Avatar: the Spiritual Progressive Movie of the Decade?
by: Dave Belden on December 27th, 2009 | 23 Comments »
So we are deep in “Avatar” here. It came out about a week ago and my son, Rowan, home for the holidays from the USC Cinema School, has seen it three times already. Yesterday he took his mother, his aunt and myself, insisting we had to see it on the giant IMAX screen as well as in 3D. He wasn’t sure we would like the total immersion experience. We were enthralled. He and some of his friends (mostly studying video game design, not film) have no doubt it is the movie of the decade, period.
It is surely the most technically advanced movie of the decade–and given Moore’s Law that computing power for the same money doubles about every two years it’s not so ridiculous that that would happen in the last month of the decade. But as with one or two other movies that displayed major leaps forward in technology — like “Star Wars,” “Toy Story” and “Lord of the Rings” — the quality of the movie’s story telling matches its technology. That’s the surprise. Perhaps it should not be, considering the director’s last movie was “Titanic.”
The politics is an even bigger surprise. The story frontally opposes companies driven by quarterly profit reports, war on behalf of corporate interests, and destruction of local cultures and ecosystems. And it does so in a way brilliantly calculated to bring an average American audience along with it.
I don’t think I am writing anything here that is a spoiler for the movie, unless you want, as I was yesterday, to be totally ignorant of it’s basic orientation, to sit in the dark in this temple of technology and watch the opening space battle develop and dread that it would be militaristic all the way through.
The basic tale is familiar: a ruthless, profit-driven mining company moves in with military backing to take the minerals it needs. The local tribal people whose culture is in harmony with the ecosystem are about to be swept away. It’s Rio Tinto in Papua New Guinea, and stretching a little it’s George W. Bush in Iraq, and any number of other examples from the history of imperialism. Rowan read a comment that it was “Dances With Wolves” (Kostner’s movie in which as U.S. Army soldier he comes to identify with the Lakota) in space and that’s not far off either, because the native people are reminiscent of Native Americans: one of many moves calculated to bring Americans along with the story (as they would not necessarily be brought along by the Japanese movies that celebrate the force of ecology and Gaia, such as “Princess Mononoke”). It reminded me of Ursula le Guin’s beautiful, angry novel “The Word For World is Forest.”
This version, like le Guin’s, takes place in space on an alien planet. The ecology of the planet is as much the star of the show as any of the actors. The people are linked into the other living creatures of their planet in ways that are probably biologically impossible — nerve endings in their hair fuse with nerve endings on the horse and dragon equivalents that they ride, and with the soul tree that carries their ancestors’ voices, while certain flowers and trees light up as they pass. But these impossibilities are beautifully evocative of the biological truth that we are all interdependent. I won’t go into rhapsodies about how well these alien creatures are realized on screen, but they are beyond anything I could have imagined. If you want to know what it looks like to ride a virtuoso flying reptile, look no further.
The story is told through the eyes of a wounded marine who has an avatar, a native body genetically grown solely to be the vehicle for his entry into the native society as a spy. While his human body lies inert, he enters the avatar and becomes it, thrilling to its ability to run and move freely. Gradually he learns, and we with him, what the local people and their world are all about. That’s the magic of the story: the things the marine learns that we learn with him.
So here we have the most expensive movie ever made (so far as I know, though not when inflation is taken into account). A major irony for a spiritual progressive watching the film is that it:
a) captures the holistic, fully embodied spirituality of an ecologically wise tribal culture and shows how infinitely superior it is to corporate capitalist human culture (which we are told has destroyed the ecology of Earth)
b) is a product of that corporate capitalist culture. It is contributing its own vast share to global warming. (My wife was horrified to discover recently that movie sets are typically not recycled, but trashed. Were these?) A certification at the end of the credits said “no animals were harmed to make this film” but how much was our planet harmed? The electricity to run the behemoth cineplex in which we saw it (San Francisco’s Metreon) is a product of the very fossil-fuel economy that Bush went to war in Iraq to preserve. The Fox movie company has to meet the same quarterly profit goals the movie criticizes. You know all this: it’s the way our culture runs.
