Via Racialicious, I was directed to this jeremiad, which wins the internet:
Of all the varieties of irritating comment out there, the absolute most annoying has to be “Why can’t you just watch the movie for what it is??? Why can’t you just enjoy it? Why do you have to analyze it???”
If you have posted such a comment, or if you are about to post such a comment, here or anywhere else, let me just advise you: Shut up. Shut the fuck up. Shut your goddamn fucking mouth. SHUT. UP.
First of all, when we analyze art, when we look for deeper meaning in it, we are enjoying it for what it is. Because that is one of the things about art, be it highbrow, lowbrow, mainstream, or avant-garde: Some sort of thought went into its making — even if the thought was, “I’m going to do this as thoughtlessly as possible”! — and as a result, some sort of thought can be gotten from its reception. That is why, among other things, artists (including, for instance, James Cameron) really like to talk about their work.
The entire post — which began as a comment on Annalee Newitz’s brilliant Avatar commentary — is worth reading in full, and I will be invoking Moff’s Law going forward any time someone argues that I should stop analyzing a movie because “it’s just a movie.”
I haven’t seen Avatar yet, in no small part because I don’t really know if I have the patience to put up with three hours of white-guy-saves-too-perfect-to-live-indigenous-people-from-other-white-guys. I may eventually go, because I’ve heard universal praise for the visual and technical effects in the film, but I’m not sure that wizardry is being used in service of good.
More to the point, though, is that James Cameron quite obviously wanted this to be a talked about movie. He could have pretty easily created a dumb-but-visually-stunning movie about plucky soldiers fighting mean aliens. (Heck, he already has.) Instead, he made a movie that by all indications is Trying To Say Something Important about nature and indigenous people. So it’s not exactly a stretch for people to want to question what the movie is saying, and to argue that Cameron’s characterization of the native peoples in Avatar literally dehumanizes them, and ends up reinforcing racism rather than working to destroy it.
Art is supposed to say something to us, even the art that wants us to shut our brains off to enjoy it, like, say, the Transformers franchise. Sometimes what it says is subtle, sometimes it’s subtle as a freight train. But it’s meant to affect, even if just to divert people from their humdrum lives. Because of this, it’s only natural for people to react to how they were affected by art by telling people how they were affected by art. If they’re artists themselves, they may even go further, and create art that is a response to previous works, as Avatar can be seen as a rejoinder, not just to the old, overtly racist treatment of aboriginal peoples as savages, but to Cameron’s own treatment of non-humans in Aliens.
That’s what art is supposed to do — spur discussion, spark creation, and yes, engender criticism. Of course, all too often — and especially when that criticism strays into questions of gender or race — people don’t want to hear that there are problems with films they liked. They want to ignore the flaws in a work of art. That’s their privilege. But it doesn’t mean the rest of us should follow their lead. Art is about communication. And that communication should not be one-way only.
“Why do you have to analyze it?”
Part of your brain is already receiving messages from it. Best to pay attention so you know what attitudes you are absorbing.
Yeah, watching it was an icky experience in many ways. It was visually beautiful, though. I am glad I watched it for both reasons (the visuals, and also to see just how icky it is). I am also glad that I bought a ticket for a different movie, and used it to get in to see Avatar.
This can also safely be referred to as the Michael Bay effect.
—Myca
I hate to say it, but isn’t having turned off our brains to just ‘enjoy’ things we watch gotten us into enough trouble say–like just watching the circus that is our government?
I DO like movies–I mean, I can watch them on more than one level, and I’ll give anything a chance ONCE–even as I read the interview Cameron gave Playboy about ‘Avatar’ that amounted to objectifying alien women for the sake of adolescent ‘chubbies’. Aside the fact that I’m getting tired of watching a movie year of Batman, John Connor, Kirk, Sam Witwickie, Sherlock Holmes, Harry Potter, Where the Wild Things Grow (please tell me you get it so I don’t have to watch The Secret Life of Bees and The Blind Side to counteract another overdose), I’m not really SURE I have to engage the brain here. The critiques for it are more engaging and I’d rather read those (even though I’ll admit that I don’t agree with all–the theory of white guilt is too psychologically broad given the different cultures ‘white’ comes from, and the passage of time and advancement–in some, but not all cases).
