Avatar's Missed Opportunity

One big problem with Avatar was that a type of computer animation was used instead of real actors (except for the voices).  If the voting actors had supported Avatar, this would have been a signal for film producers to make more computer generated films.  This could devalue the role of the live actors.

Working with most actors encourages film producers to work with cgi. 

No, mostly just neurotic. 

No, mostly just neurotic. 

Hell of a statement to make.

Hmm.  Right before I got my present job I worked for the 25th Street Theatre.  That was the first job I ever had where I didn't feel out of place.

Regarding the exchange between CMOT Dibbler and Timebandit:

I would weigh in heavily on the side of calling them "pricks" as opposed to diagnosing them as "neurotic". (Another FWIW, I have worked on stage, television and film productions (though never as "talent")... so I have had slightly more exposure to "actors" than average) The reason for my weighing in is that I view the word "pricks" as simply descriptive of their behaviour, to call them "neurotic" is to attempt to explain the root cause of this behaviour - and tossing around pop psychology explanations is itself, in my view at least, not a particularly desirable behaviour. As to whether "most" actors are pricks, I would say no... but I wouldn't go so far as to deny that the number of pricks in the profession exceeds what you would expect to find in a random sampling of the general population... of course my view may be swayed by the fact that the members of the acting profession I have met who I would accuse of being pricks have been really, really, really memorable pricks (or is that really, really, really dramatic....). In defence of actors, I would point out that the real pricks in the industry tend to be the directors and producers, and in comparison to these guys (and I do mean guys) the actors are rank amateurs at being pricks.

bagkitty - One of my most valuable tools as a producer is the judgement to know when and how to bring the bitch out of the closet and when to put her back again. 

Yeah, there's a culture of prickdom with directors and producers.  But I wouldn't necessarily call actors pricks.  A few are, but for most of them it's just the wrong word.  It's not strictly prickiness or narcissism/self-absorbtion, neither of which imply the kind of insecurity that some very difficult actors have...  I dunno, neurotic really is the best descriptor.  Take it in the non-clinical, colloquial sense if you can.  Cheers!

VanGoghs Ear wrote:

exactly, actors vote these awards and James Cameron doesn't give a shit about acting.  Which is OK. I find Terminator and T2 a guilty pleasure.

I feel sorry for you if you missed out on the philosophical depth of the terminator movies.

statica wrote:

 hey, help me be a better writer. please take a second to comment. krystalline!

 

Avatar's Missed Opportunity

March 9, 2010 / By Krystalline Kraus

 

The movie Avatar might empower indigenous people to rise up and defend the earth but it does nothing to empower people with dis/abilities.

http://www.rabble.ca/news/2010/03/avatars-other-missed-opportunity

I think the article starts off badly. You are criticizing an artistic product based on what it failed to do rather than what it did do. The latter is bad form, as then the failings of any artistic product become infinite. I had an English teacher who once told me she never penalizes students for what they [i]don't[/i] write. Avatar may not have given a great message to handicapped people... neither did it have much to offer to people suffering from alcoholism, internet addiction, sexual abuse, unemployment, illiteracy, et cetera. The list is [i]intrinsically[/i] infinite and would be even if Avatar was the greatest  artistic work of all time. I don't know why you chose to frame it that way, as I think my comments here apply to your title and to your opening paragraph, but not to your story as a whole.

I cannot give you a proper critique because I am fundamentally at odds with your core assumption, I believe social change is only a bandaid, and that the recipe for real change has to come from science. There is no conceivable sociology where eyesight confers no benefits over blindness. I wear glasses, and if it were not for glasses I would be incompetent for technical work. It is impossible for people like myself to demand that everything be written bigger - the invention of glasses is simply a superior solution. You spoke of your inability to complete manifestations. One could hope they'd be made shorter, but the potential healing from biotechnology is simply a lot greater.

In this sense I think that the little bit that Avatar touched on disability was a good bit. It's a futuristic world where they still have disabilities... and they still have capitalism. Jake Scully isn't disabled in Avatar - he's poor (middle-class?). That is the main reason he can't walk. When I think of social change on issues of diability, I think of expanding socialized medicine to include hearing aids and mental health. I think of a saner pharmaceutical R&D culture than the crony-capitalist BS we have now. I think asking people to talk louder, walk shorter distances and write bigger is a nice thought but ultimately a non-starter.

