News

Hidden Political Messages in 'Avatar'?

By Robert Marich
   Jan. 20, 2010 – A New York Times feature makes light of critics and audiences that claim to see political commentary in movies, holding up Avatar as a prime example.
   The article by Dave Itzkoff says there’s “growing list of interest groups, schools of thought and entire nations that have protested its message (as they see it), its morals (as they interpret them) and its philosophy (assuming it has one).”
   Those messages are anti-military, gender inequality (males are depicted as stronger), pro-environment, maligning capitalism and other sly commentaries that the film’s “immodest director could not have anticipated,” says the article, referring to Jim Cameron. Chinese government officials pulled Avatar from cinemas early with reports suggesting it was partly due to sensitivity about forced clearing of residents, which occurs in China to make way for economic development and is in the film.
   “There is, at least, consensus among Avatar critics that good science fiction operates on an allegorical level,” the New York Times article says in its most perceptive observation. “In novels like Dune, films like Star Wars  or television series like the recent Battlestar Galactica,  [sci-fi website editor  Annalee] Newitz said the fantastical elements of these works offer a place of ‘narrative safety’ to contemplate real-life issues like environmental decay, totalitarianism and torture.”
   As noted in Marketing to Moviegoers: Second Edition, obvious political messages in films tend to be a turnoff to audiences, though there are some big exceptions such as anti-Iraq war documentary Fahrenheit 9/11. On the other hand, a succession of overtly anti-U.S. military and anti-Iraq films from 2007 were all box office busts. “They were serious and hardly ‘feel good’ films that audiences seek for entertainment. These included Redacted, Rendition, Lions for Lambs, In the Valley of Elah, The Kingdom, Grace Is Gone, A Mighty Heart, and Taxi to the Dark Side. In its year-end box-office report, a USA Today article stated, ‘Look at the lowest-grossing movies of the
year, and they are littered with stories with something political to say.’”
    The lesson is preachy political films seldom work, but a light touch – the “allegorical level” – can be good because this provides substance. In general, however, marketing “the message” seldom works in presenting a film to audiences.
   For full text, click links below:

www.nytimes.com/2010/01/20/movies/20avatar.html

www.marketingmovies.net/news/uk-observer-iraq-films-flop-with-war-pro-con-war-audiences/

www.marketingmovies.net/news/iraq-war-films-waiting-for-john-wayne/

www.marketingmovies.net/chapters/chapter-1-creative-strategy-for-marketing/