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- James Cameron’s Avatar
- Life on Pandora
- Religion on Pandora
- Sex/Gender & Ethnicity/Nationality on Pandora
- Conclusion
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“Are you here to see uh-var-tar? UHHHHHH-var-tar!” The weirdos were out for opening night. And right there with them, I too was mesmerized. When it comes to “Cinema of Attractions,” James Cameron is the modern master, and Avatar is of the greatest technical achievements in film history. Years later I revisited the movie on my 50″ Panasonic 3D Plasma HDTV. By home theater standards, it was still pretty amazing–lacking the IMAX experience, however, imperfections in the writing became more apparent. My next viewing was on a small projection screen, not in 3D. The visuals suddenly seemed almost as comical as the dialogue. But there’s more to Avatar than the 3D experience. There are thick layers of cultural, political, and especially ecological ideology at play which deserve to be analyzed. It is in this vein that I offer you an essay I wrote in 2018.
This includes spoilers, including a complete synopsis of the plot, so if you’re the one who didn’t seen it, you probably should before continuing. Good luck finding a 3D option these days.
So, what has been your experience with Avatar? I look forward to reading your thoughts and feelings in the comments section at the bottom.
James Cameron’s Avatar
James Cameron is not your typical film director. With The Terminator (1984) and Aliens (1986)—his sequel to Ridley Scott’s Alien (1979)—Cameron sowed $6.4 million and $18.5 million respectively and reaped $78 million and $131 million worldwide. Aliens also managed 7 Academy Award nominations including wins for both Visual and Sound Effects. Although his next film, The Abyss (1989), brought in domestic revenues of less than its $70 million budget, the Academy recognized it with 4 nominations including another Oscar win for Visual Effects. The global market would eventually help to push The Abyss into the black by $40 million which was enough to justify a $102 million budget for Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991)—Cameron did not disappoint. In addition to 6 Academy Award nominations and Oscars for Visual Effects, Sound Effects, Sound, and Makeup, T2 made $520 million worldwide, trailing only E.T. The Extra Terrestrial (1982), Star Wars (1977), and The Empire Strikes Back (1980) among highest grossing films to that point in history. This essentially earned Cameron a blank check for any major motion picture projects going forward. He has not been frivolous with that luxury, making only three films in the three ensuing decades. After True Lies (1994) parlayed its $115 million budget into $379 million and a nomination for Visual Effects, Cameron practically began printing money with Titanic (1997) and Avatar (2009). Titanic risked $200 million and was rewarded with $2.2 billion, the first film to reach the $2 billion mark. It has since been surpassed by only one film, Avatar, which turned $237 million into nearly $2.8 billion. These two films have also combined for 23 Academy Award nominations and 14 wins. Cameron himself won Oscars in the Best Picture, Directing, and Editing categories for Titanic and was nominated in the same three categories for Avatar.[1]
Critics have unanimously praised the magnanimous accomplishment of Avatar’s 3D production. Cameron’s previous five films were nominated for Best Visual Effects and four of them won Oscars, but Avatar was “revolutionary” (Jake Coyle, Associated Press). “This is the most technically amazing motion picture to have arrived on screens in many years,” wrote James Berardinelli of ReelViews. “Avatar is an entertainment to be not just seen but absorbed on a molecular level. … Cameron aims for sheer wonderment, and he delivers” (Ty Burr, Boston Globe). As much as Cameron deserves his reputation as a master of visual storytelling, his writing will never be confused with that of a Stanley Kubrick or Woody Allen. First, the basic plot line of Avatar is painfully unoriginal. James Clark notes its relation to Drums Along the Mohawk (1939), Dances with Wolves (1990), The Last of the Mohicans (1992), and Pocahontas (1995) (Clarke 117). G. Owen Schaefer adds to this list A Man Called Horse (1970) and The Last Samurai (2003) (Schaefer 68). Second, as brilliantly as Cameron has layered these tropes with his own contributions, the dialogue is embarrassingly regressive of the already remedial writing that pervades his previous films. Roger Moore of the Orlando Sentinel, after stating unequivocally that Cameron has no equal as a visionary, acknowledged in the very same sentence Avatar’s “predictable story, clichéd dialogue and logical lapses.” Joe Neumaier of the New York Daily News quipped that, “along with the eye-popping visuals in writer-director James Cameron’s sci-fi epic, there’s also a lot of eye-rollingly silly stuff.” And Bill Goodykoontz of the Arizona Republic echoed the sentiments of many critics and moviegoers alike: “If only Cameron, who also wrote the script, had spent as much time on the story as he did the effects he uses to tell it.”