbarians are backward and inferior, and for their own benefit we have to uplift them, civilize them and educate them and so on. At the period of its worst atrocities, Stuart described England’s dominion over India as an angelic power, so magnificent that nobody could understand how wonderful they are. That has always been the moral and intellectual content behind colonization.

If you see the White Messiah on your screen again, switch it off, and do the world a favour before you set off to save it – open a book.

Notes –

1. NYT Examiner article on mainstream media manufacturing consent on Joseph Kony – http://www.nytexaminer.com/2012/03/joseph-kony-and-the-new-york-times/
2. Pete McCormack, director of Uganda Rising(2006), interviews Professor Noam Chomsky on the impact of neo-liberal agenda on Africa - http://www.petemccormack.com/social_005.htm
3. Better Business Bureau’s current rating of Invisible Children – http://www.bbb.org/us/article/kony-2012-video-sends-mixed-message-to-young-activists-33206

(Click for the larger version)

Batman #694 starts with a rich white man promising to take a young black kid off the streets. You know, out of the hood. Is that… does that sound like… oh my god yes! It’s white savior time, you guys!

The doctors call him “Baby D”. The name I heard his friends say. And when he’s fully recovered, I’m going to put him on his feet. Find a mentor for him. A job. A college fund will be set up and paid for… I’ll see to it he gets a second chance to live better. With better opportunities, not like the ones that led him to the slums of Devil’s Square. I’ll see to it… no matter what the cost.

Oh, Tony Daniel. How I’ve missed you.

Before we start, just what the hell is up with the way Tony Daniel draws teeth?

Just missed out on the part of "Jaws" in the new James Bond movie.

It’s like as soon as someone starts to get mean their lips disappear and them chompers just… wow. That is a weird artistic flare.

Batman #693 continues the story of the Black Mask… doing something? Taking over the city? Why? And how did he do it? Did that happen in some “Battle for the Cowl” book? Wait. Don’t tell me. It’s not important. This is the– what, third most important Bat-book after Batman and Robin and Detective Comics? That’s third out of three, right? Wait, are we counting Gotham Sirens? Or Red Robin? Then it might be four or five. I guess depending on what you count as a Bat-book the status changes but general rule of thumb is that it’s somewhere at the bottom.

But for the sake of the blog let’s say Black Mask is… I dunno, just trying to cause a ruckus in Gotham. Black Mask you jerk! In the melee someone shoots a kid, and now that kid is in the hospital. Batman plays Jack Bauer with Penguin to get information about who blew up some shit in the last issue, and also there’s a Holocaust survivor being framed as a villain dressed as the grim reaper. Yup.

Then there are some drawings that look like they came from the Stephenie Meyer comic:

Oh. Gross.

Toward the end of the issue someone shoots at Penguin with a bazooka during a getaway that is so nineties it hurts me in my Bart Simpson Trapper Keeper, all while he tries to escape through a war zone. And I know that Gotham City is supposed to be this big scary place, because all of these characters talk about how dangerous it is and how it’s a breeding ground for crime; and yes, according to this storyline Black Mask has– oh jeez, I really have no idea what this character does. I think he took over the neighborhood that the black kid got shot in? And now it’s a DMZ (somebody call Brian Wood lol am I right) and somehow the cops can’t get in and stop it? But seriously, how could it have gotten this bad:

I mean come on, this looks like a scene straight out of Escape From New York.

Oh, and remember that silly splash page ending of the last issue where Batman poses it out with a bloody child dying in his arms? Well how do you think he reacted when he found out the kid died in the emergency room???

Look at that cape go!

All in all a pretty inoffensive issue. Ugly? Sure! Inane? Absolutely! But definitely the least offensive culprit in the history of Blogging the Bat.

I’m sorry, what’s that? The cover? No I haven’t seen the cover, what’s wrong with the… oh.

Oh lookie here, there’s that White Messiah again! Thanks, Tony! Seeya next time!