I also think you missed out on the environmental message of Avatar. You wonder how an injured Na'Vi would do on Pandora. Yet you also refer to a 2005 accident that damaged your spine. I think one of the memes Avatar pushed was that our environmental degradation is what causes us a lot of our physical imperfections, there was obesity among the Na'Vi, and you would have likely not had your accident in a world closer to nature.

CMOT Dibbler wrote:

If this thread were about gender, class or race would you be encouraging comitted feminists, anti racist activists and anti poverty activists to wait very patiently until the greater society changes?

Race and gender are socially constructed, blindness is as well, but not in the same way, not at all. It's not a challenge [i]made up[/i] to maintain privilege, it's a challenge [i]ignored[/i] to maintain privilege. Anyone who pretends they're analogous is either misguided in my opinion or at worst, working alongside oppression.

That which preventswomen and minorities from full emancipation is a matter of ideology and in our minds. You don't need to wait for society to change as you can work to make it change. It's not an extra challenge that exists in nature.

bagkitty wrote:

Sure thing Timebandit, as long as you permit me to describe producers and directors as frequently exhibiting antisocial personality disorder, and I do mean it in clinical terms.

I wouldn't argue with you, my dear! 

Race and gender are socially constructed, blindness is as well, but not in the same way, not at all. It's not a challenge made up to maintain privilege, it's a challenge ignored to maintain privilege. Anyone who pretends they're analogous is either misguided in my opinion or at worst, working alongside oppression.

 All opressions are socially constructed.

The physical constraints of gimpdom are easier to deal with then the societal ones.

How the hell is statica harming the feminist movement or anti racist movement by wanting to be active in building a society free of ableism?  Is she not allowed to do that?  Should she be passive, while all around her Canada    shits on gimps?  What kind of position is that?  Are you a closet tory.

Timebandit wrote:

Has it occurred to anyone that this is just a Saturday afternoon entertainment? Maybe you're placing too much expectation on it and the intentions of the director/producers.

In some ways I agree with you, TB--I think I said as much in one the earlier dozen threads on Avatar. But the problem is not that Cameron didn't make a movie about a black, female, disabled protagonist, but, like CMOT says, that he made a film that pretends to make a progressive message--anti-imperialist, pro-environment, etc. And in doing so, the movie runs ramshod over grassroots anti-imperialism and commits the same errors as our current governments in their wars of aggression, thereby upholding the myths that justify our imperialism, while pretending to be against imperialism. Kind of like the way Paul "Mountie" Haggis presumed to make an anti-racist movie in Crash that ended up making white people feel okay about racism.

Catchfire wrote:

Timebandit wrote:

Has it occurred to anyone that this is just a Saturday afternoon entertainment? Maybe you're placing too much expectation on it and the intentions of the director/producers.

In some ways I agree with you, TB--I think I said as much in one the earlier dozen threads on Avatar. But the problem is not that Cameron didn't make a movie about a black, female, disabled protagonist, but, like CMOT says, that he made a film that pretends to make a progressive message--anti-imperialist, pro-environment, etc. And in doing so, the movie runs ramshod over grassroots anti-imperialism and commits the same errors as our current governments in their wars of aggression, thereby upholding the myths that justify our imperialism, while pretending to be against imperialism. Kind of like the way Paul "Mountie" Haggis presumed to make an anti-racist movie in Crash that ended up making white people feel okay about racism.

 

I thought Crash was a horrible little film. 

Be that as it may, however, I still think expectations here are too high and at odds with what the film is and was meant to be - ie: mass market entertainment.

I still think expectations here are too high and at odds with what the film is and was meant to be - ie: mass market entertainment.

Are you sure about that? the impression I got was That Avatar was meant to be Cameron's opus, something he has dreamed about for thirty plus years, surely he meant it to be more then a big budget popcorn movie.

CMOT Dibbler wrote:

All opressions are socially constructed.

The difficulties of blindness are directly linked to the biology of blindness, whereas the difficulties of being black have nothing to do with absorption of sunlight.

