I’ve been hearing quite a bit about how the story for the new film Avatar is “anti-American” or “anti-military” or whatever. I don’t really get it. I saw the movie, the images were fantastic, especially in 3D. The climactic battle sequences with rocket guns leaving 3D trails of smoke and futuristic helicopters duking it out with giant alien birds were probably the best battle sequences I’ve ever seen in cinema. The story, however, was (like Star Wars) pretty basic. Not that that’s bad, it could’ve been much much worse. It’s probably good that it was basic; makes it that much more accessible, which it almost has to be when you’re spending a bazillion dollars on the special effects.
Unlike Star Wars, though, Avatar does not take place a long time ago in another galaxy far far away, but in our future with our very own great great grandchildren (or whatever, I didn’t do the math) in our galaxy. So I guess some people are thinking “Wait a minute, are you saying that’s that what we’re gonna be like? Evil industrial money-hungry warmongers who don’t mind killing other beings who are as conscious as we are? How dare you!” Now, that could very well be exactly what Cameron is trying to say, but at no point in the movie did a character look at the camera and say “You better watch out and not end up like this, America!” so I can’t respond as if one did.
And if you do sense an anti-American theme, what about the Americans that end up being the heroes? The theme would obviously have to be that indigenous people are too stupid and weak and distrusting to save themselves and must depend on external help, and American people provide such help! American people are actually so much help that a race of thousands can be saved with just the help of three or four (short and less symmetrical) Americans! This is a message to the world! We are America; we are powerful enough to crush you, and benevolent enough to stop ourselves.
But I can’t buy any of it. Everybody agrees that war is bad. What we argue about morally and politically is the nature of its necessity. Similarly, no human is going to prefer living in a flat grey cold metal room when the beauty and wonder of Pandora is just outside the window, especially when the Na’vi (the indigenous aliens of Pandora which are conveniently quite human-like but just a bit more visually interesting) seem to stay very clean, well-fed and sheltered, out of danger, and have no waste management problems. The only reason we humans would prefer a less beautifully green living atmosphere is to make the aforementioned aspects of life more practical. A toilet may not be the most beautiful thing in the world, but it’s extremely practical. Most humans would probably want to stop being humans and become Avatars, as the main characters in the film do.
Here on Earth, you’re perfectly free to live as naturally as you want, so why don’t people who claim to want it actually pursue it? Because they don’t really want it. They want to keep using their toilets and air conditioning and email, and then complain about the evils of industry. Meanwhile, beautiful green nature will freeze you and burn you and starve you and get you dirty everywhere. Woohoo. (But not Pandora!)
I digress. In Avatar, the differences between good and evil are pretty easy to recognize. The story might’ve been more powerful (to some audiences) if the differences were more ambiguous, but that would’ve also made it more challenging, and thus more risky business-wise. If you find it anti-American, I guess it’s because you feel the film is negatively stereotyping Americans. But in the film, you really only see the Americans that are part of the story’s conflict, so you’d have to be assuming an awful lot about the Americans in that future that are not part of the battle and/or that are still on Earth. Kinda seems like you’re doing most of the stereotyping yourself.
(Also, I don’t recall America ever invading any country as different and beautiful and wondrous as Pandora, so I don’t see any important similarities between the Pandora invasion and any real-world historic or current invasions. If Cameron wanted to make a statement that such beauty and wonder are inherit in any culture we invade but are in the eyes of the beholder, he wouldn’t need many special effects for that. And he wouldn’t make as much money. And I think others have already tried.)
3 Comments
S P Hannifin · January 15, 2010 at 2:47 AM
Also, I don’t much care for the over-generalization that is forced by using the term “anti-American” or “American” … the country is made up of so much history, so many people with so many points of view, that the country does not as a whole mean anything, stand for anything particular, or have a certain personality. All that is created by simplifying. Same goes for every country, and the entire human race. Not very easy to think like that, though.
LanthonyS · January 15, 2010 at 5:14 PM
All I’ve heard is how racist it is. “The natives are there,” they say, “and then a WHITE person comes and that SAVES them. What, they were incapable of defending themselves? This is obviously a projection of how weak everyone else is, and how whites are always the her–”
SHUT UP! GAH!
Besides the fact that the creators would have to be bigger idiots than the complainers (which is unlikely) to have made such a theme, I would like to point out: who saved them? Was it seriously three whites? Could those three armymen have beat the human military alone? No? Then how are the “natives” (read: other species) not responsible for their salvation? Perhaps the three defectors had information that led to victory? Is that because they’re WHITE or because they’re part of the army, and DEFECTED FROM THE ARMY FOR THE — (sorry, let me lower my voice) — for the company of the race and place they consider superior? Uh…
Also, if anything is “anti-capitalist” or “racist”, let’s hear District 9 get some flak…
Anyway, plenty of criticism for this film, but it’s hard to decide if people arbitrarily hate it, or if they’re actually so absurd, or if it’s all a brilliant ploy by the marketing team to generate controversy and public interest in the film’s waning time in theatres.
Lastly, the only thing I’d disagree with in your post is America’s lack of invading “more lovely” lands; the Middle East is more than a desert!
S P Hannifin · January 15, 2010 at 6:36 PM
It’s funny that some people might be offended by the film’s “racism” when the Na’vi aren’t even anything like a real race. Along with your points, I’d agree that such a view of the movie makes little sense.
I think people might be hearing these criticisms before they see the movie, and then their view of the movie is kind of tainted by watching for things that fit the theme of “racism” or “anti-American”, instead of just watching the movie as a self-contained story that would’ve made sense no matter what it came out. It’s a bit like how people said the ring in the Lord of the Rings was a criticism of the atomic bomb, or something.
Anyway, I don’t mean to say that America only invades uglier lands, just that Avatar really exaggerate how beautiful nature and the natives’ way of life is. Avatar can get away with it, of course, since Pandora is a fictional planet. If you compare that Pandora to any place on Earth, there’s a magnificent difference. When America invades, there’s no way the difference can ever be that grand.
And, like war, I think all humans know invasion is bad, and that what we argue about morally and politically is its necessity.
The story of Avatar could’ve put the characters in a stronger dilemma… what if Earth was completely uninhabitable, and Pandora was a group of humans’ last chance for survival, but the Na’vi refused to share any of their resources and would rather the humans just die? The ending would have to be a lot different, but then neither side would be entirely in the right or wrong…