[FairfieldLife] Re: 'Avatar' arouses conservatives' ire
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend jst...@... wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, jeff.evans60 jeff.evans60@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend jstein@ wrote: snip Not sure where or if this fits in, but my sister pointed out to me that all the Indian women in Dances With Wolves were beautifully groomed, their hair in neat braids or pulled back, whereas the 'do of Stands with a Fist, the white woman who was supposedly completely assimilated into the Lakota culture and fiercely loyal to it, was loose, messy and unkempt, as if she never combed it. That had to have been a choice, but what was it supposed to mean? Big disconnect somehow. I dont think ceramic hair straighteners were available in the 1860's ( although she obviously had access to curling tongs ) Yeah, but my point was that her hair was just slovenly looking. You'd think if she wanted so badly to belong to the Lakota culture, she'd have found a way to keep it neat. You can make perfectly good braids with curly hair, and hers wasn't all *that* curly, really just wavy. I just read Wikipedia to refresh my memory. The tribe Dunbar befriends is Sioux. Stands With A Fist, whose hair IMO suits her defiant name, teaches Dunbar Lakota. I assume this means the Sioux spoke Lakota. I see your point that the producers couldn't quite cope mentally with the idea of a white woman becoming one of *them* without lowering herself and becoming uncivilized, and perhaps it implies a form of unconscious racism. I think it's a stretch. I have a hard time looking for racism under every rock. I had my fill of it during Hillary's campaign. Another way to look at it is that before the Sioux adopted Stands With A Fist, as a child she had already identified with a white culture. Although she adapted in many ways to a foreign culture (where else is a girl going to go shopping for clothes?) she retained her sense of being different and it may have been the source of her defiance and thus the hairdo. perfectly coiffed bikini line neat Indian feathers bow at her feet bodacious her quiff a bird nesting wild sage talking stick tells of lone child mercurial tufts fly on the wing rebelliously sly unbraided curling slatternly dreadlocks sexy hair ball tangles unfurling tresses free fall pompadour high or scraggly twist director malfunction or Stands With A Fist? I don't know, maybe they thought the messy hair kept her from looking too glamorous. But she was by far the most prominent woman in the film, and it gave the impression that she had somehow become wild and savage when she was taken in by the tribe, as if Indian women were naturally unkempt--except that the others weren't! It seemed as though the filmmakers hadn't thought it through, as if they couldn't quite cope mentally with the idea of a white woman becoming one of *them* without lowering herself and becoming uncivilized. No doubt all subconscious on the part of the filmmakers, but it was just rather unpleasant.
[FairfieldLife] Re: 'Avatar' arouses conservatives' ire
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB no_re...@... wrote: snip Just as a followup, doncha think it's fascinating that a supposed feminist throws away several posts 1) picking a nit about another woman's unkempt appearance as if that somehow offended her, and 2) does so by suggesting that it is somehow inauthentic for a woman in any era to wear her hair the way she wants to? Barry. [knock knock knock] Anybody home in there? I was talking about *a character in a movie*, and how that character *would have been likely* to wear her hair, not about how women *should* wear their hair in real life. And it wasn't just a nit. It had to do with how the choice of hairstyle for the movie reflected a racist attitude on the filmmakers' part. Nothing wrong with unkempt on its own terms. Nothing wrong with it in a film either when it's appropriate for the character. It *is* problematic when it reveals subconscious racism. It seems you've been spending so much time lately watching movies that you're having trouble distinguishing their fictional reality from real life. That said, having dated a number of women with naturally curly hair in my life, and lived with a few of them, I can attest to the fact that no matter *how* society-whipped or pussy-whipped Judy would like them to be, those curls are not going to stay kempt for very long if they live outdoors in the wind and the elements. McDonnell's hair isn't curly. At most, it's wavy. And she could easily have had even the waviness straightened for the film. Braid it however you want, bind it up neatly the way Judy thinks it should be bound up as much as you want, and within an hour you're looking pretty much the way Mary McDonnell looked to start with because she was smart enough to realize this. Braided or tied-back hair under windy conditions doesn't end up looking anything remotely like McDonnell's hair in the film. Plus which, according to what you quoted her as saying in your earlier post, that's not why she went along with it in any case. Did you forget that already? snip Mary McDonnell -- in Dances With Wolves or Grand Canyon or Battlestar Galactica or any of the other 48 films she's been in -- pretty much encapsulates my vision of a certain kind of feminine (and feminist) beauty that is on the one hand lovely and on the other hand Don't Take No Shit. Free clue: A woman can do the Don't Take No Shit thing regardless of the hairstyle she chooses. For that matter, she can also be the type who takes all kinds of shit regardless of the hairstyle she chooses--even possibly *more important* shit than how she wears her hair. It isn't impossible that McDonnell was *intimidated* into wearing her hair that way against her better judgment, and then had to try to justify it after the fact. In other words, the messy hair may have been a function of her taking shit from the costumers and makeup artists about how she couldn't hope to put the character across otherwise.
[FairfieldLife] Re: 'Avatar' arouses conservatives' ire
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, raunchydog raunchy...@... wrote: snip I see your point that the producers couldn't quite cope mentally with the idea of a white woman becoming one of *them* without lowering herself and becoming uncivilized, and perhaps it implies a form of unconscious racism. I think it's a stretch. I have a hard time looking for racism under every rock. I had my fill of it during Hillary's campaign. Another way to look at it is that before the Sioux adopted Stands With A Fist, as a child she had already identified with a white culture. Although she adapted in many ways to a foreign culture (where else is a girl going to go shopping for clothes?) she retained her sense of being different and it may have been the source of her defiance and thus the hairdo. Possible, but I think *that's* a stretch. She was too young when the tribe took her in to have absorbed much of white culture; and in any case, white culture wasn't any more accepting of poor grooming than Indian culture. Plus which, it wasn't just that she adapted to the Indian culture. She bought into it totally, was terrified that Dunbar was going to make her leave the tribe and go back to her own people. She'd married an Indian, and when Dunbar first encounters her, she's in such deep and desperate mourning after her husband's death that she's in the process of committing suicide. Finally, the defiance that inspired her name was generated by the Indians mistreating her at first because she was white. The fist she stood with was raised against a member of the tribe who had been harassing her. That's what she was defying, the unequal treatment, insisting that they treat her as one of them. And they were so impressed by the way this little white girl stood up for herself that from then on, they did exactly that. Being strong-willed was an Indian trait, as far as they were concerned. So I have a hard time buying that she would deliberately try to preserve her differentness.