Technological progress is our best hope, and in some ways it might be a better hope. We might see most physical impairments cured before we see the veil lowered on our history of sociological bigotry.

What a condescending comment.

Oh the irony.

God, how I hate this place.

Considering the treatment of the Paralympic games, I'd say you're way off base 500_Apples.  It's sociological too dude.  You should back away from some of your statements here and rethink it in my humble opinion.  In fact, I'd almost be tempted to argue the opposite of what you're saying with your own words.  You could also argue that absent technology to "cure" gimps, they have the most to lose sociologically.

And being a POC has nothing to do with biology, whereas blindness does?  Guess I should have got me a university edjumacation.  People need to deconstruct their attitude towards "others", period.  It's a hard, hard road.

I was really disappointed after a great olympics, on the last day they denied McKeever a place in the 50k on the last day of the games.  Summed up why I shouldn't have been paying attention.  Shame on me.

But he also used disability and the "cure" and the hero complex, and likely subconsciously to get his point across.  Keeping a common tome going.

CMOT Dibbler wrote:

I have  a  disability,  but  the only  time  I actually  feel  "disabled"  is when  I  run into  a barrier,

That's the only way it could ever be.

CMOT Dibbler wrote:

If  you  eliminate  those  barriers you won't  make my disability  vanish

Only technological progress can do that.

Timebandit wrote:

However, it still is what it is:  A Hollywood "blockbuster".  Cameron had an environmental message he wanted to communicate, and to do so he did what Tiggers do best - in his case, via the Hollywood blockbuster with kick-ass special effects.

Timebandit, it sounds like you are defending Avatar on the basis of it being a Hollywood movie, as if that excuses it a priori for any anti-progressive messages it carries. I'm reminded of that oft-cited parable about the turtle carrying the scorpion on its back across the river. What if we don't want Hollywood-style movies? Or if we would like Hollywood to actually uphold the reputation it claims for itself (cf George Clooney)? Are we not allowed to criticize Hollywood because, like the scorpion, oppression and deceit is simply "in its nature"?

Quote:

But if we go back to the OP, the point made there was that Avatar was a "missed opportunity" to have a discussion about disabilities, and to me this is grafting an expectation onto the filmmaker that isn't entirely reasonable.  Cameron never set out to make a movie about the acceptance of people who are differently abled, and it would have been a conflict if he had tried to address both.  Should he have?  Maybe that's up to him.

As a filmmaker, it's actually kind of disturbing that people feel entitled to tell any filmmaker what message they have to address in their work, whether that work is mass market or indy.

I agree with this in principle--it's the same reason why I occasionally defend Bill Cosby from critics who say he doesn't take up race issues enough in his comedy--no one should tell an artist how political they should or should not be. But, and this is critical, all art is nevertheless political--it's simply a matter of degree. So when, in the interests of plot, Cameron employs the ableist conceit (also seen in Clint Eastwood's pedantic and sentimental Million Dollar Baby) that all a disabled person wants is to walk again (whether or not this is true for a lot of disabled people), don't disabled folk--real disabled folk--have a right to object? In effect, Cameron is using their real life experience as so much excess material solely for the existential crisis of the otherwise classic military maverick hero. Cameron didn't have to use it, but he did. And people like CMOT abnd statica are justifiably upset about it. Imv, if Cameron uses Ableist material, he invites such criticism. The fact that he lives and breathes Hollywood is no excuse.

500_Apples wrote:

 

CMOT Dibbler wrote:

I have  a  disability,  but  the only  time  I actually  feel  "disabled"  is when  I  run into  a barrier,

That's the only way it could ever be.

CMOT Dibbler wrote:

If  you  eliminate  those  barriers you won't  make my disability  vanish

Only technological progress can do that.

But dude, the barriers I talk about are also social and political.  The BC government has decreeed that I can only earn 500 dollars above my disability benefits.  This prevents me from engaging in anything but part time employment.  

CMOT Dibbler wrote:

The point I am trying to make is that disability is a physical and/or mental condition, wheras being disabled(the feeling of powerlessness you get when society shits on you from a great height) is a direct result of ablest attitiudes in our culture.
Only technological progress can do that.