But I have to wonder, along with the obvious underlying, repetitive themes in movies like this, it seems that we’re also ignoring the lack of creativity. While their EFFECTS are ingenious, their characters are card board and the plots ARE all cliches; they’re mostly movies about the lives and fantasies of white guys. I heard that there was a movie about Hypatia being distributed, but theaters refused to pick it up because they didn’t see ‘blockbuster’ in a movie about a woman scholar who was murdered at the dawn of christianity. The masses seem to ignore this fact for special effects and hype and we who have nothing to relate to in these movies to go in hopes there IS, only to be disappointed, but its too late–we helped pay into making MORE of these sorts of movies with all the rest, so they keep being made, with little respite in sight.
As to the ‘Michael Bay’ effect – yeah–I remember a time when I could LIKE robots because they transcended race and gender (in a world of robots, Jazz was style and someone to look up to, I could be Marissa Fairborn and robots didn’t question my ability to fire a weapon because my chest could throw off my aim, and it wasn’t likely they’d rape me and then throw me in a shipping crate to shut me up). We could all play and fight together in harmony. Now, Jazz is dead, and my chest WOULD be the show, but I’m a mom now and too stupid to know they can cook hash in brownies, despite the fact that the kitchen is still ‘woman’s work’, and my spouse will bring me home Victoria’s Secret hoping for the explosions they’re implied to deliver.
Yeah but… what if we don’t need to analyze it? What if in looking at it we just know. What if we’ve already figured it out before it appears. Oftentimes, I think, analyzing simply begs the question. Granted, art more-often-than-not wants to make a point, and most times, I think, too many of our analyses miss the real heart of the point wanting to be made, thus indicating that the artist didn’t effectively convey the message, or that we need to go back and figure out some things for ourselves before burping our opinions into the cosmos.
A movie is a movie, a poem is a poem, a painting is a painting, each tucked neatly within the particular safe framework appropriate to its medium—and then I have to walk out the door and face the music. If I haven’t analyzed it to determine a response beforehand, life is just gonna slap me around.
I got dragged to see Avatar on Christmas. I put up a protest, but got overruled – it was either go see the movie or sulk at home by myself. I had to do the family thing on Christmas, but I did not want to give Cameron another $10 bucks after that scuzzy playboy interview and because of the white-hero-saves-the-oppressed-natives storyline.
But I really liked it. A lot. An awful lot. It’s a good story . . . maybe because it reuses so many cliches (Anne McCaffery’s dragonriders, Zilpha Keetly Snyder’s Below the Root, not to mention of course Dune and non-scifi Pocahontas and Dances With Wolves – it’d be interesting to do a list of all the echos of other stories). And besides our white-boy hero all the really strong protagonists are women – and there’s a lot of them. And it’s just terrifically pretty. I was getting flashbacks of those blue people all evening on Christmas.
I feel guilty about liking it so much – not only because of the racist stuff, but also because it was so far from what it could have been. Why did Cameron not use the true potential of scifi to tell an original story? Like Analee Newitz’s comment: why didn’t he tell us this story from inside the Na’vi culture entirely? That would have been stupendous. But maybe not so good at the box office.
I think that if criticism of this piece gets out into the airwaves, then maybe future high-bucks fimmakers will be encouraged to take a few more risks and step a couple more away from the mainstream comfort zone. And I think that these stories are not just movies – art makes us who we are, especially art that is so compelling, and such a big investment of resources, and that such a high proportion of our society will be exposed to now and into the future. Those opressed Na’vi are now a long-term part of our culture.
So we should analyze and criticize, even good art, so that next time maybe we’ll get something a bit better.
Art is about communication.
That’s always been my understanding. I’m not a student of art. I’ve never been educated in art criticism. But I’ve always felt that art is something that communicates beyond the literal level (although there may be a literal level in it). In fact, to me that’s what the difference between “bad art” and “good art” is. “Bad art” is an attempt at art that fails to communicate, as opposed to something that communicates something you think is bad.
Annotated Margins: What if in looking at it we just know.
That counts as analyzing.
I consider myself a progressive. However, I am a 45 year old white guy who grew up in the most racist part of Missouri, on a farm, with what can only be described as a FASCIST father. I am also a veteran.
My sister has been training me for years to be better than I was raised.
I went to the movie last night and loved it. Afterward, sis explained the issues with the film, which can be summed up by the authors–white-guy-saves-too-perfect-to-live-indigenous-people-from-other-white-guys.
