Why Avatar is Cool

Hey, I loved all those guest posts that came in the last few weeks!  (And you faithful readers of this blog, I'm sure you'll concur--they were great and thought-provoking.)  So don't stop now, just because I'm back from my vacation!  Keep those guest posts coming!  We need you to help us keep charting brave new territory!

So I became the last person on earth to see Avatar last weekend.  Despite my fawning title to this post, I was more impressed (how could one not be impressed?) than entranced.  But my very empathic and spiritual eleven-year-old son was beyond entranced.  He was a danger to those around him.  He persistently was so enthralled that he'd manically bounce up and down and beat on the chair in front of him--which was, in fact, occupied by a man who'd brought his family.  I was a bit sleepy at the start of the movie and I snapped to from a brief nod-off to see this poor man glaring at me, which left me entirely bewildered.  Until I saw the manic boy next to me. 

So why was my eleven-year-old so enthralled?  I asked him and got a mildly incoherent reply.  It's the environmentalist in him (as a second grader, he'd cry himself to sleep over the vanishing Amazon rainforest--you'd have to know him to understand).  It's the astounding 3-D immersion experience.  (And touche to that one.)  It's the exciting adventure.

But I wonder if some of it is the promise of transformation.  One take on this movie would say it's about a man who desperately wants to be someone else.  Beyond wanting to be strong and fast and non-gravity bound rather than being crippled, he also wants to be connected to the earth and to profound spirituality rather than being trapped in the crude and technocratic world he lives in.  And his own passion for that and his belief in this transforming mysticism works a miracle along these lines.  I think that yearning was really powerful for my eleven-year-old.

I find myself wondering, if I'm tracking with this side of Avatar, what that says about its immense popularity.  Clearly part of its popularity is its cool amusement-park-ride quality, that (fully realized) promise that "you've never seen anything like this!"  But I'd think this transformation story accounts for at least a part of its deep connection with so many people. 

Do you think so?  And, if so, what do you make of that?

Comments

[Eric L'Esperance]

I left the theater brokenhearted for the state of humanity and the earth (I cried in a mall parking lot this Christmas overwhelmed with the loss of the forest that preexisted the mall and the mass of people caught up in the race to buy). I too relate with that deep longing for connection with the earth, others, and the divine. Unfortunately, I left feeling lost and hopeless for that in my lifetime. I get the sense that this is something that's rooted deep in each of our beings, a primal longing for something we once had, or are supposed to have, but have lost. It's as if the concept resonates so deep because that is who we are, but also brings confusion because we have so far removed ourselves from living in that way and we can't imagine how we could ever get back.

[Chris Tolles]

I'd agree that the movie solidly rests on well-established storytelling mores of transformation, stick-it-to-the-man-ness, and getting the babe in the end.

Unfortunately, it also unhesitatingly elevates its white, male, "Western" protagonist into a savior role for (over?) a culture that looks largely like most Americans' shallow understanding of "what Africa is like." I can't help but wonder if there's a primordial attraction to this story as a sort of cinematic balm to our "white man's burden."

That said, I loved it, but I can't imagine it'll be remembered for its "transformation story." It seems like a classic case of form over function (or perhaps more actually form as function).

[QTN]

I left the theatre feeling ‘mis-understood’ as an African woman. I could not shake the feeling of being ‘over-sentimentalized’…its possible I read way too much into the plot because my somewhat jaded mind now believes all things foreign and different are from Africa—thanks to how the continent is portrayed in the media. The other aspects of the movie, I thought were way out of touch with reality…the Avatar world was so perfect it left me with a feeling of hopelessness.
I also questioned Prince Charming intentions—Instead of seeing him as the Knight in Shining Armour, I saw a selfish young man whose real desire to be part of their world was so that he could belong somewhere and feel connected as opposed to being tied down to his wheel with all its limitations. So he came swooping back at the end…but was it for them or for himself?

Had the movie ended with him going back to his own planet and incorporating the lessons he had learnt in the Avatar world, I would be like your son…jumping off the theatre walls! Most of the time we can change the circumstances we are dealt with, in his case being crippled, but we can live with them positively and find connection beyond the circumstances.

[Jeff]

Haven't seen the movie but the wife has and I'm familiar with the plot. This is a really interesting take. We (my wife Le Que, Chinese, and me, WASP) talk about diversity issues a lot. Lately, one topic that has come up along this lines is the detrimental effects of majority-culture activists over-idealizing marginalized cultures. It seems noble, but it doesn't end well. Obviously, I can't comment on the movie, just wanted to say I am resonating with your thought there.

[Jimmo]

Not everyone believes there was ever a Garden of Eden, but all of us remember what it was like. There is something in our corporate memory that longs for such purity illustrated by the blue, indigenes folk, and something equally compelling as our longing for justice - revenge, actually, heaped upon the heads of the oppressor. It's a story told over and over again with a variety of permutations. The spirituality of Avatar is not in the film itself, or the specific story told. It is the story in all of us, the longing of all of us - that we have been taken captive and made to suffer, and at the right time, God will set it all right.

[Dave Schmelzer]

Reading your comment, it seems obvious, but I hadn't looked at this as a "return to Eden" movie, but this might be the king of return-to-Eden movies. It's fun to think about it on those terms.

