Avatar? Or Hurt Locker? Who gets the anti-war Oscar?
Which director said: "This movie reflects that we are living through war…There are boots on the ground, troops who I personally believe were sent there under false pretenses, so I hope this will be part of opening our eyes."
Pulse
9 March 2010
Palestinians from the village of Bil’n re-enacted the film Avatar during their weekly demonstration against Israel's apartheid wall, comparing the Avatars' united resistance to imperialism to the Palestians' fight for freedom from occupation and oppression.
As Muhammad Idrees Ahmad pointed out earlier, it is more than a little ironic that so-called liberal Hollywood awarded Oscars for best picture, director and original screenplay to "The Hurt Locker" over "Avatar".
The fact that both Kathryn Bigelow and Mark Boal incorporated "support the troops" commentary into their Oscar acceptance speeches (find Bigelow's here and Boal's here) is another telling event that we are also probably supposed to ignore.
But if we recall that James Cameron unabashedly admitted that he incorporated political messages about the environment and US foreign policy into his film (without a strictly defined "political agenda"), the outcome of the Oscars is less suprising.
Cameron ruffled quite a few feathers when he explained during a private industry screening of the film several months ago that:
This movie reflects that we are living through war…There are boots on the ground, troops who I personally believe were sent there under false pretenses, so I hope this will be part of opening our eyes.
In response to allegations that "Avatar" was anti-American Cameron stated:
I've heard people say this film is un-American, while part of being an American is having the freedom to have dissenting ideas.
Conformity to the gung-ho, take our men to war theme (allegedly balanced out by the inclusion of a Chris Hedges quote and constant reminders of how awful war is for American soldiers) was the substitute for dissent in "The Hurt Locker". Moreover, while Bigelow and Boal focused on the worst aspects of human nature for their film, Cameron did the opposite:
The Na'vi represent the better aspects of human nature, and the human characters in the film demonstrate the more venal aspects of human nature.
Ignoring for a moment that "Avatar's" story inspired the adoration of millions of fans worldwide, criticisms from the Vatican, and praise from the likes of Evo Morales (it even compelled Palestinian peace activists who justifiably identify with the inhabitants of Pandora to protest as Na'vi), Cameron's film was also superior in terms of quality of production.
Cameron is a leader in Hollywood and it is admirable that he chooses to use his prominence to promote critical thinking as well as produce spaces for people to think outside of the box and defy the status quo rather than reinforce it. |