I am not a troll, I am learning how to understand these issues.
I understand the aforementioned issues on their face but can’t see how he could have made the story better.
1. The natives won! They would have been crushed if the “white guy” had not helped. Just like the North American natives were crushed.
2. The corporate bastards left in hand cuffs at the end. They were shown to be ignoring the real wealth of the planet they were EATING ALIVE.
3. When the “white guy” flew in on the red dragon, he deferred command to the real leader of the tribe.
4. The twin towers, preemptive war, military contractors, bunker busters, fighting terror with terror, etc. etc. were addressed in a very meaningful way.
5. Gaia was hailed as our mother! The hero says “we killed our mother”!!
My point here is this: if the heroine was fat and had moles on her face, if the natives ate their kids for religious purposes, if the white guy died in the first few scenes would it have been more palatable?
6. The leaders of the tribe were a couple, who shared the tasks of leadership and the female was actually more of a leader than the father!
IT IS AN EPIC HEROIC TALE OF LOVE AND REDEMPTION and addresses so many issues we face right now in a form people like me, and not like me ATE UP WITH A SPOON.
I cried through half of it. Yes the 45 year old southern veteran wanted to grab a bow and fly with the warriors and kill the evil corporate bastards! WTF more could you want 15 year olds watching!
One of the last scenes is of the heroine standing over the body of her man slamming fence post size arrows into the arch villain’s chest!
School me.
Seriously? “School me”?
Riiiight.
How about you take some responsibility for seeing what women and people of color are telling you are problems with this film? How about that?
Wake me up when a Native/Indigenous and/or female director has the money in hand (what was it? $500 MILLION?) to make a film like this. Until then, I’ll be keeping my $10 in my pocket. Fuck James Cameron. And fuck Hollywood right in its racist, misogynist eye. Right there.
You want schooling? OK. Summary of Avatar from a non-fanboy point of view – Pocahontas meets Fern Gully in space, with giant Smurfs.
I mean really, you think it’s not problematic because Poca…sorry, I mean alien Smurf lady, shoots arrows at the bad guy? Her speech about how she was afraid for her people till the magic white guy showed up to save them didn’t bother you? When the bad guys were leaving in handcuffs, the fact that they’d just come right back with bigger guns didn’t occur to you?
Wow, in this case I though the problematic subtext would be obvious to just about anyone because, you know, it’s not even really subtext, it’s the actual plot (well, I’m using the word “plot” generously here). Apparently not.
Hi Mike, I’m not looking to school you, because I’m still learning. But “Stuff White People Do” is an excellent place to learn, both through observation and dialogue:
Stuff White People Do
To me, the vilest form of this is when people get confused at the hatred that utterly terrible but pretty films like the Star Wars prequels or the Bayformers movies get – the “you’re overthinking it, you should just turn off your brain and enjoy the action movie”.
The problem with those films aren’t that they’re merely mediocre movies with pretty action – it’s that they’re actively painful to watch.
Ironically enough, I always point to James Cameron in those arguments. James Cameron can make fantastic action films. They may not be the deepest, most insightful films ever made, but they’re engaging and fun, and more to the point they don’t make me cringe into the back of my seat in every scene that doesn’t involve things blowing up (and a good number of the scenes that do).
Mike- You’re right, the movie is not as patently offensive as it could have been, or even as it would have been, had it been made 25 years ago. And you’re right that that’s progress. So is the fact that you’ve made an effort to make yourself more aware of issues that don’t directly impact you in your daily life.
However, a great many people take exception to the “Well *I* thought it was fine, so it’s your job to educate me on why it isn’t” schtick.
Lord knows I’ve been guilty of this myself. (Pretty sure it’s a mandatory step on the road, in fact.) If you see that POC or women are offended by something and you’re not sure why, the best way to educate yourself is not to walk into their spaces demanding that they justify their opinions. Observe and read, quietly, and you might get a better handle on it. It’s hard, and I do know this first-hand, but if your goal is really to become a more humane human, it’s worth it.
It puts people on the defensive when they’re made to justify being offended. It’s a tool that’s used to undermine legitimate complaints all the damn time, and sometimes we get pissed and let fly some of that anger. It doesn’t mean you can’t ever ask respectful questions, just don’t treat it like it’s someone else’s job to teach you.
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