[FairfieldLife] Re: 'Avatar' arouses conservatives' ire
If you want reality with a North-American-aboriginal-mixes-with-Europeans then I suggest you see the movie Black Robe which is about first contacts between French missionaries and Indians in cold, frozen Quebec about 300 years ago. The film's most telling moment is when the priests show the Huron (or whatever tribe they were) how writing works, which totally freaks them out. And let's cut the crap about the idea of the Indian as noble savage which everyone thinks is analogous to the Na'Vi of Avatar. North America's aboriginals were the farthest thing from being good stewards of the environment. They weren't. --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend jst...@... wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, raunchydog raunchydog@ wrote: snip I see your point that the producers couldn't quite cope mentally with the idea of a white woman becoming one of *them* without lowering herself and becoming uncivilized, and perhaps it implies a form of unconscious racism. I think it's a stretch. I have a hard time looking for racism under every rock. I had my fill of it during Hillary's campaign. Another way to look at it is that before the Sioux adopted Stands With A Fist, as a child she had already identified with a white culture. Although she adapted in many ways to a foreign culture (where else is a girl going to go shopping for clothes?) she retained her sense of being different and it may have been the source of her defiance and thus the hairdo. Possible, but I think *that's* a stretch. She was too young when the tribe took her in to have absorbed much of white culture; and in any case, white culture wasn't any more accepting of poor grooming than Indian culture. Plus which, it wasn't just that she adapted to the Indian culture. She bought into it totally, was terrified that Dunbar was going to make her leave the tribe and go back to her own people. She'd married an Indian, and when Dunbar first encounters her, she's in such deep and desperate mourning after her husband's death that she's in the process of committing suicide. Finally, the defiance that inspired her name was generated by the Indians mistreating her at first because she was white. The fist she stood with was raised against a member of the tribe who had been harassing her. That's what she was defying, the unequal treatment, insisting that they treat her as one of them. And they were so impressed by the way this little white girl stood up for herself that from then on, they did exactly that. Being strong-willed was an Indian trait, as far as they were concerned. So I have a hard time buying that she would deliberately try to preserve her differentness.
[FairfieldLife] Re: 'Avatar' arouses conservatives' ire
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend jst...@... wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, raunchydog raunchydog@ wrote: snip I see your point that the producers couldn't quite cope mentally with the idea of a white woman becoming one of *them* without lowering herself and becoming uncivilized, and perhaps it implies a form of unconscious racism. I think it's a stretch. I have a hard time looking for racism under every rock. I had my fill of it during Hillary's campaign. Another way to look at it is that before the Sioux adopted Stands With A Fist, as a child she had already identified with a white culture. Although she adapted in many ways to a foreign culture (where else is a girl going to go shopping for clothes?) she retained her sense of being different and it may have been the source of her defiance and thus the hairdo. Possible, but I think *that's* a stretch. She was too young when the tribe took her in to have absorbed much of white culture; and in any case, white culture wasn't any more accepting of poor grooming than Indian culture. Plus which, it wasn't just that she adapted to the Indian culture. She bought into it totally, was terrified that Dunbar was going to make her leave the tribe and go back to her own people. She'd married an Indian, and when Dunbar first encounters her, she's in such deep and desperate mourning after her husband's death that she's in the process of committing suicide. Finally, the defiance that inspired her name was generated by the Indians mistreating her at first because she was white. The fist she stood with was raised against a member of the tribe who had been harassing her. That's what she was defying, the unequal treatment, insisting that they treat her as one of them. And they were so impressed by the way this little white girl stood up for herself that from then on, they did exactly that. Being strong-willed was an Indian trait, as far as they were concerned. So I have a hard time buying that she would deliberately try to preserve her differentness. Stands With A Fist had to claim her right for equal treatment and stand up for herself against a bigot for being different. No matter how little she was when adopted, she knew her skin was a different color and it set apart from the other children. Childhood taunts can be cruel. Is it an innate human trait that children abhor differences in their peers and seek to eliminate, marginalize or demand conformity? Is it the source of bigotry? Is bigotry an infantile aversion to difference? Children adopted by families of a different race often long for a culture identity that goes back to their roots. Even children adopted as infants go to great lengths hunting for birth parents, perhaps hoping somehow finding a missing piece of their life will restore a sense of wholeness. The choices children make attempting to identity with a foreign culture can reflect an internal conflict and manifest as acting out in a variety of socially unacceptable ways, i.e. messy hair. They may rebel or adapt but in either case it isn't with a sense of ease within themselves. They don't quite know who they are. I imagine it's disconcerting to say the least.
[FairfieldLife] Re: 'Avatar' arouses conservatives' ire
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, raunchydog raunchy...@... wrote: snip Children adopted by families of a different race often long for a culture identity that goes back to their roots. Even children adopted as infants go to great lengths hunting for birth parents, perhaps hoping somehow finding a missing piece of their life will restore a sense of wholeness. The choices children make attempting to identity with a foreign culture can reflect an internal conflict and manifest as acting out in a variety of socially unacceptable ways, i.e. messy hair. They may rebel or adapt but in either case it isn't with a sense of ease within themselves. They don't quite know who they are. I imagine it's disconcerting to say the least. But the way the script was written, Stands with a Fist only becomes ill at ease about her identity after Dunbar shows up, and she's forced to remember that she's white when she's assigned to translate for him. She doesn't *want* to recover that part of herself; she'd been at peace with her adopted identity up till that point. It's only because Dunbar hangs around and they fall in love that she has to come to terms with being white.
[FairfieldLife] Re: 'Avatar' arouses conservatives' ire
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend jst...@... wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, raunchydog raunchydog@ wrote: snip Children adopted by families of a different race often long for a culture identity that goes back to their roots. Even children adopted as infants go to great lengths hunting for birth parents, perhaps hoping somehow finding a missing piece of their life will restore a sense of wholeness. The choices children make attempting to identity with a foreign culture can reflect an internal conflict and manifest as acting out in a variety of socially unacceptable ways, i.e. messy hair. They may rebel or adapt but in either case it isn't with a sense of ease within themselves. They don't quite know who they are. I imagine it's disconcerting to say the least. But the way the script was written, Stands with a Fist only becomes ill at ease about her identity after Dunbar shows up, Maybe she was at peace with her Sioux identity before Dunbar, maybe not. Taken at face value, the script clearly portrays her attempted suicide as a result of being distraught over the death of her husband. Reading between the lines, however, I could argue that how an individual chooses to cope with loss has everything to do with his or her life experience and emotional reserves for self-preservation. Stands With A Fist's suicide attempt leaves open the possibility she was emotionally unstable due to her lack of feeling whole and connected to others. Maybe that's a stretch, but since the movie worked hard for authenticity, I'd bet an emotionally stable Sioux woman wouldn't attempt suicide over the death of a husband. Or perhaps it's party time, just say'n. and she's forced to remember that she's white when she's assigned to translate for him. She doesn't *want* to recover that part of herself; she'd been at peace with her adopted identity up till that point. It's only because Dunbar hangs around and they fall in love that she has to come to terms with being white.
