How to Like Avatar Without Being an Imperialist Sympathizer
So Avatar, right? It’s pretty. We can all agree that it’s pretty. So let’s move on.
I nearly refused to go see this movie with my family for my Dad’s birthday because, and I quote myself, “I don’t want to see the Magical White Boy go save the Hapless Ethnics from his own culture.” Because the Magical White Boy (or its corollary, the Magical White Schoolteacher) is a well-known trope of storytellers who feel guilty about their hegemonic dominance but don’t quite understand it nor want to ever actually let go of it. The Magical White Boy is the story of the hero (white and male, from an overwhelmingly white and male background) who encounters a foreign/alien/ethnic culture about to be abused by his own dominant white culture, goes native, and then leads the hapless primitives in a popular uprising against his own culture. It implies, rather disgustingly, that the Hapless Ethnics can only win when they have the Magical White Boy on their side. But it’s a win-win for all the white kids watching the movie: their aspiration-figure is (a) white like them, (b) on the side of right, and (c) still comfortably white like them. It’s cowardly and facile storytelling, and I’m already bored just describing it in this paragraph.
But Avatar isn’t about a Magical White Boy saving the Hapless Ethnics.
(Massive spoilers ensue.)
Sure, the humans in the story are all white and male (I was counting; you know how many non-white soldiers there were, even in the background? Two. Out of a hundred or so.). Sure, the blue aliens created with motion capture are all, under the CGI layer, portrayed by brown and black actors. Sure, the main character, white and male and totally lacking in characterization, does indeed encounter the Na’vi, join them, and fight the big, bad humans. Hell, Avatar thinks it’s a Magical White Boy film, but it’s… well, it’s not.
In Which I Construct My Own Backstory
Consider the following:
- Every animal on Pandora has four eyes, six limbs, and breathes through aspirators in their chest. Except the Na’vi, who have two eyes, four limbs, and noses.
- As Jake Sully says in one of his video journals, the Na’vi don’t want anything the humans have. They are completely self-sufficient and content with what they have.
- The planet features strange stone constructions with no feasible natural cause.
- The entire biosphere of the planet is connected in a data network of staggering proportions.
- Within that data network exists an entity with its own will. The Na’vi call it Eywa; I call it an AI. Sort of a green SkyNet.
- All the animals on Pandora have paired interface-tendrils of the sides of their heads. The Na’vi have one.
There’s no evolutionary reason, even if you’re working under the Gaia Hypothesis, for the entire planet to be networked. Organisms aren’t going to just link up, especially cross-species, to exchange data. Certainly not the entire fucking planet. That’s just too damned convenient for the end-users of this massive network. And who are the end users? The Na’vi, who happen to have some pretty profound morphological disparities with the rest of the planet.
Putting all that together, I come to one conclusion: Pandora is an constructed ecology created by the ancestors of the Na’vi, who modified themselves to be able to interface and control all the incredible biological technology that Pandora comprises. Perhaps the current Na’vi do not remember this; maybe their ancestors created the planet for their children as a sort of paradise. Nevertheless, the Na’vi live on a planet that is perfectly tailored to their needs. Sure, they carry bows and arrows, but they aren’t at a technological disadvantage when compared to the humans — as evidenced by the conclusion of the movie.
Oppression Requires Oppressors and the Oppressed
This puts the Na’vi at a profoundly different footing when compared to the humans. Sure, the humans call them savages. Of course, the Na’vi call the humans savages, too. The humans call them ignorant, and the Na’vi return the favor. Any claim of cultural superiority is pretty specious to begin with, but note that every allegation leveled at the Na’vi is reflected right back.
Also note that the humans, at the start of the movie, are not oppressing anybody. They came to the planet, they started mining their unobtainium (which would have been a great name if it was dropped once, in which case it would have been a funny nickname for an unnamed commodity, but was used twice, so it was confirmed as the actual, unfortunate, name). They set up schools to attempt cross-cultural communication and attempted some sort of trade, which the Na’vi refused. But at the start of the movie, there is no mention of the humans displacing the Na’vi or taking anything by force. So despite the big piles of military equipment, the humans are not starting off the movie as oppressors.
So what do we have left? We have two cultures in juxtaposition. Neither is technologically superior. Neither is culturally superior, whatever that might mean. Neither is oppressing the other. What we have, even if we don’t know it at the start of the movie, is two cultures meeting as equals. Neither of them believes the other culture is their equal, but that’s what we have. The corollaries that you might make between this movie and the real-world collisions of white and black, white and red, crusader and arab, colonist and aborigine… none of them actually hold water. The essential ingredient for a criticism of oppression or hegemony is a disparity between the sides portrayed, and that is profoundly missing once you look at the specifics of the situation.
