Peace God
April 25th, 2010, 01:50 PM
*Spoiler Alert*
If you read reviews on Christian sites you would think AVATAR a horrible attack on every warm-blooded American. James Cameron is out to convince your children to abandon the ways of Christianity and accept Gaia type spiritualism.
Right or wrong, why are they so threatened? And as film reviewer, shouldn't a person look at the film, and not how it relates to their own mythologies?
To be fair, there are a couple of Christian reviews of AVATAR that aren't entirely focused on what goes against their worldview. Those were the exception, most vehemently attack the film for what they see as it's message.
AVATAR, if you haven't heard, is James Cameron's return to blockbuster film making. It's been heralded by some as a game-changer, likely to re-invent the movies. That might be a bit much, but it will expand opportunities for stories to be told in new ways.
What's the beef some Christians seem to have with AVATAR?
Christian Hamaker writes one of the least offensive reviews on Crosswalk.com in which he calls AVATAR a film "familiar in the worst way."
"In describing the military assault on Pandora, Cameron cribs terminology from the ongoing war on terrorism and puts it in the mouths of the film's villains, who proclaim a "shock and awe campaign" of "pre-emptive action," as they "fight terror with terror." Cameron's sympathies, and the movie's, clearly are with the Na'vi—and against the military and corporate men." Hamaker writes.
It's a familiar theme in the criticism I found, that AVATAR is anti-capitalist. It seems a lot of Christians have a beef with that. Funny, no serious scholar would describe the Jesus figure as a capitalist. It's an ugly side of Christianity in America, it's merging with corporatism into what can only be described as Christo-corparatism, if not outright Christo-fascism.
The theme is much more obvious at movieguide.org, where two different reviews slam the film.
In "Capitalism, Christianity, and AVATAR" David Outten rips into the movie, degrading it as attack on capitalism and comparing it to Michael Moore's documentary. Huh?
"The problem with life on earth is not Capitalism it is the wickedness of human nature. The cure for this is not found in hugging a tree. The cure is to repent of sin and accept that Jesus Christ paid the price for your forgiveness AND TRANSFORMATION. You can become a new person driven by the Spirit of God to be kind, considerate, honest and loving" Outten writes. Is this a movie review, or a sermon?
"You can hug all the trees you want and nothing will do more to help the planet earth than a revival. What God wants for mankind is absolutely glorious." Outten rants on, just before laying into Global Warming proponents.
Another abhorrently idiotic review came from the other article at movieguide.org in a piece called "AVATAR - Get rid of human beings now!"
In the overview comes this gem, "sexual content includes allusions of sex between partially clad aliens and hints of bestiality with animals and sentient aliens establishing physical and mental connections that are like a spiritual, almost sexual “high”; some upper female nudity on aliens, 10-foot-tall humanoid creatures nearly naked throughout the movie, with partially nude breasts and partial upper nudity, very thin alien clothing, upper and human male nudity; brief alcohol use; smoking and implied drug references; and, greed and exploitation rebuked, and movie promotes an anti-human, reverse racist ideology."
Greed and exploitation rebuked? Is this nutbar serious? It's evil to rebuke greed and exploitation? The entire review is loaded with comparable crap.
"its New Age, pagan worldview contains extremely anti-capitalist content with a strong Marxist overtone. It promotes group-think and argues in favor of the destruction of the human race" Is how that review wraps up."
An article on goodnewsfilmreviews.com calls AVATAR "a self-loathing racist screed."
"The Na'vi are all played by African-American or Native American actors (CHH Pounder, Zoe Saldana, Wes Studi, Laz Alonso). The Na'vi are blue, but their society is an idealized hybrid of African and Indian tribal cultures with some white, middle-class New Age mumbo-jumbo tossed in for flavor."
The reviewer must have slept through history class. Native American and African tribal cultures might have a great deal to know about exploitation of resources on their land.
Interestingly enough, Roger Ebert says about James Cameron and AVATAR "Once again, he has silenced the doubters by simply delivering an extraordinary film. There is still at least one man in Hollywood who knows how to spend $250 million, or was it $300 million, wisely."
Ebert gives it four stars.
Source (http://www.examiner.com/x-32249-Portland-Atheism-Examiner%7Ey2009m12d20-Christian-reviews-slam-AVATAR--why)
Ok so my interpretation of the movie was that it's anti imperialistic and anti capitalistic. "Don’t go into someone else's home and kick them out for your own profit." Apparently christians are still against that? This is so 15th century.
http://www.learnnc.org/lp/media/uploads/2007/09/landing_of_columbus_1.jpg
If you read reviews on Christian sites you would think AVATAR a horrible attack on every warm-blooded American. James Cameron is out to convince your children to abandon the ways of Christianity and accept Gaia type spiritualism.