[FairfieldLife] Re: 'Avatar' arouses conservatives' ire
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, raunchydog raunchy...@... wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend jstein@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, raunchydog raunchydog@ wrote: snip Children adopted by families of a different race often long for a culture identity that goes back to their roots. Even children adopted as infants go to great lengths hunting for birth parents, perhaps hoping somehow finding a missing piece of their life will restore a sense of wholeness. The choices children make attempting to identity with a foreign culture can reflect an internal conflict and manifest as acting out in a variety of socially unacceptable ways, i.e. messy hair. They may rebel or adapt but in either case it isn't with a sense of ease within themselves. They don't quite know who they are. I imagine it's disconcerting to say the least. But the way the script was written, Stands with a Fist only becomes ill at ease about her identity after Dunbar shows up, Maybe she was at peace with her Sioux identity before Dunbar, maybe not. Taken at face value, the script clearly portrays her attempted suicide as a result of being distraught over the death of her husband. Reading between the lines, however, I could argue that how an individual chooses to cope with loss has everything to do with his or her life experience and emotional reserves for self-preservation. Stands With A Fist's suicide attempt leaves open the possibility she was emotionally unstable due to her lack of feeling whole and connected to others. Maybe that's a stretch, but since the movie worked hard for authenticity, I'd bet an emotionally stable Sioux woman wouldn't attempt suicide over the death of a husband. Or perhaps it's party time, just say'n. OK, I just think you've got to read a whole lot in to get there. I understood the suicide attempt to be an expression of her deeply passionate nature rather than instability per se, at least the way the script presented it. With regard to the racism angle, the point is how the audience perceives her. I kinda doubt most folks who saw the film went through the mental process you just did to conclude that she was emotionally unstable because of identity problems and that was why she didn't keep her hair neat. I think it's much more likely they simply accepted without thinking about it that a white woman brought up by Indians wouldn't care about grooming. That must have been what I did, since I didn't see anything strange about her hair until my sister mentioned it. Stuff like this that sneaks in under the radar is the most dangerous, because it perpetuates itself without conscious thought. So that's what really bothered me about it. and she's forced to remember that she's white when she's assigned to translate for him. She doesn't *want* to recover that part of herself; she'd been at peace with her adopted identity up till that point. It's only because Dunbar hangs around and they fall in love that she has to come to terms with being white.
[FairfieldLife] Re: 'Avatar' arouses conservatives' ire
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend jst...@... wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, raunchydog raunchydog@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend jstein@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, raunchydog raunchydog@ wrote: snip Children adopted by families of a different race often long for a culture identity that goes back to their roots. Even children adopted as infants go to great lengths hunting for birth parents, perhaps hoping somehow finding a missing piece of their life will restore a sense of wholeness. The choices children make attempting to identity with a foreign culture can reflect an internal conflict and manifest as acting out in a variety of socially unacceptable ways, i.e. messy hair. They may rebel or adapt but in either case it isn't with a sense of ease within themselves. They don't quite know who they are. I imagine it's disconcerting to say the least. But the way the script was written, Stands with a Fist only becomes ill at ease about her identity after Dunbar shows up, Maybe she was at peace with her Sioux identity before Dunbar, maybe not. Taken at face value, the script clearly portrays her attempted suicide as a result of being distraught over the death of her husband. Reading between the lines, however, I could argue that how an individual chooses to cope with loss has everything to do with his or her life experience and emotional reserves for self-preservation. Stands With A Fist's suicide attempt leaves open the possibility she was emotionally unstable due to her lack of feeling whole and connected to others. Maybe that's a stretch, but since the movie worked hard for authenticity, I'd bet an emotionally stable Sioux woman wouldn't attempt suicide over the death of a husband. Or perhaps it's party time, just say'n. OK, I just think you've got to read a whole lot in to get there. I understood the suicide attempt to be an expression of her deeply passionate nature rather than instability per se, at least the way the script presented it. With regard to the racism angle, the point is how the audience perceives her. I kinda doubt most folks who saw the film went through the mental process you just did to conclude that she was emotionally unstable because of identity problems and that was why she didn't keep her hair neat. Good one, Judy. You make having an intentional bad hair day due to emotional instability sound pretty damn funny. I'm having an identity crisis, so I'm wearing my hair in a rats nest and fuck you, if you don't like it. Hair is perhaps one of the most versatile statements of rebellion imaginable. It's direct and you can't miss it as a message of non-conformity. When are you going to cut your damn hair, you damn hippie? was a standard rejoinder to anti-establishment youths of the '60's. An who can forget the fabulous song, Hair? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7dyl0j3WU6Yfeature=related I think it's much more likely they simply accepted without thinking about it that a white woman brought up by Indians wouldn't care about grooming. I didn't think that at all. I just thought she was beautiful, rats nest and all. That must have been what I did, since I didn't see anything strange about her hair until my sister mentioned it. Stuff like this that sneaks in under the radar is the most dangerous, because it perpetuates itself without conscious thought. So that's what really bothered me about it. You have a good point. Most folks react to a movie emotionally without thinking about the subtext very deeply and it can influence their attitudes toward minorities. However, you'd have to look pretty far under the radar for me to feel subtly influenced to by a supposedly unconscious racist message from Dancing with Wolves. The fact that some folks have a predisposition to believe racist messaging without question, is reason enough to be alert to portraying different cultures in media respectfully. and she's forced to remember that she's white when she's assigned to translate for him. She doesn't *want* to recover that part of herself; she'd been at peace with her adopted identity up till that point. It's only because Dunbar hangs around and they fall in love that she has to come to terms with being white.
[FairfieldLife] Re: 'Avatar' arouses conservatives' ire
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, jeff.evans60 jeff.evan...@... wrote: Assuming it was a conscious decision how she was portrayed, I think the message the filmmaker was trying to give was that the Indians were happy to allow her to live with them without trying to force their cultural identity on her. The reality is less altruistic. In an article in the Albuquerque Journal at the time of the movie, Mary McDonnell comments that the decision to not braid her hair was hers, in conjunction with costume designers and makeup artists. They tried the braids, and both women felt that they made her character look too severe, almost uptight, and that was the opposite of what they wanted to achieve for the character and for the film. So they tried out various looks and decided on the one we see in the film. I remember this because I was still living in Santa Fe at the time, and had several Native American friends who were working on the film. I was trying to lobby them to get me a gig as an extra or a gopher or something. That never worked out, but it did make me tend to pay attention to news items about the movie. The film was big business for Native Americans, putting many to work in the film. Humorously enough, very few of them were actually from the Lakota tribe, so Mary McDonnell was in the same classes they were trying to learn the language they had to speak. :-) Graham Greene (who played Kicking Bird) was my favorite. He used to come into my fave bar in Santa Fe a lot. He's actually a member of the Oneida tribe from Canada, but had gotten to know Santa Fe during the filming of Powwow Highway the previous year. Great guy.
