The Patriot Post® · In Brief: 'It Was the Testosterone Talking...'
“Avatar” was a terrible movie back in 2009. We expect the same will be true of “Avatar: The Way of Water,” which is now in theaters. Naturally, however, director James Cameron is promoting his movie, but he’s doing it in a bizarre way — by slamming men and masculinity. That’s even more bizarre for the guy who directed “Terminator.”
To that point, Cameron recently opined, “A lot of things I did earlier, I wouldn’t do — career-wise and just risks that you take as a wild, testosterone-poisoned young man.” In fact, he explained, “I always think of [testosterone] as a toxin that you have to slowly work out of your system.”
Former Congressman Thaddeus McCotter has thoughts beyond the obvious.
Immediately, the Right decried Cameron’s personal reflection as one more “woke” condemnation of masculinity in particular and men generally. In the heat of the moment, the Right’s superficial analysis is excusable, as the remark is often put forward out of context; moreover, such an interpretation is implicit in the larger purpose of Cameron’s admission. Still, the larger cultural concern — for both Right and Left — is often overlooked.
The context was a discussion of Cameron’s relationship with Disney, which had bought Fox Studios and Pandora.
Specifically, Cameron’s personal history of blowups with studio executives was likely what he had in mind.
This is when Cameron made his testosterone remark. Simply, he was trying to ensure his relationship with his corporate partner remained “a smooth one.” This makes eminent sense. The Hollywood Reporter notes that his new film in the “Avatar” franchise “cost more than $350 million, and it’s scheduled to kick off a wave of three more "Avatar” movies, which, if completed, will represent a more than $1 billion investment for Disney on production costs alone.“
The cause of the Right’s consternation, however, was the way Cameron emphasized his willingness to ensure the collaboration continued without discord. He used the language of the "woke” to explain how his behavior had improved over the years. Interestingly, he chose to blame his former, more contentious relations with his corporate partners and others as being the result of self-diagnosed, damn near lethal levels of testosterone. True, he admits he was a victim of himself; but testosterone made him do it. Ergo, Cameron is a victim of himself, but is less culpable than … what? His DNA?
McCotter notes that this is similar to other blame-shifting to things like alcohol or drugs, but blaming “toxic masculinity” is the new hip thing in Hollywood. “Presumably,” he says, Cameron “does not desire the effects of low — let alone nonexistent — levels of testosterone,” which is a huge medical problem. Still, Cameron’s comments amount to “yet another example of the murder of wisdom.”
Once, people learned from their successes and failures, processed them, and—God willing—garnered wisdom and maturity. It was one of the highest attainments of a life well-lived and examined. No more.
Thus did Cameron cheat himself by being unable simply to say, “I’m older and wiser now.” But he couldn’t — and humility isn’t to blame.
What is to blame is the woke ideology. It is one of perpetual adolescence, which amidst its puerile, narcissistic, virtue-signaling, self-flagellation fests, ultimately rejects maturity and wisdom as things to be acquired with age and experience. Rather, its adherents believe wisdom and maturity are part and parcel of their Manichean ideology. After all, the woke only need carp about “white men” to be morally superior. For the woke, it is a simple calculation: why bother to earn what one can assume? Wisdom and maturity, in this universe, are just a fashion. They’re something to be put on.
He concludes:
As must ever be remembered regarding the woke Left: all they know is what they’ve been told, and they only talk to each other. Consequently, Cameron was simply expressing himself in the woke terms that hold sway in the Hollywood and corporate worlds.