But there are two ways to look at this.
- “Avatar” is just more bread and circuses, a classic ploy of any sufficiently savvy, ruthless empire: give the people what they want with the utmost spectacle the technology of the day can provide. It makes the empire’s depredations more, not less, possible if the people are sufficiently distracted in this way. See the brilliant Aldous Huxley “Brave New World” version of what’s wrong with us that Peter Marmorek posted on this blog recently: we are entertained, not coerced, into passivity. The best historical analogy for “Avatar” is not necessarily the Roman Colosseum with its gladiator shows (which would work best for many Hollywood movies); it might instead be the medieval cathedral, which told a spiritual story of bringing down the ruler and lifting up the humble, though in the form of an awe-inspiring spectacle led by priests who blessed the kings and their crusades and who, even in the stained glass that told the humble story, sumptuously displayed their wealth and piety.
- The story of religion is not so simple. It is not only or always the opiate of the masses. The stories it carries can reconnect the mighty and the alienated alike to their humanity and to compassion. You could see “Avatar” as subversive. It is public education that is desperately needed. It shows that the corporate world itself is partially aware of its destructive tendencies.
If you think our civilization is already doomed by its ecological blindness and cannot be saved, then you can use this movie as an example of the bread and circuses model. But if you imagine that the Titanic we are on could be turned enough to miss the iceberg, then this movie could be evidence for you that the civilization is starting to become aware of its own destructiveness and of the alternate route it must go to save itself. I of course prefer the second. In fact in my twenties and thirties I gradually moved from a pessimism about the world that made me determine never to have children, to an embrace of hope (not necessarily evidence-based) and a decision to have faith in the future and to express it in starting my own family. So I have to say, that for my son to bring me to this movie, was a moving experience for me.
So do I answer my deliberately provocative heading for this post in the affirmative? I can’t go there. I’m not into “best of” lists anyway and am sure there are many alternatives [i.e. alternative contenders] for this title. And I haven’t even mentioned a major issue with “Avatar” which is that (SPOILER ALERT!) in opposing mad militarism it does not embrace nonviolence. In the end it embraces violence in service of ecological wholeness, a classic Hollywood decision that we could also debate. It’s not a bad choice in terms of the native culture, for the people are not living in Eden, but have to protect themselves against fiercely violent animal predators, and have experienced war as well as peace-making among themselves. But the movie doesn’t do much to attempt to model a nonviolent way of turning the local company representatives against their own mission: in the plot there isn’t time, but this choice also enables the marine to fight for the right, a more popular choice than trying to be Gandhi.
Before the movie came on, there was a very long ad for the National Reserve Guard, full of fighting images as well as heroic shots of saving babies from burning buildings. It was the most “heroic” presentation of the U.S. military that I recall seeing in an ad. The stirring orchestral, martial music that accompanied the ad was weirdly echoed by music in Avatar at some point when the native people were attacking the corporate forces.
So the ironies were many. But I have no doubt that if we manage to steer this ship of empire away from self-destruction, the ironies will multiply and heap upon themselves in astonishing profusion. No doubt many of these ironies will concern corporate people, who progressives have written off as hopeless, nonetheless helping turn the ship.
Editor’s note 2/6/10: Other Avatar posts on Tikkun Daily: Be Scofield in “Avatar and Whiteness” raises the issue of whether the movie is racist, and Eli Zaretsky in “Avatar and Freud” asks what it means that Americans love this film that contradicts their empire. The many comments on all three posts are worth reading as well.
When Will White People Stop Making Movies Like “Avatar”?
http://io9.com/5422666/when-will-white-people-stop-making-movies-like-avatar?skyline=true&s=x
“Critics have called alien epic Avatar a version of Dances With Wolves because it’s about a white guy going native and becoming a great leader. But Avatar is just the latest scifi rehash of an old white guilt fantasy. Spoilers…
Whether Avatar is racist is a matter for debate. Regardless of where you come down on that question, it’s undeniable that the film – like alien apartheid flick District 9, released earlier this year – is emphatically a fantasy about race. Specifically, it’s a fantasy about race told from the point of view of white people. Avatar and scifi films like it give us the opportunity to answer the question: What do white people fantasize about when they fantasize about racial identity?”
