1. It seems to me that Cameron is taking the easy way out by making the Navi a pre-capitalist society who are almost too perfectly in harmony with their natural environment. They fight back using dragons–what’s not to love? But it would have been a much more challenging and interesting movie if the Navi had been at least partially urbanized and/or industrialized. What if, instead of riding around on dragons, they used sniper attacks, roadside bombs, or even suicide operations? Would American audiences have found it possible to empathize with sort of resistance movement?

2. Did no one else wonder what might happen after the Navi victory? Surely the humans would just come back, nuke the planet, and take the ore out of the smoldering ruins. In fact, to win a sustainable victory, the Navi would likely have been forced to adapt some human technology, thus changing their society in all sorts of interesting and contradictory ways. Maybe this brings us back to ‘Years of Rice and Salt’, and maybe I’m asking too much of a Hollywood movie, but these were the things in my head as I left the theater.

Zizek on Avatar. In some ways he’s on point, but in many, he’s totally misguided. He gets served in the comments, though, where folks point out, for one thing, that Avatar HAS inspired anti-colonial struggles from Palestine to Bolivia, and it ain’t just “false consciousness” that’s behind it.

My favorite section focuses on an encounter between an exiled Japanese samurai and the Iroquois confederacy in what would be perhaps 1700. The Chinese have sacked Japan, and a wandering samurai travels North America searching for a society that has the potential to resist Chinese imperialism. He finds what he’s looking for in the Iroquois. If I recall correctly, he becomes a fully integrated member of a clan, much as Jake Sully is integrated into the Navi. (Although it certainly took the samurai more than 3 months, which was one of the least believable parts of the generally unbelievable plot to “Avatar.”) And, like Sully, he brings a certain needed outsider perspective to his adopted community. He eventually convinces the leadership of the Iroquois that they must defend themselves militarily from the ever encroaching outside world.

When I read the book I remember thinking the Robinson was (consciously or not) echoing the Friends of Durruti, who during the Spanish revolution called for “a program and rifles” as the key to winning the revolution. In fact, the samurai provides specific instructions to the Iroquois in how to build a forge and refine iron to make rifles, even while he argues that Iroquois society is the best organized, most free and equitable and sustainable, society on earth, and that they can make allies against Chinese (and Muslim) imperialism by promoting the value of their mode of living. This combination – a way of life worth living, and the means to defend it by force – are the necessary elements to survival and growth for the Iroquois. A program, and rifles, indeed. Sully too seems to say that the Navi have the program – a way of life worth living – and need the weapons to defend it (though the politics of armed struggle are hopelessly muddled in Avatar).

So, I know there’s not an exact parallel, but the similarities are interesting enough that I wonder if Cameron or someone in his circles has perhaps read “The Years of Rice and Salt.” Both Sully and the samurai come from outside cultures, and both manage to integrate themselves fully into their adoptive cultures. Both bring with them outside perspective that helps their new societies resist colonialism in ways that would not have happened if they had not arrived, even while both are formally subordinate to the official leadership of their adoptive societies.

Of course there are a lot of differences as well. The samurai arrives as a refugee, not as a spy, and he is not himself from or part of the colonizing society in the way that Sully is. (Though as others have pointed out, Sully is working class and disabled, and thus his identification with the oppressing society is potentially ambivalent from the start.) Also, in Robinson’s story the Iroquois are not yet threatened by encroaching colonialism. On a narrative level, Robinson’s tale is much more compelling than Cameron’s, and the more or less explicit politics of Robinson’s narrative are much better than the mish-mash of ideas that marks Cameron’s story.

I guess all I’m saying is that Avatar made me think a little bit more about what it means to be an outsider bringing new ideas to a culture one is not previously part of. (In a way, this is also what prominent leaders of the black freedom movement represented to much of white US society – and especially the white left – in the 1960s and 1970s, although the relations of colonialism were obviously reversed there. Think Malcolm X, Huey Newton, James Forman, etc.) That’s still a waste of several million dollars I suppose, but it provides a slightly redeeming silver lining to what was otherwise a political train wreck.