So all the social stuggles that gimps and there allies have gone through don't matter?

500, why do you have such faith that scientists will one day cure disability?  Nazi scientists tried to make perfect people but all they ended up doing was making mentally challenged gimps. No one is perfect, nature does not like perfection, which is why you have your glasses and I have my chair(and glasses too, as it happens).  

As far as imperfections go, glasses are trivial, and glasses are trivial to anyone who can afford the few hundred dollars. If you are a poor student or elderly and cannot afford glasses, then you are sort of like Jake in Avatar, you are a victim of poverty. On the other hand, if there were no glasses in the world and I were stuck with ~5.00 in each eye, I'd be a bad driver at best, I'd be unable to do most professions and my inability to recognize faces would render me effectively non-social. These facts would be sociology-independent, or at best loosely sociology-dependent.

The social struggles are not irrelevant. Just because they're not the end-all doesn't make them irrelevant. It would be great if the people at the BC ministry acquired rudimentary math skills, but not as great as if you got new legs.

Catchfire wrote:

Timebandit wrote:

However, it still is what it is:  A Hollywood "blockbuster".  Cameron had an environmental message he wanted to communicate, and to do so he did what Tiggers do best - in his case, via the Hollywood blockbuster with kick-ass special effects.

Timebandit, it sounds like you are defending Avatar on the basis of it being a Hollywood movie, as if that excuses it a priori for any anti-progressive messages it carries. I'm reminded of that oft-cited parable about the turtle carrying the scorpion on its back across the river. What if we don't want Hollywood-style movies? Or if we would like Hollywood to actually uphold the reputation it claims for itself (cf George Clooney)? Are we not allowed to criticize Hollywood because, like the scorpion, oppression and deceit is simply "in its nature"?

Quote:

But if we go back to the OP, the point made there was that Avatar was a "missed opportunity" to have a discussion about disabilities, and to me this is grafting an expectation onto the filmmaker that isn't entirely reasonable.  Cameron never set out to make a movie about the acceptance of people who are differently abled, and it would have been a conflict if he had tried to address both.  Should he have?  Maybe that's up to him.

As a filmmaker, it's actually kind of disturbing that people feel entitled to tell any filmmaker what message they have to address in their work, whether that work is mass market or indy.

I agree with this in principle--it's the same reason why I occasionally defend Bill Cosby from critics who say he doesn't take up race issues enough in his comedy--no one should tell an artist how political they should or should not be. But, and this is critical, all art is nevertheless political--it's simply a matter of degree. So when, in the interests of plot, Cameron employs the ableist conceit (also seen in Clint Eastwood's pedantic and sentimental Million Dollar Baby) that all a disabled person wants is to walk again (whether or not this is true for a lot of disabled people), don't disabled folk--real disabled folk--have a right to object? In effect, Cameron is using their real life experience as so much excess material solely for the existential crisis of the otherwise classic military maverick hero. Cameron didn't have to use it, but he did. And people like CMOT abnd statica are justifiably upset about it. Imv, if Cameron uses Ableist material, he invites such criticism. The fact that he lives and breathes Hollywood is no excuse.

*deep sigh*

Physical disability is a common metaphor in film and literature.  In this case, I have little doubt Cameron meant to mirror the broken-ness of the culture that his main character originates from through the metaphor of his identity as a broken man.  We're not talking about a congenital disability, but an injury that cannot be fixed for this character.

On this basis, within the context of the genre of the film and the literary tradition it grew from, the criticism is not very reasonable.

Now, if this was a social realist film, you might have some solid ground to base such a criticism on.  But that's not what this is.  It's a Hollywood sci-fi film.  Real life experiences have zip to do with it and expecting any film to be all things to all people is unreasonable - whether it's Hollywood or indy.

ETA: re "what if we don't want Hollywood movies?"  :  Has it occurred to you that you are very likely not the target audience?  If you don't want it, don't go see it.  There are plenty of other people out there who do.  I'm not defending Avatar on the basis that it hails from Hollywood, just pointing out that a genre film from a big studio (European studios sometimes make such films, and so does Hong Kong) having expectations of passing the great progressive purity test is a tad unrealistic.