The Bastard: Can We Just Enjoy a Movie, Please?

I have yet to see Avatar, but it looks like a visual masterpiece, if not the most compelling intellectual fair. Whether I’ve seen it or not is immaterial; I can’t help but get irked by some of the criticism I’ve heard about this movie.
The first ridiculous bit of whining that I’ve come across is that it’s a liberal anti-war movie. Say what? Whether you’re liberal or conservative, does anyone consider themselves pro-war? Think about that for a second. How much of an asshole would you have to be to complain that a movie has a message that denounces sentient beings killing one another? I think you’d have to fall into that exclusive club of nutjobs including Hitler and his Nazi cronies, Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge, and the Manson Family to think, “This whiny, liberal anti-war message just pisses me off!” Regardless of one’s affiliations and affinities, I fail to see how a human being with an ounce of compassion can be pro-war. I can’t help but hope that there’s a special ring of Hell for people who get upset about a movie with an anti-war message. Maybe one where they have to endlessly navigate minefields in the nude while it rains glass and lemon juice.
The other bit of criticism I’ve heard is that the movie is racist. These people are upset because a white man comes to the planet and acts as the savior of the naïve colored natives. Really? Really?! Why does race even enter into this equation? Would this same bit of idiocy be brought up if the main character was black, Asian, or Latino? I doubt it. To these people I say, “Look to your left. Remove chip from shoulder. Look to right. Repeat.”
This has nothing to do with the color of the main character’s skin. Nothing. Sure, you can see it that way if you’d like, but I can also see boobies in a Rorschach test if I really want to. This is the reality of the movie: a man from a technologically advanced civilization infiltrates a technologically primitive civilization, learns to appreciate their way of life, sees the error of his people’s ways, and does his best to save the natives. What matters is that he has knowledge that the blue people don’t. Without that knowledge, they stand little chance of prevailing, not because they are inferior, but because their knowledge is inferior. It’s a bit tough to go from riding animals and hunting with arrows and spears to analyzing, duplicating, and using guns and mech suits. I’ll repeat this point one more time, for the feebs in the back talking on their cell phones: the main character is able to save a race of technologically naïve natives because of his knowledge, not his skin color.
I’ve learned something recently, and it’s a lesson that took me ten years of depression to figure out: you see what you want to see. If you look at the world and want to see racism, you’re going to see it. The same goes for sexism, ageism, and antidisestablishmentarianism. Conversely, if you want to see kindness, altruism, and love, you’ll find that too. With either view you’re going to end up being wrong some of the time and end up with false positives (to borrow a medical term). For example, if you choose to take the former path, you’ll see racism that isn’t there, but if you choose the latter path, you may see kindness where there isn’t any. Given the choice (and I assure you that it is a choice), I’ll take the latter, thank you very much.
I’m tired of focusing on the negativity in the world. As a depressive, I understand that it can be hard to change the way in which one views the world. But it can be done, if imperfectly. So can we all please just sit down, shut the hell up, and allow ourselves to be entertained by a goddam movie?!