# data[].attributes.body
American capitalist ideology reinforced by Hollywood cinema

# data[].attributes.body
Hey guys,
here's what we've got so far. Please let me know if you want anything changing/adding etc. we can edit it tomorrow when we meet up.

# data[].attributes.body
Change of plan guys, we're not going to meet up today as a few in the group can't make it. So its rearranged for 12 tomorrow at the library.
In the meantime if anyone can send me any info they have collected via email or make it clear on the padlet wall what they want on there, so that i can put together a draft Powerpoint, ready for the group to edit etc tomorrow before the seminar.
Thanks,
Alice

# data[].attributes.body
Those are some good points, they'll be really useful.

# data[].attributes.body
Not sure if these interpretation are correct or make any sense,

The Marxist Conception of the human
"Men can be distinguished from animals by consciousness, by religion or anything else you like...being to produce their means of subsistence. By producing their means of subsistence men are indirectly producing their actual material life."

Marx is trying to say how we as humans are clearly distinguished from animals because of tha fact that we have our own production; material things like goods to cultural productions like language etc. It gives us a sense of history and tradition.

This can be related to Avatar through the way the humans feel the need to constantly keep having some kind of production, after Earth has seem to go downhill, they are looking for other means of subsistence on other planets like Pandora. They want the 'unobtanium' to source for the benefit of themselves. Producing subsistence has become a practice.

Fundamentals of the materialistic critique
"...phantoms in the human brain are also...sublimates of their material life-process,"
Everything is an illusion and the constructs of the human mind is fake. Our morals and consciousness are illusions and coping mechanisms.
You could say how watching Avatar shows this, its like a temporary coping mechanisms for people who want to escape the harsh realities of this world and immerse themselves in a world of fantasy and utopia. We use it to stabilise ourselves (our morals) and keep us sane.
"Life is not determined by consciousness, but consciousness by life."
Where a person stands in a social and economic position defines how they see themselves. Groups of people will have a shared consciousness because they will come from similar places in life; separates the Na'vi and humans from each other. People who come from lower classes will sympathise with the Na'vi from the movie whilst people who watch that are from higher classes will agree with the humans wanting to source from their planet.

What do you think?

# data[].attributes.body
Hey all,
We're gonna meet up again on Wednesday at 2:30pm.  I've sent everyone an email as well.Alice

# data[].attributes.body
hi all,
a few of us have agreed to meet at the library on Monday at around 11am to get the ball rolling. I couldn't find everyone on fb, so thought itd be handy to post here just in case.
hope to see you there :)
Alice

# data[].attributes.body
ok yeah that sounds good someone should set up a group chat so we all know who each other is lol

# data[].attributes.body
yeah laura you are in this group but as of yet there's no email or group chat
probably a good idea to set one up

# data[].attributes.body
Er hi I missed last week and I'm pretty sure this is my group but nobody has contacted me to let me know what's happening and I really don't wanna not be involved in a presentation soooo if someone could explain what we r doing that would be pretty rad thanks
ps my name is Laura Shaw if u have a group chat or email going or whatever

# data[].attributes.body
Good to see that you are progessing with the project. This is an impressive accumulation of material. A good range of sources and some nice. detailed points about how you might go about producing a Marxist reading of Avatar.

Huw

# data[].attributes.body
i was thinking
1.       cultural production and historical/economic influence and unresolvable social contradictions and fantasy solutions

2.       material nature of consciousness
(just a suggestion my dudes)

# data[].attributes.body
A key aspect of Marxism and the study of culture involves the idea that cultural production represents  an imaginative transformation of the key economic, social and political issues of a given historical period, and that literary and cultural forms themselves are artistic responses to these circumstances

·         Imperialism (Iraq/Afghanistan)

·         Post colonialism

·         Environmental issues

·         Corporatism

·         Military industrial complex

·         Privatisation of war

# data[].attributes.body
While we are living through ongoing wars on two fronts in Iraq and Afghanistan, Cameron returns to the same fixtures as before, despite the horrors of this conflict being displayed each evening on the news. Meanwhile this day-glo farce has been preceded by an actual contemporary Iraq war film, The Hurt Locker, by Cameron’s ex-wife Kathryn Bigelow. Why any man would attempt to allegorise the illegal conflict in the Middle-East with a cartoon that owes more to World of Warcraft than bodies returning to Dover Air Force base I do not understand.