(edit: It’s funny, I didn’t even notice until my girlfriend pointed out the awkward position of Batman’s arm on the cover. He doesn’t even look like he’s holding that kid! haha Jesus Christ, Daniel.)

For many people, the movie Avatar is been viewed as racist in that it depicts how a white dude can come along and pretend to be a blue dude, get schooled in the way of the jungle, and then kick some ass on other white dudes, becoming a hero to the whole blue race. Obviously, there are comparisons here to real life. There were quite a few cowboy and indian type “western” stories of this flavor, if I recall correctly. Can’t remember the names quite right though. “Dances with Wolves” was one of them. But, of course, the people in that movie weren’t nine feet tall or blue. Racism in the US these days has become so PC and such a charged issue, that maybe we can only effectively talk about it in the context of aliens. You can imagine how the Greys will feel about this when they finally decide to communicate with us instead of just mutilating our cattle.

Anyway, I think, mainly, what some people don’t like is the message that the indigenous people of a given race can’t save themselves. And, in that respect, it could be told a different way. You could have the same story, but instead of the avatar being an alien, it could have been a human body for an alien to inhabit. Then, you could have one of the Nave walking among humans, learning our way, and saving their people by convincing a percentage of the humans that Pandora is worth saving. After the war starts, the “human” avatar would then generate a rebellion via his allies, and they would take over the human compound from within. Oh, and of course he’d have a human love interest. Or the human avatar could be female and play the “Pocahontas” role.

None of this stuff is new. I had a literature Prof once who insisted that everything out today boiled down to a rehash of Shakespeare.  Sometimes I think he’s right – although that’s  a simplification – I think his point was that there’s not a lot plot-wise that hasn’t been written, it’s only the environment and characters and circumstances that change. In the end, it’s still about people.

To those who would look at Avatar and think, “OMFG, their promoting the myth of a white messiah!” Perhaps you should chill out and grab a burger, because this is more about commercialism than anything else. The movie sells tickets, it makes money, and you’re only helping it do that by making a fuss. If you really hate the message of the movie, then just don’t go. Vote with your money. And if you REALLY hate it, then make your own movie and have the blue guys win on their own without the help of the humans.

Frankly, I just liked the special effects. Oh, and I do enjoy a good burger! Besides, I was rooting for the blue dudes, even if they were being led by a human. Does that make me a race traitor?

Reference: Racism in Avatar

With that in mind, Black people find movies with a mystical white messiah to be repulsive and incredibly repugnant. Even if that white messiah is Leigh Anne Tuohy and the character being saved is Michael Oher, Black people still find the notion that it takes a white person to lead colored people like themselves to salvation an undeniably anachronistic notion.

What is the “white messiah”?:

“Near the end of the hit film “Avatar,” the villain snarls at the hero, “How does it feel to betray your own race?” Both men are white — although the hero is inhabiting a blue-skinned, 9-foot-tall, long-tailed alien.

Strange as it may seem for a film that pits greedy, immoral humans against noble denizens of a faraway moon, “Avatar” is being criticized by a small but vocal group of people who allege it
contains racist themes — the white hero once again saving the primitive natives.

Since the film opened to widespread critical acclaim three weeks ago, hundreds of blog posts, newspaper articles, tweets and YouTube videos have made claims such as that the film is “a fantasy about race told from the point of view of white people” and reinforces “the white Messiah fable.”

Like Kevin Costner in “Dances with Wolves” and Tom Cruise in “The Last Samurai” or as far back as Jimmy Stewart in the 1950 Western “Broken Arrow,” Sully finds his allegiances soon change. He falls in love with the Na’vi princess and leads the bird-riding, bow-and-arrow-shooting aliens to victory over the white men’s spaceships and mega-robots.”