[leah]

I can add nothing of value to this discussion, but point to a really long and interesting analysis of the film from a christian who's done A LOT of thinking on the topic:
http://www.jesusradicals.com/analyzing-avatar/

Here's a taste:

After seeing the film through my Christian anti-civilization (anti-civ) anarchist vegan anti-racist woman of color lenses, my sense is that Avatar is more complex than many of its detractors or advocates acknowledge.

[Otto]

It's funny that Dave posted this on Friday because I just went to see Avatar for the second time, and was just thinking how much I like the movie and that I wanted to write something about it.

One of the things I loved about Avatar is the deep interconnectedness of life.  That's my experience of nature.  When I'm around nature, with animals and even plants, I feel a certain kinship with these other creatures.  It's clear to me that, just like in Avatar, all creatures on earth are part of a larger whole. It's like a fractal, repeated on different levels. A human being is a whole world, an ecosystem. Do you know that humans have ten times as many bacteria as human cells in the body? Similarly, on a global level I think it's plausible there's a global consciousness/intelligence that emerges from the connections between living beings.

It's also clear to me that there's some sort of spirit in animals and plants too. This is something that is missing for me in the Bible narrative, and the fact that it's missing colors our cultural perception on nature, so western culture feels free to kill and rape nature whenever it's convenient.

Another thing I loved about Avatar is the concept that consciousness doesn't necessarily reside in the body. Are we all something like avatars, spiritual beings who are lent a human body by God? Something about this movie gave me the feeling that the Hindu concept of Maya (illusion) and the Christian concept of God creating the universe and man, are quite compatible.

[BMH]

I would just point out that this is not the Biblical perspective. In traditional Hebrew thought, it is quite the opposite - there is very little evidence for a distinction between 'soul' and 'body.' Rather, the two are completely intertwined.

This is true in Christianity as well. Why else would Christianity insist on a bodily resurrection? Why not just have our souls leave our bodies upon death and be done with them? When Christian say "Jesus is alive today," we do not mean that his spirit/soul lives on today. We mean that he is actually alive in a real body that rose from the grave.

Traditional Jewish and Christian thought take individual distinctions very seriously, whether they be between God and man, between men, between man and the rest of creation, etc. There is commonality and relationship, but not continuity. We are not one with God. God is an Other whom we can relate to. The one place where (at least traditional Jewish thought) has not found such a distinction is the one place Avatar would have us find it, namely between body and soul. This is a mostly Greek idea Christian adopted early on, but for which there is very little biblical evidence (and quite a bit against).

Contemporary science bears this out, btw. There is growing evidence that you are more than a set of computational algorithms that could be mimicked by an adequately powerful computer. This suggests that you could could not be you without your specific body.

[BMH]

I saw the movie for the second time on Friday, but this time in 3D and on an IMAX screen. Coolest movie experience ever.

I guess I could see the transformation perspective, but I think it's your son's take that is the most attractive and exciting. The movie (simplistically) contrasts a society in which nature has become wholly It, something only to be exploited and used and to which people have no direct connection, with a society in which there is quite literally a (apparently fiber-optic and digital) unity between every living thing. The Navi rule the planet, but also see the planet as having unity that is greater than themselves. Note this isn't anti-technology. Pandora is in a real sense technically-advanced to a high degree. It's about how that tech is used (by humans to exploit nature, by Navi to connect to nature).

Yes, this lines up well with the environmentalist movement, but more fundamental than that, I think it points us toward the connection to nature that we've lost, but which is inherent in us. We have a longing to connect to nature that we've lost, and seeing these big blue guys literally plug into nature with their very own organic USB devices plucks that string pretty strongly.

[Dan L]

I absolutely loved this movie, not because of the plot (which I thought was overused and easily predictable), but because the CGI in 3D was incredible. I think this is going to revolutionize the way we watch movies.

Anyway, in watching this movie I was reminded of the 20th century philosopher Fr. Bernard Lonergan, SJ (I can't get away from those Jesuits!) who believed (and I'm stealing this from my friend) that the purpose of art is to escape from reality into a "new structure of cognitional understanding (that of the artist's perspective) for the sake of an enriched return."

I love that. Art frees us from the confines of our reality and transports us into the created reality of the artist, which upon our return, gives us a new way of seeing, knowing, and relating to the world around us.

I think the forest scenes in Avatar did that for me. I had a renewed sense of awe and wonder discovering the beauty, richness, and interconnectedness of Pandora through the eyes of Jake Sully. I left this movie with a strong desire to reconnect with God in the beauty and richness of our world, and also a feeling of sadness in all the ways we have failed to do that (I think that ties in with Jimmo's idea of our longing for a return to Eden).

[Le Que]

I, too, saw it very late. And since Jeff is against movies, I went by myself. For you introverted perfectionists, I highly recommend seeing a movie alone. I didn't worry once if the other person was enjoying it, and I didn't have to think about making conversation. The most excellent thing for an introvert like me.

As a sci-fi/fantasy genre lover and one who enjoys the excellence of computer graphics, I loved the movie. Loved the fantastic, gorgeous richness of everything I saw and heard. Loved that they created a real language with a linguist. I was enraptured watching the whole thing, wincing and jumping and yearning with the best of them.

As a story-lover that appreciates a tale well told, I thought it was high on creativity, style, and sentimentality and felt that it was surprisingly low on subtlety -- some well-produced sledge-hammering on some topics. But then, I've been told by my husband that sometimes my subtlety is a little to subtle to the point of no one noticing it. Perhaps my expectation of subtlety is too extreme.

And what I wouldn't give to be as tall as they are!!!