(Bloomberg) -- Since its debut in 2009, James Cameron’s Avatar franchise has occupied a strange place in the cultural conversation. These are some of the biggest movies ever made. The original is the highest-grossing film of all time, making more than $2.9 billion dollars worldwide. Its 2022 sequel, Avatar: The Way of Water, is the third highest. They are also persistently a punchline. Why? They’re so gosh-darn earnest. There is not a trace of irony in Cameron’s critically acclaimed, Oscar-nominated saga, set on an alien world, Pandora, inhabited by the Na’vi, blue-skinned creatures with cat noses. These are stories about...