The Politics of "Avatar"

This has been discussed some in the main Avatar thread, but that thread is almost 800 posts as of this writing and covers any number of topics, so I think this deserves a thread of its own.

Some hay has been made in the blogosphere over whether the movie is some kind of left-wing, anti-American, anti-capitalist, anti-whatever piece of agitprop.

Personally, it seemed clear to me on leaving the theater that I’d just watched an anti-Iraq War parable. You don’t include phrases like “shock and awe”, “winning hearts and minds”, and something-else-I’m-forgetting without making it absolutely clear that that’s what you’re intending. (I heard afterwards that Cameron has said as much.) To that end, I thought it was lame: great anti-Iraq movies can be made, but when they’re as heavy-handed and simplistic as this one, it’s just eye-rolling.

To my surprise, the Iraq angle doesn’t seem to have gotten as much traction as the environmental/anti-capitalism message. The green message was obviously there; the anti-capitalism one I don’t see so much - as one critic said, if your view of capitalism matches up with the actions of the corporation trying to mine unobtainium, you don’t have a very healthy view of capitalism.

To be clear, I thought the movie was pretty terrible, but not necessarily for its message (the script, acting, editing, and yes, the look took care of that for me). The stupid Iraq parable was just the eye-rolling frosting on a pretty rotten cake.

Anyways, love it or hate it, what’s your take on this, Dope-osphere?

It’s more of a hippy-dippy 1960s message about emotion and earth-mothers and noble savages defeating evil-for-their-own-sake corporations and that darn heteronormative/patriarchal science. A few semantic references to recent political events doesn’t change the fact that the plot of the movie has nothing to do with the events of Iraq and everything to do with the oversimplified, moralizing take on Vietnam (as filtered through the Return of the Jedi/Dances With Wolves plot that is more directly based on same and that Avatar is largely lifted from) that has become a canonical part of the mainstream cinema’s view of history.

I see all your points, but why Vietnam but not Iraq? Evil-corporation-thing = American military; Na’vi = Iraqis; unobtainium = oil. What’s the Vietnam analogy? Unobtainium = the domino theory?

Any political message is skin-deep and unconvincing.

But in last week’s Entertainment Weekly, Cameron described himself as an “eco-terrorist.”

That is just laughable. Imagine how much carbon was burned making that film. Not to mention all the people who drove to theaters to see it.

But ya gotta admit. That film has really gone green. And what ever color Euros are.

Yeah. It was pretty apparent to me that the Iraq War references were tossed in at the last moment (more or less). Although the rest of the movie isn’t remotely subtle about its political POV, it at least does a semi-respectable job of weaving into the story in an immersive and internally-consistent manner. The references to “shock and awe” and “fighting terror with terror,” on the other hand, weren’t just ham-fisted - they flat-out didn’t make logical sense given the context within the movie (it’s not like the Na’vi were suicide-bombing the human compound).

It’s clear to me that Avatar is a right-wing fantasy depicting immigrants as a disruptive force. They’re physically and intellectually inferior. When they refuse to conform to the ways of the righteous, God-fearing locals, it’s acceptable to commit violence to force them either to leave or join the melting pot.

Okay, I’m kidding, but I think interpretations can be spun any which way.

Sort of funny that a film whose biggest flaw was its generic, paint-by-numbers plot is generating so much discussion about what the directors intention was.

I just don’t get why people are assuming there’s some kind of futuristicky UN-Mandate thing that’s keeping the corporation from dropping daisy-cutters on the natives, when we see the corporation making a serious effort to drop daisy-cutters on the natives. The impression I got was that slaughtering the natives would be embarassing for the corporation, but when the deadline arrived and no peaceful solution was at hand, it’s slaughtering-time.

Of course, I also don’t get why a lot of people assumed Vulcans were incapable of lying, when the episide in which the concept was introduced (TOS: “The Enterprise Incident”) shows Spock lying from beginning to end.

China pulls ‘Avatar,’ apparently for being too popular.

I haven’t seen it.

Eh, I don’t let political messages a disagree with keep me from enjoying a good film (usually). This one was good in certain ways, pedestrian in others, and kept me entertained.

Like Roger Ebert often says, it’s not what a film’s about that is important, it’s how it’s about what it’s about.

