Everybody’s talking about Avatar 2, but nobody’s asking the big question.

To celebrate the 10-year anniversary of Avatar, director James Cameron made a YouTube video where he answered questions from fans. Over the 28 minute and 11 second-long video, he answers precisely 12 questions, revealing the inspiration behind the film (had a vivid dream at 19), the importance of 3D (“count the number of eyes in my face, there’s two of them”) and his favourite part of the fictional Pandora (“the floating mountains are great”). At no point in the Q&A did he address the most burning question of all: what’s👏with👏the👏Fox👏jersey? 

In the early-2000s in Featherston, South Wairarapa – a place Cameron now calls home – this cheeky wee fox face was everywhere. Touted as “the leader in motocross and mountain bike gear”, the Fox brand was emblazoned across the chests of 11-year-old boys around the region, often paired with a fetching pair of giant cargo pants and even bigger Etnies shoes. Two decades later, it seems the only man brave enough to “rock the Fox” in an extremely vast array of settings is 68 years old, and one of the wealthiest and most revered directors alive. 

Here is James Cameron rocking the Fox at a Terminator: Dark Fate panel at Comic Con:

Here is James Cameron rocking the Fox upon arriving in New Zealand to film Avatar 2: 

Here is James Cameron rocking the Fox on the set of Avatar 2: 

Here is James Cameron rocking the Fox at a panel discussion at Otago Museum: 

Here is James Cameron rocking the Fox with some unruly tourists in Wellington (Jon Landau would tweet a very similar picture, possibly cropping out Suzy Amis and Rita Ora from the frame but we simply don’t have time to get into that): 

The first question, of course, is why Fox? I emailed multiple James Cameron fan clubs around the world and not a single one came back to me. I exchanged messages with a kid I went to primary school with who dressed like James Cameron back in 2002 and is now a fashion designer but he said he was “too busy” for an interview. I made some inroads with the people at Fox NZ, but I was left with the impression they too were “too busy” for an interview. I even DM’d James Cameron himself, but he seemed “too busy” to even read it.

After throwing out lines across the country – nay, the world – I finally got a promising response from two brave sources willing to go on the record about encountering Cameron rocking the Fox in the flesh. Broadcaster Noelle McCarthy and former Dunedin mayor Aaron Hawkins were both on stage with Cameron in 2019 for a panel discussion about his Challenging the Deep exhibit at the Otago Museum. McCarthy recalled instantly clocking the Fox gear in the green room, but was more distracted by the director’s 6’2″ frame. 

“I remember thinking ‘gosh he really is very tall’, which I know is a very annoying thing to say to very tall people,” she said. “So I was kind of too busy trying not to say that to James Cameron to think too much about the Fox.” 

McCarthy, who also lives in the South Wairarapa, did not know of the Fox brand, but assumed it was “some kind of sporting gear” that Cameron was wearing. “I’d just spent two weeks before those events reading about how James Cameron likes to plot helicopter rotor physics in his spare time, and design tiny submarine balls to go to the bottom of the Mariana Trench in,” she explained. “I guess it might have crossed my mind that his choice of high-performing specialist athleisure felt appropriate that morning.” As for the overall impact of the look? “It suited him. He looked great. Ready for anything. Tall.” 

The other panellist, Aaron Hawkins, recalls fretting about the dress code in the lead up to the event. “It can be hard to pick the tone of an event and dress accordingly,” he said. The organisers asked Hawkins to wear his golden mayoral chains, to which he regrettably agreed. “This was quite soon after the election from memory, and in future I would have politely declined,” he said. After he saw what James Cameron was wearing, he admitted that “we needn’t have worried about formalities”.

“The Fox kit did seem like a curious choice, but I didn’t realise it was a ‘thing’, otherwise I would have asked,” said Hawkins. “Mostly because I’m fascinated by militant climate vegans who are also really into motorsport for some reason.” 

Zoe Walker Ahwa, editor of fashion website Ensemble, has not encountered Cameron “rocking the Fox” herself but did have a message for the director: good for you. “It’s very noughties nostalgia,” she said. “I could absolutely picture some cool young thing wearing the same top on Karangahape Road. It maybe doesn’t have quite the same effect on a very wealthy 68-year-old, but I do appreciate someone who commits to a look.” She gave special mention to the “repeat wears” of the garment, perhaps an extension of Cameron’s sustainability endeavours. 

What else could Cameron be trying to say through that silent, staring Fox? “He might be trying to convey down-to-earth relatability,” guessed Walker Ahwa, “but I think what it really says is that he doesn’t care about the messages his clothes send, that he’s ‘above’ thinking about what he wears.” She made no mention of my conspiracy theory, that Cameron is constantly trolling 20th Century Fox, now owned by Disney, who he once told to “get the fuck out of my office” when they suggested that Avatar was too long at 161 minutes. Avatar 2 is 192 minutes. 

Walker Ahwa had another suggestion that was much simpler and a bit less exciting. “Maybe he just really loves motocross!” After a little digging into forums, the truth was revealed: James Cameron does, indeed, really love motocross! In the late 90s and early 2000s he was involved in Day in the Dirt, an annual racing weekend in Los Angeles. “I have spent A LOT of time around James, and he loves moto,” wrote user AvidChimp in a VitalMX forum from 2010. “I gave him some good natured shit for having a two-stroke sound effect in T2.”

Perhaps our Jim rocking the Fox is not any kind of statement at all, but just an extremely rich and famous man wearing his down-to-earth, South Wairarapa passions on his sleeve. Cameron never responded to any of my Facebook messages, so the truth will remain a mystery for now. But for those going to see Avatar 2: The Way of Water this week, keep your eyes peeled for any dirtbike references, fleeting Fox faces or two-stroke sound effects. McCarthy, for one, “can’t wait” to see it. “Huge achievement from a Featherston filmmaker,” she beamed. 

“Hopefully he’ll do a screening at the RSA.” 

Avatar 2: The Way of Water opens in cinemas tomorrow.