The Avatar franchise is empty spectacle
Published: December 17, 2025
Duration: 15:02
The Paradox of Avatar
The Avatar franchise idolizes the “primacy of the primitive.” It revels in the natural existence of the hunter-gatherer tribesperson, placing the most basic forms of human civilization on a pedestal as “the good.” And then it says: fuck that shit. We want high technology, we want glittering imagery, and we want the Society of the Spectacle.
Watch the video essay
The History of Cinematic Spectacle
Back in 1896, the Lumière brothers released the first blockbuster: a train arriving at a station. Audiences were so flabbergasted by the moving imag...