[2] In one of the very few “rotten” reviews among top Rotten Tomatoes critics, Moira MacDonald of the Seattle Times put it bluntly: “Everyone recites their lines, awkwardly laying out exposition, speaking their clunky dialogue.” Tom Gunning, a film scholar famous for coining the term “cinema of attractions,” compared Avatar to the films of early filmmaking pioneer, George Méliès, suggesting that the story is only needed as a pretext for showcasing the latest wonders of special-effects technology (Fabe 185). Furthermore, as Craig Detweiler points out, films that rely on spectacle tend to age poorly.[3] Revolutionary as Avatar’s 3D production may have been, it may fare even worse to the extent that its spectacle relies upon 3D technology that may prove to be fleeting as it has in the past.
Marilyn Fabe contends that there must be more to Avatar than mere spectacle as record profits cannot be attributed to visual effects alone: “Avatar’s story is central to its appeal and plays a major role in drawing audiences back to see it multiple times” (185). So how does one manage to attract over $2 billion in profits? Thomas Elsaesser proposes that the answer is not simply to aim for the lowest common denominator, nor is it to provide something for everybody. Instead, the first key is to create a “textually coherent ambiguity” that makes sense to various age groups, national identities, ethnicities, and educational backgrounds, and at different points in history (Elsaesser 248). “Audiences like it because it is so environmentally sensitive. Academy Award voters like it because it is so multiculturally aware. Critics like it because the formula inevitably involves the loincloth-clad good guys sticking it to the military–industrial complex” (249). Most importantly, however, there is a heavy undercurrent of anti-Americanism in the film that is “just explicit enough in order to flatter Hollywood’s vast international market, while not too offensive for Americans of the relevant demographic to feel repelled or insulted by it” (253). The international market was crucial to Avatar’s unprecedented success as over 70% of gross revenues came from foreign markets. Elsaesser’s second key is to balance contradictory readings (256).
The cumulative effect of these cognitive dissonances is to provoke the spectator into actively producing his or her own reading. … [S]ince the message is fundamentally self-contradictory, unravelling its meaning results in a higher ‘ontological commitment’ on the part of the viewer to his or her particular interpretation—a commitment that works in favour of the affective bond formed with a given film. (260)
Exactly how Cameron allegedly achieved this balance is dubious as there is nothing whatsoever that is subtle about this film, a heavy-handed socio-political treatise on race, nationality, politics, and especially ecology, which will be discussed following a review of the story itself.
Life on Pandora
Disabled Marine, Jake Sully (Sam Worthington), agrees to replace his murdered brother as an “avatar” driver on the planet of Pandora where the Resources Development Agency (RDA) is mining “unobtanium” to send back to a dying earth. A local humanoid race called Na’vi live in close connection with the flora and the fauna of the ecosystem that sits atop a large unobtanium deposit. Avatars are human/Na’vi hybrid bodies linked to a human brain which, when connected, experiences the avatar body as its own. They were designed so human scientists could explore the hostile atmosphere, but also to gain the trust of the Na’vi so the RDA might negotiate peaceful access to the unobtanium. Jake is not a scientist like his brother was; he is an empty jarhead who will do anything to regain the use of his legs. This is precisely what Colonel Quaritch (Stephen Lang) is counting on. The colonel, who is in charge of the military force that protects and aids the RDA, promises the surgery Jake needs if Jake will be his inside man. Colonel Quaritch is thus an ally of Jake’s until Jake begins to connect with the Na’vi on a personal level.
