Avatar's Jake
Skully is a man who goes native in a big way:
Is he the latest in a
long line of Western cultural imperialists?
Die Zeit, Germany
Avatar: A Shameful Example of Western Cultural Imperialism
"Jake Skully is a White man, a 'White messiah' from a technological civilization who leads the natives to victory. ... As deep and precious as the metal in this film, slumbers a condescending, yes, even racist message. Cameron bows to the noble savages. However, he reduces them to dependents."
Josef Joffe, publisher-editor of Die Zeit, dons a pair of 3-D glasses and
winds up seeing subliminal racism in 'Avatar.'
The 3-D Blockbuster, Avatar,
which will no doubt oust Titanic as the biggest box office hit of all
time, reminds us of our earlier heroes, Tarzan and Winnetou.
The story is age-old. It
deals with "noble savages," something already well known to Dryden and Pope, Diderot and Rousseau. He is good,
handsome, and unspoiled; our civilization is corrupt, cruel, and greedy. Tarzan
lives among jungle animals that are actually more evolved than humans. Winnetou
is the Apache warrior in a loincloth who is killed-off by White supremacists.
In Avatar, the noble
ones are the "Blues" who live on the planet Pandora in harmony with,
and worship nature as, their godhead, which is why the Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore
Romano stingingly criticized the film as containing too much un-Christian
pantheism. The evil ones are the money-hungry corporation and the manic Marine
colonel (as in the Vietnam War epic, Apocalypse
Now) who seek to annihilate the Blues with their machines of death. Because
in no case do they intend to give up on the tree, below which is the precious
substance "unobtainium."…"Blood for oil."
Posted
by WORLDMEETS.US
The near-perfect computer
animation will revolutionize film in the same way sound and color revolutionized
earlier cinema. The message is absolutely correct: against racism, militarism,
capitalism; for nature and cultural protection - and against dishonesty. Thomas Hobbes long ago castigated
the natural state of man as being "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and
short." The American Indians were in no way peaceful and noble; the
barbarity of the Apache at war with other tribes was legendary. Tarzan's jungle
was not a homey place; and nature, where one eats another, there is, as a basic
principle, no haven for morality and decency.
However, as David
Brooks of The New York Times notes,
the mendacitygoes deeper. The Blue's savior, Jake Sully, like
Tarzan and Old Shatterhand
(see below) before him, is a White man, a "White messiah" from a
technological civilization who leads the natives to victory. They need him and
his instruments to fight the bad guys. Edgar Rice Burroughs
and Karl May wrote in an
era during which the "White man's
supremacy" was an iron dogma. The over-correct director of Avatar,
James Cameron, has become entangled in the same trap. Even Jake Sully is a
cultural imperialist, merely a good one, without whom the Blues would be lost. Thank
you, Bwana.
[Editor's Note: Old Shatterhand was a fictional character in the western novels
of German writer Karl May. He's the German friend and blood brother of
Winnetou, the fictional chief of the Mescalero tribe of the Apache. "Henry-Stutzen"
was the name of Old Shatterhand's gun. It was a "special" weapon in
that it contained 25 rounds of bullets. "Bwana" is the name used by the "natives" to
refer to Tarzan].
Posted
by WORLDMEETS.US
So, as deep and precious as the metal in this film, slumbers a condescending, yes, even racist
message. Cameron bows to the noble savages. However, he reduces them to dependents.
Tarzan and Old Shatterhand consequently returned to their "higher"
civilization, but Jake Sully is guaranteed to return. He and his princess, with
her gorgeous yellow eyes, have already brought in $400 million. Through
capitalism, more money will be made with the sequel than with Pandora's
"unobtainium."
[As of January 25, Avatar has taken in $558,179,737 in the U.S., and foreign reciepts stand as $1,319,846,262, for a total of $1,878,025,999. It is now the leading film money-maker of all time].
