Avatar: An Exercise in Politically-Correct Ideology

Summary:

Avatar combines the hyper-reality of a fantasmic “natural” life on a distant planet with the ordinary reality of military, imperialist neocolonism. The film reproduces several Hollywood genres: history is the stage for the Oedipal narrative of the production of the couple; a full thrust in a digitally enhanced fantasy is enacted; the white man marries the princess of the aborigins and becomes their leader. Rather than changing reality, the filmic fantasy supports existing power, in contrast to contemporary revolution movements, such as the Maoist Naxalite campaign in India on behalf of tribal peoples.