…
My thesis is that “white people”(sic) unconsciously realize that Europe is not the largest landmass on the planet,and that, actually, those self-designated “white” fear being engulfed by the mass of color–shades of brown to black on the planet. A “white” friend said, “I don’t know why we call ourselves white, we’re really sort of pinky-grey.” Read J. M. Blaut’s The Colonization of the World where he, a white geographer, wrote that “white” only came to be seen as a mark of anything–as in superior–after the discovery of the western hemisphere by Europeans.Boo!
I took it as wholly subversive… and a white-guilt narrative, and in no way do I take the latter as a negative. Owning-up is a process.
One batch of my own ancestors were hired specifically by the Penn’s to immigrate and commit atrocities… which of course, being good thugs, wiped out three villages of men women and children, not one human being left alive. When I was in a lodge ceremony with some native people, it was at a time I was writing a story based on that event. I felt I needed to apologize for the actions of my ancestors. They kindly nodded and then asked why I needed to do that. I realized it was just a starting point in a relationship with people I cared about and who had given me a lot in exchange for seemingly little, some tobacco. I’ve been to two Sun Dances on Pine Ridge now and was allowed to keep fire with other fire-keepers for this last one. I learned a lot and doing the work of supporting my brothers and sisters and the dancers was humbling, even a little bit of tikkun olam in a small way. Relationships are good things and if it has to start with a little leftover oppressor-guilt, so much the better, even if it’s just a moment in the path. Because that guilt tugs at you and makes sure you’re never trying to speak-for an other, but instead quiet other (whites) to do more listening to an other. If you have a privilege here and there, to exploit it to bring it down on itself so “other” is less other and more “us.”
I was reading different iterations of the script as it evolved over the past few years, so there was a definite progression towards this final version. Cameron is figuring out his process and realizing it’s no good to own-up alone and as an individual. The irony is the prior version before the shooting script was a lot more brutal on the main character’s transition than the shooting version. It was changed for the sake of time. I guess the corporate tidal mass had it’s will on the film ultimately in the end. For me that transition is where the heart of the m.c.’s process and transformation lies. As it exists in the film now, it’s also the weakest moment, a mere pivot, when before it was a roiling, battle within himself.
I’d like to go back and see it in 3D. Too much money for tix. I’d probably get really dizzy, but I’m sure it rocked.
This is a really interesting post and comment thread. I was going to wait till it comes out on Netflix but I guess I’ll just have to go see it.
This is an interesting post and comment thread. I was going to wait till it comes out on Netflix but I guess I’ll just have to go see it.
Hi Rachel, I just saw it (in IMAX/3D) and I was absolutely carried away. You must see it in a theater. I paid $17/ticket. I would pay $25 to see it again. It will not be the same on DVD. Part of the experience for me was sitting in the dark in community with a bunch of strangers and feeling some connection to the people around me in that we experienced it together.
And I usually wait for everything to come out on DVD.
It’s easier to believe in a deity when the deity really exists. Did you notice that the Nav’ii had PLUGS that they could use to speak with nature? It’s a lefty revenge fantasy.
I saw Avatar here in Thailand, where it seems to have been uniformly well received, which was not the case with say a movie like District 9. Ironically, in a conversation with a thai friend, he agreed that the movie was racist, but against whites. His view was, “why do you hate yourself so much, that the only way you can redeem yourself is by becoming another?”.
Undoubtedly, would this friend see Be’s comments, he would see it as racist as well, since it seems to assume that white people are beyond redemption, that even when they make movies against the evils in their own culture, this must be assumed not to be a good thing.
My own view, I saw the movie twice, is that the movie is not a racial movie, it shows both scales of relative goodness in the skypeople, i.e. the struggle between the wholly evil corporatist, the half good scientists, and the redemption of those that sympathise with the Naavi; but it also shows differentiated human feelings in the Naavi, who are by no means depicted in an Utopian way, just more in touch with their planet and nature, but fully subject to human flaws like jealousy, superstition, etc ..
