Avatar Thoughts, Part I

My initial reaction to Avatar is that I am grateful to see this moment occur in my lifetime: a worldwide blockbuster movie, which launches a new mode of cinema no less, condemning ill aspects of United States culture, including corporate greed, military brutishness, and macho male identity. It empowers females and cooperative ways of living that embrace equality among people and harmony throughout nature. It validates the splendor of the wilderness and stingingly indicts us for what we have done to it. It shows us there is a way to live far better than a castle mentality of fear bristling with bullets and swords.

It has all been said before by isolated voices, but never with such profound, far-reaching, and compelling impact. If the Great Judge of the Universe shows up tomorrow and asks us why we should not be heavily punished for blindly destroying our Mother Earth, we can claim that at least some of us were against it, and we can point to Avatar as proof.

Not only that, the movie evinces a true empathy for animals and also life forms that surely exist in other places in our universe. There’s an amazing sense of justice that goes beyond even the prejudice of species. A noble and ideal sense of how to live, beyond the ignorant selfishness of raw consumption and forest-killing development.

That’s all I have time to say for now. There are, of course, problems with messages in the movie. Much more will be said, by many voices.

THANK YOU, Fates, for letting me live to see this moment. It is as wonderful as seeing a black man become President.