Neytiri (Zoe Saldana), whose father (Wes Studi) is her tribe’s chief and whose mother (CCH Pounder) is the head priestess, saves Jake from a pack of animals and witnesses a spiritual sign when seeds from the Tree of Souls (“woodsprites”) rest upon him. He is welcomed as a sort of novice, learning their ways in preparation to become a member of the tribe. “Everything is backwards now, like out there is the true world, and in here is the dream,” Jake says to himself. With the fully functioning legs of his avatar body, Jake’s disability no longer concerns him. Colonel Quaritch hereafter become the antagonist to Jake’s new goal of protecting the Na’vi from a military attack seeking to force them from the land. When Jake becomes the first person in four generations to ride a “toruk,” he earns the respect of Neytiri’s tribe and succeeds in uniting the other local clans for the great battle. They are still overwhelmed until Eywa, the goddess made up of all living things, answer’s Jake’s prayer and sends all the animals of the forest to turn the tide. The climax features a showdown between Jake in his avatar body and Colonel Quaritch who accuses Jake of betraying his own race. Once again, defeat seems imminent when the colonel disconnects Jake’s human body from its oxygen. Instead, there is another reversal as Neytiri comes to the rescue, conquering Colonel Quaritch. When she places the oxygen mask on Jake’s human body to save his life, she sees him for the first time. Seeing is the most prevalent and important theme in the film. Cameron described Avatar as “a love story about an awakening of perception through the other person” (Pak 217). In the Na’vi language, to say “I see you” expresses a deep connection, as though you’re seeing directly into the other person’s soul with acceptance, appreciation, and love.
The hero’s journey now complete,[4] one question remains: where does Jake ultimately belong? In a religious ceremony, Jake offers his human body to Eywa and the whole tribe chants together, praying for Jake’s soul to be permanently united with his avatar body. The movie ends as Jake in his new body opens his eyes, reborn.
Religion on Pandora
Avatar is not a religious film, at least not in a traditional sense, as none of the major world religions are depicted. This should not be surprising coming from James Cameron whose scientific approach to religion has led him to “provisionally” accept the atheistic conclusion that there is no afterlife, although he claims to be “ready to amend that if I find otherwise” (Keegan 8). This provisional atheism has not stopped Cameron from appropriating symbols from various religious traditions. The term avatar, for example, comes from Hindu tradition where an avatara is a “terrestrial manifestation of a deity such as Vishnu in human or animal form to save the world from imminent destruction” (Sponsel 138). Jake, one of the “Sky People,” accordingly adopts the terrestrial form of the people he has come to save. This also parallels the Christian doctrine of the incarnation. And when the woodsprites descended upon Jake “like a dove” (see Luke 3:22), he is recognized as an anointed, or messianic, figure. Miriam Ross makes an interesting point about the “negative parallax” effect that Cameron mostly avoided, but utilized in this scene to envelope the audience into this moment as these pure spirits appear to waft into the audience: “if one buys into the divine quality of Avatar’s world, this is the moment at which the spectator is expected to connect with it spiritually” (Ross 391).[5] Later, the tree in the paradisiac garden that had claimed the life of Dr. Grace Augustine (Sigourney Weaver)—a scientist who had testified, “I don’t believe in fairy tales”—gives life to Jake. Willingly sacrificing his human body upon that tree, he is resurrected before the people in a new glorified body.[6]
These and other religious themes—including beliefs and practices of African and especially Native American tribes the Na’vi epitomize—are blended together into one animistic and pantheistic worldview of the Na’vi who worship “The Great Mother,” Eywa, “a phenomenon reminiscent of some interpretations of Gaia, the Earth as a giant superorganism with spiritual consciousness” (Sponsel 142). They are deeply religious in their respect for nature, in their connection with ancestral spirits, and especially in their communal prayer and worship. The humans, on the other hand, are completely areligious, at least from a spiritual standpoint. Colonel Quaritch’s devotion to the military way of life is religious in a way, as is RDA administrator Parker Selfridge’s (Giovanni Ribisi) commitment to mercantilism.
