Well, for my first post of the New Year to be about a movie, a computer generated fiction, seems slightly absurd, but I hope you'll see where I'm coming from and what I'm aiming at.
So, as you may well have guessed, I just got back from watching Avatar, which is a spectacular film, but a rip off all the same as you'll see from the image above.
With it's rip offism out of the way, I've got to discuss what I've been thinking all throughout the movie: The similarities between the film and our own reality.
The mining company that digs for Unobtanium is, not even slightly disguised as the fuel companies mines. They're mimicked down to the tee, with big ass trucks, open cut quarry mines and the great destruction of sacred land that we've seen in Australia until the Mabo v Queensland (2.) case. While the mining companies destroy the sacred sites of this ficticious race, the Na'vi, people become sad in theatres across the globe as they feel what they pay to feel, see what they pay to see, and yet, the plight of millions goes unnoticed by so many, while the devastation they bear witness to is uncanny in its monstrous similarity. The environmental instability that these monster mining companies cause in this fancy multi-million making motion picture destroys a 'network similar to that of the human brain'; a thinly veiled symbolic reference to the network we have as a human race.
The Na'vi are an indiginous people, referenced as 'aboriginal' and 'blue monkeys', term used with negative connotations by many and as racist slang. The Na'vi, whilst being 12 foot tall and blue, are remarkably similar to the Masai tribe in Kenya, of which information and photographs showing similar styles of clothing, jewellery, practices can be found here.
The slaughter of Na'vi is similar to the constant, yet seemingly unheard of genocide of people and destruction of cultures world wide that goes uncared for, especially noted in African countries, where tribes are wiped out for political or economic reasons. Past Australian governments were also liable for acts such as this, sometimes for no other reason than Aboriginal people looking or acting differently, and information, if biased can be found here.
Destruction of forests is shown as a catastrophic event in this accurate portrayal of what happens in many of the worlds forests today, for the sake of what? Wood, land for agriculture and Westernised products driven by propoganda? Deforestation occurs in all major forests today, and while there are post-Avatar depression forums, how many of those mindless idiots thought to ponder how long the Amazon will still be around, with some ridiculous number of hectares being logged, natural habitat destroyed per day, and how many species will go extinct, or worse, undiscovered due to this activity? 137 plant, animal and insect species become extinct or endangered per day! Per day!
While there are numerous similarities between the events screened in cinemas globally and the atrocities that happen daily in the real world, I shan't go on any longer, seeing as it's 2 o'clock in the morning and I need my beauty sleep.
As a last message to those unfortunate enough to stumble upon this, think of what you've seen in a movie, and, somehow, relate it to the broader perspective, one that strikes closer to home. This is how I see movies, not for all the explosions, violence and declarations of undying, true love and fan fiction eroticism that follows. I think about it from a sociological perspective, a global perspective, a real world perspective; which is scarcely seen in today's society.
Wake up, world, and welcome to the nightmare on your doorstep.
Blogs away!
