Avatar: The Way of Cameron

More war against the west?

I saw the new Avatar movie. I’ll be very brief.

I’d better start with a redeeming quality of the film, and that is the characterisation of traditional family roles. It was refreshing to see male and female characters in their traditional roles and the protagonist, Jake Sully, being a strong male character who leads, protects, and keeps his family together. And unless I wasn’t paying close enough attention I don’t think there were any queer or transgender Na’vi or reef people. It’s possible that in Pandora’s world they haven’t evolved to such enlightenment yet? But seriously I did appreciate the theme of the importance of family and the traditional male role in this context.

This sequel, for me, was a repeat of the first film, albeit moving location from the forest to the islands. Cameron has an obsession with water and the sea so it’s no wonder he has gone in this direction. The same hero’s journey story arc (and Dances with Wolves overtones) unfolds with a similar plot and a few variations thrown in (romantic interests now with the next generation, mining replaced with whaling, bad guys now bigger and blue). But what I thought was striking was the even greater cartoonish contrast between the antagonists and protagonists. The invading earthlings are no longer a complexity of well-meaning scientists wanting to know and understand the natives at loggerheads with their commercial exploitation of the planet. The antagonists are simply evil white male marines, hell-bent on breaking the spirit of the natives by taking out Sully their leader. And it is here that the message of evil white colonial exploitation of innocent native people, land and culture rings loud and clear.

You will realise of course that there are attacks on western culture from every direction, but none so strongly stated as the past sins of colonialism, racism and the slave trade. It would seem today that the entire history of the west is recounted as nothing but racist exploitation and pillage of other people and culture, and that other non-western cultures are innocent of any such sin. It seems that, in America at least, every icon of western history has to come down, being some sort of offensive and traumatic reminder of a racist, genocidal, psychopath who has been on a binge of rape and pillage for hundreds of years - only to be arrested now, after we have “woken up”. This unbalanced view of history might serve some sort of socialist revolution against western democracy but is completely disingenuous. It is this trend that Cameron amplifies in Avatar, depicting the invaders with their military and whaling technology as capitalists with a lust for violence and gain at any cost.

There is also, as it was in the first film, a strong spiritual message of pantheism. The protagonists are spiritually connected with the planet, the animals, and in particular certain trees that provide portals to their verson of a female godess, Gaia/Mother Earth. The planet, Pandora (I assume was named by the Earthlings), means "the all-endowed", "all-gifted" or "all-giving" in Greek, indicating the riches of the planet. But as we know, when Pandora opens her box all the evils of humanity are released. Again empahsising the stark contrast between the all-evil invading capitalist empire of humanity to the peaceful, environmentally conscious and responsible natives. This is different from the traditionally western monotheistic view that all have missed the mark (sin) and there is need of a saviour who is separate from his creation. This monotheistic view is packaged up with all the other negative attributes of western civilisation while a pagan alternative is offered as something better. I’m all for being good stewards of the planet, but ‘she’ is not our god.

I won’t say any more as I wanted to be very brief. The special effects and immersion of the film is spectacular, but that just makes the messaging even more powerful.

For a good summary of the attack on western culture you can’t go past Douglas Murray’s The War on the West: How to prevail in the age of unreason.

From the Archive:

Stay Within The Line

Pockets of Resistance