Golden Globe triumphs notwithstanding, the list of those who've found something to dislike, discredit, disagree with, take offense to or simply hate in Avatar has grown exponentially since those innocent days when all anyone wanted was better dialogue. In China, for example, where James Cameron's megahit is the country's top-grossing movie ever, government officials announced Tuesday that they would pull the film off more than 1,600 2-D screens in favor of a domestic film about Confucius. Their motivation: Not protest, but rather wanting something in theaters more keyed into the Chinese New Year. (Avatar will remain on the country's 3-D screens, for what it's worth, which, of course, is still millions of dollars.) But it was just the latest in a backlash that, unusually, extends more to ideology than any critical or awards-season motivations.
I mean, the anti-smoking lobby and the Vatican are one thing, but as a helpful new report in the NYT elaborates, it seems like every other special-interest group has managed to inveigh against Cameron's worldview as well. It's open revolt! And as usual, China leads the way in exports:
In China [...] the film's imperialist themes have upset audiences who believe that the plight of the aliens, the Na'vi, who are forced from their home by human industrialists, is a parable for Chinese people whose dwellings have been forcibly razed by local governments to make way for new construction. As one pseudonymous commenter quoted on Chinasmack.com wrote: "China's demolition crews must go sue Old Cameron, sue him for piracy/copyright infringement."
Ha! Get. In. Line. But at least $1.6 billion in grosses (and counting) still splits up pretty robustly 100+ ways.