Even if you don’t accept my little constructed-planet backstory, the specifics don’t change. The humans and the Na’vi are equals in terms of technology and military power — the Na’vi’s tech is just alien and biological, and their military power is unmobilized at the start of the movie. Whether or not the Na’vi are actually an elder race, they’re still entering the game on equal footing with the humans; they can’t cry oppression.
Escalation of Assholery and Jake Sully
These two equal cultures face off. One completely spurns the other, which you’ve got to admit is not very nice. Of course, the other one goes and blows up the other’s home, which isn’t exactly neighborly, either. So what we have is a sort of escalation of assholery. In the midst of it we have Jake Sully.
There’s a lot of bluster about Jake being a “traitor to his race,” but it’s hardly a favor that Jake switches sides and joins the Na’vi. It’s no commentary on real-world race relations or real-world history; most importantly, it means that Jake Sully isn’t a Magical White Boy out to save the noble savages. Jake’s just a guy who chooses between two cultures, one of which offers to gives him his legs back at the cost of being an asshole and the other which gives him a new body, a hot girlfriend, and a respected place in society for the cost of… pretty much nothing at all. What a heroic decision!
To clarify: there are and were profound instances of oppression between races in our history and current events. I am not commenting on those by any means, and that’s because Avatar isn’t commenting on them. It might be trying, but it misses the mark by a wide margin. In fact, you might say that the most telling criticism of Avatar is how poorly it portrays cross-racial and cross-cultural oppression by empowering the “primitives.” Because, by giving them their arboreal internet, green SkyNet, and happy animal friends, the movie erases the disparity of power that would have made the humans real oppressors. It thereby might be construed to imply that the Iroquois, the Gabi Gabi, the Hawaiians, the Seljuks, and every other loser of cross-cultural war lost, not because of massive disparities in military and economic power, but because they didn’t try hard enough. Which, in addition to being offensive, is just stupid.
Instead, I prefer to remember Avatar as the movie about the two cultures meeting, one of them acting like assholes, and the other culture righteously beating the shit out of them with pet dragons, Earthmother SkyNet, and arrows the size of fucking spears.
December 22nd, 2009 at 11:08 pm
We’ll see how well this holds up when Cameron makes the two sequels he wants to make.
It’s a good thing they’re pretty.
December 23rd, 2009 at 4:50 am
The idea that Pandora is a post-singularity world is a brilliant alternate explanation for what we see in the movie.
December 23rd, 2009 at 9:14 am
There is also another possibility besides the Constructed Planet Hypothesis – Evolutionary divergence only began _after_ the creation of the neural network, aka Early Neural Network Evolution. There was one proto-dinosaur/mammal creature that learned to connect to each other and also learned to connect to this tree/plant/bush thing (maybe that came later), and because of this this creature pretty much took over most of the planet (at least what we saw in the movie – they didn’t show any sea creatures). This animal type then diverged once it dominated the majority of the ecosystems because while it had a ‘cheat code’ to winning its fights with other animals it had environmental demands that required it to survive in different ways. It hadn’t developed a real consciousness at all yet because the shared networking allowed it to boost its thinking and the like and thus didn’t have a need for it then, not to mention a less powerful brain requires less energy and thus is easier for it to survive, etc..
Eventually, environmental factors forced the various mutations into new species and the almost mammal like ‘dragons’ were born that are more akin to bats than flying lizards (imo), not to mention the horse type, jaguar type, rhino type, etc. creatures. The Na’vi are perhaps one of the earliest mutations with their single connection and their noses, or perhaps the other animals with their chest based breathing system was an off-shoot of the proto-creature. Until we have archeological access we won’t know. Also, one other thing of note. I _believe_ (I guess I’ll have to go see the film again) that the monkeys seen shortly in the film also had noses and not chest nostrils. That could show the evolutionary divergence wasn’t just with the Na’vi and would support my theory – if it’s the other way around it probably supports your theory.
Also, I think Cameron knew what he was doing here. All these choices he made are deliberate, and I’m sure he’s aware of Joe Campbell and also your Magic White Boy Theory. I think this was an attempt by him to short circuit the Magic White Boy trope so that people who enjoy that sort of thing (aka children of Republicans, etc.) can enjoy this movie, and later on maybe come to a fuller and deeper realization like you did.
As for Jake Sully being Heroic he ends up being more along the lines of an Odysseus than an Achilles, which for me is awesome. His only really crazy thing he does is go get that Killa Dragon Bird, and he does it because he needs to get the Na’vi to listen to him because he already screwed himself over with the humans (he let his Na’vi hormones get the better of him) and they’re _never_ going to give him his legs back now, so he goes and gets the bird using his cunning, not his Heroic Awesomeness. HELL, he doesn’t even kill the main bad guy, his girlfriend does that, which is awesome.
