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‘Avatar’: Nothing But a ‘Stupid Justification for War!’ – Le Monde, France
Feb 9th, 2010 | 7 responses
Avatar has turned out to be a politically explosive film. By and large, most writers see the film as a challenge to militarism/corporatism/fascism and a rejection of colonialism that extols the values of indigenous people. Chinese viewers see in the film a challenge to corporate interests that pay off corrupt officials to raze the homes of people unable to defend themselves.
Like an earlier article from Germany’s Die Zeit: Avatar: A Shameful Example of Western Cultural Imperialism, this article from France’s Le Monde, is counter-intuitive, but has some logic behind it. The writer assumes that in making this film, James Cameron, for the sake of profit, wanted to lessen the guilt and encourage the patriotism of Americans, embarrassed over Vietnam and injured by September 11.
For Le Monde, Professor Pierre Desjardins writes in part:
Naively, many took James Cameron’s film Avatar to be anti-war and even pacifist and environmentalist. However, it’s nothing of the sort! Quite to the contrary, this film is meant to eulogize violence and war. It is true that, in reversing the roles and caricaturing the U.S. Army, this film is just shuffling the cards and has confused more than a few. But beneath its idyllic outdoor settings, the film conceals a view that is remarkably caustic: that of justifying war for us peaceful Westerners!
First of all, let’s recall the scene of that enormous tree falling with a crash in the midst of a distraught population. How can one not see the analogy with the collapse of the towers of the World Trade Center? … This hero, a simple American soldier crippled by war and reborn into a new body, will return to war, but this time for a worthy cause!
Every war, even those that seem the most insane, always occurs for the “right reasons” because they’re for defense (there’s a reason we speak of the “Ministry of Defense”). Let’s recall that even for Hitler, the war was just: it was about enlarging German territory to ensure the survival of his people [lebensraum or living space]. We don’t go to war to fight, whatever any warmonger says, but to defend ourselves!
We should also note how the numerous battle scenes in the jungle remind us of what the Vietnam War did to the Americans. There, despite the use of napalm, the mighty Americans were trampled upon and humiliated. This film surreptitiously suggests that, henceforth, one must know how to respond intelligently to this type of humiliation. Not by insolently crushing everything in our path or by stupidly using poison gas, but by precise targeting of the enemy in concert with the other threatened nations. And there we find the perfect justification for the war in Afghanistan, do we not?
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7 Responses to “‘Avatar’: Nothing But a ‘Stupid Justification for War!’ – Le Monde, France”
the pix looks like mel gibson in whatever the film was called where his painted his face blue.
first of all, NOT 'most writers see the film as a challenge to” anything. Apparently the ones you Kern, read, do.
Not enough decades have gone by for the German so-called 'writers' and French so-called 'writers' to be pointing fingers at anyone about what others did in any war that they themselves, as I recall, (Nam) were neither in nor had to have the Americans come in because they (the French) couldnt crack the whip. As in WWII. The list of German atrocities alone, is endless. Everywhere there is a Nazi movement today, is the continuing unworthy cause unleashed by guess which countries in Eu
The writer is French-Canadian, a quebecois…
The first thing that comes to mind (no, not reflexive america f – - k yeah! – ness
is how so many people are deconstructing and applying meanings to the movie, one that has a pretty basic (derivative) plot but whose real claim to fame is the high-tech visual extravaganza. Back in the day, when lots of us read more books, I think the meanings of things were less ambiguous. Not any less wonderful, but less distracting (some writers excepted of course) since all the special effects were in the mind and created through the chemistry of writer and reader. Sure, people still got worked up over them, but lots of the SF written in the mid to late 20th century dealt with high tech war and future societies loosely based on historical societies, and I don't recall much politicizing and controversy, except of course when talking about Orwell, Huxley, and a few others. Back to the point: War of any kind, for any purpose, fair or foul (and it's all foul for most people who are caught up in them) is going to be glorified by some and reviled by others. Our society here in the US has long been caught up in the glorification of violence and war, film, books, television, and in real life as well. This movie only serves up some more of the same, but in a way that's pretty disconnected from the realities, which ARE something worth getting worked up about.
Avatar was a cartoon. A silly cartoon for children….but…..so many people join the military for childish reasons.
Dear Scazzi,
We simply translate what we find if it impinges upon the United States. If you find something interesting in the foreign press about this, please send it over and we'll work on that. Our only criteria is that the article be largely about the U.S., that it appears in a foreign publication, and that it be written by someone from another nation.
nope, you dont 'simply translate what we find' william. YOU CHOOSE what to run… out of thousands of pieces daily, right, left and center re USA. You choose by your own biases. Readers are no longer uneducated about 'objectivity' by those in media, even in mere blogging
Dear Scazzi,
That is exactly my point. We'd be happy to work on anything that falls within these criteria. So I encourage you and anyone else to submit links that you feel should be made available in English. This isn't about me or anyone's individual biases.
Yes there are thousands of articles every day – and it would be impossible to translate them all.
But we'll translate anything, right, left, or center, that falls within the criteria. We don't go to the Russian press, for example, and say to ourselves “let's find something good or bad about America.” We just find things about America and translate them.
The goal is to provide some kind of glimpse into how the world sees the United States.
We want to show what's out there – and that is all. By and large, that just happens to be overwhelmingly critical. That is simply the way it is.
I might add this: When I personally see something favorable to our country, I jump on it. And I often post it on the Moderate Voice.