let's make something clear: Avatar is a nice little movie. the effects are well edited, entertainment occurs every time the book suggests, the story of the parallel world is autonomous enough to avoid becoming a copy of the matrix or lord of rings, it supports the moral cause in vogue (sometimes too clearly), the action, humor and drama sequences occupy a much less artificial place than in, say, 2012. perhaps as a consequence, the film is completely predictable (even for someone like me who never even tries to guess who killed the maid), and almost all the characters and scenes follow a template so obvious that it's almost to be ashamed of... but a very ugly cauldron of hell awaits for those who came to watch Avatar and cry for witnessing the quintessence of Hollywood, so I will not complain.
but of course, every time I write is because I have a problem and of course, with Avatar, I do have a problem. my problem is (and from now I will get tired of dropping spoilers, so if you do not want me to tell you the end, stop reading) although Avatar is basically a criticism of the First World's colonial ambition that destroys everything in its path in his eagerness to consume the resources of any site that they can not call home, it also boasts the supremacy of the white man, which is essentially the source of the divine right that the "white man" has always believed to have about everything that does not belong to him...
Avatar is the story of a planet (which could well be the Congo) in which a large corporation wants to extract a highly valuable mineral (that might well be diamonds). as any corporative mission in the Third World, on their left hand they bring the military and on the right hand the support of the church (in this case, as in contemporary Congo, embodied in a kind of scientific/peaceful NGO lead by sigourney "Gorillas in the Mist" weaver). thanks to science (role that previously had the missionaries), humans manage to infiltrate the aboriginal community (whose social and physical similarity with human aboriginals is never explained) and marvel at the innocence and innate beauty of these magical beings that are still one with nature (as we could read in any mediocre review) but never put aside their personal agenda of clear colonialist purpose.
corporations are bad, the military is the idiotic arm of corporations and altruistic
scientists collaborate with the hope of preventing a genocide quite comparable to the one performed by Leopold II in Congo. and there is a character who enters this tangible Matrix, in this Second Life of flesh and bones, through the ultimate interface: the ability to transfer your nervous system (wireless, of course) to a real creature of another race from another planet.
sleep here, walk there. like in Julio Cortazar's "La noche boca arriba".
that character, marveled because of being in Second Life what he can't be in reality, fascinated by the natural beauty that he wins access to, but at the same time reporting the espionage results of the day, is the one who brings us through both sides of the story.
but something goes wrong. corporate egoism compels the military confrontation between the missiles and the spears and our hero, like Kevin Costner in Dances With Wolves, like Cosme Cortazar in Jerico, must choose a side.
it is then that I have a problem.
it's alright that the "white man" chooses the side of the weak, the side of the naive. that he strives to be accepted and takes the local customs. that he will confront his own kind to defend those who are his family now, but ... why does he have to be superior to the aboriginals? why does this guy have to conquer the most important woman of the tribe, tame the indomitable dragon, be faster and stronger to the point, before facing the enemy, deity after all, of surpassing the local authority to invite people to fly with HIM in pursuit of the victory against the wicked??? Why? because he's white? because that's the only explanation we get for that divine treatment given to the saviour who came from another planet (from Europe, in the case of Congo) to get us out of the hole we're in. doesn't anyone see that there lies the very cradle of racism, in that mere naturalness with which we accept that this individual is better than the others?
in the chapter in which Tin tin goes to the Congo, the aboriginals are rushing to be his servants and even to worship him. many accusation of racism have been drawn up on the comic. most Belgians, today, consider it an exaggerated accusation. and, as i have written in this blog, the idea of censoring that colonialist mindset registration is exaggerated. but at the same time, denying that it is racist and colonialist is a stupid and unjustifiable position.
but that is the reality of many aspects of the North-South relations: Belgian diplomats who feel entitled to publicly insult the Congolese president in front of his people is that kind of attitude that the "white man" of today still finds obvious and necessary.
Avatar is, then, rather than a reflection, a celebration of the colonial mindset that still rules the world. and that is shameful.
and that's not the worst yet. worse still, the only idea to be rescued from the film is that of a nature that responds with all its power against the threat of colonialism. a nature that responds as a whole: aboriginals, animals, tsunamis, trees slowly walking the surface of the earth ... but that idea is nothing more than a mere plot-device for a couple of action scenes.
the central story is the eternal supremacy of the white man who leaves behind his robes to take tropical loincloth as his own, proving that if tarzan can be king of the apes, then he can become a kind of transgender Lion King, a kind of intergalactic good Colonel Kurtz.
and that central story is the one that sells in the north. and the central story is the one we end up accepting in the south.
I once saw, in a documentary, a poster of "Pearl Harbor" (with Ben Affleck in sepia) hanging on a wall in Tokyo ... and sometimes I wonder, Do Japanese people dream of electric sheep?