[FairfieldLife] Re: 'Avatar' arouses conservatives' ire
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com mailto:FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com , TurquoiseB no_re...@... wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com mailto:FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com , jeff.evans60 jeff.evans60@ wrote: Assuming it was a conscious decision how she was portrayed, I think the message the filmmaker was trying to give was that the Indians were happy to allow her to live with them without trying to force their cultural identity on her. The reality is less altruistic. In an article in the Albuquerque Journal at the time of the movie, Mary McDonnell comments that the decision to not braid her hair was hers, in conjunction with costume designers and makeup artists. They tried the braids, and both women felt that they made her character look too severe, almost uptight, and that was the opposite of what they wanted to achieve for the character and for the film. So they tried out various looks and decided on the one we see in the film. That made it appear as though she never combed her hair? What were the filmmakers thinking to allow her to choose to look slovenly, in contrast to all the Indian women? Even if they couldn't bring themselves to have her wear braids, there was no other way they could find to style her hair so it looked like she took care of it? Loose and flowing could have worked, but there was no reason for it to be matted and tangled. Were they afraid she wasn't a good enough actress to put the character across convincingly as not uptight unless her hair was a snarled, dirty- looking mess to convey how unconstrained and spontaneous she was? Even at her wedding to Dunbar, when she's dressed to the nines in gorgeous festive Indian garb, her hair looks like a rat's nest. [mcdonnell3] http://www.flickr.com/photos/36189...@n02/4254204616/ No matter who made the decision, they sacrificed authenticity--which they were clearly striving for in the language and dress and customs and ethos and everything else--for characterization. And even that element of characterization was grossly *out* of character in every other respect. She was raised by Indians since she was a little girl, was devoted to the tribe that adopted her, took on all their customs, but never picked up their grooming habits? None of them ever made a tactful suggestion that she should pay a little more attention to her appearance if she wanted to be one of them? Why couldn't McDonnell and the filmmakers see how insulting this was to the very Indians whose lifestyle and culture the film exalted? I think there can be only one explanation: To allow the actress to indulge herself this way didn't strike them as discordant because it reflected their subconscious sense that Indians are less civilized than whites. Take a white woman, plunk her down among Indians, and by gum, she'll become a filthy savage just like them. That image was so powerful, so fundamental, that it simply blotted out the incongruity; they literally could not see it. I was just Googling Stands with a Fist for more insight into what on earth could have been going through their minds and came across this diatribe from the Web site Stuff Black People Hate: http://stuffblackpeoplehate.com/2008/06/02/stands-with-a-fist/ http://stuffblackpeoplehate.com/2008/06/02/stands-with-a-fist/ http://tinyurl.com/la4npa http://tinyurl.com/la4npa Warning, language NSFW. The post is a bit extreme, but I was startled at how closely it mirrors the substance of what I've been saying. - (BTW, above Barry refers to McDonnell making the decision along with costume designers and makeup artists. In the next paragraph he refers to both women thinking braids made McDonnell look too severe. In the first instance, we have a minimum of five people involved (McDonnell, two costume designers, two makeup artists, gender unspecified). In the second, four of these people have become magically condensed into a single woman. Funny.)
[FairfieldLife] Re: 'Avatar' arouses conservatives' ire
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB no_re...@... wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, jeff.evans60 jeff.evans60@ wrote: Assuming it was a conscious decision how she was portrayed, I think the message the filmmaker was trying to give was that the Indians were happy to allow her to live with them without trying to force their cultural identity on her. The reality is less altruistic. In an article in the Albuquerque Journal at the time of the movie, Mary McDonnell comments that the decision to not braid her hair was hers, in conjunction with costume designers and makeup artists. They tried the braids, and both women felt that they made her character look too severe, almost uptight, and that was the opposite of what they wanted to achieve for the character and for the film. So they tried out various looks and decided on the one we see in the film. Just as a followup, doncha think it's fascinating that a supposed feminist throws away several posts 1) picking a nit about another woman's unkempt appearance as if that somehow offended her, and 2) does so by suggesting that it is somehow inauthentic for a woman in any era to wear her hair the way she wants to? Presumably the ideal woman Judy has in mind would submit to what the society she lived in (*especially* other women who bitchily criticized her unkempt appearance) wanted from her, rather than express her own taste in hairstyles. :-) That said, having dated a number of women with naturally curly hair in my life, and lived with a few of them, I can attest to the fact that no matter *how* society-whipped or pussy-whipped Judy would like them to be, those curls are not going to stay kempt for very long if they live outdoors in the wind and the elements. Braid it however you want, bind it up neatly the way Judy thinks it should be bound up as much as you want, and within an hour you're looking pretty much the way Mary McDonnell looked to start with because she was smart enough to realize this. Long live unkempt, onscreen or anywhere else. And may the control freaks who want to eradicate unkempt because it offends *them* and their neat-freak control-freak tendencies fuck off and die. Mary McDonnell -- in Dances With Wolves or Grand Canyon or Battlestar Galactica or any of the other 48 films she's been in -- pretty much encapsulates my vision of a certain kind of feminine (and feminist) beauty that is on the one hand lovely and on the other hand Don't Take No Shit. From men, or from women who try to shape her and her image to their desires even more than the men do. I'd do her in a heartbeat. Hell, I'd marry her in a heartbeat. I wouldn't touch any woman who can turn unkempt into a failing with a ten-foot teepee pole, much less my own. :-)
[FairfieldLife] Re: 'Avatar' arouses conservatives' ire
I saw the movie. Awesome graphics, yet a very boring plot IMO. Regarding left wing/right wing oppositions to aspects of the movie, I do find it odd that liberals identify with cultures that possess many of the same qualities that 'most' of them completely lack, or greatly despise. The indegenous people in Avatar were very warlike, they were hunters, and lived a very harsh life in a very dangerous environment. Even the women were rather aggressive and able to hunt and fight. The only reason it seemed possible to gain their respect is because a Marine joined their tribe and could actually hang with their toughest members and pass tests of fearlessness. Otherwise they would've looked at anyone else as being too weak or feeble to be among their culture. Dances with Wolves followed a similar pattern. If there is anything I get from either of those movies, it is that you must have respect for both sides of life, basically a yin/yang concept. An absence of one or the other is incomplete. seekliberation --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend jst...@... wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, do.rflex do.rflex@ wrote: 'Avatar' arouses conservatives' ire Conservatives are blind to the 3-D blockbuster's charms By Patrick Goldstein It's interesting that Mr. Goldstein doesn't seem to have picked up on the outrage of many *liberals* at what they perceive as the film's distinctly racist undertones. (Some have also suggested that it's sexist and has a bad attitude toward the disabled. One blogger insisted the film wasn't anti-military, it was anti-*mercenary*, pointing out that other films of Cameron's--Aliens and The Abyss-- have actually exalted the regular military.) I thought I remembered someone here mentioning the racist aspect--Shemp, perhaps--but I can't locate the post. Anyway, here's a few examples (among many) of criticism from the left: http://lefarkins.blogspot.com/2009/12/intentions-be-damned-avatar-is-racist.html http://tinyurl.com/yer2mb5 http://lefarkins.blogspot.com/2009/12/more-on-race-and-racialism-in-avatar.html http://tinyurl.com/yhswhed http://globalshift.org/2009/12/dances-with-discrimination-on-avatar-racism-misogyny-and-disabled-prejudice/#more-3534 http://tinyurl.com/yf3mefk http://gawker.com/5422666/when-will-white-people-stop-making-movies-like-avatar http://tinyurl.com/ybshwoy CAVEAT FOR THE FEEBLE-MINDED: Barry will, of course, rush to claim I'm reviewing a movie I haven't seen. Those with a few brain cells to rub together, however, will note that I have not expressed an opinion. I just find it curious that Mr. Goldstein seems to be aware only of criticism of the film from the right.
[FairfieldLife] Re: 'Avatar' arouses conservatives' ire
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, seekliberation seekliberat...@... wrote: I saw the movie. Awesome graphics, yet a very boring plot IMO. Regarding left wing/right wing oppositions to aspects of the movie, I do find it odd that liberals identify with cultures that possess many of the same qualities that 'most' of them completely lack, or greatly despise. The indegenous people in Avatar were very warlike, they were hunters, and lived a very harsh life in a very dangerous environment. Even the women were rather aggressive and able to hunt and fight. The only reason it seemed possible to gain their respect is because a Marine joined their tribe and could actually hang with their toughest members and pass tests of fearlessness. Otherwise they would've looked at anyone else as being too weak or feeble to be among their culture. Dances with Wolves followed a similar pattern. If there is anything I get from either of those movies, it is that you must have respect for both sides of life, basically a yin/yang concept. An absence of one or the other is incomplete. seekliberation If it wasn't for the fabulous graphics Avatar would be yet another boring boy meets girl Hollywood film. It's not surprising that right-wingers don't like it; the once so strong american warmachine was destroyed by tribes using bow and arrow and flying on monsters. And their belowed capitalism was rejected took a blow. Perhaps they somehow know what is coming; the global collapse of capitalism, just like Maharishi predicted.
