James Cameron, World Emperor

A few days after I got home for winter break, I went with my father to see Avatar, the highly anticipated new film by James Cameron. Lame-o that I am, I saw it in 2D -- I find 3D disorienting, and could go into a whole discussion of my thoughts on the new direction of theatrical exhibition, but I'll save that for another post -- and was thoroughly entertained. It wasn't the newest of stories (I swear to God, if I hear one more joke about "Dances With Aliens," I'm gonna smack someone), but it was well-paced, relatively well-acted, and of course, the art direction was mind-blowing, even in traditional 2D. I walked out of the theater feeling like I hadn't wasted those three hours, even if Avatar wasn't the best film I had seen all year.

That was in December.

Cut to mid-January, the start of the new semester. To finish off my college experience, I elected to take four film classes this semester, on a variety of subjects. And since the first day of class, I have experienced an unrelenting barrage of mentions of Avatar. There has not been a single class day that has gone by without a reference to the film in one, if not all of my classes. Sometimes it's a passing comment, sometimes it's the instigator of a larger discussion. And frankly, it's driving me crazy.

Now, as I said before, I'm not an Avatar-hater. I have my qualms with the movie, specifically the script, which relies on tropes of the sci-fi genre and has some troubling racial and Orientalist elements in the depiction of the Na'vi (hey, it's my thesis topic, I'm a little sensitive to these things now). But overall I liked the film. I just don't think it's the type of game changer that should be literally discussed ad nauseum.

In defense of my professors, I understand that the film is revolutionary in many ways. Cameron invented technology specifically for this film, and will no doubt make bundles of cash in the coming decades, much as George Lucas has enjoyed the profits from his technical studios. Once again Cameron has made a film with enormous global appeal, smashing box office records left and right, and surpassing his previous cinematic icon, Titanic. The film has an tremendous cultural imprint, and is very much of the current historical moment, with its themes of environmental conservation, and ostensibly a promotion of multiculturalism. And of course, the sexy blue cat lady, played by arguably sexier in real life Zoe Saldana.

The thing that frustrates me about this constant chatter over Avatar, is all the films that are ignored because of it. I am a fan of blockbuster films, but in an environment like a film class, I want to discuss films that challenge the medium. For all of the whiz-bang effects and snazzy 3D, Avatar is a rather formulaic action/adventure film. I concede that for the industry as a business, it is a revelation, a new standard, a wake-up call for ad-execs. But it provides the same type of characters, the same type of story, the same type of editing as, I don't know, Bad Boys. In my classes I want to comb over films that confront me with issues, that are difficult to get through, that refuse to conform on at least some level. Isn't that why we go to school -- to challenge our minds, to make ourselves work through puzzles in the hope of achieving some sort of better understanding of the world and its workings?

The obvious film to mention in contrast is Kathryn Bigelow's The Hurt Locker. I saw this film way back in August. It is a film that refuses to settle for tried and true formulas. It is a war film that has no epic battle scenes, a suspense film where the pay-off is often the lack of explosions, a character-driven story where we learn more from actions of a few scant minutes than the backstory presented at the end of the picture. And most importantly, the end of the picture is unsettling to some degree. It does not fulfill our expectations of the happy American ideal. The Hurt Locker is also not my favorite film of the year, and certainly not the most challenging film I've watched, but for a relatively mainstream release, in my mind it offers far more to dig through than Avatar. (random trivia: Bigelow and Cameron were married for a few years)

Or at least let's talk about the problems with Avatar, or even its successes, in terms of their intricacies, instead of throw-away lines like "doesn't this remind you of Avatar?" and "I bet you're all thinking of James Cameron." Tell me why it reminds you. Give me details I can pore over, or debate. Do films like Avatar provide a cinema of attractions for today? Is 3D spectatorship the same as 2D? Why in particular has this film become a catch-all for pop-culture references? Why does it have this incredible grip on society (for a creepy example: http://www.cnn.com/2010/SHOWBIZ/Movies/01/11/avatar.movie.blues/index.html)?

I don't have the answers to these questions, but I'd like to talk about them. With the Oscars coming up, my daily ordeal is probably only going to get worse. Maybe the only option is to just buck-up and smile my way through the endless references. Oy vey.

To end on a mildly corny note, I guess what I really want is to have 3D discussions about Avatar or none at all. Oddly enough, it's all the two-dimensional references that are making me nauseous.