THIS IS WHERE WE SMURF!
THIS IS WHERE THEY DIE!
An Analysis of Stealing the Identity of The Other as it pertains to James Cameron’s “Avatar”
By Ernest M. Whiteman III
Last month, I posted a rather simplistic critique of James Cameron’s latest billion-dollar blockbuster “Avatar” on my review blog. Now with its release on the home video market, I felt now was a good time to make a more detailed analysis of the movie beyond my usual simplistic, caustic sarcasm.
In truth I have been putting this review off subconsciously for sometime after seeing it for the first and only time. As I put it off, it has gone on to become the biggest box-office winner of all time, beating even the very-sinkable “Titanic” and was even nominated for the “Best Picture” award for the 2009 Oscars. What made me hesitate? Why did I wait so long?
Perhaps it was the sense of frustration that however I viewed the movie, it will not and has not deterred many from seeing. Perhaps it was the disappointment in that the very people, whom should be offended by it, actually liked it. These are complex reactions to what is basically a computer-generated glossing of “Disney’s Pocahontas” mixed with “Dances with Wolves”.
“Avatar” takes place in an unstated future time, where Jake Sully, a handicapped former Marine is bound to take his smarter “Twin” brother’s place in a science experiment meant to bridge two cultures, which is so expensive and deemed so important to the survival of the human enterprise that they immediately hinge its success on an inexperienced, uneducated man who doesn’t know any better. That makes sense, right?
Remember all the things that people had a problem with in the Star Wars Prequels: a puerile plot, an over reliance on CGI, wooden acting, lame dialogue? The things that George Lucas was raked over the coals with, James Cameron is now praised for, even defended for. Our Geeky hypocrisy knows no bounds. Why? James Cameron updated 1950’s 3D technology.
If you have seen either “Dances with Wolves” or “Disney’s Pocahontas”, you pretty much know that sooner or later, the male lead will have to come to the rescue of the culture he now loves and identifies with. In the case of “Dances with Wolves”, the male lead actually takes the identity of the culture. It has been a long Hollywood tradition in movies that the Anglo hero adapts to the way of the “savages” becoming in essence, a better example of these “savages” in the end. This time, in “Avatar”, the white man becomes the better alien than the aliens. And that is the biggest trick it plays on its audience.
Yet, the biggest problem I had was not the blatant association of the Na’vi depictions to Plains Native American tribes, to the point of horse-riders and war whoops and war paint and feathers and the use of bows and arrows. Hell, there is even a mention of “The Four Winds” (Yeah, really!) which had me laughing out loud at its ridiculousness that folk around me stared at me, but looked away once they saw my NATIVE PRIDE.
No, what bugged me was the story point of which, after Our Hero leads the Evil Corporation to the Na’vi Home Tree, ending in its total and spectacular destruction, the Tribal Na’vi instantly trust Our Hero again because he simply rides a big, fucking red lizard. Come on. It’s like having that guy who burned down your house come back and comes to your house riding a big, red Radio Flyer and you instantly forgive him.
Yes, what bugged me the most was the goddamned laziness of the writing. Which is supposed to be a great sin in Hollywood, in movie making. It is what makes the Star Wars Prequels bad movies that earn our contempt. But “Avatar’s” biggest sin that everyone seems to want to forgive is the simple predictability of the story beats simply because it is 3D and looks great. A few examples of this:
1) When Our Hero meets the Lady Na’vi, you know from their first terse exchange, they will fall in love.
2) You know that she told him the story of the big, fucking lizard skull for a reason.
3) When we are introduced to the other Warrior Na’vi, the rival for Lady Na’vi’s affections, we all know that he will hate Our Hero at first, then respect him, then follow him, then get killed off to clear the path for Our Hero to dig trenches in the beautiful Na’vi landscape. (If you get my meaning) I think his Na’vi name translated to “Wind In His Hair”.
And the reason we forgive it all? James Cameron updated 1950’s 3D technology. Come on.
It is as Jose Armando Pratts wrote in his book “Invisible Natives”, to clear the path for this new, superior amalgamation inundated with Anglo-goodness to lead the simple tribe, what is representative of the true Na’vi male must be killed off first. To show that the Na'vi way, though having worked for many thousands of years, will not work now suddenly because of simple contrivance. They must be made visible to be rendered invisible. This happens with the death of both the Warrior leader and the Tribal Leader, who happened to be the Na’vi Lady’s father!
How many times does this Jake Sully get to fuck things up only to be forgiven time and again? It’s like have some guy that burned down your house, blow up the car your father and boyfriend are riding in and then comes back and gets that thing off the top shelf for you and you forgive him. Again. What an insult to women.
I also find something a bit dangerous about this theme of the amalgam taking an identity that is not theirs to begin with and how is subtly accepted by legions of minorities. The way another white man is depicted enveloping the identity of the Na’vi, of “The Other”. Then, we are tricked into thinking that it is not about becoming another race (in this case another species) because it is an alien this time. But make no mistake about what it should mean to we “Others”.
