"Over the last month, Avatar has been criticized by social and political conservatives who bristle at its depictions of religion and the use of military force; feminists who feel that the male avatar bodies are stronger and more muscular than their female counterparts; antismoking advocates who object to a character who lights up cigarettes; not to mention fans of Soviet-era Russian science fiction; the Chinese; and the Vatican. This week the authorities in China announced that the 2-D version of the film would be pulled from most theaters there to make way for a biography of Confucius."
In my estimation such a ganglion of protest indicates the power of contemporary cinema. Is there any more powerful means to reflect and inform a global collective consciousness?
James Cameron has once again successfully engaged in the creative process of mythopoeis--of telling, in an artful way, a story of contemporary meaning. He's taken compelling themes of the day and spun them together. And don't forget what Joseph Campbell called the monomyth of the Hero. (The formula of the classic hero infected Hollywood script writing and movie making at the end of the 20th century, following the success of Star Wars.)
Sometimes a movie is more than a movie.
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