Carol Linnitt suggests that “believing in Na’vi religion is not unlike believing in electrical circuitry.”
Cameron collapses the distance between the mundane and the transcendent so the audience is free to submit to their sentimental sympathies without suspending their empirical sensibilities. Here we see religion freed from the mess, the inconsistency and the inaccessibility of traditional religious forms. Religion here is not bound to negotiate the troublesome questions of faith. Rather, this version of religion provides the unmediated interaction with the sacred that Christianity after the Reformation has long desired.[7]
She may or may not realize that such supposedly positive aspects of religion are not universally attractive, especially among Christians whose entire system of faith depends upon the absolute distinction between the Creator and the created. The Vatican newspaper, L’Osservatore Romano, reportedly criticized Avatar for promoting nature worship, and appropriately so.
Sex/Gender & Ethnicity/Nationality on Pandora
James Cameron always seems to make a point to showcase women with strong agency, most prominently Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) in Aliens and Sarah Connor (Linda Hamilton) in Terminator 2. Avatar is no different, featuring Neytiri, Mo’at (Neytiri’s priestess mother), Dr. Grace Augustine, and even the soldier, Trudy (Michelle Rodriguez), whom we have yet to mention. Jake may be our protagonist and hero, but he is mentored and/or rescued by each of these women at some point in the film.
Avatar makes an even stronger statement with regard to ethnicity, despite the fact that Jake is Caucasian. In addition to Africans (chattel slavery) and Native Americans (Trail of Tears), the Na’vi represent collectively all the victims of Euro-American imperialism,[8] including Middle Easterners whose oil reserves have made them targets of military occupation. In this vein, the film has been criticized for perpetuating the assumption that victims can only be delivered by one of the colonizers, the stereotypical white savior.[9] This betrays a misreading of the monomyth that underlies the hero’s journey structure. The culture that produces the hero almost always creates him (or her) in its own image. In African legends, the heroes are African. In Native American legends, the heroes are natives. In Aryan/Indian legends, the heroes are Aryan and/or Indian. American screenwriters and directors making films for a predominantly white audience will tend to default toward a white American hero except when he or she is intentionally straying from the formula to make a socio-political point. Furthermore, scholars who criticize “white savior” films of the past few decades often overlook the manner of representation which frequently favors the “ethnic other” over the Euro-American society that produced the hero. If the colonized are portrayed as victims, it’s only because the colonizers are more technologically advanced. But such “progress” is usually presented as being accompanied by a proportionate regression of morality. The imperialists have advanced knowledge without wisdom. The victims have wisdom without the advanced knowledge. A white defector like Jake, or like John Dunbar (Kevin Costner) in Dances with Wolves, comes to possesses both the knowledge of the oppressors and the superior wisdom of the oppressed. It is not the quality of whiteness that makes him or her the hero of the story. Rather, it is this unique combination of advanced knowledge with superior wisdom that empowers the protagonist to save the day. Avatar provides a perfect illustration. Clearly the white American types in the film are disparaged as shallow and rapacious. The “ethnic” Na’vi are elevated as shining examples of nobility, “far more advanced in their spirituality and ecology” (Sponsel 142). Jake’s insider knowledge of the “Sky People” coupled with his newfound spiritual connection to Eywa is what qualifies him to lead the Na’vi to victory.
