Do you believe the movie Avatar idealizes tribal culture, makes war a means to peace, and misrepresents nature?
Question by gossamer presents… Sarah!: Do you believe the movie Avatar idealizes tribal culture, makes war a means to peace, and misrepresents nature?
I was reading an interesting review on a website, and here’s a piece of something that was written by someone else and I was wondering what you thought of this reviewer’s assessment of the movie Avatar:
” The 3 Steps of Avatar
Step one:
Hyper-idealized tribal Culture
This film began be creating the perfect model of a tribal culture, a culture free of disease and in perfect harmony with its environment. No such culture ever existed. Even the most basic tribal cultures suffered from disease. Some reports indicate that it was necessary for tribal cultures to expose their infants and abandon their elderly in times of want. Many cultures were nomadic because they would annihilate the resources of a certain area and thus be forced to move on. However, this film is not about representing the truth, but about making the audience feel good. The first move is to lull the audience in with the lovely visuals and glorious way of life of the tribal people in the film. Once the film has got you emotionally, it moves to step 2.
Step 2:
Having War be the Answer to Peace
Now, judging by the almost universally positive response to Avatar, the audience loves the Pandorans and hates the Earthlings. The movie then offers war as a solution to the Pandorans’ problems. This is an idea Westerners are comfortable with, but one that is ultimately untrue. No tribal culture in history has ever succeeded in direct face to face conflict with a more technologically advanced one. In reality, the very idea of “my way or the highway” always mutilates cultures that are unfamiliar with it. For example when Christianity appeared in Rome it was enough to permanently damage classical paganism. The idea that everyone’s gods are okay can’t coexist with the idea that there is only one God. One idea will devour the other unless people resist. The only way to meet an absolutist threat is with absolutism, but the defenders are always deformed in the conflict. They have to become what they are fighting in order to win. This movie tells us that the Ghost Dance halted Manifest Destiny in Colorado and that the Boxer Rebellion drove the English from China. This is simply not the case, and getting people emotionally invested in such an idea is irresponsible, if not cruel. It convinces us that war can restore harmony. I would like to see Avatar II: the Pandorans with Guns Colonize the Pandorans Who Didn’t Get Any. Though not as emotionally satisfying, this film would at least have a ring of truth to it. Avatar convinces us that war is the only answer, but ignores the basic truth that the sword of war is almost always picked up by the blade. Having completed its second step, the movie then goes on to implicate nature in its war-fantasy version of reality.
Step 3:
Misrepresenting Nature
The movie then pulls its final trick, misrepresenting nature as a warlike force: a sentient force that will move proactively to protect itself out of love for a certain group of people. In the popular mind, native cultures are seen as being more in harmony with nature. This is often the case, but the relationship of tribal peoples to nature is one that is more rightly categorized as one of respect than one of love. The earth mother is generous, but she is also terrible. One day you eat an animal, the next day one eats you. The same flood that ruins your home and takes your children also deposits rich silt for next year’s crop. Nature does not take sides. Nature simply is. Anyone who depends exclusively on their environment for sustenance acknowledges this fact. It does not matter how skinny you are or how blue your skin is. No corn this year? Nature will not magically provide you some to keep you from starving to death.
Some people may not take issue with this depiction of the natural world and people’s place in it. If you want people to love nature, why not present it as good? Aren’t we going green? Aren’t we trying to be more sensitive now and make up for past mistakes? If a storyteller is trying to get people interested in nature, then presenting it as a force that will work proactively to take care of itself is the most irresponsible thing that storyteller could do. This depiction allows us to forsake our part in maintaining and sustaining the environment. Rather than presenting a lateral solution based on creativity, a natural solution based on respect, or even a tribal solution based on harmony, Avatar would have us believe that we can go on doing exactly what we want, fighting wars, maintaining an all-or-nothing mentality, and defending our way of life using the means of our enemies. Nature, Avatar tells us not only will tolerate such behavior, it will condone it.
I was especially upset because Avatar was so good and so beautiful and then hit me in the face with its irresponsible, fairy-tale ending. I know my expectations might be too high, but I think the fact that everyone else’s are so low is part of the problem. Movies inflect our cultur
I didn’t give my opinion, so unless you can read minds, there’s absolutely no way of knowing what I think.
Best answer:
Answer by chinmay
u r a hypocrite and nothing else!!
James Cameron said that its a shame that we have to go to another planet to teach people humanity and now i think that its because of people like you!!
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