"Avatar" & the Noble Savage
Entertainment
| December 19, 2009
| Tim
Well, it's that time of year again. The time when people who "love all humanity" (but oddly seem to hate actual humans — "selfish and cruel"? nice!) embrace the spirit of the season, and lecture the rest of us on the wrongess of our way of life.
Capitalism? Technology? Evil stuff, that.
If only we could learn from primitive peoples, like Mr. Cameron's Na'vi, to be more environmentally-friendly...
The first myth they explode is that of the "natural" Indian who lived in harmony with nature-unlike the greedy Europeans who conquered the continent. Instead, the authors unveil evidence of communal economies that engaged in large-scale burning to "clear" forests and also to kill game. "Controlled" burns by the Indians often got out of control, and without modern firefighting equipment, flashed through forests, destroying everything in their path. Deer, beaver, and birds of all sorts were already on a trajectory to extinction in some areas, because over and above the hunting done by Indians, natural predators and disasters thinned herds. Isenberg wonders whether the North American bison herd was already falling below replacement levels before white hunters arrived... [source]
(Ever see pictures of Easter Island? It used to have trees once.)
...loving and peaceful...
Mr. Keeley used anthropological studies to show that in most remaining tribal societies, whether Amazon Indians or New Guinea highlanders, comparative fatality rates from war were four to six times higher than even the worst experienced by modern nations, such as Germany and Russia in the 20th century. In tribal society, warfare was a recurring, annual, even seasonal occurrence. [source]
Native Americans, Eskimos, New Guinea Highlanders as well as African tribes slaughtered one another with skill and vigor, frequently winning their first encounters with modern armed forces. "Even in the harshest possible environments [such as northwestern Alaska] where it was struggle enough just to keep alive, primitive societies still pursued the more overriding goal of killing one another," Wade notes.... [source]
...and egalitarian...
How violent, Clendinnen asks, were Aboriginal men toward their women? "Very", she answers. "What the newcomers saw as remarkable --what I would think would be remarkable anywhere --were the blows Australian men publicly, casually, dealt their women for trivial offences, and their ready resort to weapons. Their women were, literally, browbeaten." ....
Another critic, the Tasmanian academic Shayne Breen, ... nonetheless admits that Aboriginal women were traded to whites.... "There is some evidence that Aboriginal men, especially along the northern and south-eastern coastlines, used women as trading commodities," Breen writes... [source]
Successful adaptation of a few is often at the expense of many. Adults are valued over children, the political elite dominates the masses, and men dominate women. Edgerton points out that male dominance over women in many folk societies was so extreme it was clearly maladaptive. Women and children often ate scraps, even in societies where the women hunted and the men were idle. Often women were allowed even less food while pregnant. The resultant low birth rates and high infant mortality rates are clearly maladaptive. Wife beating was sanctioned in virtually every folk society and relations between the sexes were anything but friendly. The Gusii engaged in the most extreme and deplorable adversarial sexual behavior it defies logic. Pokot men would often refuse to eat food cooked by their wives because they correctly believed their wives would try to poison them. The importance here is that these women did not accept the treatment they received or accept these cultural practices. They used what little power they did have to hurt the men. It's doubtful the men were very happy either. [PDF]
Gosh, how I *hate* modern Western culture! If only we could be, as James Cameron imagines, more like primitive peoples, how wonderful our lives — and the whole world — would be!
So, given that we have so much going for us, why does James Cameron hate — or seemingly pretend to hate, given that he's probably more guilty than the rest of us (you, my readers, or I) of every claim he'd care to level against others (I haven't spent $500 million to increase corporate profits lately, have you?) — his own country and culture so much?
My theory is that some people just need to feel superior to — more enlightened, wise, and caring than — those around them, even if it involves embracing a counterproductive fantasy regarding the relative "evils" of modernity and Western values.
What's yours?
Just saw the movie... On principal, I hated it, but it was spectacularly great entertainment and fun. Besides the overall theme of the movie there where obvious and annoying splices of liberal references to Bush's handling of the Iraq war. Pesky as these where this was a very fine movie and... I'll probably see it again... in the theaters... in 3D of course.
I haven't seen the movie, but I think a few points should be raised.
1. This is a movie he's been wanting to make for something like 15 years now. The technology just didn't exist before the last few years to make it how he'd envisioned.
2. I wonder how much of these references to Bush and the Iraq war are just general references to occupations in general. I've seen several movies over the years that have had supposed references to the Iraq war that struck me more as just general ideas and realities of war itself, especially invasions and occupations.
3. The idea of the "noble savage" is old. In fact, you could probably get away with calling it a cliche. At this point I have to wonder if its not James Cameron attempting to make some grand statement about society, and more just James Cameron using a tried and true story telling device.
I know for a fact that James Cameron is a left leaning guy and its certainly possible that he went in intending to make a statement with this movie, I just think its possible that its being seen that way when it wasn't intentionally meant to be.
I'd just like to add, I haven't actually seen the movie yet, so no spoilers please. ;-) Obviously I have a good idea of the plot or I wouldn't even be commenting. Something else just came to me as I finished the last post. Avatar is actually a fairly derivative science fiction plot.
Look at Dune, one of the greatest sci-fi novels ever written. Planet has extremely valuable resource, inhabited by highly misunderstood natives who are considered barbaric and, unknown to the rest of the galaxy are actually an extremely powerful military force once organized. A member of the occupation is forced to join up with the "noble savages", learns their ways, and then leads them in revolt.
