One of Avatar's many unintentional ironies (they have to be unintentional, right?) is how, even though it's about the use of technology to transcend technology and return to a noble precapitalist Eden, the movie itself is a triumph of both technology and capitalism.
Amen. These are just a few of the critical strands that raise my hackles and make me want to dismiss the whole thing as a corporate monstrosity whose sole purpose is to sell Big Macs to obese suburban youngsters. Oh, and let's not forget this. On a whim, I just Googled "Avatar orientalism," and this was the first hit (note to self: stop worrying so much if your mom/PhD adviser/landlord reads your blog and just make it available to search engines, already -- at this very minute, someone out there is desperately Googling "falling Paul de Man strip-mall" and coming up woefully empty-handed!). That blog post doesn't specifically mention Chateaubriand or his seminal work in the native-girl-makes-good genre, Atala, but when I first saw the splashy posters of Zoe Saldana all pliant and seductive-eyed, I immediately thought of that, mixed in with the Persians from 300, and how everyone got all up in arms about their overt sexualization -- but, of course, a girl being sexualized in Hollywood is like falling off a log, so.
As I said, I have every reason to hate Avatar. Every reason to walk out halfway through when I went to watch it tonight, in all its ridiculous 3D glasses glory. But, no. I sat through the whole thing -- and grinned like a blithering idiot through all two hours and forty minutes of it.
Here's the thing that no review of Avatar will tell you about Avatar: spoiler alert! it's about American cultural mythology. I know, I know... you might protest that I always reduce things to American cultural mythology, possibly because I still don't feel fully 100% integrated into your Borg or whatever, and that's just how I happen to approach your strange, inscrutable culture. But this time, I really mean it. Avatar is a glorious paean to America's perception of itself, in full-on technicolor rainbow capitalist mass-market new hoozit splendor. And guess what? Spoiler alert! America is pretty fucking cool.
But let's be clear here. There are ways of showcasing America's perception of itself that lack any self-awareness or sophistication, but unwittingly expose the ugly reality behind blind, narcissistic jingoism. Avatar is a far more nuanced exploration of the hidden binary framework behind America The Allegedly Beautiful, and in a way this answers some of the criticism about the storyline being dated and redundant. At heart, Avatar does what all those other movies (Dances with Wolves, espcially) do, but much more balls-out extravagantly, by merging the two archetypes nearest and dearest to American hearts: cowboys and Indians. And somewhere in that unstable melange, a nation was born -- or, perhaps more accurately, a nation's belief about itself, which is no less powerful.
Allow me to elaborate. The main character of the film, Jake Sully, is a typical American cowboy. Now, when I think of the archetypal American cowboy, I don't necessarily think Clint Eastwood or John Wayne; no, I'm a child of the 80s and 90s, and the first mental image that cowboy-as-archetype conjures up in my mind is that scene from Indiana Jones: Raiders of the Lost Ark. You know the one. Indy is in the marketplace, fighting all sorts of devilish Arabic bad guys (I'll hold off on the orientalist critique on this one, because it's fucking Indiana Jones, okay?), and just as he's done demolishing all of the lesser minions, the big boss with the scary swords comes out to play. Big Boss does an impressive sword routine, almost certainly taught to him by his father, and his father's father, and etc. etc. And then Indy pulls out a pistol and shoots him in the face*.
That, ladies and gentlemen, is an American cowboy. He has no time for silly rituals, costumes, or tribal dances. He's not going to play by centuries-long rules, because he recognizes their inherent absurdity. And that, like it or not, is why America is on top of the game of global domination. It doesn't play by the rules. It doesn't really care about your Tree of Life, or your fuzzy-wuzzy quasi-Taoist global ecology movement, and especially not about your stupid glow-in-the-dark Ancestors. It just comes along, shoots you in the face, and gets what it wants for it and its own. And that's who Jake Sully is. He breaks the rules. Spoiler alert! He tames the big fucking dragon that nobody else can tame, because instead of cowering in fear, he just flies a little higher and jumps on the back of that sucker. And hell, that's obviously why the hottest chick in the village falls for him. Why else would she risk life, limb, and tribe for some ghostwalking schmuck? Why? Because we girls love our Dirty Harrys and our Indiana Joneses, and all those other untameable bad boys who might break our hearts, and who just need some sweet, sensual, monogamous-for-life-because-the-Tree-of-Life-SAID-so lovin'. Or so I've heard.
But, obviously, the cowboy thing is not all there is to Jake Sully. And, as I've mentioned, it's always that noble savage, doe-eyed native girl -- from Atala to Pocahantas -- who's instrumental in coaxing it out. Because the cowboy thing is not all there is to America, either. America loves its unrepentant opportunists, but it also loves the underdog. Again, see here. I'm not sure if this is the product of a long-standing colonial/continental inferiority complex, but there's definitely a hidden streak in the American popular imagination that gets off on thumbing its nose to "the man." The scrappy underdog versus slick establishment dynamic is omnipresent in Hollywood film, perhaps nowhere more clearly than that other great Harrison Ford franchise, Star Wars. The battle between Empire and rebellion has been the building-block of countless features, both big and small screen (the brilliant Firefly being an outstanding representation of the latter), and this dynamic relies to some extent on the sheer, ridiculous hopelessness of the battle (arrows and dragons and Nature against machine guns, yeah sure) but most importantly on the inevitable triumph of blithe idealism, no matter how absurd. And it's this tree-hugging, grassroots-network-forming, Obama-electing, kinder-gentler facet of America that saves it from being a complete monster. Because while America may steal your land and plow over your civilization, it will still continue to offer its children the attractive alternative of saying to hell with it, jumping ship, and going native. All the unobtainium in the world (seriously, UNOBTAINIUM; surreptitiously add that to the list of reasons why I should hate this movie) can't buy the things Jake Sully really wants. He wants to live free, to fly, to run, and to sex his hot 8-foot-tall blue girlfriend. He doesn't want to be generalissimo of the space brigade, or the head honcho of a big multinational corporation, or an orthodontist. He doesn't even really want to be chieftain of the Na'vi tribe. What he really wants is what this movie sells to you for a measly 10 bucks (with free 3D glasses! Does not include the price of popcorn): visceral pleasure. And on that front, it delivers. In buckets.
This is getting about as absurdly long and bloated as your average James Cameron fare, so I'll leave possible talk of the geeky-gamer implications (aka my favorite topic ever: CYBORG BODIES) for a future entry and close by giving the final word to Science. Sort of. According to Google, one hit of acid costs about 10 dollars. Avatar cost about 200 million dollars to make. So, if 200,000 people go see this movie instead of taking a hit of acid -- which is essentially what this tripped-out glo-light thrill-ride accomplishes -- the US economy will actually benefit, because that money will leave the realm of untaxed under-the-table transactions. And this is why James Cameron spending the GDP of a small nation on one movie makes sense. Yes. At least, I think this is how economics works. I don't know; I just read books.
*May not be actual shot in the face: this scene comes to you from the working memory of my eight-year-old self
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