Since we are discussing Avatar, a film that has grossed more that $1.3 billion worldwide since its release a mere 24 days ago, it is obvious that movie-goers find the idea of the white messiah appealing, even if Black people find it disconcerting:

“Robinne Lee, an actress in such recent films as “Seven Pounds” and “Hotel for Dogs,” said that “Avatar” was “beautiful” and that she understood the economic logic of casting a white lead if most of the audience is white.

But she said the film, which remained No. 1 at the box office domestically for the fourth straight weekend with $48.5 million and is second among all-time top-grossing films worldwide, still reminded her of Hollywood’s “Pocahontas” story — “the Indian woman leads the white man into the wilderness, and he learns the way of the people and becomes the savior.”

The characteristics of the “great” white messiah, as described above, appear to be a combination of the disingenuous white liberal and the crusading white pedagogue taken to the extreme, for they inherently understand the porous state of the non-white civilization they hope to liberate, yet reject the notion that their civilization is superior due to the abundance of white people while seriously entertaining the thought that if white people lead the non-white society, they can be as great as the white society.

Convoluted? Yes. Part of the SBPDL. Absolutely. Thankfully, other movies showcase the erroneous view that a white messiah is needed to save the world:

“Although the “Avatar” debate springs from Hollywood’s historical difficulties with race, Will Smith recently saved the planet in “I Am Legend,” and Denzel Washington appears ready to do the same in the forthcoming “Book of Eli.”

However, another recently released movie Invictus, shows us that the great white messiah will always be needed:

“While Mandela attempts to tackle the country’s largest problems—including crime and unemployment—he attends a game of the Springboks, the country’s rugby union team. Blacks in the stadium cheer against their home squad, as the Springboks (their history, players and even their colors) represent prejudice and apartheid in their mind.

Knowing that South Africa is set to host the 1995 Rugby World Cup in one year’s time, Mandela convinces the South African rugby board to keep the Springbok team, name and colors the same. He then meets with Springboks captain Francois Pienaar (Matt Damon). Though Mandela never verbalizes his true meaning during their meeting, Francois understands the message below the surface: if the Springboks can gain the support of black South Africans and succeed in the upcoming World Cup, the country will be unified and inspired.”

The white messiah in South Africa was their invention – rugby – and the desire to play internationally by the whites meant the peaceful handing over of power to the Black populace would finally occur.

Now-a-days, South Africa is a peaceful land reminiscent of Pandora, the home of the Na’vi in Avatar. Right?

David Brooks, a New York Times columnist, writes this about the white messiah:

“Every age produces its own sort of fables, and our age seems to have produced The White Messiah fable.

This is the oft-repeated story about a manly young adventurer who goes into the wilderness in search of thrills and profit. But, once there, he meets the native people and finds that they are noble and spiritual and pure. And so he emerges as their Messiah, leading them on a righteous crusade against his own rotten civilization.

Avatar is a racial fantasy par excellence. The hero is a white former Marine who is adrift in his civilization. He ends up working with a giant corporation and flies through space to help plunder the environment of a pristine planet and displace its natives.

The peace-loving natives — compiled from a melange of Native American, African, Vietnamese, Iraqi and other cultural fragments — are like the peace-loving natives you’ve seen in a hundred other movies. They’re tall, muscular and admirably slender. They walk around nearly naked. They are phenomenal athletes and pretty good singers and dancers.”

Of course, this line of thinking of the dexterous white messiah runs counter to the actual line of thinking pervasive in the Black community of Mein Obama as the Black Messiah:

“But it’s in line with those who think of Obama as a messiah who can give black people some manners, a God-child descending from the heavens to teacheth benighted African Americans the virtues of books and proper English and the evils of Pacman Jones and blaming the white man. It pains me to deliver this sobering news to those who think Obama will wave his hand and erase whole ghettos: Barack Obama is a black President, not black Jesus.”

Perhaps the most intriguing view taken on the white messiah and Avatar comes courtesy of Will Heaven, who writes:

“But the Na’vi aren’t your average extra-terrestrials. Blue skin aside, they’re essentially a childish pastiche of the “ethnic”, with recognisably human features. They wear Maasai-style necklaces and beaded jewellery which Cameron has borrowed from tribal East Africa. Their long, dark hair is dreadlocked.

Their clothes are apparently Amerindian. They are armed with bows and poisoned arrows, and wear facepaint into battle. The main Na’vi characters are voiced by four black actors: Zoë Saldaña, C. C. H. Pounder, Laz Alonso and Peter Mensah; as well as one Cherokee, Wes Studi. The evil humans, needless to say, are white, male and middle-aged.”

Where else have dreadlocked, humanoid featured, muscular aliens appeared? How about the 1987 film Predator, where a multi-ethnic search and recovery Army Unit is slaughtered by an alien that resembles a Rastafarian? The only survivor and eventually vanquisher of the eponymous predator? Arnold schwarzenegger, one of the science fiction genres go-to white messiah’s.

The white messiah will always be a part of movies - think John Connor – for the same reason The Princess and the Frog was a monumental bomb at the theater.

Stuff Black People Don’t Like includes the usage of the white messiah in Avatar and any other film ever made, including Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure.

Unfortunately, most of Black history is clouded with the murky reality of white messiah’s constantly lending a hand to Black people, in an effort to improve their collective lot in not only Africa, but America.

Most interesting though, Black people find those callous Black individuals who stray from the flock to try and enter the ranks of white civilization much worse than the idea of a white messiah. They call these lost Black souls Uncle Tom’s.

Above: Jake Sully (played by the rather yummy Sam Worthington) inspects his brand-new “avatar” in the James Cameron epic (that’s redundant, isn’t it?) “Avatar.” Below: Jake, in his avatar, bonds with native Neytiri, played by Zoe Saldana.

James Cameron’s “Avatar,” which I finally saw yesterday (I was waiting for the crowds to die down), is pissing off everyone, right and left. Cameron must have done something right.

Being such a political creature, if a film has the least bit possible sociopolitical bent to it, I’m going to notice it right off. In “Avatar,” such a bent abounds.

Most notably, in “Avatar,” we – the United States of America — are the bad guys. Well, not we, not really. “We” as in the military-industrial complex that has come to represent the United States of America around the world is the bad guy in “Avatar.”

I have read that, unsurprisingly, the wingnuts are not happy about this, especially given the film’s wild commercial success. (Fuck ’em.)

The villains of “Avatar” are an over-the-top corporate hack and an over-the-top colonel who work in tandem – not unlike how the Catholic church’s missionaries and the Spanish crown’s soldiers worked in tandem to conquer the “new world” — to conquer the lush planet of Pandora, which has an element (called “unobtainium,” ha ha ha) that the invading Earthlings want. (The Spanish monarchy wanted gold, of course, and the Catholic church wanted converts. We’re never told in “Avatar” what practical application, if any, “unobtainium” has, so my guess is that, like with gold, “unobtainium’s” main value is that it is, um, valuable…)

To conquer the tall, blue, feline-faced, tail-possessing people of Pandora — the Na’vi — the Earthlings (whom the Na’vi call the “sky people”) decide to infiltrate them with “avatars,” biologically fabricated Na’vi bodies that are inhabited by the consciousness of human beings controlling the biologically fabricated Na’vi bodies.

Now, the Na’vi natives are a bit too accepting of these “avatars,” whom the natives know aren’t fellow natives. If you weren’t born into and raised by the tribe, why would the tribe just accept you at all as one of them? I mean, if it were clear to us human beings that some alien race were coming to us in human bodies, would we embrace these aliens in human bodies as one of us? Prolly not.

But it would ruin “Avatar” if the avatars didn’t get some degree of acceptance from the Na’vi, and so they do.

Anyway, in “Avatar” the invading Earthlings clearly are the bad guys, and while watching what’s probably the biggest, loudest scene in “Avatar,” the Earthlings’ military forces destroying a site that is very sacred to the Na’vi, I couldn’t help but think of the internationally televised so-called “shock and awe” that many if not most of my fellow Americans got off on when the unelected Bush regime (yeah, the same regime that my fellow Americans just allowed to steal the White House in late 2000) illegally, immorally, unprovokedly and unjustly invaded Iraq, which had had nothing to do with 9/11 and which of course never possessed the weapons of mass destruction that the members of the Bush regime had lied through their fangs about, in March 2003.  

Yeah, it takes a big, tough, studly nation to attack a relatively defenseless one.

In the middle of all of this, the conflict between the rapacious Earthlings, who are represented by a very American-like military-industrial complex, and the Native-American-like Na’vi (they even wear warpaint and let out war cries), is Marine Jake Sully (played by Sam Worthington, who appears to be in just about every movie these days, which is OK with me, since he has a definite certain sexiness about him), who unexpectedly finds himself recruited to man an avatar. (Of course, he has to make a deal with the devil: for infiltrating the Na’vi and helping to subdue them, the wheelchair-bound Jake is promised that his paraplegia will be cured.)

As you already know from the previews, after he’s been manning his avatar, Jake changes his allegiance from the military-industrial complex to the Na’vi.

You probably already suspect that Jake ends up being the big hero of the film, and that of course he and his female Na’vi companion, Neytiri (wonderfully played by Zoe Saldana), go from their initially tense relationship (which showcases some great dialogue) to becoming lifemates.

That the white Marine, instead of one of the Na’vi natives, becomes the big hero of “Avatar” has pissed some people off, I read in today’s news. Reports The Associated Press:

Near the end of the hit film “Avatar,” the villain snarls at the hero, “How does it feel to betray your own race?” Both men are white — although the hero is inhabiting a blue-skinned, 9-foot-tall, long-tailed alien.

Strange as it may seem for a film that pits greedy, immoral humans against noble denizens of a faraway moon, “Avatar” is being criticized by a small but vocal group of people who allege it contains racist themes — the white hero once again saving the primitive natives.

Since the film opened to widespread critical acclaim three weeks ago, hundreds of blog posts, newspaper articles, tweets and YouTube videos have said things such as the film is “a fantasy about race told from the point of view of white people” and that it reinforces “the white Messiah fable.”

The film’s writer and director, James Cameron, says the real theme is about respecting others’ differences….

Adding to the racial dynamic [of “Avatar”] is that the main Na’vi characters are played by actors of color, led by a Dominican, Zoe Saldana, as the princess. The film also is an obvious metaphor for how European settlers in America wiped out the Indians.

Robinne Lee, an actress in such recent films as “Seven Pounds” and “Hotel for Dogs,” said that “Avatar” was “beautiful” and that she understood the economic logic of casting a white lead if most of the audience is white.

But she said the film, which so far has the second-highest worldwide box-office gross ever, still reminded her of Hollywood’s “Pocahontas” story — “the Indian woman leads the white man into the wilderness, and he learns the way of the people and becomes the savior.”

“It’s really upsetting in many ways,” said Lee, who is black with Jamaican and Chinese ancestry. “It would be nice if we could save ourselves.” …

Yes, come to think of it, “Avatar” is basically a futuristic “Pocahontas” in which Jake Sully would be John Smith and Neytiri would be Pocahontas.

And it did occur to me while I was watching “Avatar” that it seemed off that a a white guy who wasn’t even one of the Na’vi would end up as their savior.

I understand why historically oppressed peoples wouldn’t be pleased to see a white guy emerge as the hero, but I think that “Avatar’s” surprisingly subversive message succeeds as it does because it’s the white guy who realizes that what the military-industrial complex that he has been a member of has been doing is wrong, and so he decides to fight for the other side.

And it’s not just the character of Jake whose allegiance changes; there’s the character of a great Latina fighter pilot (played by Michelle Rodriguez, of whom I’d like to have seen more of in “Avatar”) and a few others whose allegiance changes, and this kind of pop-culture image in which the “turncoats” are the heroes can’t be good for the U.S. military-industrial complex, which expects its soldiers to be blindly obedient cannon fodder who die for rich white men’s fortunes while believing that they are fighting for such noble causes as “freedom” and “democracy” and “God” and “Jesus” and puppies and kittens, for fuck’s sake.

I mean, fuck. Before “Avatar” began, I had to watch an endless fucking recruitment advertisement for the National Fucking Guard. (The recruitment ad didn’t show any maimed or dead soldiers, of course, but looked like something out of “Top Gun,” as usual.) The U.S. military-industrial complex has millions if not billions of dollars – our tax dollars – at its disposal to brainwash our young people into believing that the U.S. military really is about defense and patriotism instead of about what it really is about: war profiteering, feeding the endless greed of the military-industrial complex and the greedy fucking white men who run it and who personally profit from it.

Trust me, oppressed peoples of the world, “Avatar” does much more for your cause by having its hero a white guy — a Marine, for fuck’s sake – who realizes that he’s been fighting on the wrong side and then switches sides, than it would have done for your cause had its hero been one of the Na’vi natives.

The millions of young American males (and females) who see “Avatar” might think twice before joining the U.S. military, and that’s a good thing for a planet that probably cannot survive a World War III.

Indeed, Cameron’s intent, I believe, was to send a message of peace, and it’s whitey, with his (and her) beloved military-industrial complex, who needs to get that message more than does anyone else. Those long oppressed by whitey already know the value of peace.

The Associated Press reports that Cameron wrote the AP in an e-mail that “Avatar” “asks us to open our eyes and truly see others, respecting them even though they are different, in the hope that we may find a way to prevent conflict and live more harmoniously on this world. I hardly think that is a racist message.”

Agreed.

The AP also reports of “Avatar”:

“Can’t people just enjoy movies anymore?” a person named Michelle posted on the website for Essence, the magazine for black women, which had 371 comments on a story debating the issue [of whether “Avatar” is racist].

OK, that’s a valid question.

Although it’s a rhetorical question, the answer to the question, for me, anyway, is no, I can’t just enjoy a movie anymore.

Don’t get me wrong. I enjoyed “Avatar.” It is a visually stunning film, and I love its profuse use of greens and blues and purples, which, actually, reminded me a lot of “The Princess and the Frog,” which, come to think of it, is a bit like “Avatar”: Both films have heroines with African blood in them (Zoe Saldana apparently has African blood in her) who meet up with bumbling men whom the heroines have to turn into heroes, and both films largely take place in green, blue and purple, swampy, lush settings.

“Avatar” succeeds on the sensory level (as it should, given the millions and millions of dollars that were put into it ) — although the ubiquitous DayGlo stuff does get a little bit tiresome after a while and although Pandora’s plethora of creatures, including its Na’vi, look way too much like Earth’s creatures, including its human beings – but sue me if I am able to enjoy a movie on more than one level.

I can multi-task; I can take in all of the technical achievements of a film like “Avatar” while seeing its obvious sociopolitical statements, statements that I can’t be accused of having pulled out of my moonbatty ass because James Cameron himself says are his intended statements.

It’s a rare film that can entertain and that can stimulate public debate on important sociopolitical issues, so kudos to Cameron for having achieved that with “Avatar.”

“Avatar” is such a cultural achievement that I have to wonder if from now on people are going to go around saying to each other, in all seriousness: “I see you.” (Even though it’s a bit cheesy, I kind of hope so…)

Yes, “Avatar” is a bit derivative of other films, not just of “Pocahontas” but also of Cameron’s past films — we even get the “Alien” series’ Sigourney Weaver as a protagonist in “Avatar” (I have to say that I found Weaver’s avatar to be a bit creepy-looking, to look a bit too much like Weaver), we get the manned robots that we saw in “Aliens,” and we even get “The Company” in “Avatar” (is the amoral, profit-piggy, generic “The Company” in “Avatar” the same one that was in the “Alien” series, I wonder?).

