James Cameron, Conservative Dupe

One Response to James Cameron, Conservative Dupe

1. Kyle says:

   January 26, 2010 at 9:52 am

   Kinda.

   Preface: I know about James Cameron’s comments that make people not like him. That’s not something I’m going to talk about.

   Secondary note: I am not directing this comment at you, David, so much as to the audience as a whole.

   I think the movie was pretty clearly about one kind of scenario:

   1. People have STUFF
   2. Other people want STUFF and try to take it
   3. Main character is conflicted

   The rest is embellishment. This story is as old as the hills. Making this an “us vs. them” story that you take personally or become personally invested in is pretty goofy.

   It’s not specifically about “property rights,” although there is that element and I think that you could spin it that way legitimately if you wanted to get reductionist. i.e. whoever is there first and uses the resource and doesn’t allow someone else to take it should be seen as in the right.

   I watched it and didn’t see it as left-wing propaganda, although there is plenty of left-wing jingoism. I don’t think that left-wing jingoism can stick unless you let it stick. There is a major theme at work in the film that is valid, and conservative bloggers ranting against it end up looking pretty silly. Yes, it was trite, and the powers that the natives have to tap into the planet are an Earth Muffin’s dream. Which is why I maintain that RANTING ABOUT “AVATAR” IS COUNTER-PRODUCTIVE.

   I didn’t see the film as anti-military. Was ‘Red Dawn’ anti-military, because civilians were resisting military personnel?

   Right-wing civilians who have never been in the military often have this fantasy that there aren’t real scumbags in the US military, or people – like the ex-USMC security officer in the film – who would do anything and kill anyone for money in or out of the military. Or that the mission can’t be called out as unjust or pointless lest we be seen as not supporting our troops. Life is not a cartoon. For example, the conservative blogosphere was largely up in arms about the movie “Jarhead,” although many of my friends who were in the USMC and deployed to various crappy places where they sent bullets flying at people described it as the most realistic portrayal of a grunt in the Marine Corps that they’ve ever seen. It’s not flattering, and the writer was a dick, but how many 19 year old Marines are the cartoon characters that many like to imagine? These same veterans, who simultaneously LOVE the tradition of the USMC and are proud of their service, will also tell people who rate about the full warts-and-all experience. Some are partially disabled for life due to their service, again, mostly in places where we never should have been in the first place as you can’t save people from themselves. None of these men are scumbags. They are just not cartoon characters and are brutally honest about their military experience.

   It’s not anti-corporate to point out that corporations that exploit and abuse people suck.

   No “side” owns the idea of justice. To make this engrossing-while-trite movie about sides is silly and makes right-wingers look like jerks.

   The natives are cartoon characters with no relation to reality, as they are just a tool to tell a story to JUSTIFY the CGI. “Dances with Wolves” romanticized the Native Americans to an absurd degree, but that doesn’t mean that they weren’t systematically robbed of their land and butchered if they resisted. I don’t feel guilty about history or think that they should “get it back,” but it still falls into the “not cool” category. That’s life, and that’s human history in a nutshell, but I don’t think it’s OK. It doesn’t make “The White Man,” as we were taught to repeat like morons in school, permanently scarred or as the worst culture on Earth, because that is not accurate. Basically every culture on Earth got where they are by exploiting people and stealing their land or resources, and most of them treat their people far worse than anybody has been treated in the United States for the past forty or fifty years. We should learn from our history and move on. That means admitting that certain behavior sucks.

   The biggest minority is the individual. I see everything through this filter. Aspects of my culture and society are continually at war with me. That’s not legitimate. It’s no more legitimate when individuals that are members of our culture exploit and abuse other individuals or cultures.

   Example: my wife is originally from Laos. Her father fought against the NVA for eight years before they took over his country. The US mission there was initially completely legitimate. As it was subsumed by the war in Vietnam, I would go so far as to say that the Americans directing Lao assets from on high lost their legitimacy. The Americans on the ground, on the other hand, never did. There is one man in particular who was primarily responsible for personally redirecting the war effort in such a way that I fully intend to piss on his grave before I die. He did this with an eye towards saving American lives. I don’t give a shit, because the result was the death of tens of thousands of brave men and throwing in the towel on an achievable win in Laos for very little gain in Vietnam.

   A silly fictional movie that draws lines that are unrelated to reality is simply silly. To make it about a War Against Whitey is goofy. It’s fiction. If this makes me a “useful idiot” to some people, I beg to differ.

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