Extraterrestrial Life in Popular Culture - Ancient Astronauts in Popular Culture, Bug-Eyed Monster, E.T. (Song), Extraterrestrials in Fiction, First Co (Paperback)

Please note that the content of this book primarily consists of articles available from Wikipedia or other free sources online. Pages: 42. Chapters: Ancient astronauts in popular culture, Bug-eyed monster, E.T. (song), Extraterrestrials in fiction, First contact (science fiction), First Wave (TV series), Frank Scully, Invader Zim, List of films featuring extraterrestrials, Message from space (science fiction), Pinewood Derby (South Park), Roswell (TV series), Themes in Avatar, The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter, Venusians. Excerpt: The 2009 American science fiction film Avatar has earned widespread success, becoming the highest-grossing film so far. The blockbuster has provoked vigorous discussion of a wide variety of cultural, social, political, and religious themes identified by critics and commentators, and the film's writer and director James Cameron has responded that he hoped to create an emotional reaction and to provoke public conversation about these topics. The broad range of Avatar's intentional or perceived themes has prompted reviewers to call it "an all-purpose allegory" and "the season's ideological Rorschach blot." One reporter even suggested that the politically charged punditry has been "misplaced" reviewers should have seized on the opportunity to take "a break from their usual fodder of public policy and foreign relations" rather than making an ideological battlefield of this "popcorn epic." Discussion has centered around such themes as the conflict between modern man and nature, and the film's treatment of imperialism, racism, militarism and patriotism, corporate greed, property rights, spirituality and religion. Commentators have debated whether the film's treatment of the human aggression against the native Na'vi is a message of support for indigenous peoples today, or is, instead, a tired retelling of the racist myth of the noble savage. Right-wing critics accused Cameron of pushing an "anti-American" message in the film's depiction of a private military contractor that used ex-Marines to attack the natives, while Cameron and others argued that it is pro-American to question the propriety of the current wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The visual similarity between the destruction of the World Trade Center and the felling of Home Tree in the film caused some filmgoers to further identify with the Na'vi and to identify the human military contractors as terrorists. Critics asked whether this comparison was intended to encourage audiences to empathize with the position of Mu