But “Avatar” succeeds on its own and probably will be Cameron’s magnum opus. 

My grade: A

P.S. I read a news account that President Barack Obama took his girls to see “Avatar” recently. Mr. President, I sure the fuck hope that you learned something, and that having your girls there with you drove the point home.

It’s worth distinguishing several of ‘Avatar’’s potentially objectionable features.

1. The human-Na’vi conflict is set up as one between reason, technology, and cold economic logic on one side and spirituality, community, and a warm oneness with nature on the other.  This is a pretty dumb but durable cartoon we’ve seen a hundred times before.
2. Cameron illustrates the spirituality-nature-community side of the conflict using images that the public associates, rightly or wrongly, with African, Native American, and other indigenous cultures.  Moreover, the voices of the major Na’vi characters are all ethnic sounding and in fact all supplied by people of color (Zoe Saldana, Wes Studi, CCH Pounder, Laz Alonso).  In most people, this sort of thing sets off all kinds of “stereotype!” alarm-bells.
3. The movie endorses the value of spirituality, oneness with nature, community, etc.  For many, this probably smells too much of patchouli and ‘meat’ made from soy.  At least implicitly, the Na’vi deserve their autonomy because of their peaceful spirituality.  But wouldn’t even a more callous race deserve to be left alone?
4. With good intentions and a little understanding, Jake is able to bridge the divide between human and Na’vi values.  But aren’t there be some gaps that are just too wide?  Aren’t there some that it’s pointless and dangerous to try to close?
5. Jake is not just one of the Na’vi, but their champion.  With a bit of practice and a flirtatious guide, he can do anything they can do and more, including stuff no one has done in generations, namely tame the nastiest dragon, unite the clans, and lead them to victory.  White people, the movie seems to say, are just naturally better at everything.
6. There’s no real explanation for why Jake is The One.  He’s a nice guy and a good solider but basically just a meathead.  Nevertheless, the universe has somehow selected him for greatness.  He attracts those jellyfish-like seeds as sign of his specialness.  The Na’vi then pick up this and accept him.  At the end of the day, though, it seems to be all just fate.  Or something.

Personally, none of these offend me, and, aesthetically, the last annoys me by far the most.  I think it’s the movie’s main extravagance.  The Na’vi’s acceptance of Jake is just never satisfyingly motivated.

Most of the others, though, make a certain amount of good aesthetic sense. They’re trite, but they’re trite for a reason.  Look, if you’re going to make a blockbuster movie about the clash of two civilizations, one of which is “ours”, with a hero who goes on a journey of personal discovery and saves the day for everyone else, Cameron’s choices are pretty natural.  First of all, if one of the civilizations in conflict is Ours, you can’t have Us win.  It’s simply not done.  But it’s a blockbuster, so one side has to win, so it has to be Them.  Second, making the hero an outcast who goes over to the other side is the perfect way to unite the personal growth and epic conflict threads: his personal growth becomes the means by which he eventually saves the day.  When two civilizations are in conflict, there’s no more obvious form of personal growth than seeing how the other half lives.  But since the Other side eventually wins, the hero has to be one of Us and so he has to learn about Them.  This means Their mores and rituals have to be at least minimally accessible to him.  Finally, since our hero saves the day, he’s saving it for Them, and so doing something they presumably couldn’t do themselves.

Obviously this arc can be traced in more or less complex ways, and ‘Avatar’ does it particularly straightforwardly, but the overall structure will be similar.  Note, though, that even this broad-brush structure contains a lot of the elements that people find objectionable about ‘Avatar’.  This might mean that the structure itself is morally objectionable or it might mean that there’s another explanation for a lot of the plot elements besides a hidden belief in white superiority.  I think it’s the latter.