The corporation only had defensive weaponry. They didn’t have bombs, remember? They had to jury-rig bombs out of mining explosives. The fact that they corporation was required to allow the scientists to operate shows that the corp was answerable to the people back home.

I assume that Sully’s gathering of the troops was exactly the thing that the corporation (and its soldiers) thought they could spin into a reason to go on the offensive. It would be utterly unrealistic to assume that a western-style government or UN would allow carpet bombing of the only other sapient race in the universe (as far as we know) it just wouldn’t happen, the political cost would be too great.

To risk sounding like a broken record, we could destroy Saudi Arabia tomorrow and have their oil for our own. Why don’t we do it? Because the social and political costs are too great. And we don’t picture ourselves as viking raiders. No matter how valuable unobtanium is, people aren’t going to turn away from their self-image as good civilized people.

I think “Vulcans don’t lie” is a nice piece of misinformation that the Vulcans like having out there. :smiley:

Was the only way to get the unobtanium really by destroying the tree? Couldn’t they come at from the side, maybe?

They may not have had nukes, but their various aircraft were just bristling with guided missiles and whatnot, which stretches the word “defensive” pretty far. It’s not really that important - it just highlights the requirements of storytelling:

Premise 1: Humans arrive, seeking the mineral. Aliens are in the way. Humans deploy heavy weaponry, spend a few days exterminating the natives, start mining operation. Lots of cool (albeit brief) explosions and stuff, but no drama.

Premise 2: Humans arrive, seeking the mineral. Aliens are in the way. Humans are expressly forbidden from engaging in slaughter or warfare. Humans spend years trying to negotiate for the mineral. Possibly lots of drama, but no cool exposions and stuff.

Premise 3: Humans arrive, seeking mineral. Aliens are in the way. Humans adopt a half-assed approach where they’ll make some lip-service attempt at negotiation (drama) but when it’s time for the final reel, they give up on this and go for the extrermination (cool explosions and stuff). Underdog aliens eke out a victory, somehow.

Premise 3 is the one with broadest audience appeal - women get to see drama and stuff, men get to see explosions and stuff - win/win.

Personally, I’d’ve hoped for a fourth premise, where the aliens turns out to be vastly more advanced and dangerous than even the anthropologists figured, but…meh.

They were using open-pit mining. Extraction of a huge ore body using sub-surface mining would have been vastly more expensive.

Despite how it is often portrayed, the encounter of Western civilizations with native peoples has rarely involved straight attempts at extermination by the westerners from the beginning. Usually there have been a series of negotiations, conflicts, and then more negotiations rather than blasting in with guns blazing from the get-go. Even during the Spanish Conquest of the Americas, which was often brutal, there was often strong pressure from the Church to treat the natives humanely (e.g. Bartolome de las Casas). This was also the case during the Indian Wars in the western US, where there were some groups that lobbied for fairer treatment. Now at the end of the process the natives almost always ended up dispossessed, and sometimes enslaved (and some groups were exterminated), but this often took place over a long period rather than immediately.

This is actually what happened. The Na’vi themselves did some damage to the invaders, but by themselves were unable to stop them and were being slaughtered. It was the awakening of Eywa - which the anthropoligists were only barely aware of - that won the battle.

Apparentlythe Chinese have a different spin on the politics of Avatar:

It wasn’t taken to the extent that would’ve been mega-awesome, though. It was lukewarm enough that Sully could still engage in personal heroism, whereas if the entire environment went all crazy-boffo, his efforts would have been irrelevant, even comical.

Actually, one moment that kinda bugged me was the brief and tense standoff between the female Navi and the large predator. If the ecosystem was fully connected, there shouldn’t have been any such moment of hesitation where she wonders if the predator is going to attack her. It woulda been all “Let’s Rock!” and crunch and shit.

“Apparently, Avatar’s treatment of the Na’vi too closely parallels displacement of Chinese by predatory property developers.” - and if I’m not mistaken, the way China tends to annex neighbouring countries.

More expensive than hiring a army and the risk of such an enterprise? I know, not a big deal of course, just a question.

Well, those are sunk costs. You have to use them in order to claim the annual deduction. It’s called Amortal Combat.

The real answer is that if they were able to get the unobtanium without destroying the tree then they wouldn’t have a movie.:wink: