“Our vastly superior modern lifestyle” isn’t vastly superior in *every* respect. Not *every* community in *every* previous historical period has had more “violence, brutality and injustice”, nor is there a completely automatic and direct connection between these and a country being less developed / more rural. “Modern medicine, knowledge, education and technology political rights and freedoms” – these aren’t all one unified ‘lump’ that always goes together, nor do they simply progress along an automatic line that runs smoothly from past-to-future or poor-to-rich. I am not going to argue about or deny the benefits of having health care or longer life spans, but rejecting ‘happiness’ isn’t a coherent position.

Like you I also get annoyed by people striking simplistic and over romaticised anti-development/anti-modernising postures, but equally I dislike people adapting an ‘equal and opposite’ extreme view.

I am surprised that you think India doesn’t have ‘cultural diversity’ or ‘minorities’.

Reality is messy.

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You are massively over-generalizing.

“Our vastly superior modern lifestyle” isn’t vastly superior in *every* respect.

Not *every* community in *every* previous historical period has had more “violence, brutality and injustice”, nor is there a completely automatic and direct connection between these and a country being less developed / more rural.

“Modern medicine, knowledge, education and technology political rights and freedoms” – these aren’t all one unified ‘lump’ that always goes together, nor do they simpl progress along an automatic line that runs from past-to-future or poor-to-rich.

I am not going to argue about or deny the benefits of having health care or longer life spans, but rejecting ‘happiness’ isn’t a coherent position.

It’s not people romanizing other old cultures in fiction I have a beef with, but them believing that and then using it to justify withholding modern technology from people in need.
Maybe you’ve not experienced it, but I have – people (as I said often involved in the green movement) believing that poor people in 3rd world countries are honestly better off without modern technology – or if they do it should Eco-friendly, because saving the planet is more important after all.

I’m talking from personal experience here designing a power system for a village hospital, the charity funding it insisted on solar power – which is expensive, unreliable and problematic. If it goes wrong, who’s going to fix it? I refused the job, told them that if they wanted me to design the best, most efficient system to provide them with electricity it would be a diesel generator (which any motor mechanic could easily fix) and could provide 10 times the capacity with readily available fuel.
I’m sure that solar power (which I’m sure they got someone else to design) was good for the hospital in Africa, they might have enough power to run a fridge and maybe some lights – but a diesel generator and the fuel to run it for 10 years would have cost less and an worked better by an order of magnitude.

@ Teejay

Fresh Prince: http://www.virgin1.co.uk/tv-listings/?d=0&t=3
Everyday on Virgin one. It used to be on BBC 2 if I recall, again airing every day, but Virgin took the rights (and the rights of most of the star treks).

As for examples, meh find them yourself I can’t be arsed to trawl IMDB for names for movies half forgotten viewed years ago… but they exist. Maybe not the exact same flavour but similar enough romanticizing of the past. usually their own culture. Or neighbouring cultures rather than western culture (though that happens also). Chinese Cinema (old wuxia movies) or Bollywood, which are basically single ethnicity, they don’t have the cultural diversity to feel the pressure to include minorities, so tend to stick with their own culture.
People romanticize other cultures, people who live in cities romanticize country life, people who live in the country romanticize city life. People who live in the west Romanticise the east, and vice versa – everyone romanticizes past cultures.
Of course American movies romanticize other cultures, because they have no ancient culture of their own to give the treatment too. Westerns are as close as they get.
This should be self evident surely?

Meh, anyway it is late and I CBA to go on, whenever there is a cross culture relationship (sexual, romantic or otherwise) in movies people always begin to scream racism in one direction or the other, Avatar was going to be no different despite it’s Sci-Fi covering.
Nothing wrong with it so long as people just enjoy it as a fantasy, not take the message to heart the whole “modern bad” bent of Hollywood.

Still this probably isn’t the place for this debate, which I CBA to have anyway (I’m worn out when it comes to race debate in movies, because it is relentless at IMDB)…

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I just expected alot more considering how great some of the other bits were.
It was annoying to end the game on a bit of a downer after enjoying the rest so much.

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@Bhazor:

Can’t tell yet but I’m suspecting the twist will be something like that. For now, there’s a lot of crossed info regarding the character’s past. Lamb addresses me as “Delta” all the time, but in the meantime, I’ve been told I was a guy who went down to Rapture on his own. Everyone called him (me) Johny Topside but Ryan apparently wanted to rub me out, thinking I was a spook, but I still don’t know exactly how that one turned out.

Also, since ADAM is said to contain memories of the dead, I’m still unsure if Eleanor calling me ‘dad’ is to be taken for granted or if it’s really just another narrative layer which turns out to be a red herring because of the ADAM I’ve been collecting.

@DJ Phantoon:

Not really sure if doing the right thing should provide a harder outcome. I’ve seen that idea cherished in the past, and I understand it to a point, but I can’t say that’s how it should always be. Then again, in the case I mentioned the Elite robo-turret-choppers don’t last long unless you play your cards straight and besides, they’re still notoriously slow when it comes to tracing a target. So I’m like “yay, splicers for dinner” when I notice the two splicer the Elites were going for were shot on a flyby but leaped out of the way and came straight for me. It made the whole thing more manageable but not necessarily easier. I did save on some ammo but then, further down the level, crossfire between a rocket turret and a Big Daddy took both Elites out and cost me all of the precious Heavy Rivets I had been saving.

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Yup, the last mission was fantastic. The ending was so-so.

The last boss was pathetic. Shame, really.

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There are two f/f options, and sort of 3.

Listen, yeah?

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They ranged from lame to actively stupid. Equivalent to the bottom 2/3 of IGN articles, maybe. Nothing remotely at all of the caliber of RPS, Pentadact, Cruise Elroy, Idle Thumbs, Shamus Young, The Escapist, Fidgit, etc.

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Romanticising primitive cultures is bad, unless you know it’s a bunch of baloney. We shouldn’t be concerned about Avatar doing this (which it clearly does) for any reasons of perpetuating noble savage myths, being a little patronising, or doing the mighty whitey ….because it’s all a bunch of baloney.

Ok. We can take it as read that it’s a movie, right. From that point people usually go on to discuss what meanings the film is trying to impart, as they see it. Some go a little overboard as to what impact these meanings might have on viewers. But saying “I don’t care what it says, because it’s all a bunch of baloney one way or the other” doesn’t really end that discussion I’m afraid.

You’re going to have to dig for those examples of other cultures doing the might whitey trope as well (or the ‘mighty -culture of origin-’ as the case may be) I’d love to hear about those. It’s not at all the same as romanticising primitive cultures or foreign cultures, even though they’re connected. It’s quite specifically about one person from one culture showing the simpler folk how its done, becoming their leader and inspiriation and even switching sides. People get wary of it because it is a post colonial cultural bridge building myth. The question isn’t that it would be exactly the same if Will Smith was in the title role, it’s “why wasn’t Will Smith in the title role?” I reckon you’d be hard pressed to find any cross culture story like that which wasn’t influenced by the western tradition in those sorts of tales at any rate.

Then, going off on one about greenies and their goals. Well I don’t know. I do know some kinds of folks who delight vicariously in primitive life. They aren’t remotely representative of environmentalists or aid workers. If they’re helping to solar power a hospital they’re pretty far from the most extreme anyway. I know nothing of the case, the location, the peoples involved etc but I can think of a few reasons you wouldn’t want to use a diesel generator in a remote or developing country if you could avoid it (They use tons of fuel for one thing. Fuel supplies are a great source of fun for bandits and rebels for another) But I wasn’t there, dunno etc.

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