GENERATION 'AVATAR'?

I resisted watching Avatar (2009) until last evening. Ignorance of the movie's messages was indeed bliss. I now understand why universities in The West are swarming with crayon-haired misfits with big mouths and little to say. James Cameron should have stuck with raiding ghost ships. 

And what exactly were those messages? I'll list what I got from the film:

1. The most schizophrenogenic message: Human advanced technology is inherently bad, corruptible and corrupting. I will admit that inherent evil is associated with aggressive militarism, but the Utopian culture of the blue aliens is also militarized. This does not even begin to address the point that the film itself is a product of advanced human technology, some of which was developed as the result of military investment.

2. Human science is inferior to Nature's own "science" and "technology", as exemplified by the alien planet's network of telepathic tree roots, incandescent vegetation and biped-friendly carnivores. This explains a lot about the confused anti-science stance of many young people on college campuses who are addicted to digital devices but decry statistics (evidence) and scientific research. 

3. Mysticism trumps science in a crisis. Believing this is perhaps a good definition of madness. The victorious blue giants herding humans off their planet are carrying human weaponry against the unarmed human invaders. Nothing mystical about that. They apparently have no interest in how or why they prevailed. Just get rid of those nasty humans. Back to the joyous jungle for them. 

4. Old White men are violently evil. Old White women are bossy smart-asses. The ultimate villain of the peace is a well-preserved older White man with a vague U.S. Southern accent. The sacrificed anti-hero is a smart-ass White female academic, who is shown the light by the aliens in the end, just before dying at the hands of the old White man. In other words, her technological brilliance and education in science blinded her to the stunning superiority of the aliens and their Nature-based existence. It is notable that the Nature-based geniuses were unable to save her from dying from a gunshot wound. 

5. Disabled military veterans are heroes. The moral compass of the hero, a paraplegic Marine, swings North to South in the piece after he experiences the ability to run in his avatar body. His loyalty is most swayed by athletic ability, flying on alien dinosaurs and having virtual sex with a blue alien. I suppose this was a nod by the writers to the military which they spent most of the film tearing down. This lauding of "good" militarism in human and alien form confirms the vacuous morality of the film. 

Think about what young minds of various cultural orientations would make of this film. It would invoke shame in young White boys. It would be encouraging to young girls to be aggressive yet unscientific and tribal. It would confirm all the victim-identity resentments of people of color in situations of generational poverty. It would solidify the image of intelligent White people as colonizers, violent marauders and ineffectual defenders of their own culture when confronted with mystical tribalism. In other words, it may have helped to condition a segment of today's immature university students and less educated youth to be ideal receptors for deconstructionist ideologies. Human progress is seen as evil. Tribal regression is seen as good. Bring on the ANTIFA clowns.