Even Fantasy has Politics

I have only seen few clips of the movie Avatar but I have never been able to appreciate it in the way the avid fans of the movie do, but when I watched the movie for this blog assignment, I found a scene that I affected me within ten minutes of watching. I chose the scene where Dr. Grace Augustine, the opinionated and dedicated scientist, clashes with the corporate man Parker Selfridge. In this scene, Parker's first appearance shows him putting in the midst of scientific equipments and workers, but he is at ease, he is confident and the second I see the putting green, I know that this person does not work hard, and he does not care. The conversation itself between Grace and Parker establishes that Grace, is focused on her field of expertise and Parker is focused on material profit. Although the scene shows who the 'bad guy' is, it also hints that Grace judges people based on their initial appearances as was the case with Jake Sully. After my initial reaction to Graces' attitude and to Parker's putting green, I can conclude that the scene has effectively made me upset at corporate greed not only in Avatar's world, but it makes me think about modern issues concerning America. With just the presence of a putting green, a young, arrogant sounding character, it is amazing that Avatar has made a bold, common and broad political and rhetorical representations.

I understand that this blog post steps outside our discussion about how fantasy fills the gaps in the reality, but this scene is filling the blanks that people's thought about the corporate world has. This scene is very cliche in the sense that the corporate part of our society is constantly made to be the bad guys. I am not claiming that the corporate is innocent of social inequalities and unethical actions, but the media , more often than not driven by the corporate world constant;y portrays CEOs as the villains The setting for this scene showcases the regular man's world where hundreds of qualified men and women scramble to satisfy the orders of one boss thinking more about his golf club than the work he or she wants done.

I was struck by this scene more than those with amazing special effects, because the content and implications of this scene are prevalent to my generations' mentality towards every aspect of our society. Why else would Wall Street be occupied right now? We can enjoy the escape media provides us with but the only way media can produce fantasy is with some measure of truth therefore once we return to the reality with a mindset to challenge or protect the status quot.