That doesn’t absolve your responsibility to challenge what has already been said. You don’t have to respond to everything, but find one point you disagree with and offer a different perspective. Don’t just do a drive-by and bounce; that’s easy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Chw32qG-M7E&feature=player_embedded

I agree with you it is crucial that the Navi win in the end. It shows that we have come a long way since the popularity of the early 90s “There is No Alternative”/ end of history scenarios. Back then it seemed like capitalism was invincible, even to many working class people. Now this seems to be changing with the economic and ecological crises. Both the ruling class and the working class are starting to realize that capitalism might not last forever. This could intensify class struggle as the rulers amp up their struggle to maintain capitalism and as workers begin to revolt. Again, in this sense, the movie lays out the polarized future we might be entering – Blackwater vs. a popular resistance fighting not only for itself but for the entire planet.

Also, the fact that the Navi win and that they kick out the settlers is key because it develops the movie’s critique of liberal anthropology. The problem with so many “last stand” movies is they romanticize indigenous culture as a kind of noble museum piece, not as a living breathing reality that persists today. Grace Augustine kind of represents this museum curator attitude… she recognizes the Navi world is passing away and she is trying to “preserve” it but “preserving” it just means killing it and turning it into a bunch of samples and disembodied scientific knowledge. Jake Sully goes further than this by actually siding with the living breathing Navi to destroy the apparatus of colonial science.

I agree with you about the patriarchy in the movie. This needed to be developed more in my review. I don’t so much have a problem with the female characters doing “masculine” things. I think many of these aspects of militancy, aggression, fighting, etc. are important and need to be reclaimed. They’re not inherently patriarchal, they just need to be dissociated with particularly patriarchal forms of masculinity like rape culture. I don’t fault women who take on aggressive warrior roles, especially since a key goal of transgender liberation is to break down the gender binary and open up space for folks to cross these lines without being labeled “sell outs” to women’s liberation.

That being said, I couldn’t agree more that the movie is flawed in never showing the role of reproduction, caring for babies, etc. in the resistance. Caring work is also a key part of militancy and no revolutionary struggle will succeed without it. And I agree this work needs to be shared democratically, with men participating in it equally.

I also agree that the scene when he conquers the giant bird is disgusting. It does replicate rape culture and links this to a kind of dominance of humanity over nature which is anti-ecological. The Navi characters make no critique of this even though it seems to violate their own norms of how to relate to the world and each other. It’d be one thing if the director developed this as a contradiction within Navi society – a struggle between patriarchal and anti-patriarchal tendencies -but that never happens, the scene is just left there hanging, encouraging popular patriarchal fantasies.

In terms of armed struggle I agree with you as well. In fact I was just having a conversation about this with some comrades this morning before I read your comment. What I like about Fanon is he explored both the cleansing and the traumatizing dimensions of armed struggle (though he did so in a relatively patriarchal way that needs to be critiqued and developed further – this is worth another whole blog post/ conversation). The danger is always that folks start seeing the revolution as something which is created through violence rather than something that is created through human self-activity and DEFENDED through violence. It is the political organization, mobilization, and insurrection that create the forms of a new society; the armed struggle simply defends these forms from the state. The actual creative process is something that everyone can participate in regardless of age or ability and that is the basis for direct democracy and new social relations. I think revolutionaries valorize armed struggle sometimes because they miss the importance of this mass self-activity and attempt to replace it with the heroic armed actions of a small vanguard. This needs to be challenged.

I’m not sure how much the movie plays into this. It doesn’t really show in depth how the anti-colonial struggle was organized and prepared or the effects that it had on people psychologically. But to be fair most of the movie was not about the war itself but rather about the social relations of the Navi and the colonizers and the clash between the two. I hope that a future sequel might develop some of the points you’re raising.