[FairfieldLife] Re: 'Avatar' arouses conservatives' ire
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, seekliberation seekliberat...@... wrote: I saw the movie. Awesome graphics, yet a very boring plot IMO. Regarding left wing/right wing oppositions to aspects of the movie, I do find it odd that liberals identify with cultures that possess many of the same qualities that 'most' of them completely lack, or greatly despise. The indegenous people in Avatar were very warlike, they were hunters, and lived a very harsh life in a very dangerous environment. Even the women were rather aggressive and able to hunt and fight. The only reason it seemed possible to gain their respect is because a Marine joined their tribe and could actually hang with their toughest members and pass tests of fearlessness. Otherwise they would've looked at anyone else as being too weak or feeble to be among their culture. Dances with Wolves followed a similar pattern. If there is anything I get from either of those movies, it is that you must have respect for both sides of life, basically a yin/yang concept. An absence of one or the other is incomplete. Not sure where or if this fits in, but my sister pointed out to me that all the Indian women in Dances With Wolves were beautifully groomed, their hair in neat braids or pulled back, whereas the 'do of Stands with a Fist, the white woman who was supposedly completely assimilated into the Lakota culture and fiercely loyal to it, was loose, messy and unkempt, as if she never combed it. That had to have been a choice, but what was it supposed to mean? Big disconnect somehow. [mcdonnell] http://www.flickr.com/photos/36189...@n02/4251660156/ [tantoo cardinal] http://www.flickr.com/photos/36189...@n02/4251660166/
[FairfieldLife] Re: 'Avatar' arouses conservatives' ire
Avatar' arouses conservatives' ire Great ! I guess I'll have to see it after all ! I know its going to be a bunch of cliche-ridden extravagenvce, but I'll support the ethos at least - anything that pisses off neocons and fundamentalsist is all right by me ! OffWorld --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com mailto:FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com , do.rflex do.rf...@... wrote: 'Avatar' arouses conservatives' ire Conservatives are blind to the 3-D blockbuster's charms By Patrick Goldstein [avatar_movie_promo_screenshot] It's no secret that Avatar has been stunningly successful on nearly every front. The James Cameron-directed sci-fi epic is already the fourth-highest-grossing film of all time, having earned more than $1 billion around the globe in less than three weeks of theatrical release. The film also has garnered effusive praise from critics, who've been planting its flag on a variety of critics Top 10 lists. The 3-D trip to Pandora is also viewed as a veritable shoo-in for a best picture Oscar nomination when the academy announces its nominees on Feb. 2. But amid this avalanche of praise and popularity, guess who hates the movie? America's prickly cadre of political conservatives. For years, pundits and bloggers on the right have ceaselessly attacked liberal Hollywood for being out of touch with rank and file moviegoers, complaining that executives and filmmakers continue to make films that have precious little resonance with Middle America. They have reacted with scorn to such high-profile liberal political advocacy films as Syriana, Milk, W., Religulous, Lions for Lambs, Brokeback Mountain, In the Valley of Elah, Rendition and Good Night, and Good Luck, saying that the movies' poor performances at the box office were a clear sign of how thoroughly uninterested real people were in the pet causes of showbiz progressives. Of course, Avatar totally turns this theory on its head. As a host of critics have noted, the film offers a blatantly pro-environmental message; it portrays U.S. military contractors in a decidedly negative light; and it clearly evokes the can't-we-all-get along vibe of the 1960s counterculture. These are all messages guaranteed to alienate everyday moviegoers, so say the right-wing pundits -- and yet the film has been wholeheartedly embraced by audiences everywhere, from Mississippi to Manhattan. To say that the film has evoked a storm of ire on the right would be an understatement. Big Hollywood's John Nolte, one of my favorite outspoken right-wing film essayists, blasted the film, calling it a sanctimonious thud of a movie so infested with one-dimensional characters and PC cliches that not a single plot turn, large or small, surprises. . . . Think of 'Avatar' as 'Death Wish' for leftists, a simplistic, revisionist revenge fantasy where if you . . . hate the bad guys (America) you're able to forgive the by-the-numbers predictability of it all. John Podhoretz, the Weekly Standard's film critic, called the film blitheringly stupid; indeed, it's among the dumbest movies I've ever seen. He goes on to say: You're going to hear a lot over the next couple of weeks about the movie's politics -- about how it's a Green epic about despoiling the environment, and an attack on the war in Iraq. . . . The conclusion does ask the audience to root for the defeat of American soldiers at the hands of an insurgency. So it is a deep expression of anti-Americanism -- kind of. The thing is, one would be giving Jim Cameron too much credit to take 'Avatar' -- with its . . . hatred of the military and American institutions and the notion that to be human is just way uncool -- at all seriously as a political document. It's more interesting as an example of how deeply rooted these standard issue counterculture cliches in Hollywood have become by now. Ross Douthat, writing in the New York Times, took Cameron to task on another favorite conservative front, as yet another Hollywood filmmaker who refuses to acknowledge the power of religion. Douthat calls Avatar the Gospel according to James. But not the Christian Gospel. Instead, 'Avatar' is Cameron's long apologia for pantheism -- a faith that equates God with Nature, and calls humanity into religious communion with the natural world. Douthat contends that societies close to nature, like the Na'vi in Avatar, aren't shining Edens at all -- they're places where existence tends to be nasty, brutish and short. There are tons of other grumpy conservative broadsides against the film, but I'll spare you the details, except to say that Cameron's grand cinematic fantasy, with its mixture of social comment, mysticism and transcendent, fanboy-style video game animation, seems to have hit a very raw nerve with political conservatives, who view everything -- foreign affairs, global warming, the White House Christmas tree -- through the prism of partisan sloganeering. But
[FairfieldLife] Re: 'Avatar' arouses conservatives' ire
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com mailto:FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com , Vaj vajradh...@... wrote: On Jan 5, 2010, at 8:30 AM, TurquoiseB wrote: Shemp will HATE AVATAR. He'll be sitting there in the theater trying to admire the film for *nothing more meaningful than making a shitload of money* and find himself sitting there watching the glori- fication of everything he most hates in life. And the presentation of most of the things he loves in life as the Neanderthal Thinking they really are. I think Shemp will not only hate it, he'll spew a number of hate mails on it, like he does to those who are pro-environment. Deep inside it will work on his cognitive dissonance with his latent Vedic programming. So much of what the N'Avi are into is Maharishi Vedic living. And he despises that too. FANTASTIC ! ... I can't wait until Shemp sees it then ! When are you going to see it Shemp? OffWorld
