Monday, August 20, 2012

"The Help" And "Avatar"

... feature villains that might as well have come from Barney Oldfield's Race For A Life. Dittos for most of the other movies I've seen lately.

Here, the white, Southern Christian is kidnapping the innocent, lesbian social worker or the rapacious, profit-crazed developer is grabbing the eco-researcher from the local university. I can't tell which. They're all pretty much the same.

What is most interesting to me is how unbelievably outdated the movies' attitudes are. 40-50 years ago, some movies represented avant-garde thought. Now they're as reactionary as can be. 670 million people in India suffer a multi-day blackout and we get James Cameron going for Avatar 2. The south side of Chicago is descending into Mogadishu and we get The Help and other civil rights nostalgia pieces.

They might as well go back to making silent movies.

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