Also one other note – they don’t _really_ address this in the film, but if the Na’vi got that many people together in one place they’d need a lot of food for their big strong brains and their big strong neural network. Fortunately, Cameron realized this and pulled a good Refrigerator Trick (Alfred Hitchcock – I only have to trick you into believing in my film until you get home and open your refrigerator) by having the security general/dude have one line saying that the Na’vi all were able to mass together in just one day Don’t'cha love the benefits of flight!
What do you think?
December 23rd, 2009 at 4:58 pm
Its an interesting thing, in real world history, how close to winning several Native groups (including the NE coast tribes and the Aztecs) actually did come to winning. In fact, the normal “massive disparity of military power” is really only accurate in response to later periods of history. It was a near thing in the early days, and that whites weren’t beaten by, say, the Iroquois confederation, was largely simply because at that point it wasn’t a “whites vs Indians” fight. If it was, we may have lost.
I bring this up not because it contradicts your points, but because its an interesting bit that a lot of folks don’t realize. We’ve gotten so used to the Last of the Mohicans idea of “when the white man came, inevitably the Indians lost because white people had numbers and guns” that the actual history of it gets often overlooked. (Along with the fact that there are still Mochians, and Mohegans, they didn’t disappear — Cooper just assumed they must have because he didn’t see them anymore.)
All of which could, you know, have been used in Avatar, but weren’t. Much like your ideas are quite interesting, but alas, I can’t see them actually being what the movie was trying to do. If it was, it’d have been better. Maybe you should be paid millions of dollars a year to write movies?
December 24th, 2009 at 12:34 pm
Brand, I agree with you in all points, especially those that say I should be paid millions of dollars. I am curious if, at those points of history where it wasn’t a sure things that Whitey would win, if Whitey could be considered an oppressor yet.
Gulik, I totally buy data-transmission cropping up somewhere (and I’m sure there are real-world examples in Earth’s ecology), but I have real issues with everything being linked up to the same network and the superusers who have access to everything they need through that network not having had to conquer their way to that primary position.
December 28th, 2009 at 10:16 am
Josh – But the Na’vi DID have to conquer their way to that position. They are hunters and they’ve become quite adept at working in groups and hunting down the other animals.
Also – I went and rewatched the movie last night. The Lemur/Monkeys all have 1 single connector at the back of their head (like the Na’vi) and they all have noses (and no chest breathing devices). ALSO, the flying creatures and the land creatures had some interesting differences between them, but also some very strong similarities (their chest nose thingies were different – their crests, etc.).
I think my theory of there having been ONE species of interconnected animal that basically over ran then ENTIRE land/air system and then diversified is the theory they worked off of for this movie. There are other creatures that aren’t part of the system, but they’re either in the sea or a non-major part of the system (the whirly bird/lizards/bugs).
December 29th, 2009 at 1:44 am
This is the sort of analysis that I wish were the real backstory, but which, through a regime of cinematic nut-punches, Hollywood has trained me to think highly unlikely.
Regarding the evolutionary history of the world, another possibility is that the planetary AI is the generative lifeform which has evolved and in turn created the various autonomous consciousnesses which inhabit the ecosystem. It seems to me that the AI really saved the day after the Na’vi ineptly battered their low-tech heads against a wall of steel.
February 8th, 2010 at 9:11 pm
Avatar is fun and colorful – and ludicrously stupid from any perspective you want to use to look at it (as is the politics of victimization you seem to like so much).
If Avatar were realistic – the Na’vi would be poor, dirty, uneducated, ravaged by disease, superstitious and religious fanatics, treat their women as either chattel or slaves, and be at constant war with one another. They’d be victims alright, but of their own sad existence.
.
February 10th, 2010 at 10:36 am
Another way to take the oppressor thing, is not to just say the most powerful person in any given conflict is an oppressor, but the one who is being an ignorant twat! It’s not some evil cultural hegemony if people are saying “wow that way of doing things is much better, I’m going to pick up some of that culture”, you don’t go “No don’t listen to me, and join my side, that’ll mean I’m oppressing you!” or something silly like that!
So power differential shouldn’t be the criteria for whether someone is being oppressive, the difference is whether you’re actively working against someone’s comfort and culture, refusing to understand them and just bulldozing them out your way or forcing them to participate in your plans against their will, by force alone.
That puts the in the humans in the position of crappy oppressors, they would be if they were powerful enough, they just suck at it. And they lose for the same reason they start attacking; they are really ignorant!
And Jake does help them win, but not for the tarzan reason “a white man in your environment will do it better than you” but because he brings deviousness and hope from human culture. He actually prays to the tree, which none of the Na’vi got round to doing because they are too fatalist.
So he’s not a magic white boy, he wins for a non-magic cultural reason that suggests a bit of cross-species chatting might be quite handy.