[FairfieldLife] Re: 'Avatar' arouses conservatives' ire
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com mailto:FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com , seekliberation seekliberat...@... wrote: I saw the movie. Awesome graphics, yet a very boring plot IMO. Regarding left wing/right wing oppositions to aspects of the movie, I do find it odd that liberals identify with cultures that possess many of the same qualities that 'most' of them completely lack, or greatly despise. The indegenous people in Avatar were very warlike, they were hunters, and lived a very harsh life in a very dangerous environment. Even the women were rather aggressive and able to hunt and fight. A lot of liberals think that Native Americans were saints too, just like right wing Christians think bombing children en-masse is somehow righteous. OffWorld The only reason it seemed possible to gain their respect is because a Marine joined their tribe and could actually hang with their toughest members and pass tests of fearlessness Otherwise they would've looked at anyone else as being too weak or feeble to be among their culture. Dances with Wolves followed a similar pattern. If there is anything I get from either of those movies, it is that you must have respect for both sides of life, basically a yin/yang concept. An absence of one or the other is incomplete. seekliberation --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com mailto:FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com , authfriend jstein@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com mailto:FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com , do.rflex do.rflex@ wrote: 'Avatar' arouses conservatives' ire Conservatives are blind to the 3-D blockbuster's charms By Patrick Goldstein It's interesting that Mr. Goldstein doesn't seem to have picked up on the outrage of many *liberals* at what they perceive as the film's distinctly racist undertones. (Some have also suggested that it's sexist and has a bad attitude toward the disabled. One blogger insisted the film wasn't anti-military, it was anti-*mercenary*, pointing out that other films of Cameron's--Aliens and The Abyss-- have actually exalted the regular military.) I thought I remembered someone here mentioning the racist aspect--Shemp, perhaps--but I can't locate the post. Anyway, here's a few examples (among many) of criticism from the left: http://lefarkins.blogspot.com/2009/12/intentions-be-damned-avatar-is-rac\ ist.html http://lefarkins.blogspot.com/2009/12/intentions-be-damned-avatar-is-ra\ cist.html http://tinyurl.com/yer2mb5 http://tinyurl.com/yer2mb5 http://lefarkins.blogspot.com/2009/12/more-on-race-and-racialism-in-avat\ ar.html http://lefarkins.blogspot.com/2009/12/more-on-race-and-racialism-in-ava\ tar.html http://tinyurl.com/yhswhed http://tinyurl.com/yhswhed http://globalshift.org/2009/12/dances-with-discrimination-on-avatar-raci\ sm-misogyny-and-disabled-prejudice/#more-3534 http://globalshift.org/2009/12/dances-with-discrimination-on-avatar-rac\ ism-misogyny-and-disabled-prejudice/#more-3534 http://tinyurl.com/yf3mefk http://tinyurl.com/yf3mefk http://gawker.com/5422666/when-will-white-people-stop-making-movies-like\ -avatar http://gawker.com/5422666/when-will-white-people-stop-making-movies-lik\ e-avatar http://tinyurl.com/ybshwoy http://tinyurl.com/ybshwoy CAVEAT FOR THE FEEBLE-MINDED: Barry will, of course, rush to claim I'm reviewing a movie I haven't seen. Those with a few brain cells to rub together, however, will note that I have not expressed an opinion. I just find it curious that Mr. Goldstein seems to be aware only of criticism of the film from the right.
RE: [FairfieldLife] Re: 'Avatar' arouses conservatives' ire
From: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com [mailto:fairfieldl...@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of off_world_beings Sent: Wednesday, January 06, 2010 5:55 PM To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com Subject: [FairfieldLife] Re: 'Avatar' arouses conservatives' ire FANTASTIC ! ... I can't wait until Shemp sees it then ! When are you going to see it Shemp? OffWorld Shemp was banished for a week for overposting.
[FairfieldLife] Re: 'Avatar' arouses conservatives' ire
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend jst...@... wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, seekliberation seekliberation@ wrote: I saw the movie. Awesome graphics, yet a very boring plot IMO. Regarding left wing/right wing oppositions to aspects of the movie, I do find it odd that liberals identify with cultures that possess many of the same qualities that 'most' of them completely lack, or greatly despise. The indegenous people in Avatar were very warlike, they were hunters, and lived a very harsh life in a very dangerous environment. Even the women were rather aggressive and able to hunt and fight. The only reason it seemed possible to gain their respect is because a Marine joined their tribe and could actually hang with their toughest members and pass tests of fearlessness. Otherwise they would've looked at anyone else as being too weak or feeble to be among their culture. Dances with Wolves followed a similar pattern. If there is anything I get from either of those movies, it is that you must have respect for both sides of life, basically a yin/yang concept. An absence of one or the other is incomplete. Not sure where or if this fits in, but my sister pointed out to me that all the Indian women in Dances With Wolves were beautifully groomed, their hair in neat braids or pulled back, whereas the 'do of Stands with a Fist, the white woman who was supposedly completely assimilated into the Lakota culture and fiercely loyal to it, was loose, messy and unkempt, as if she never combed it. That had to have been a choice, but what was it supposed to mean? Big disconnect somehow. I dont think ceramic hair straighteners were available in the 1860's ( although she obviously had access to curling tongs )
[FairfieldLife] Re: 'Avatar' arouses conservatives' ire
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, jeff.evans60 jeff.evan...@... wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend jstein@ wrote: snip Not sure where or if this fits in, but my sister pointed out to me that all the Indian women in Dances With Wolves were beautifully groomed, their hair in neat braids or pulled back, whereas the 'do of Stands with a Fist, the white woman who was supposedly completely assimilated into the Lakota culture and fiercely loyal to it, was loose, messy and unkempt, as if she never combed it. That had to have been a choice, but what was it supposed to mean? Big disconnect somehow. I dont think ceramic hair straighteners were available in the 1860's ( although she obviously had access to curling tongs ) Yeah, but my point was that her hair was just slovenly looking. You'd think if she wanted so badly to belong to the Lakota culture, she'd have found a way to keep it neat. You can make perfectly good braids with curly hair, and hers wasn't all *that* curly, really just wavy. I don't know, maybe they thought the messy hair kept her from looking too glamorous. But she was by far the most prominent woman in the film, and it gave the impression that she had somehow become wild and savage when she was taken in by the tribe, as if Indian women were naturally unkempt--except that the others weren't! It seemed as though the filmmakers hadn't thought it through, as if they couldn't quite cope mentally with the idea of a white woman becoming one of *them* without lowering herself and becoming uncivilized. No doubt all subconscious on the part of the filmmakers, but it was just rather unpleasant.