Now, even if one were to deny the preference of such a reading and concede that the white protagonist is put forth as the only hope for the poor, weak, helpless, ethnic inferiors, we might ask whether the intent of the story is elicit praise for the hero on account of his or her whiteness. An allegorical interpretation of the film highlighting the association between us as spectators and Jake is insightful:
Audiences … emotionally connect with Jake because, … as spectators of Avatar sit motionless, confined to their theater seats but vicariously participating in Jake’s adventures on Pandora, so Jake experiences his heroic adventures on Pandora through his avatar while his real body remains motionless in his link container. (Fabe 186)
Could it be that Avatar and similar films actually function as parables through which we are encouraged to make the hero’s spiritual enlightenment our own? In the case of Avatar, this would mean abandoning any sense of white supremacy or American nationalism as we instead choose to identify with the oppressed.
Conclusion
As mentioned earlier, the way to make a film broadly appealing is to attract multiple points of entry and to balance contradictory readings so the viewer is able to interpret meaning for his or her own self. There is no contradictory reading for the pro-environmental message of the film, however. Rebecca Keegan submits that, through the making of Avatar, Cameron’s environmentalism graduated from a private piety to all-out evangelism (Keegan 257).[10] His solution to attract sympathy from moviegoers on both sides of the false dichotomy between science and religion was to make both the deeply religious characters (the Na’vi) and the scientists “good guys.” Conversely, the “bad guys” oppose religion and science. There is also no contradictory reading for the anti-colonialist message. But recall Elsaesser’s explanation that it is “just explicit enough in order to flatter Hollywood’s vast international market, while not too offensive for Americans of the relevant demographic to feel repelled or insulted by it” (253). The key qualifier here is “of the relevant demographic.” Apparently, Cameron did not feel it was necessary to cater to the pro-military America-first segment of the domestic market, and it’s hard to argue against the $2.8 billion that says he’s right.
Bibliography
Detweiler, Craig. “James Cameron’s Cathedral: Avatar Revives the Religious Spectacle.” Journal of Religion and Film 14.1, Article 11 (2016). <https://digitalcommons.unomaha.edu/jrf/vol14/iss1/11/>.
Elsaesser, Thomas. “James Cameron’s ‘Avatar’: Access for All.” New Review of Film and Television Studies 9.3 (2011): 247-264. <https://doi.org/10.1080/17400309.2011.585854>.
Jeserich, Florian. “Spirituality as Anti-Structure in James Cameron’s Avatar.” Journal of Religion & Film 14.1, Article 12 (2016). <https://digitalcommons.unomaha.edu/jrf/vol14/iss1/12/>.
Linnitt, Carol. “The Sacred in James Cameron’s ‘Avatar’.” Journal of Religion & Film 14.1, Article 14 (2016). <https://digitalcommons.unomaha.edu/jrf/vol14/iss1/14>.
Lyden, John C. “Avatar.” Journal of Religion and Film 14.1, Article 15 (2016). <https://digitalcommons.unomaha.edu/jrf/vol14/iss1/15>.
Ross, Miriam. “The 3-D Aesthetic: ‘Avatar’ and Hyperhaptic Visuality.” Screen 53.4 (2012): 381-397. <https://doi.org/10.1093/screen/hjs035>.
Schaefer, G. Owen. “Review of James Cameron’s Avatar.” The American Journal of Bioethics 10.2 (2010): 68-69.
Sponsel, Leslie E. Spiritual Ecology: A Quiet Revolution. Santa Barbara: Praeger, 2012.
[1] All Academy Award and budget details have been taken from https://www.imdb.com/ and all box office information has been taken from https://www.boxofficemojo.com/ [accessed in December of 2018].
[2] See https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/avatar/reviews/?type=top_critics for critic’s reviews.
[3] (Detweiler).
[4] See (Sponsel 138).
[5] See (Fabe 188-189).
[6] See (Jeserich).
[7] (Linnitt).
[8] See (Lyden).
[9] See (Pak 217).
[10] See (Sponsel 146).