This is a bit misleading. It’s true enough that emotional reactions are automatic, but the triggers and the responses to them can be changed over time. Psychologists have developed methods for alleviating phobias through prolonged, subtle exposure to the object of the phobia. Buddhists train themselves to give no heed to their desires, and some of them end up happier for it.

Giving up the desire to join other cultures and dominate them is probably a good idea. In this case, all this would require is a change in the genre conventions that movies like these follow. It wouldn’t even interfere with the fantasy of redemption; if Avatar didn’t feel the need to have a Big Damn Hero, it could have done about the same plot without so much emphasis on who exactly is leading the Na’vi rebellion. Make it an ensemble film–certainly there are a lot of war stories like that already.

I’m making it sound easy to change a century or so of literary tradition. It’s not; it would require a generation of people with Cameron-like influence to make stories according to new aesthetic standards. And not just stories, but Hollywood blockbusters, so we’re talking about a lot of money.

(It’s fine to write stories with Big Damn Heroes, but those stories probably shouldn’t try to be about the redemption of an entire culture’s sins.)

That’s how I took it, John.

The only clue we have from “A Princess of Mars” is that the father of the fictional editor of the book (Edgar Rice Burroughs maintains the pretense that John Carter is a real person who gave him the manuscripts) owns slaves. They were said to have fairly worshiped the ground he walked on. That would seem to indicate he did not, at least, mistreat them. He was a confederate officer who, after the war, went out West to prospect.

> the essentially Christian redemption concepts of contemporary anti-racist theory.

This I wouldn’t know anything about. I understood the Christian concept of redemption to predate American slavery, or for that matter the United States, but the house minister is in another state at the moment, so cannot double-check:)

Anyway, my point isn’t that my reaction (or Nisi’s, or both our reactions) is/are the lone legitimate interpretation of AVATAR. It’s that writers need to consider the effects of their words.

Here’s hoping I’ve sufficiently considered my words tonight:)
Cindy