[FairfieldLife] Re: 'Avatar' arouses conservatives' ire
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend jst...@... wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, jeff.evans60 jeff.evans60@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend jstein@ wrote: snip Not sure where or if this fits in, but my sister pointed out to me that all the Indian women in Dances With Wolves were beautifully groomed, their hair in neat braids or pulled back, whereas the 'do of Stands with a Fist, the white woman who was supposedly completely assimilated into the Lakota culture and fiercely loyal to it, was loose, messy and unkempt, as if she never combed it. That had to have been a choice, but what was it supposed to mean? Big disconnect somehow. I dont think ceramic hair straighteners were available in the 1860's ( although she obviously had access to curling tongs ) Yeah, but my point was that her hair was just slovenly looking. You'd think if she wanted so badly to belong to the Lakota culture, she'd have found a way to keep it neat. You can make perfectly good braids with curly hair, and hers wasn't all *that* curly, really just wavy. I don't know, maybe they thought the messy hair kept her from looking too glamorous. But she was by far the most prominent woman in the film, and it gave the impression that she had somehow become wild and savage when she was taken in by the tribe, as if Indian women were naturally unkempt--except that the others weren't! It seemed as though the filmmakers hadn't thought it through, as if they couldn't quite cope mentally with the idea of a white woman becoming one of *them* without lowering herself and becoming uncivilized. No doubt all subconscious on the part of the filmmakers, but it was just rather unpleasant. Assuming it was a conscious decision how she was portrayed , I think the message the filmmaker was trying to give was that the Indians were happy to allow her to live with them without trying to force their cultural identity on her . Similar to the way the native culture adapts to its surroundings, unlike the white man who attempts to impose his will on his environment.
[FairfieldLife] Re: 'Avatar' arouses conservatives' ire
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, jeff.evans60 jeff.evan...@... wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend jstein@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, jeff.evans60 jeff.evans60@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend jstein@ wrote: snip Not sure where or if this fits in, but my sister pointed out to me that all the Indian women in Dances With Wolves were beautifully groomed, their hair in neat braids or pulled back, whereas the 'do of Stands with a Fist, the white woman who was supposedly completely assimilated into the Lakota culture and fiercely loyal to it, was loose, messy and unkempt, as if she never combed it. That had to have been a choice, but what was it supposed to mean? Big disconnect somehow. I dont think ceramic hair straighteners were available in the 1860's ( although she obviously had access to curling tongs ) Yeah, but my point was that her hair was just slovenly looking. You'd think if she wanted so badly to belong to the Lakota culture, she'd have found a way to keep it neat. You can make perfectly good braids with curly hair, and hers wasn't all *that* curly, really just wavy. I don't know, maybe they thought the messy hair kept her from looking too glamorous. But she was by far the most prominent woman in the film, and it gave the impression that she had somehow become wild and savage when she was taken in by the tribe, as if Indian women were naturally unkempt--except that the others weren't! It seemed as though the filmmakers hadn't thought it through, as if they couldn't quite cope mentally with the idea of a white woman becoming one of *them* without lowering herself and becoming uncivilized. No doubt all subconscious on the part of the filmmakers, but it was just rather unpleasant. Assuming it was a conscious decision how she was portrayed , I think the message the filmmaker was trying to give was that the Indians were happy to allow her to live with them without trying to force their cultural identity on her . Oh, I don't think so. She'd been taken in by the tribe when she was a little girl. I don't think at that point she would have had a cultural identity that would have made her grow up never combing her hair and looking like a slattern. Her real mother would never have let her look like that. And of course she had adopted all the other elements of the tribal identity, clothing, social customs, language (if you recall, she had to struggle to remember any English at all). They were her people as far as she was concerned. When Dunbar first encountered her, she was in deep, desperate mourning for her recently dead Indian husband, with whom she'd been very much in love. I think her hair reflected the filmmakers' notions of what a white woman would look like if she had been raised as an Indian, and it simply didn't occur to them that none of the *real* Indian women looked like that. They never compared their own image with the reality. Similar to the way the native culture adapts to its surroundings, unlike the white man who attempts to impose his will on his environment.
[FairfieldLife] Re: 'Avatar' arouses conservatives' ire
As I mentioned earlier, in one of my first raves about AVATAR, I find it a fascinating coincidence that a man and a woman who used to be married both find their films nominated for Best Film Of The Year, and for films with a similar theme. Kathryn Bigelow's The Hurt Locker has so far garnered more nominations (29, as opposed to four for AVATAR) and actual wins (27 compared to 0 for AVATAR so far, and from prestigious Critics' organizations, as opposed to fluff awards like the Oscars). Both films deal IMO with addiction. Addiction to war, addiction to a predatory and imperialist life- style, addiction to just taking whatever the fuck you want because you can. Bigelow's main character succumbs to this addiction and actual re-ups for another tour of duty pursuing this agenda. That is probably why conservatives don't find her film as threatening, even though it clearly shows the dark side of Iraq and America's imperialist wars. Cameron's hero is more threatening because not only does Jake not re-up, he turns traitor and fights *against* this mindset and this lifestyle. In a normal year, this might go against him in the Oscars, which are voted on after all by people who may pose as liberals but who couldn't be more attached to the status quo and the preservation of it if they tried. But I don't think it'll go against him this year. By the time the Academy Awards have rolled around, AVATAR will have made 2 billion bucks. That cannot be ignored. As the article points out, that it does this by presenting a Sixties can't-we-all-get-along treehugger vision as *preferable* to the let's-rape- the-planet-as-long-as-we-can mentality is something else that cannot be ignored. Shemp will HATE AVATAR. He'll be sitting there in the theater trying to admire the film for *nothing more meaningful than making a shitload of money* and find himself sitting there watching the glori- fication of everything he most hates in life. And the presentation of most of the things he loves in life as the Neanderthal Thinking they really are. It should be interesting to hear his review when he returns from having been so anxious to *present* that Neanderthal Thinking that he fouled out on posts rather than wait two more minutes so that he wouldn't. THAT necessity to barge in dick first and try to *dominate* is what AVATAR is about. THAT inability to STOP barging in dick first and dominate is what AVATAR is about. It's only peripherally about the money. Only a money- grubbing Neanderthal would see that as the important thing in the film. --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, do.rflex do.rf...@... wrote: 'Avatar' arouses conservatives' ire Conservatives are blind to the 3-D blockbuster's charms By Patrick Goldstein [avatar_movie_promo_screenshot] It's no secret that Avatar has been stunningly successful on nearly every front. The James Cameron-directed sci-fi epic is already the fourth-highest-grossing film of all time, having earned more than $1 billion around the globe in less than three weeks of theatrical release. The film also has garnered effusive praise from critics, who've been planting its flag on a variety of critics Top 10 lists. The 3-D trip to Pandora is also viewed as a veritable shoo-in for a best picture Oscar nomination when the academy announces its nominees on Feb. 2. But amid this avalanche of praise and popularity, guess who hates the movie? America's prickly cadre of political conservatives. For years, pundits and bloggers on the right have ceaselessly attacked liberal Hollywood for being out of touch with rank and file moviegoers, complaining that executives and filmmakers continue to make films that have precious little resonance with Middle America. They have reacted with scorn to such high-profile liberal political advocacy films as Syriana, Milk, W., Religulous, Lions for Lambs, Brokeback Mountain, In the Valley of Elah, Rendition and Good Night, and Good Luck, saying that the movies' poor performances at the box office were a clear sign of how thoroughly uninterested real people were in the pet causes of showbiz progressives. Of course, Avatar totally turns this theory on its head. As a host of critics have noted, the film offers a blatantly pro-environmental message; it portrays U.S. military contractors in a decidedly negative light; and it clearly evokes the can't-we-all-get along vibe of the 1960s counterculture. These are all messages guaranteed to alienate everyday moviegoers, so say the right-wing pundits -- and yet the film has been wholeheartedly embraced by audiences everywhere, from Mississippi to Manhattan. To say that the film has evoked a storm of ire on the right would be an understatement. Big Hollywood's John Nolte, one of my favorite outspoken right-wing film essayists, blasted the film, calling it a sanctimonious thud of a movie so infested with one-dimensional characters and PC cliches that not a single plot
Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: 'Avatar' arouses conservatives' ire
On Jan 5, 2010, at 8:30 AM, TurquoiseB wrote: Shemp will HATE AVATAR. He'll be sitting there in the theater trying to admire the film for *nothing more meaningful than making a shitload of money* and find himself sitting there watching the glori- fication of everything he most hates in life. And the presentation of most of the things he loves in life as the Neanderthal Thinking they really are. I think Shemp will not only hate it, he'll spew a number of hate mails on it, like he does to those who are pro-environment. Deep inside it will work on his cognitive dissonance with his latent Vedic programming. So much of what the N'Avi are into is Maharishi Vedic living. And he despises that too.
