Original Paper UDC [316.7:791.4]:502 Received October 31 st , 2011 Zdenko Zeman, Marija Geiger Zeman Institute of Social Sciences “Ivo Pilar”, Marulićev trg 19/I, HR–10000 Zagreb zdenko.zeman@pilar.hr, marija.geigerzeman@pilar.hr Environmental Issues from Hollywood Perspective – Celluloid Utopias and Anthropocentric White Patriarchal Capitalism Abstract Films function both as powerful artistic forms and also as multi-layered texts, which trans- fer certain semantic-axiological contents to the audience. These contents articulate dif- ferent values and ideological and worldview “messages”. Many theoretical and critical analyses have shown that science fiction films are a kind of vision-holders of the perception and evaluation of nature by the future society. These preoccupations – describing actual environmental problems and dilemmas – are particularity not only of SF films; there is quite a number of films that range from ecocentric to anti-ecological worldviews. The paper considers connections between bioethical problems and film industry by analyzing crucial topics in James Cameron´s Hollywood blockbuster Avatar, with special emphasis on their presentations and interpretations of nature, technology, race and gender. Key words films, Avatar, environmental worldviews, anthropocentrism, nature, technology, race, Other, gender, capitalism Introduction: messages and their transmission tools By crossing the doorstep of the second decade of the 21st century, we can conclude that we live in difficult but interesting times. 1 Since World War II onwards, the ongoing scientific and technological revolution has managed to impose itself as a central social factor in Western societies. In this proc- ess natural sciences and technique have been shown as some new divinities which, as it seems, dispose of entirely autonomous and self-legitimating, prin- cipally infinite power. The frightening implications of this and such power, on the one hand, but also quite real, partially irreversible damage that it already brought to the mankind and the planet during the last decades, on the other hand, resulted in rousing the consciousness on the necessity to suppress it resolutely. This awareness, then, resulted, among other things, in the develop- ment of the concepts of sustainability and sustainable development and yield- ing of bioethics. Neither the concept of sustainable development nor bioethics have emerged as the legacies of strictly theoretical concern for the fate of the mankind and planetary biosphere, but have evolved from the abundance of 1 The text is based on the paper presented by Zdenko Zeman and Marija Geiger Zeman “Bioethics and Film – Celluloid Utopias and Environmental Worldviews” on May 17, 2011 at the 10th Lošinj Days of Bioethics, Mali Lošinj, Croatia.