Something similar is true for Cameron’s use of African- and Native American-branded imagery.  It’s lazy, but at least it’s lazy with a purpose.  Given that you’re going for a caricatured technology vs. nature conflict, drawing on already established images of that conflict is quick and effective way to do it.

What we haven’t explained, though, is the movie’s pro-spirituality/oneness/nature agenda.  But this is just a substantive feature of the movie; it can’t be given the same schematic explanation offered earlier.  Obviously, you could fill in the personal-journey-plus-epic-conflict schema with a pro-rationality/technology/profit agenda and get a movie in which we would be the more backward race.

I suspect that what irks a lot of people, e.g. David Brooks, about Avatar is exactly this substantive agenda.  They bristle at the suggestion that we would do well to become more like the Na’vi.  That’s fair enough if you really think we’re doing enough to preserve the environment or you really think that the movie is advocating illiteracy, but no serious person thinks these things.

What’s lazy and unfair is invoking the White Messiah charge as a way of dismissing the movie’s substantive, if shallow critique.  The suspect reasoning goes like this.  “In the movie, environmental/inter-cultural harmony is achieved through the action of a White Messiah.  Therefore the movie’s take-home message of environmental/inter-cultural harmony presupposes the White Messiah Myth.  But we should reject the Myth, and so the Message along with it.”  But a moment’s thought reveals that we can perfectly well reject the Myth and keep the Message.  And a little reflection on the aesthetic logic of the movie confirms it.

Did you see the David Brooks column on it? (link below) He may be right. The hippies do win, as you say, but it still reinforces colonialist fantasy by perpetuating the noble savage myth and by insisting they need the white outsider to help save them from the evil invaders. I also found the anti-corporate-plunder message pretty hypocritical given the movie’s spawning of Happy Meal tie-ins, video games, action figures, etc.  I dug the movie though and would kind of like to see it in 3D.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/08/opinion/08brooks.html

Agree completely with all you say—as Silliman says it is one of the worst of movies—the script is ludicrous and the stupidity of cultural messages entangled hopelessly etc is terrible—I hate the style of the dialogue—the assumptions etc etc—but all of that is “beside the point” at some level—it is visual fun—–of the emptiest sort —- and it is what ——-

——————–next day

we just saw it again last night, this time in 3D & not iMax—-have never liked iMax and this confirms my sense

of that.  Enjoyed the movie lots all over again.  For my generation it is WWII and Vietnam.  Simplified to

the point of trying to mythical (like star wars).

Brooks simplifies too much too in his punditry—he neglects to talk about the white messiah Converting

completely and becoming a blue—as the commander says—”betraying your people” to become fully N’avi—

only after that transubstantion (cameron has to have irish catholic somewhere back in his genes) does

he become the hero and then of course his life is saved by his woman warrior—

but trying to parse it with pc newsinion is wholly beside the point—it is a comic book and meant to be so

I just take comfort in knowing that not one but twice I have directly helped line the coffers of good ol Rupert

Murdoch—-oh god I will burn in hell for sure for this—-

had I known it was Murdoch I would have boycotted —-  nah—we learned long time ago that we are all

owned by da man no matter what move we try to make—–see Invisible Man by Ellison et al

now I am enjoying greatly The Master and Margarita by Bulgakov—talk about being trapped within the beast

I laughed at “unobtainium” but turns out Wiki says it is a word with a long and honorable history within sci-fi

But yeah, never iMax again, never again —

I loved the way Cameron orchestrated the battle scenes with the music and silences—very non typical blockbuster, very effective distancing.  Won’t claim this is a great work of art or even a work of art.  Surely it is Fancy and not Imagination in Coleridge’s terms, but it is artfully constructed, moreso than most movies we see.  Comparisons with Inglorious Bastards anyone?