After multiple solicitations from the Indigenous of the world, James Cameron has gone into action, reports the NYT today.
Zizek’s predictable diatribe about the narcotic effects of Hollywood love in AVATAR makes for a very dispensable cliche. It should have been expected that the AVATAR political effect, if there was to be one, and if we had been interested really in contemplating the possibility of such effect, would be felt on the margins of Western intellectuals’ obsession with their Hollywood Other. Like, for example, on the dirt roads of Brazil or India. If AVATAR echoes the claims of indigenist movements, if the latter do seek to secure the symbolic support promised by the film’s worldwide popularity, it is because the movie is inspired by the same kind of environmentalist humanism that also suffuses the politics of “indigenous rights”.
From there, the question is not how delusional is the kind of romantic love presented in AVATAR (nobody needs an intellectual’s help answering that one), but how successful indigenous movements can hope to be, when attempting to harness the film’s power of traction. And how negatively this power will be affected, in return, by Cameron’s explicit support to significant yet always marginal causes. Can we imagine that AVATAR may serve as a blue banner and as a rallying point beyond any particular indigenous politics? Or rather, perhaps, that indigenous claims X and Y could snowball into a larger, more encompassing movement?
[Thanks Ola for sharing info]
Recent Comments