I like the quote you mentioned: “you don’t thank for this…this is sad only.” Neytiri says this to Jake but I would have liked Jake to say this back at the end. Imagine if they had shown a group of Navis trying to praise or thank him and he said that in response. That would have shown he really learned the key lesson and that he had really switched sides. Or, even better, if the Navi refused to praise him and just said this is sad only and if Jake had to come to terms with his former participation in the colonial project. But none of this was developed at all. It is this ambiguity that makes the movie so controversial among leftists, because it brings up so much of our own shit that we haven’t dealt with yet in our organizations and movements either. That’s why these kinds of conversations are so key and we should use the movie’s popularity as an opportunity to have them.

Overall, I agree with the nuances of your analysis, and I also agree that this move is such a huge pop culture phenomenon that it’s really worth it for the left to explore.

I just saw the movie for a second time and the theater was full of kids. I like to think about what kind of a effect the symbols and images in this movie is having on these kids’ consciousness. What questions does it raise? I mean the anti-imperialist tone of the movie really is striking.

What’s particularly striking to me, as has been mentioned above, is the fact that in the end, the Navi’i win. Not just win a settlement, or a sharing of the planet or something…they completely kick the colonialists out.

Contrast this with other comparable “white savior” movies…like Dances With Wolves, or The Last Samurai…where the white guy’s treason is nothing more than a symbolic punctuation as the oppressed have a last stand before fading into history. The message in those movies is very different, in that the treason is made to look admirable, but ultimately idealistic and kind of pointless.

Here, however, is something different, and I think it’s really significant in the current world context: the message is that insurgencies can win; that the oppressed majority are key to the future, they aren’t just faded tragedies of the colonial past; and that preserving the balance of life requires one to actually choose sides, when in the face of the monster of US capitalist imperialism.

These are important differences from previous movies in the same vein, and though I agree with Frank that the anti-war message won’t ultimately be that effective…this movie is still a cultural touchstone with which to connect our political work with popular symbolism and values.

However, there are also points where I disagree or would take the critique further…

-I think the movie is still quite patriarchal, and though there is less division of labor between men and women, that is all on the side of the women being more active in the traditional masculine sphere. For example, it shows women hunting, women fighting, etc. But where are the babies in this movie? I think anti-patriarchal messages are much stronger when they showcase the sharing of traditionally feminine roles as well…otherwise it’s just power-feminism, with masculinity preserved as the ultimate ideal.

Further, the line about choosing a woman is disgusting…because it’s the white guy who retorts “only if she’ll choose me…” as if this guy is the one bringing the gender equality in mating.

Third, I think symbolically the scene where Jake gets his Ikran, his flying bird, is really problematic when we think about rape culture. How does he know the one for him? Well, it’s the one the fights back the hardest. So he lassos it’s mouth closed, he jumps on top of it while it tries to throw him off and kill him…all the while until he can force his very genital-looking thing into its very genital-looking thing…and then it’s eyes get all wide and Jake says, “you’re mine now.” My wife and I just turned to each other in the theater and asked, “did he just rape that thing into submission?” I think it’s really damaging, with animals or people or Navi’i, for that kind of mythology to keep getting put into pop culture.

-The ablism of the film is also complicated, and I think there are multiple ways to read it…so maybe I want to think about it more before saying anything.

-But an extension of the anti-patriarchy critique of the movie is a critique of the militarism of the movie, and I’m glad you connect it to Fanon and some of the psychological ideas of anti-colonial armed struggle.

I think, in political movies, just as in political work, when the central question of choosing sides is framed around violent conflict, it’s really problematic. It elevates armed struggle to a place where it’s seen as transcendent, cleansing, definitive…when the reality is that it’s anything but. Armed struggle is traumatizing, it is messy, it is dehumanizing, it fractures societies and people…and at best it should only be seen as a tragic strategic necessity. It is actually said well in the movie (and then dropped in the end), when she has to kill all of those dog things to save Jake…you don’t thank for this…this is sad only.

But this is something that doesn’t get dealt with in pop culture treatments of armed struggle, or even in many militant left examinations of armed struggle: the deep psychological costs of armed resistance. The trauma of returning home, rebuilding, raising children…the way it distorts people’s abilities to trust, feel, cooperate and imagine…and the folly of keeping the warriors–the most traumatized–at the top of the social hierarchy.