“Avatar” has few fans among mining executies

Posted March 11, 2010 By móniyáw

In a case of art imitating life — with perhaps a little poetic license — Oscar-winning movie “Avatar” paints big mining companies as the villains of the future.

But real-life executives are not entirely amused by their fictional colleagues being cast in evil roles in what is already the biggest-grossing Hollywood movie of all time.

“Let me put it this way, my kids saw the movie, and my kids know I’m a miner, and they didn’t say anything to me,” said Peter Kukielski, head of mining operations for ArcelorMittal, the world’s largest steelmaker.

“They didn’t say a thing, and they loved the movie. They saw it twice,” he told the Reuters Global Mining and Steel Summit in New York this week.

“I gotta say, I gritted my teeth a few times over the manner the mining company was presented,” said Charles Jeannes, chief executive of Canada’s Goldcorp. “I loved ‘Avatar’ — once you get past the storyline, I loved the graphics.”

. . .

Gerald Grandey, CEO of uranium miner Cameco Corp appeared resigned to the fact mining companies get a bad rap driven by environmentalists.

“When you get a movie like ‘Avatar’ — I have seen it and actually enjoyed it — I thought it was just unfortunate they defaulted to the easy conflict. It was too convenient to go back to the old stereotypes.”

“Cameco is a premier example of going into a remote region, Saskatchewan, where there are 28 aboriginal communities who had never heard of mining…and now after 25 years, well over 50 percent of our employees are aboriginal.

“What we’ve done is…overcome the peer pressure, the stereotypes, the culture, the welfare dependency, the drug and alcohol abuse, and one movie can put that back.”

Asked if he would you have hired the Na’vi, Grandey replied: “If it had been Cameco, they would have been walk-in employees, we’re looking for them!”

Ducks Unlimited is an example of a group that has done a lot for the environment, which was started by someone who enjoyed waterfowl hunting. I think that casting a mining company as bad for the environment is inaccurate and unfair.

The full article is here.

Categories: Arts, Business, Mining
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Parallel between Avatar and Alberta Oil Sands

Posted March 5, 2010 By móniyáw

Watching the scenes in the movie Avatar depicting ‘unobtainium’ mining felt eerily like reliving my trip to the tar sands – the pristine forests being torn away to create ugly strip mines, the giant trucks, the obsessive drive for a dwindling resource. The only thing missing from the theatre were the toxic fumes so prevalent when flying over the tar sands. (more…)

Categories: Business, Health
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Avatar: a racist film?

Posted February 2, 2010 By móniyáw

The film did not strike me as racist, and I did not think it was the best film *ever*. James Cameron’s file is good because, in my humble opinion, he combines all aspects of film-making to create an entertaining and enjoyable experience. Story, CGI, 3D, great detail, and amazing sound combine into a wonderful movie. If there is any fault with the movie’s underlying message, I think it oversimplifies and paints the various parties in black and white, but then it is only a 3 hour film….

Avatar” is a racist film. Or at least this has been the persistent allegation ever since its release in December 2009.Annalee Newitz, editor-in-chief at io9.com was among the first to label it “white guilt fantasy,” another story where the “white characters realize that they are complicit in a system which is destroying aliens, AKA people of colour, and become leaders of the people they once oppressed.”

David Brooks of The New York Times went further, calling it “a racial fantasy par excellence” which “rests on the stereotype that white people are rationalist and technocratic while colonial victims are spiritual and athletic, and that nonwhites need the White Messiah to lead their crusades.”

Should the ‘White Messiah’ accusation be taken seriously? I am not alone in wanting to dismiss if not ridicule all this fuss over the politics of a silly and predictable Hollywood movie (visually enchanting though it admittedly is). That is until I begin to think of just how many Hollywood films have shown various peoples of color (minorities, colonial subjects, the Third World poor) struggle against various social ills (poverty, authoritarianism, imperialism) only to be swiftly arrogated by white men (and, from time to time, white women).

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You can read the full blog post here.

Categories: Entertainment
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Is Avatar raising awareness?

Posted January 7, 2010 By móniyáw

I have seen a number of blog postings and articles that contrast the movie Avatar with the challenges faced by indigenous peoples. Do you think that Avatar is raising the general public awareness of issues such as land claims or fishing rights? Arguably, Dances with Wolves raised awareness, but will Avatar have a similar impact beyond preaching to the converted?

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Good science fiction often addresses issues that we’re dealing with here on Earth today. Avatar, in my opinion, is about 75 percent a commentary on the plight of indigenous peoples, and 25 percent a commentary on U.S. involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan.
My companions thought this message was a bit heavy handed. I agree to some extent. A good director wants his viewers to be lost in the story and to have to the feeling of being transported to another time and place; to forget that he or she is sitting in a theater. Cameron failed in this respect because the plot was so laden with these Earth-bound references that they distracted me. The Na’vi animated characters even used American facial expressions and hand gestures.
As for the not too subtle themes, that didn’t bother me as much because the plight of native peoples everywhere is a message that needs to be brought to wider audiences.

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You can read the full blog here.

Categories: Culture, Entertainment
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