My only beef with the movie is with the techno-bias regarding the Naavi. It assumes that only a form of biotech can achieve a spiritual unity with the natural world, while of course in reality our own native people already experience the world that way, through empathy and solidarity with their environment. (for example see the book: A Reenchanted World: The Quest For A New Kinship With Nature by James William Gibson, which is a detailed examination of totemic kinship with animals)
I did find this movie a profound experience, with left a spiritual feeling that has lasted since the 4 weeks that I saw it. It would be interesting to see how native viewers experience the movie? Has anyone seen such a reaction?
Thanks, Michel. You raise some very interesting issues. “Why do you hate yourself so much, that the only way you can redeem yourself is by becoming another?” I understand, as someone born white, male, middle class, straight (if one is born straight) in the capital city of an empire and “Commonwealth” that covered a good quarter of the world on the maps from which I learned my geography in the 1950s, that I have inherited and been molded by a whole range of arrogances (is that a word?). I don’t expect or think I deserve any sympathy for the fact that it is as a result rather difficult to feel good about myself: how could I?
And yet I am moved by this comment from your Thai friend. I crave being seen as equally worthy a human being as anyone else, in my essence, however much I still have to learn in my behavior and understanding. When I wrote novels I wrote them from the point of view of a sad man who saw himself as a “stick man,” empty beside the fullness of the woman he loved and lost, and also from the point of view of the vibrant women in these stories, who incidentally were brown skinned and bisexual. That last could be seen as another arrogance, to think I could imagine what it was like to be them, or as a deep unhappiness with my own identity (or as both at once). I keep coming back to my third and unpublished novel in which I set myself the challenge of writing about a straight man in a more positive way: I hope I finally get that one finished and published!
I rarely see movies, for I am deeply skeptical of allowing potent visual material into my imagination, particularly animated visual material. At the same time, I like to read about “significant” movies because I recognize that they do exert a powerful effect upon the collective unconscious.
I appreciate the synopsis provided by Dave Belden on Dec 27, that begins this thread, for I am not likely to see this film. However, I am curious what it means that the Avatar herein depicted is a spy who converts and becomes a sort of double-agent, ultimately siding with the tribal people he was sent to subvert.
An avatar traditionally means a manifestation or incarnation of divinity with a mission of lifting ordinary humans out of sin, sloth, and ignorance. In this case, the Avatar is redeemed from sin and ignorance by the integrity of the primitive. This seems like a post-modern gloss that posits the undefiled primitive as the repository of wisdom and integrity while the technological corporate culture is avaricious and deceitful.
However, this allegory is depicted in the most rarified and technologically advanced medium (McLuhan) now available. Does this not subvert the capacity of the primitive (good) to redeem the corporate (bad), since it all “happens” on the terms and terrain of the corporate? The viewer is left “feeling” good that primitive goodness prevails (somewhere in the galaxy), while burning a pinch of incense for Caesar here on earth (through purchasing a ticket).
The net effect, it seems to me, is that people leave the film disillusioned about the role of valid avatars (Krishna, Rama, Jesus), while “trusting” in the native goodness of the “primitive,” which in turn is only available to them through the medium (McLuhan again) of advanced, self-reified, corporate technology.
If you followed my reasoning, you will understand why I don’t see many movies. But feel free to disagree.
Some wonderful comments above! A few quick responses:
Dave, I too immediately thought of “The Word for World is Forest” as a precursor. And a wiser one, though from Le Guin, that’s not surprising. (I do note that your “editor’s note” is dated “2/6/10″ from which I infer you have a time machine you haven’t been telling us about and I, for one, want full disclosure!)
JustJack: a fascinating look behind the curtain! And as another non-first-nation person who has been greatly helped by a first-nation spiritual path, I hear what you’re saying very clearly. I particularly like the way you avoid the reduction of complex issues to simplistic dualities.
Michel: Your shared Thai perspective is interesting and useful. I have responded elsewhere (on Be’s Avatar posting) that I think the movie is more culturist than racist, and cite Wade Davis who’s exploring some similar areas to those you mention Gibson exploring. (Though I do wince slightly at the term “native”… we’re all native to somewhere, aren’t we?)
