“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. I always think of (testosterone) as a toxin that you have to slowly work out of your system.”
James Cameron, writer and director of such films as the Terminator, Terminator 2, True Lies, Aliens, and Titanic said that earlier in his career he and his work were poisoned by the "toxin" that is testosterone while promoting his environmental activist agitprop Avatar sequel, due out in December.
According to the Hollywood Reporter, Cameron said, "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. I always think of (testosterone) as a toxin that you have to slowly work out of your system."
https://rumble.com/embed/v19kwjv/?pub=2n05b
In the early 80s James Cameron was set to pitch an idea for the sequel to the movie Alien. He walked into a room filled with executives at 20th Century Fox. When they asked the young director, whose film the Terminator was an unexpected success, what his pitch was for an Alien sequel, Cameron reportedly walked up to a chalkboard in the room. He wrote the word "Alien" and then added an "s" at the end. He paused and then drew two lines in the s making it a $ sign. Cameron confirmed the veracity of this story with Cinemablend in 2021.
According to Cracked, a young Cameron broke into the editing room of his directorial debut, Piranha 2 to recut the movie after the film's producer had him removed from the project.
On the other hand, he did say of his alien female heroine in Avatar, "Right from the beginning, I said, she's got to have t*ts," according to Inverse.
His tentpole features often had bombastic practical effects and huge budgets, which he would fight for in "F-bomb-laden shouting matches with executives" according to the Hollywood Reporter.
That same masculine energy carried over to sets, causing Ed Harris to punch Cameron in the face on the set of the Abyss according to IMDB.
Cameron also said, "I made Titanic because I wanted to dive into the shipwreck, not because I particularly wanted to make the movie."
Cameron's new movie is a continuation of his Avatar series, the first entry having hit theaters back in 2009. His interest in filmmaking now rests in his passion for environmental sustainability. On Avatar, Cameron has said, "Avatar is the highest-grossing film, and it’s a movie that's asking you to cry for a tree."
Cameron's success has been parallel to his reliance on innovation in technology. His films The Abyss and Terminator 2 spearheaded CGI, pushing the technology forward in significant ways in a shortened time span.
Yet technology and human advancement is portrayed in the Avatar movies as tools of the oppressor, pushing in on the natives who are portrayed in a Rousseauian utopia, in perfect harmony until greedy mankind disrupts their perfection.
On the first Avatar's success, in 2009 Cameron said, "If we didn’t make money, we're a bunch of dumb f*cks," according to EW.
In 2022, Cameron, who has totally given up toxic masculinity said, "The trolls will have it that nobody gives a shit and they can't remember the characters' names or one damn thing that happened in the movie. Then they see the movie again and go, 'Oh, okay, excuse me, let me just shut the fuck up right now.' So I’m not worried about that."
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