The ceremony at the end worried me most. Its message being clear that if a white man looks like a Na’vi, acts like a Na’vi and is trusted to help in the causes of the Na’vi, then, one simple ceremony later, a white man can BE a Na’vi forgetting everything he has done before, good or bad and without being responsible for his actions prior. It is unsettling.
Native people know that it simply is not the ceremony that makes you a Native, nor the beads and feathers, nor the causes. It goes deeper than that. Always has. Which is why I find the accepting of the identity fraud of “Avatar” a bit dangerous.
Like John Dunbar, Jack Crabb and Tom McLaughlin before him, simply assuming the identity is never going to be enough. There is more to being Native, or Na’vi in Sully’s case, than acting and looking like one. Which is where Sully differs, because his smarter, dead brother’s DNA was melded with Na’vi DNA to create the avatar. That is scary as it brings up more issues.
So, while even genetically Sully is not a true Na’vi and his Avatar identity not really his to begin with, he simply took it because he is the white hero of the story. He can claim to be one on a genetic level, a blood level, even if it is a faked, conjured link, but its acceptance suddenly gains more consideration for his learning the culture rather than consideration of those whom actually lived it for centuries. Why? He is simply the white hero.
Being Native (or Na'vi) is not just about knowing the ceremony or the history or the language, or even about blood, but the experience of all of those combined, an experience maybe one cannot get because they were never born or raised a Native. They never experienced the world, its history, its culture, or its societies as a Native. Society must treat one as a Native just as there must also be an acceptance from the Native community.
Jake Sully never had any of those, but he took them because he is the white hero. And no one had a problem with that. That we Natives accepted that is truly unsettling.
Jake Sully, despite assuming the cloned body of a Na’vi, he can never be one, ever. Besides, the fact is that it was never his at all. It was originally his smarter, caring brother’s. Here, we find another common theme, that the concept of faux-manhood masculinity ideology will always trump intellect and knowledge.
You will notice that all the scientists are all ethnic and wimpy, or women, while the military men are strong and tough looking American types. Jake Sully even admits to his brother being smarter, but he’s dead. Notice that the other scientist with a Na’vi avatar, while being a smarter white guy was gangly and weak, not man enough to get his own Na’vi ho because his avatar is killed within five minutes of fighting.
And because Jake is the white hero we some how tacitly accept too many things without question, such as that the Lady Na’vi will suddenly prefer this new Sully-amalgam over her own kind. What an insult to women.
Then, the Lady Na’vi is suddenly relegated to the traditional Indian Princess role. At first, she is wise and knowledgeable in the Na’vi way, and gives Our Hero a reason to convert (Na’vi tail).
But, would it have made more sense for a male Na’vi to teach our Male Hero how to be a MALE NA’VI? Afterwards, she suddenly becomes stupid and dependent on Sully as he subsumes his Na’vi identity and rides that big, fucking red lizard. This makes sense, right? What an insult to women.
Then, she simply latches on to him because, well, now he is the only male selection left after he had bone-headedly led the evil corporate army to their home and they nuked it killing both her father AND his rival. How convenient for him, and his mystic “braid”. (Know what I mean?)
Is it racist? You bet. But it is the super-subtle, candy-coated kind of racism that folk will defend. Defend racism simply because they really like the movie. Like the way people defended Jar Jar Binks and the Autobot Twins. They have that mental safety net of the movie being about sci-fi aliens, that, the theme is more important than the depictions, that style is more important than substance. With the excuse being that someone like me is simply “over-thinking” this simple movie, allowing people to keep from really dissecting it and keep watching with their brains turned off and shelling out bucks for tickets. Besides, no one likes to think what they like is kind of racist, so they will defend their liking of it.
Just, don't come here with your "It's about the 3D," trying to prove something to yourself...
The biggest danger is that we are once again presented another version of a white man becoming a better native than the native, but this time Indigenous cultures everywhere ACCEPT IT, because it is about aliens.
Here is one last story point, plot-hole really, that bothered me and I hope someone can answer this: at the end of the movie, after battling the humans to the point that the humans withdrew and the Na’vi allowed the geeky human scientists to stay; utterly and completely interacting with the human beings in war and in science, where the Na’vi knew they were out there, that the Avatars were indeed avatars, calling them “Dream Walkers” (or some such nonsense), the point being that they knew of the humans and interacted with them beforehand:
Why did the humans even need avatars to begin with or at all?
People who have read this, this far along may be saying that I am over-thinking it, that I am too nit-picky about the small stuff of the film. That it is not about the simplicity of the plot but the experience of seeing Pandora in 3D.
So, because of that, we can ignore the over-simplicity of the story, the one-dimensionality of the characters, the oversimplification of colonization, the dismissal of ethnic identity fraud, the huge insult to women and our military and why?
James Cameron updated 1950’s 3D technology.
Come on.
If Cameron completely re-invented 3D, why do we still need glasses?
In a couple of years, no one is going to care about “Avatar”.
Do not recommend. (But what do I know?)
© 2010 Ernest M. Whiteman III
