We Need to Talk About James Cameron: The Appropriation of Dark Angel

[JamesHOWLETT]

First of all, I would like to say that I genuinely believe Dark Angel, especially the first season, was one of the best works James Cameron, the director and creative behind the series, has ever produced! I put it among his highest quality materials he has delivered such as T2 and Aliens.

That being said, we must discuss the cyberpunk elephant in the room. James Cameron is a very blatant appropriator of urban and Asian culture. Is this a bad thing? Well... no, and yes... but mostly no... but also yeah. To paraphrase a popular Youtuber, lauded video essayist and author, Lindsay Ellis: I am not necessarily saying "thing bad" so much as "thing exists." So why is Dark Angel's existence "problematic" in my opinion and how have his recent comments on the current landscape of cinema played a role in why I revisited the only television series he has ever developed?

I am going to break it all down right here on J. Howlett's Cinema Corner or no... James Howlett: TAKES you There errr... Howlett: On the SCENE, yeah, will go with that!

One might argue that there is a fair amount of appropriation in many of his films from the clear manga aesthetics of Aliens and T2 but they are nowhere near as obvious or as blatant as they are in his early 2000's cult hit television show, Dark Angel, specifically the second season but let's not get ahead of ourselves.

This starts with the alchemy that created the series in the first place and that is Cameron's clear fascination with developing a superhero to the big screen. From The X-Men in the late 80s to Spider-Man up until around the period he developed Dark Angel herself. Each idea fizzles into development Hell for one reason or another. Though both properties went on to succeed with other helmers association years later, even giving his own creative assistance with the first X-Men film.

So James was no stranger to the superhero genre that would go on to become our nations saving grace for the film industry (more on that later). But his experience with it was arduous, to say the least, his time with each franchise was when Superheroes were seen as nothing but the "Smash!" "Boom!!" "Blam!!!" of the 60s Batman. Even with the popularity of the darker-toned Tim Burton Batman films, which were both praised and criticized for their dark tone, this mentality still persisted. Prompting Warner Bros. to eventually go back into the campy tone of the television series in the film franchises in the mid to late Nineties entries to disastrous ends!

Cameron saw the ups and downs of this play out while in the creative process of making a supposed Leonardo Decaprio starred Spider-Man. These obvious financial losses both DC and especially Marvel, who had just filed for bankruptcy at the time, had to have taken a toll on his enthusiasm.

So it was around this time, he turned his attention from those Marvel-related properties into more obscure IPs to American audiences such as the underwater 90s indie "Bad Girl" comic Fathom that never came to fruition to the manga Alita: Battle Angel that he would later see realized as a producer twenty years later. Why is this important to know when doing a retrospective on this particular series? Because we need to understand where James' mind space was then. Though he was at the time the most successful director on the planet that had a knack for understanding female characters. He also loved and appreciated the wise-cracking, superpowered, acrobatic melodrama of Spider-man's alter ego Peter Parker's life.

It was right around this time he knew what most of his ideas where and direction he would have taken said character. And so an amalgamation of all these facets of his filmmaking interest born Dark Angel; Max Guevara is a cyberpunk, scientifically enhanced, super-soldier and "Cat-Woman" who is the heroine of the series.

Still, creating a world is hard to do. Max, portrayed by a then-unknown Jessica Alba, had to be a believable sci-fi character. A woman of a dystopian future where an electronic pulse had whipped out most of the countries funds and technology. (And yes, the irony of covering this now is not lost on me!) Which made her wheelchair-bound comrade and love interest Logan Cale AKA Eyes Only, portrayed by Michael Weatherly, a wealthy computer expert and the leader of an underground movement to embolden the poor while exposing the corruption of corporate governance and the 1%ers.

The ways that this show was ahead of its time are vast! It is seemingly forgotten in the girl-powered action hour tv shows of the late 90s/ early 00s over Buffy's savvier dialogue and lighter tone and Charmed's more Cheesecake than substance overtones. This made it too soon demise all the more tragic.

Alba is at the best of her career here! She truly shows the range and acting chops she has never displayed since. Weatherly and Alba's on and off-screen chemistry no doubt helped to anchor the series and made the relationship between the two seem so real. Therein lies the charm of the series. It is not only the two main characters, though, that give the show its "signature style" both aesthetically and auditorily. With characters like "Original Cindy" portrayed by Valarie Rae Miller and "Kendra" by Jennifer Blanc being among Max's ragtag group of friends and coworkers and give her a life outside of hiding from government officials trying to capture her to experiment on her unique DNA.

