If we’re going to rage against cultural atrocities, let’s make sure we target the right ones

9 January 2010

James Delingpole says You Know It Makes Sense

The highlight of my Christmas holidays was taking the family to see Avatar. It’s not often a film comes along which wife, Boy (11), Girl (9) and I are able to adore in equal measure. But James Cameron’s $200 million epic ego-fest hit the spot perfectly and for those families out there still wavering, I can’t recommend it highly enough.

Whenever I’ve mentioned this to my right-leaning friends, though, the general reaction has been one of appalled horror. ‘But how could you?’ they want to know. Well, I tell them, for a start I think the blue cat-girl love-interest creature is seriously hot; the realisation of the jungle planet and its extraordinary flora and fauna is simply beyond amazing; and I really, really loved that chunk of the storyline where — not unlike Neo in The Matrix — the wheelchair-bound hero is gradually initiated into the ways of the blue-cat-jungle-people and becomes a kind of superhero.

‘No, not that,’ say my right-leaning friends. ‘How can you bear the politics?’ Ah yes. The politics.

Avatar is set on a lushly beautiful rainforest planet called Pandora, whereon dwell a handsome blue-skinned native race called the Na’vi. They wear Maasai-type jewellery and commune with nature in a, like, totally holistic way. When, for example, they kill one of the ravening beasts which stalk the jungle, no matter how vile and dangerous it is, they give its departing soul a lovely blessing in the special new language that James Cameron paid a linguist to invent. They are good and pure and noble.

But now the space marines have arrived from Earth, and they’re, like, totally evil. Already they have reduced their home planet to a grey, polluted husk, and now they’ve come to do the same to Pandora, which happens to be abundant with a valuable mineral called Incrediblivaluablemineralum (something like that). The space marines are there to protect the machinery and operatives of the evil mining consortium on its evil mission to plunder and rape the virgin forest.

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A. MacAulay

January 9th, 2010 8:50pm Report this comment

The Pandora film reflects all those computer games wherein a world, planet, continent, etc. is invaded ny marines who fight and massacre the natives and steal their resources. The winner has the most resources = points. The connection to the aimed at audience with Iraq, etc. is not so strong as to the play world they've grown up with.

In this sense the film is an ethical breakthrough in that it places the interests of the invaded on the emotional menu.

A. MacAulay

January 10th, 2010 1:18pm Report this comment

I also take it as given that you mean Browning the poet as opposed to Browning the pistol.

Vernon Goddard

October 27th, 2010 5:47pm Report this comment

Loved the review but you were terribly nasty towards poor lovable AB who is not in a position to defend himself given that he never boxed for Warrington or any other Northern city, never played Rugby league for Warrington,. You see what I mean..........

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