Anti-American?

Rating: 2/10 (8 February 2010)

Some reviewers have noted the anti-American animus of Avatar, some exultingly, some with hand-wringing. Neither the exultation nor the hand-wringing is justified. It will not take long for even young people to realize that the anti-American animus of the movie is superficial and hypocritical. Do the people who made the movie live in the remote jungles of Indochina? No, they live in big, comfortable houses in California. Do they worship Goddess? No, they worship the Almighty Dollar. Did they make the movie with the same sensibility that the Eskimos use in making a totem pole? No, they made it with the intent to achieve commercial success with all the tools of modern technological civilization.
While the people who made the movie may despise American soldiers and glorify traitorous soldierettes, they rely on those same soldiers to protect their property, their freedom of speech, their political freedoms and to protect them from Muslim terrorists.
Even if movie viewers do not consciously register these contradictions, subconsciously the contradictions are imposing. And movie viewers do realize that the movie was made in America. Movie makers in Tehran, Riyad, and Ho Chi Minh City wish they had the same freedom.
Give the movie two stars for being over-long, having a poor plot, mediocre acting and being generally most suitable for thirteen year-olds whose education has been neglected.