# data[].attributes.body
“Avatar” is a thinly disguised, heavy-handed and simplistic sci-fi fantasy/allegory critical of America from our founding straight through to the Iraq War. Within 15 minutes, the “liberal tell” spoils every story beat of Sully’s character arc. He’s as dull a protagonist as you’ll ever see. Giovanni Ribisi’s sweaty weasel of a corporate executive never moves beyond that and Col. Quaritch is all ‘roid rage, no humanity and his Big Speech about the necessity of “a pre-emptive attack to fight terror with terror” was as surprising as Cameron‘s use of a military “shock and awe” campaign to level the Na’Vi’s precious “Home Tree” as a tacky metaphor for the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center.

# data[].attributes.body
"...I mean, look at all that cheddar."

Another example of excessive greed and the need for power.
Is in a way in charge of material production as he wants to use the natural resources of Pandora as a means of profit and success.
Wants to gain control over the mentality of the Na'vi by sending Sully as a Na'vi to gain their trust.

The idea of "the class which is the ruling material force of society, is at the same time its ruling intellectual force," - The German Ideology

# data[].attributes.body
All this anthropology won’t help to fend off accusations of racial reductionism. It seems to serve to portray the Na’vi as a perfectly formed, uniform race rather than a bunch of individuals. The observation that they “mate for life” does a lot of work – it sanctifies them as morally pure, romantic beings, ignoring the capacity of individuals to break those rules, defying conventions of race, caste, species and culture.

# data[].attributes.body
Jake Sully - Used as a 'pawn' by the privatised military, to gain trust of the Na'vi, and then exploit their natural resources for their own benefit; Capitalism.
He later changes his mind after being immersed into the world and culture of the Na'vi and begins to sympathise with them.
Becomes the leader, (comparing it to the idea of Capitalism, he becomes the CEO), and appoints all important decisions himself even though he is not 'truly' native.

The humans in the film are corporate xenophobes with excessive greed as their only goal. They see the Na'vi as 'savages' who are obstacles in the way of corporate success. They see Pandora and the Na'vi as means of production and nothing else, they try to 'educate' and 'transform' them into characteristics of their own culture (teaching them English) in order to make them more acceptable, easy to look at and less foreign.

At the beginning of the movie, the head administrator, Parker Selfridge says;
"...we build them a school, we teach them English, but after what? How many years? Relations with the indigenous are only getting worse...this is why we're here, unobtanium, because this little grey rock sells for 20 million a kilo, that's the only reason, it's what pays for the whole party, its what pays for your science, now those savages are threatening our whole operation, we're on the brink of war and you're supposed to be finding a diplomatic solution."

# data[].attributes.body
American capitalist ideology reinforced by Hollywood cinema
1. Capitalism: the right of ownership, private enterprise, personal initiative, the settling of the land
2. The work ethic (honest toil is in itself morally admirable,
3. Marriage: legalized heterosexual monogamy
4. Nature as an agrarianism ( social philosophy or political philosophy which values rural society as superior to urban society, the independent farmer as superior to the paid worker, and sees farming as a way of life that can shape the ideal social values)
5. Nature as the wilderness
6. Progress, technology and the city (industrial urbanization)
7. Success and Wealth
8. The rosebud syndrome: money isn’t everything, money corrupts, the poor are happier
From this list emerge 2 ideal figures
9. the ideal male: virile adventurer, potent, untrammelled man of action
10. the ideal female: wife and mother, perfect companion
And ideology riddled with unresovlable tensions in reality: avatar provides a fantasy solution to there

# data[].attributes.body
"a colonial control narrative in which the young white male continues to subordinate others as part of the filmic spectacle, thereby providing psychological pleasure to the dominant order."

"While on the surface being a neo-liberal tale of eco warriors battling against corporate interests, when examined at the ideological level, the film in many ways promotes conservative attitudes and values in relation to education, identity and gender."

# data[].attributes.body
avatar provide a simple fantasy solution to complex, inexorable socio-economic problems

# data[].attributes.body
Jake's change of heart does not simply come from spending time with the na'vi thus changing his opinion, but spending more time with the Na'vian society fundamentally changes his consciousness. signifies this by his literal and permanent change of body.

He states that he must “I’m practically family, they’re gonna study me. I have to learn to become one of them”. However, he doesn’t simply learn to imitate them, he literally becomes one of the Na’vi

Signified by the death of his human body at the end of the film