[FairfieldLife] Re: 'Avatar' arouses conservatives' ire
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, do.rflex do.rf...@... wrote: 'Avatar' arouses conservatives' ire Conservatives are blind to the 3-D blockbuster's charms By Patrick Goldstein It's interesting that Mr. Goldstein doesn't seem to have picked up on the outrage of many *liberals* at what they perceive as the film's distinctly racist undertones. (Some have also suggested that it's sexist and has a bad attitude toward the disabled. One blogger insisted the film wasn't anti-military, it was anti-*mercenary*, pointing out that other films of Cameron's--Aliens and The Abyss-- have actually exalted the regular military.) I thought I remembered someone here mentioning the racist aspect--Shemp, perhaps--but I can't locate the post. Anyway, here's a few examples (among many) of criticism from the left: http://lefarkins.blogspot.com/2009/12/intentions-be-damned-avatar-is-racist.html http://tinyurl.com/yer2mb5 http://lefarkins.blogspot.com/2009/12/more-on-race-and-racialism-in-avatar.html http://tinyurl.com/yhswhed http://globalshift.org/2009/12/dances-with-discrimination-on-avatar-racism-misogyny-and-disabled-prejudice/#more-3534 http://tinyurl.com/yf3mefk http://gawker.com/5422666/when-will-white-people-stop-making-movies-like-avatar http://tinyurl.com/ybshwoy CAVEAT FOR THE FEEBLE-MINDED: Barry will, of course, rush to claim I'm reviewing a movie I haven't seen. Those with a few brain cells to rub together, however, will note that I have not expressed an opinion. I just find it curious that Mr. Goldstein seems to be aware only of criticism of the film from the right.
Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: 'Avatar' arouses conservatives' ire
Vaj wrote: On Jan 5, 2010, at 8:30 AM, TurquoiseB wrote: Shemp will HATE AVATAR. He'll be sitting there in the theater trying to admire the film for *nothing more meaningful than making a shitload of money* and find himself sitting there watching the glori- fication of everything he most hates in life. And the presentation of most of the things he loves in life as the Neanderthal Thinking they really are. I think Shemp will not only hate it, he'll spew a number of hate mails on it, like he does to those who are pro-environment. Deep inside it will work on his cognitive dissonance with his latent Vedic programming. So much of what the N'Avi are into is Maharishi Vedic living. And he despises that too. There's also a bit of tantra in the film too. I saw it as sort of a space age Dances With Wolves with a bit of General Smedley Butler's War is a Racket mixed in. Of course there will be one conservative who loves the film: Rupert Murdoch.
Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: 'Avatar' arouses conservatives' ire
Hey Bhairitu, did you also pick up on the scenes stolen from Last of the Mohicans? The scene in which they kill a deer and offer the prayer to release the soul and also the scene in which the Huron make the unwelcome guest run the gauntlet. Of course you have the story of Custer trying to drive the NA out of the Black Hills to steal gold and of course the battle of Little Big Horn. Come to think about it, was there anything original in that flick? Of course the cloning of human and Navi comes from Jurasic Park. The scene in which the Na'vi are gathered around the sacred tree chanting, I think, was a rip off from the Star Wars film in which the *teddy bears* worshipped something or someone. From: Bhairitu noozg...@sbcglobal.net To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com Sent: Tue, January 5, 2010 9:24:17 AM Subject: Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: 'Avatar' arouses conservatives' ire Vaj wrote: On Jan 5, 2010, at 8:30 AM, TurquoiseB wrote: Shemp will HATE AVATAR. He'll be sitting there in the theater trying to admire the film for *nothing more meaningful than making a shitload of money* and find himself sitting there watching the glori- fication of everything he most hates in life. And the presentation of most of the things he loves in life as the Neanderthal Thinking they really are. I think Shemp will not only hate it, he'll spew a number of hate mails on it, like he does to those who are pro-environment. Deep inside it will work on his cognitive dissonance with his latent Vedic programming. So much of what the N'Avi are into is Maharishi Vedic living. And he despises that too. There's also a bit of tantra in the film too. I saw it as sort of a space age Dances With Wolves with a bit of General Smedley Butler's War is a Racket mixed in. Of course there will be one conservative who loves the film: Rupert Murdoch.
Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: 'Avatar' arouses conservatives' ire
I wasn't expecting Cameron to write anything very original so borrowing from other story lines was not off the table. I think his objective was to create an extravaganza production to make beaucoup bucks and to try to push 3D even more (which may not work). There are probably dozens or more storylines one could relate Avatar to. War is a Racket stood out to a point that it suggests Cameron may have read it or at least heard about it though one could argue even Butler wasn't that original with the idea but just related it to his own experience. If anything I hope it discourages young kids for signing up to the military for our imperialist wars. Mike Dixon wrote: Hey Bhairitu, did you also pick up on the scenes stolen from Last of the Mohicans? The scene in which they kill a deer and offer the prayer to release the soul and also the scene in which the Huron make the unwelcome guest run the gauntlet. Of course you have the story of Custer trying to drive the NA out of the Black Hills to steal gold and of course the battle of Little Big Horn. Come to think about it, was there anything original in that flick? Of course the cloning of human and Navi comes from Jurasic Park. The scene in which the Na'vi are gathered around the sacred tree chanting, I think, was a rip off from the Star Wars film in which the *teddy bears* worshipped something or someone. From: Bhairitu noozg...@sbcglobal.net To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com Sent: Tue, January 5, 2010 9:24:17 AM Subject: Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: 'Avatar' arouses conservatives' ire Vaj wrote: On Jan 5, 2010, at 8:30 AM, TurquoiseB wrote: Shemp will HATE AVATAR. He'll be sitting there in the theater trying to admire the film for *nothing more meaningful than making a shitload of money* and find himself sitting there watching the glori- fication of everything he most hates in life. And the presentation of most of the things he loves in life as the Neanderthal Thinking they really are. I think Shemp will not only hate it, he'll spew a number of hate mails on it, like he does to those who are pro-environment. Deep inside it will work on his cognitive dissonance with his latent Vedic programming. So much of what the N'Avi are into is Maharishi Vedic living. And he despises that too. There's also a bit of tantra in the film too. I saw it as sort of a space age Dances With Wolves with a bit of General Smedley Butler's War is a Racket mixed in. Of course there will be one conservative who loves the film: Rupert Murdoch.