Keith: I’ll avail myself of your offer to disagree on avatars. It’s not just the Good divinities who use avatars. the snake in Eden is often seen as an avatar of Satan, and all sorts of trickster Gods use avatars. And if you don’t see many movies, I’m guessing you don’t spend much time playing massively multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPG) in which up to 30,000 players will inhabit and interact within a common world through their avatars. The wikipedia link mentions that Cameron’s film is going to be producing a similar game, in which you become a Na’vi avatar.
I also wonder about the term “primitive”> There are a number of places within the film where the Na’vi are shown to be capable of achieving things that the Terrans cannot. That they are not as technologically advanced doesn’t (to me) mean that they are primitive.
I haven’t seen the film, but it sounds like the” good” people are equated with primitive people and the ” bad” with contemporary people in corporate society. This is an unfortunate polarization since so-called primitive people can also act cruelly and violently and educated sophisticated people can be empathic, spiritual and wise. Obviously we are all interdependent and until we all realize this and learn from one another we’re condemned to continue the adversary relationships and wars that are destroying our planet.
I was very pleasantly surprised by the the message of the movie. I went with my kids thinking it would be mainly interesting from a special effects perspective. The extravagant cost and other defects (e.g. racial overtones mentioned elsewhere) pale in comparison to the potential for this movie to help Americans and others in privileged, “advanced” society to wake up to the real evils of corporate sponsored military adventures and the domination and destruction of “primitive” cultures in order to obtain their natural resources. It should be followed by teach-ins that explain how this kind of thing is still going on.
That the movie illustrates this in the context of a wounded veteran (whom Americans love to love) who has a spiritual awakening allows us to be inspired to overcome evil and develop our own divine potential. So I have to disagree with Keith about disillusioned about real avatars (saviors like Jesus and Krishna). They all taught us that we all have divine potential or biblically speaking: were made in the image of God.
I was fired up for days after the movie. Thanks for all the comments.
With considerable resistance I went along with family members to see Avatar. Much as I had anticipated, it was a very seductive spectacle. But, as such, any positive “message” that might have been conveyed was overshadowed by the means of conveying it: a massively expensive vehicle for fattening the coffers of the already rich and privileged white men. If James Cameron or anyone associated with this film had really cared about the fate of indigenous people, he/they would have at the very least donated some of the profits to indigenous peoples. With the 3-D technology, we viewers were sutured even more skillfully into the intent of the producers to lull us into a self-righteous reverie. This is the most blatant example of co-option I have ever seen. We are convinced that we are on the side of the angels because of the emotions that are wrenched from us by the visual mastery. However, the fact that we are, via 3-D, part of the film, leaves no space for critical reflection. This is something Brecht understood well and caused him to move the spectator in and out of the frame so that they might experience both emotional pathos and critical understanding. Does anyone come away from Avatar with any real awareness of how, historically and politically, indigenous peoples everywhere have been colonized, enslaved, and annihilated by imperial greed? If this film had any revolutionary intent, it would have enabled us to feel more intensely the connectedness of the world we had entered, instead of being forced to witness yet another mind-numbing battle of “good” against “evil.” I don’t mean to be churlish but let’s not forget the progressive side of “Spiritual Progressives.”
I suppose others have mentioned this already. But I just saw this movie a couple nights ago and I was immediately struck by how the plot was merely a rehash of the Tarzan and Pocahontas stories (and so powerful a plot line that it’s also been retold in Disney films). The Native Americans in Pocahontas and the apes in Tarzan become the indigenous on Pandora. Reversing who are the good guys and bad guys is not exactly a new plot but it’s a very beneficial one in our “us versus them” frame here in US of A.
Gail: Very interesting point about co-option – I am a big fan of Brecht. Hollywood, however, is not, and probably never will be. Try to “alienate” your a movie-going audience into critical thinking, and they will think critically of the film – i.e. think it is terrible. Sad but true. Avatar takes the opposite approach – not alienation from our world, but immersion in an alien world.
