Avatar Formula

WARNING LADIES AND GENTS: CONTAINS SPOILERS OF AVATAR

So Avatar was...pretty damn good. Despite the anticipation by some that it would be a $300 million dollar flop, Director James Cameron (Titanic, The Terminator, and Aliens) and his team pulled it off. I could go on and on about the superb graphics and creation of a completely new environment, but this blog is about race, and so that is what I will discuss.

Has the formula plot/story been seen somewhere else? Of course, but not in this way. This is the first film I have seen that takes a repetitious theme (Imperialism/Colonization) in American and Global History set in a completely fictional environment. If you've seen Disney's Pocahontas, you know the plot of this movie. Try watching Disney's Atlantis and you'll get the same thing (this is pretty close to fictional but is also legendary and mythical). Spin: told from John Smith's perspective.





Summary-in-seconds
Setting: Pandora (moon), 2154 (145 years away, about 4-5ish generations from now)

Americans troops and scientists go to planet in order to get a mineral that sells for $20 million per kilogram.

Problem: The mineral's largest deposit is located directly under the home of an indigenous population called the Na'vi.

Americans troops send a guy in to learn about the Na'vi from the inside. In order to do this he becomes an Avatar. Boy falls in love with girl, battle ensues.

Time for analysis
Here's something for those that compared the Na'vi to Native Americans. Generally speaking, there are two widely-held perceptions of the first people that lived here. These are the the idea of the "noble savage" and the "bloodthirsty savage." Native Americans are usually stereotyped as either warriors with loud battle cries (which can often be heard in Avatar, or primitive beings that are very connected to nature. In Cameron's film they are displayed as both, more so as the spiritual-nature-loving people than as the warriors. Only at a few moments of the film were the Na'vi displayed as individuals. There wasn't much room for character development on that side of the battle. Yes, it was told from the "John Smith" perspective, but the population was still very generalized and represented/explained through one character. How many indigenous characters can you name from Pocahontas, Atlantis, and Avatar in comparison to the colonials or settlers?

Despite some of these setbacks, the movie was still incredible and had a great deal of substance to it beyond the visual effects. By adhering to the "spiritual" and "nature" stereotypes, Cameron was able to really convey a sense of loss from the perspective of the Na'vi in terms of the odds they were set against. The film was also hugely successful in sending out messages of conserving the environment and really slowing down and paying close attention to the gifts that nature has to bring. Some thought that the message of imperialism was overkill, but they really had to just think more outside the box.

Imperialism is all in perspective. It doesn't stop at the human race. What about the Na'vi moving into the territory of all the animals that were already there and had established lifestyles? What about the vegetation that gets trampled or eaten by those animals? Anthropologists generally argue against Darwin's survival of the fittest theory. But how many of those anthropologists think it's unfair that humans kill animals to survive? Isn't that survival of the fittest? Many vegetarians and vegans argue that killing animals is cruel. But how many of those vegetarians think it is unfair that we rip corn off of stalks or that we repeatedly stab and gut pumpkins for Halloween? Who is right and who is wrong and where do we draw the line. Race, imperialism, colonization, and even some of our morals are all in perspective.