Right or wrong, why are they so threatened? And as film reviewer, shouldn't a person look at the film, and not how it relates to their own mythologies?
To be fair, there are a couple of Christian reviews of AVATAR that aren't entirely focused on what goes against their worldview. Those were the exception, most vehemently attack the film for what they see as it's message.
AVATAR, if you haven't heard, is James Cameron's return to blockbuster film making. It's been heralded by some as a game-changer, likely to re-invent the movies. That might be a bit much, but it will expand opportunities for stories to be told in new ways.
What's the beef some Christians seem to have with AVATAR?
Christian Hamaker writes one of the least offensive reviews on Crosswalk.com in which he calls AVATAR a film "familiar in the worst way."
"In describing the military assault on Pandora, Cameron cribs terminology from the ongoing war on terrorism and puts it in the mouths of the film's villains, who proclaim a "shock and awe campaign" of "pre-emptive action," as they "fight terror with terror." Cameron's sympathies, and the movie's, clearly are with the Na'vi—and against the military and corporate men." Hamaker writes.
It's a familiar theme in the criticism I found, that AVATAR is anti-capitalist. It seems a lot of Christians have a beef with that. Funny, no serious scholar would describe the Jesus figure as a capitalist. It's an ugly side of Christianity in America, it's merging with corporatism into what can only be described as Christo-corparatism, if not outright Christo-fascism.
The theme is much more obvious at movieguide.org, where two different reviews slam the film.
In "Capitalism, Christianity, and AVATAR" David Outten rips into the movie, degrading it as attack on capitalism and comparing it to Michael Moore's documentary. Huh?
"The problem with life on earth is not Capitalism it is the wickedness of human nature. The cure for this is not found in hugging a tree. The cure is to repent of sin and accept that Jesus Christ paid the price for your forgiveness AND TRANSFORMATION. You can become a new person driven by the Spirit of God to be kind, considerate, honest and loving" Outten writes. Is this a movie review, or a sermon?
"You can hug all the trees you want and nothing will do more to help the planet earth than a revival. What God wants for mankind is absolutely glorious." Outten rants on, just before laying into Global Warming proponents.
Another abhorrently idiotic review came from the other article at movieguide.org in a piece called "AVATAR - Get rid of human beings now!"
In the overview comes this gem, "sexual content includes allusions of sex between partially clad aliens and hints of bestiality with animals and sentient aliens establishing physical and mental connections that are like a spiritual, almost sexual “high”; some upper female nudity on aliens, 10-foot-tall humanoid creatures nearly naked throughout the movie, with partially nude breasts and partial upper nudity, very thin alien clothing, upper and human male nudity; brief alcohol use; smoking and implied drug references; and, greed and exploitation rebuked, and movie promotes an anti-human, reverse racist ideology."
Greed and exploitation rebuked? Is this nutbar serious? It's evil to rebuke greed and exploitation? The entire review is loaded with comparable crap.
"its New Age, pagan worldview contains extremely anti-capitalist content with a strong Marxist overtone. It promotes group-think and argues in favor of the destruction of the human race" Is how that review wraps up."
An article on goodnewsfilmreviews.com calls AVATAR "a self-loathing racist screed."
"The Na'vi are all played by African-American or Native American actors (CHH Pounder, Zoe Saldana, Wes Studi, Laz Alonso). The Na'vi are blue, but their society is an idealized hybrid of African and Indian tribal cultures with some white, middle-class New Age mumbo-jumbo tossed in for flavor."
The reviewer must have slept through history class. Native American and African tribal cultures might have a great deal to know about exploitation of resources on their land.
Interestingly enough, Roger Ebert says about James Cameron and AVATAR "Once again, he has silenced the doubters by simply delivering an extraordinary film. There is still at least one man in Hollywood who knows how to spend $250 million, or was it $300 million, wisely."
Ebert gives it four stars.
Source (http://www.examiner.com/x-32249-Portland-Atheism-Examiner%7Ey2009m12d20-Christian-reviews-slam-AVATAR--why)
Ok so my interpretation of the movie was that it's anti imperialistic and anti capitalistic. "Don’t go into someone else's home and kick them out for your own profit." Apparently christians are still against that? This is so 15th century.
http://www.learnnc.org/lp/media/uploads/2007/09/landing_of_columbus_1.jpg