Looking through the idea pool that Dark Angel canvased anyone else seeing any similarities to any of the works Cameron was attached to do so far? It is literally like he cherry-picked ideas from all four places and created a Frankenstein of design and construction. From the cyberpunk manga visuals to the wise-cracking genetically enhanced heroine with a quadriplegic guide. This show seemed to take from the previously stated source material in such a way to avoid being sued for copyright infringement while still maintaining its influences everywhere.

 

[JamesHOWLETT]

It is this mindset that is the inherent problem with the show and makes it harder to watch on repeat viewings not because of any problems with the story but the way it represents its main characters as "urban" in an often time overtly Hollywood produced way. Everyone talks with a wise guy/ebonics mix that can be a bit jarring 20 years later and knowing how Jessica Alba actually speaks in real life! It is easy to forgive though as these characters would most likely interact this way if in these situations.

Max's entire racially ambiguous vibe made many fans at the time cast her as Jubilee in fan boards such as these believing her to be Asian in heritage and not a Caucasian Latina that she is. The wardrobe and hair really seemed to play up her exotic features and coloring. Which on its own is not a bad thing, right?

In the second season, however, Fox had begun to lose faith in the show and decided to cut budgets as well as wanting to loosely reboot of the series. This is where the real issues begin as costume and hair had to give Max a sexier more attractive to the general audience look. Not a bad idea on its own but they completely swipe, swindle and steal the look of American R&B artist and underrated urban fashion icon Aaliyah.

For evidence please look at this array of photographic evidence to support my claim.

Literally verbatim!

There is a term called blackfishing that would not become a widely known idiom until a decade in half after Dark Angel was a distant memory but it is defined as "Commonly perpetrated by females of European descent (white) which involves artificial tanning (spray tanning and tanning booths) and using makeup to manipulate facial features in order to appear to have some type of Black African ancestry.

The general point of blackfishing is for a female of European descent to appear of African, Arab, or Hispanic ancestry.

Some consider it to be equivalent to modern-day blackface? Because it capitalizes off the looks of historically oppressed groups of people by people who come from more privileged backgrounds."

 

[JamesHOWLETT]

With all that evidence of very obvious plagiarization of a woman's look, who had passed away by that time no less, and never to my knowledge have accredited her with the aesthetic influence. It is clear that James seemed to have as much care with how he hodgepodged his ideas as he did with this artist's career aesthetic.

But is it wrong to take cues from pop culture and insert them into your artistic works? Well, not inherently, no. It is the sheer obviousness of the plagiarism of this young woman's image and that she nor her family were able to get retribution or even accreditation for the look of the entire second season of the show being based on her design aesthetic! He even culturally appropriated again with Avatar and Na'Vi being literal placeholder cultures for Native Americans (and good God I just saw the name of the race is clearly an anagram....) But at the very least it so heavyhanded you can't avoid the obvious nod. With this, I am betting no one knew ostensibly what Fox and Cameron did distorting someone's likeness after they had died. It is despicable!

More recently James Cameron has scoffed at the success of the Marvel Cinematic Universe because he believes his works are at a higher caliber and aluded to them having a lucky break. In reality he sees Cap is "on his left" lapping him and he just wants to save face. He has been using others ideas for years to create a composite work based off of these works he is criticizing. It seems to me that doth though protest too much.

Though Cameron was at one time the most profitable director on the planet coming off the massive success of Titanic! He had yet to dive into the waters of vigilante superhero justice that he so craved with the decimation of both attempts to crack into that world. So he patchwork quilted a Chimera of various cultural and genre appropriated thoughts, visuals and ideologies to create a well crafted if a bit haphazardly concocted and racially insensitive cult feminists icon. This one is nowhere near her predecessor's fame that he aided in dragging that further into the mud also with the likes of Sarah Conner. So I beseech you James learn from your past because the only person seemingly "lucky" is you.

 

[DarkKnight88]

This thread

 

[Pink Ranger]

The pioneers of cyberpunk were writers like William Gibson, Philip K. Dick and J.G. Ballard. White males. So let's stop this this cultural appropriation bullcrap. Let's focus on Asian-Americans being assaulted in the streets by Democratic voters and the dead silence on this from the civil rights and anti-racism movements. Let's focus on how to this day Asian men are ridiculed and mocked and excluded from normal society by mainstream liberals and bourgeois feminists. Jesus Christ.