Avatar (2/8/10)
If the right-wing complaints against Avatar are true, that the film makes an explicit statement against colonial militarism and wanton, conspicuous consumption of natural resources while attempting to violently dominate a native culture, then the implicit statement made within the film– that the native culture is best served by a white military man who not only speaks for the culture but becomes its de facto saviour and is rewarded for such with the sexual favors of it’s first daughter–belies a problematic left-wing position that seems to be unaware of its own xenophobia which keeps “the other” at an objectified and safe distance through an unmistakable process of exoticization. However, I must recuse myself from commenting further on the above, owing to my complete absorption during the film with my own post-colonialist desire to cop a peek at the barely and yet tantalizingly obscured and exoticized “nipples of color”.