You seem to be criticizing the film for not offering a history lesson. That seems a bit odd to me – especially for a film that is set 150 years in the future, on a planet 6 light years away.
What if this is a film about the future? I’m not saying we don’t need history lessons as well – we do – but this might not be the right place for it. Avatar asks Americans to see indigenous/tribal/shamanic people in an integrative and positive light – as bearers of wisdom going forward – perhaps the wisdom that will help us rescue our ailing planet. The fact that America was capable of invading Iraq to begin with shows a serious lack in the culture when it comes to “seeing the other” – and “seeing the other” is what Avatar is all about. The phrase “I see you is repeated about a dozen times (half of these are in the alien language, but they’re there for people who are paying attention). This film does have a lesson – a lesson in ethics and open-mindedness. For one film, I think that’s lesson enough.
I totally respect and appreciate the perspectives offered by Gail S and Coleen R above but agree with johnathan that most of the viewers of the film would never see a more critical and historically sophisticated, less “spectacular” film.
Maybe this movie will cause some young folks to decide to hold off on their military application and instead join the Peace Corp or an NGO working in solidarity with indigenous people.
And Gail, are you sure Cameron is not donating any profits to the causes you suggest? I tried to google one of the film credits listed after the movie— called something like: “Indigenous Film Partners” but got info that didn’t seem applicable. I think we should check on what Cameron plans to do with all the loot and if its not satisfactory we should hold his you know what to the fire—-at least send him some correspondence. I know of several campesino-based human rights groups in Honduras and Nicaragua worthy of such a donation. Any other takers?
Like a number of others who have commented, I saw Avatar not expecting much more than awesome special effects and an adventure science fiction movie, and I saw it because my 28 year old son strongly encouraged me to see it. But I was gradually amazed by the sensitivity of the plot, the obvious political awareness of the film originator in impactfully depicting the horrors of the American military industrial complex, the ruthlessness of economics over people, the complete lack of concern and caring by our government powers of cultures different from our own, the affirmation of native spirituality–inclusive of shamansim and psychic powers, etc. Yes there was much violence in the movie and it certainly was not a movie that demonstrates the effiacy of an anti-war strategy for worldwide peace. But the message against the American status quo was a tremendously strong one, and I believe it may have a huge impact on many young people. My son also recommended to me to read Aldous Huxley’s book “Island” and there are many similarities with the Western exploitation of the spiritually advanced people on the “island” to the natives in Avatar. Who knows–perhaps somehow the Left can make good use of the movie Avatar to promote awareness of the devastating effects of increased war and killing of innocent civilians by drones in Afghanistan and Pakistan??
I am glad to hear from Jim Fleming that Avatar, the movie, would cause viewers to doubts the wisdom of military invasions and conquests. Considering that movies are now the arbiters of Truth and Valor in our debilitated culture, I am grateful to hear of movies that convey some degree of caution to would-be imperialists. Several questions remain to be clarified, however.
* Are movies capable of motivating people to act on the insights they artfully instill – or do movies instill artificial “feelings” that substitute for the righteous indignation which is needed for prophetic or even desperate action. Judging by the notable passivity of our culture in the face of the unwarranted invasion of Iraq, the sexual abuse of Iraqi prisoners, the bellicose rhetoric directed against Iran and Muslims of all stripes and turbans, and the high crimes and misdemeanors of our elected officials and financial leaders, it appears that movies instill “feelings” that lead nowhere. That appears to me to be part and parcel of their purpose.
* Again, citing McLuhan, the medium is the message; the pacified audience yields its credulity to the medium in the darkened chamber of illusions which we call the movie theater. The more lavish the illusion, the more credulous is the pacified audience. They may leave with intensified “feelings,” but do they have the moral fiber to challenge the injustices that surround them – indeed which threaten their very survival?
* Moreover, if movies have become the touchstone of reality and the first topic of most social conversation, does the drab hum-drum of daily life have any relevance at all? As long as there is another 3-D spectacle to view, what does it matter that Uncle George is out of work, Aunt Mary has cancer but no health insurance, tuition has tripled, or that drones demolish villages in Afghanistan? The drab reality of the tangible is made irrelevant by the vivid presentation of the illusory.
