Ye Shall Be As Gods
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There have been quite a few interesting posts and columns about Avatar in the last few days, so I thought I would revive my bad habit of discussing film commentaries without having seen the movie in question. What most caught my attention in the responses to the film was Ross’ discussion of the role of pantheism:
Instead, “Avatar” is Cameron’s long apologia for pantheism — a faith that equates God with Nature, and calls humanity into religious communion with the natural world.
From everything I have read about Avatar, this is not the most remarkable and theologically subversive aspect of the story. Some reviews have mentioned in passing where the word avatar comes from, noting that it is the Sanskrit word used to refer to a deity that has taken human (or animal) form. The great Hindu epic cycles revolve around such avatars, chief among them Rama. In Sanskrit, the word means “descent,” and its equivalent in Christian theological language would be sunkatabasis, which means condescension. The interesting thing about the word’s use in this film is the implication that the human who takes on the form of one of the aliens is actually vastly superior to the kind of being his mind is inhabiting, and that he is willingly lowering himself to their level. In the end, he decides to protect them against others of his own kind, but this is not all that different from the idea of a deity manifesting himself to defeat the demonic forces that are menacing his people.
The humans in the story are raised up above the aliens, and their use of avatars gives them something of a god-like quality, and it seems as if the depiction of them as “crude, one-dimensional native stereotypes” helps maintain this difference very well. We see this in sci-fi stories all the time: well-meaning human visitors must come to the aid of the noble, spiritually enlightened but ultimately more primitive, somewhat helpless people who are being threatened by the exploitative humans and/or their allies. One of the first to come to mind, and one of the most obnoxious, treacly paeans to the virtues of liberal humanitarian interventionism, is Star Trek: Insurrection, whose basic storyline seems almost identical to that of Avatar.
Otherwise, the film seems to be a major studio version of Captain Planet, complete with blue-skinned heroes and devotion to Gaia, or a more technologically-savvy version of Princess Mononoke.
The interesting thing about the word’s use in this film is the implication that the human who takes on the form of one of the aliens is actually vastly superior to the kind of being his mind is inhabiting,
Call me cynical, but I sincerely doubt James Cameron was thinking of this. “Avatar” for most people today simply means a persona one adopts in a virtual world – as in World of Warcraft. It’s had this meaning in SciFi since at least the novel “Snowcrash” in the late 1980s.
But if you do think Camerson understood the original meaning of the word, than you have to recognize that the humans in the story are actually depicted as lower and more brutish than the aliens, who are practically angelic and are literally directly connected to the divine essence of the planet. So you could also argue “avatar” is being used ironically in the film – the avatars here allow lower beings to walk in the world of the Gods.
Keep reviving your bad habit. Variety is the spice of life, you know.
And well-played with “obnoxious, treacly paeans.” You’re the first to write these words on the whole internets. Although this movie review comes close with another equally unique “haughty, sanctimonious (not to mention treacly) paeans.” Call me biased, but I prefer yours better. This one is a bit too unctuous, don’t you think?
“AVATAR! Know that Britannia has entered a NEW Age of Enlightenment….”
The Ultima series used the term, possibly originating it in the tech-nerd sense, with Ultima IV. In fact, it combined a pseudo-religious sense of the term (bringing morals to a benighted world) with the idea that the player (you) was controlling a game “player” who was controlling the Avatar character in the game world.
Its culmination in this film may be a wonderful pop culture studies paper to write, however, I’d have to see this Dances With Smurfs first, and I kind of would rather avoid that.
It seems the population has lost some collective IQ points. I don’t know how many times I’ve read this silliness on pantheism (now we get to throw in Hinduism as well).
Avatar is actually theologically subversive in that it portrays an utterly NATURALISTIC explanation for religious beliefs. The Na’vi are spiritual, but Weaver’s character clearly puts it all on a biochemical basis. Pandora is literally like a giant brain. The indigenous life, all forms of it (at least complex forms like plants and animals, no idea about microbes), communicate and form one large neural network. When she says their deity is “real” before she dies, that she’s seen her, she means she has interacted with a personality formed by all life on the planet.
Not an ounce of spirit or soul or anything supernatural. It’s all natural (giving the very subversive idea that souls are essentially just your biological contents, shown dramatically as Jake’s souls is “uploaded” into the Avatar body permanently).
I can count on one hand the number of reviews and commentaries on this film that seem to fully appreciate this conceit. It is central to the film. It also makes all the “Dances with Wolves” critiques and comparisons silly, or the “native tribes were not in harmony with the Earth” critiques pointless. The Na’vi in this very fundamental way (despite the silliness of their having DNA, of all things, and essentially looking like super model vulcans with tails) are truly alien. They plug into Gaia (Pandora’s very real planetary consciousness), and have a much more harmonious (balanced is a better term) relationship with nature than humans (which have nothing like this connection with the rest of life). Once you realize the conceit, it’s silly to criticize logical consequences of it. Hammer the conceit if you want (although it’s one of the more interesting premises in Sci-Fi in a while, and they actually made it central to the story, even if hardly anyone seems to get it).
So this is simple genocide/exploitation film (and humans have been doing this long enough to make it a resonant theme), with awful dialogue, amazing visuals, and a naturalistic sci-fi premise about mind-soul-world consciousness that, while not original in the broader genre, is unique, I believe, in a major motion picture.
And, shhhh, even conservatives love it.
[...] I like that Larison also discussed Avatar in a separate post without having seen it. That’s something I enjoy doing too. [...]