Tuesday, January 5, 2010

Identity, terrorism, and plot twists!! - "Avatar" and other invasion film suggestions

Pop culture tends to use the archetypes on repeat for a minute... so White man saving 'ethnics' is just way too common. Essentializing 'ethnics' as pure and in touch with the world, teaching Whites how wrong they are is another, along with the 'we are also dumb savages when we use silly bows and arrows when we can use guns' thing. In the end, 'ethnics' competed when White dude told everybody what to do, when they started using guns, and when they became the numerical majority.

If you like this, you might also enjoy other movies in:
"Ethnic Cartoon Invasion Films"
It also compares to the war on Iraq and Afghan. Where Whites supposedly are in it for peace missions to 'help'. Using avatars is the symbol of this false sense of 'peace' cause as the beginning of the movie shows, Avatars were 'occupying' another person's home, trying to be down but with subversive capitalist and scientific intentions.

It's also an analogy to terrorism since the 'ethnics' are returning to Whites using their guns and tactics, with a mashup of their old school tactics and succeeding... just as Osama, Hussain, and others were benefactors of American weapons and support in the 80's and 90's and now we see 'old school' techniques mixed with technology as the terrorism tactic of choice.

If you like this, you might also enjoy other movies in:
"Live Action Ethnic Invasion Films"
AND, we feel for the Whites when white dude, sitting all alone in his cubicle/err pod... helpless with no legs (interesting tactic to evoke sympathy) and surrounded by the violent jungle (violent by their own hand of invasion mind you)…only trying to help… becomes invaded by his own technology, by his own anger and rage manifested in this crazy military dude with nothing in his mind but genocide and murder… - compare this to the feeling of ‘victim’ we felt during the terrorist attacks on the twin towers. We too were also laying there, without a conscious knowledge on how our own hand was a factor in this, without an understanding of the other, without an understanding why they would do something like that to us.

All this may sound far fetched, as the same archetype is being applied to American Indians, Muslims, folks from the Middle East, Latinos, Blacks, Italians, Irish, Germans, etc etc etc… but that’s the beauty of racism no? Its generalizations and stereotypes applied over and over to each threatening ethnic group, through the eyes of the majority… the names and locations may have changed, but the racism remains true. This movie is white guilt and xenophobia for 2010... thank you James Cameron for setting us back another 30 years.


If you like this, you might also enjoy other movies in:
"Gritty Urban Invasion Films"
If you like this, you might also enjoy other movies in:
"Gritty Urban Street Dance Invasion Films"

If you like this, you might also enjoy other movies in:
"Undercover Ethnic Sci-Fi Invasion Films"


BUT WAIT....
THE PLOT TWIST....
"Ethnics Invading Monocultural Spaces Films"

What about these movies? Does this show that racism is over? That its not about race or identity? Well, what’s more American than Manifest Destiny? What’s more American than cultural colonization? Does it matter what ethnic group the person is when the common feature of empathy towards the character is 1. They are dismayed by the conditions they set foot in (something majority can relate to) 2. They usually come with another difference such as SES, nationality, age, or gender that provides them power (something majority can relate to). 3. They speak well (something the majority THINK they can do) 4. Are pretty educated 5. Resolution is met through a compromise where the targeted lot are ‘elevated’ and ‘learn about themselves’ and the protagonist pulls away with acceptance and some cultural product under their arm to walk away with.

In the end, the names and faces may change, but the plot is still the same… invasion, invasion, invasion…

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