* Even if movies are capable of instilling righteous indignation – for which I see little evidence – is this the most reliable or effective means for building social cohesion around projects which require righteous indignation? The trouble with movies is that one has to actually see them in order to acquire the “feelings” they instill. Large segments of the population choose to see movies that reinforce their particular cultural or theological perspective. Fundamentalists flocked to see the Passion of Christ, white supremacist flocked to see Birth of a Nation, while progressives flocked to see An Inconvenient Truth. Each group has a “feeling” that they have received a transcendent revelation of The Truth, yet they are less and less able to communicate with each other. Hence the movie has isolated each group in its own illusory universe, without a common vocabulary or emotional frame of reference.
I concede that this is not the worst of situations and that previous generations had no monopoly on moral reckoning. Indeed, they made terrible mistakes both individually and collectively. Even so, I suspect that the oil well, the internal combustion engine, and the jet engine will wreak more destruction on our species than all the wars, disasters, plagues, and injustices of prior history. And while this destruction is happening, vast sums will be spent on titillating illusory spectacles of ever greater sophistication.
How revivifying (word? my own?) to fall into the mindful mosh pit all of you have created; thank you for new insights and thought seeds.
Unfortunately, I think you, we, may be but a small % of the film’s viewers who actually want to weigh its values compared to the masses who will soon be adapting Na’vi styles and fashions: look for feathered and beaded clothing and jewellery, painted and bejewelled skin effects, braids and plaits and barefoot runners coming soon to your neighbourhoood. Inevitably.
Is that beside the point in such a forum as this? Or does it in part reinforce the point that whatever its wonders and powers, Avatar is ultimately yet another commercial juggernaut…
While I agree with Keith’s take in most cases, I have trouble with the glorification of movies capable of installing righteous indignation; I don’t see it as ever being a “means for building social cohesion”, or as promoting any positive outcome. I think a subjective sense of one’s own righteousness is the source of almost all historical and contemporary conflict, implying as it does “wrongfulness”, and coming from a place of judgement. I’m sure the Christian Right, fundamentalist Muslims, fiercely Aryan Germans and Stephen Harper all felt or feel a sense of righteousness; I see indignation as the foundation of anger and, in worst case scenarios, eventual violence. It’s simply not a position from which we’re likely to progress in any manner that serves to solve problems, but one that will only exacerbate differences.
On another note entirely, I came away from the film with an awareness that seems convincing: Yahweh > YaWe > Eywa. Is Cameron messing with our minds? (Well, yeah, but specifically in this case?) Is he consciously or un promoting the Judeo-Christian structure, even among “primitives”? I have to believe he’s a man who is aware of every such nuance…
And what action does the film make me want to take? (Apart from twining my hair into that of my favourite tree and horse in order to mind-meld with them…) I’m already a Pantheist of the first order, I reuse/repurpose/recycle, I’ve been known to exercise both clairvoyance and clairaudience, I turn off the tap while I brush, I don’t use pesticides in my garden, I buy free-trade where and when I’m able, and like so many before me, “I am closest to God in my garden”. I cannot think, however, of another specific action the movie stimulates me to take on. So while it confirms what I believe to be true and valuable, apart from that it’s but a lovely story – albeit not a new one, as so many have accurately indicated, and one that references even older parables, those of the Wounded Healer, as far back as Asclepius and Chiron.
While I remain haunted by the stunning visuals and extraordinary imagination of Cameron and his gifted crew, I think the film ultimately fails to teach us anything new, and I suspect its impact on the culture at large will be insignificant. I hope I’m wrong.
Kris
I came across your name in this entry–are you the k b-a from Oakville–if so how are you doing?
Guy
Actually, there have been several political actions begun as reactions to theater pieces. I’m not sure I’ve ever heard of a movie inciting people to action, but it’s certainly possible.
Dave, I just posted a response to your thoughts about whether Avatar is racist or not — as a post here http://www.tikkun.org/tikkundaily/2010/01/18/avatar-its-not-just-about-whiteness/. Go check it out.