Obviously they're not exactly the same, but they certainly use alot of the same plot devices.
Troy - I just saw the film. Artistically, it was fantastic. Plotwise, fairly derivative and flat. I think you're spot on regarding the "Dune" metaphor. Like the Bene Gesserit, women seem to have a unique priestly role in the Na'vi tribe.
(And at the beginning, I was saying 'hey, it's Pocohantas...')
I just saw the movie, and the whole time I was thinking about the (pardon) bullshit romanticizing of native people in the US. To me it felt like the writers/directors were just thinking, 'let's make the Indians big and blue so it's not racist'. The whole thing was a giant noble savage story.
To top it off, they had to make the leader an outsider, as if to say the natives wouldn't be able to defend themselves without the 'superior' know-how of a human. Oh, and referring to the humans as 'sky people'? Real subtle.
Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed the movie; I saw it in 3D and there were lots of explosions and cool colors. Honestly, the film making was pretty good, and Stephen Lang's character was really bad-ass. I think I'd see it again, just really really stoned or something.
To be clear, I *haven't* seen it, and don't plan to until it comes out on DVD. And in a way, I'm glad (but hardly surprised — given the seriousness with which Cameron no doubt took the story) it was kind of leaden — given the backwardness of the message. Nothing worse than really harmful ideas packaged and marketed attractively.
That disclaimer aside...
Troy: This is a movie he's been wanting to make for something like 15 years now... I wonder how much of these references to Bush and the Iraq war are just general references to occupations in general.
Heh, interesting juxtaposing those two ideas: If he'd been waiting, as he's said, over a decade to make this, then it couldn't truly have been about the Iraq war, as he's also said. (If so, that's good news: what's even sicker is the idea of recasting Saddam's Ba'athist party as peaceful, noble savages.)
...more just James Cameron using a tried and true story telling device.
I'd like to think that's true, but, as noted above, it sounds like he was utterly serious about the project, given the lack of laughter.
Don't underestimate the sheer religious ferver a Hollywood producer can bring to his pet cause. Lucas was willing to completely screw up Star Wars in order to turn Episodes 1-3 into a long-winded, incomprehensible, internally conflicted, and boring treatise on his concerns about free trade and George Bush.
Interesting observation about Dune. A fixation on the superiority of "feminine spirituality" tends to travel in the same circles as other flavors of anti-Westernism.
And yet even there we see the same sort of back-handed insult: The Bene Gesserit, though appearing mystical externally, were actually rather secular. Also recall that their powers were limited by being female, and thus were trying to breed a super-male (the "Kwisatz Haderach") who would complete them.
To top it off, they had to make the leader an outsider, as if to say the natives wouldn't be able to defend themselves without the 'superior' know-how of a human...
This is one of the more interesting (and hilarious) things I've seen people pointing out about the film. If true, it's almost perfect: "See, these people are superior to us. Well, you all. Except for me. They need me to speak for them and help them. Cause I'm personally more advanced than they are, and that's good."
For example: Ward Churchill, the Native American who never was. In a way, he's a perfect analogy: a white man trying to construct an "Indian" avatar body and history, so he could pass for Native American and defend them against the people he truly hates. Never mind that many actual Native Americans were nonplussed by his behavior.
I suspect a similar affinity behind those here (in the late '60s/early '70s) who supported and cheered for the Viet Cong. It wasn't, I suspect, merely that they were non-white (indeed, the Southern Vietnamese were also non-white, but we didn't hear similar interest for their desires and concerns), it was that they were also opposed to us, which the South Vietnamese weren't.
It's almost as if these other groups serve as a mere dramatic prop for the critic to pour his scorn on his own culture. Which, in the case of Avatar, would be literally true. :-)
I'm pretty sure the movie wasn't just about (or perhaps even primarily about) Iraq. "Death from Above" was a pretty clear Vietnam-linked line. And while the whole 'willing to kill for resources' notion was probably a reference to Iraq in the author's mind, the destruction of nature is a central theme part of the movie.
Also, one of the Na'vi makes a comment about a scientist being unable to learn because her cup was full. (A straightforward Buddhist/Eastern reference)
This movie really needs a listing under 'Church of Gaia' as much as anything.
Mr. Cameron is its most enthusiastic apologist.
( Side note, the trees in Illinois are fire resistant. That's how you can tell if they're native. My understanding, from volunteering at the Morton Arboretum long ago, is that fire selects for plants that store food in underground rootstocks, which are also good for food. )
Hmm... While the helicopter in Apocalypse Now was named "Death from Above" apparently it's a motto of the US 7th Bomb Wing since 1933. "Mors Ab Alto"
I've been thinking about this human tendency a bit. The idea seems as old as Diogenes and the Cynics and quite predates modernity.
I'd say that Cameron is more hypocritical, but whoever commemorated Diogenes with a statue of a dog on a marble pillar (if true) have been a similarly industrious person glorifying the primitive.
Savages. The whole third world. Blow it up. Maybe then they'll stop breeding. Nope, they'll find a way. F&*kers. Ruining the world.
What is it about the left which makes them pathologically (deliberately?) unable to distinguish between arguments about race ("breeding") and culture? If you think it's better to have air conditioning and flush toilets you must be some kind of horrifying racist, right?
What a poverty of thought we're seeing these days.
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Just saw the movie... On principal, I hated it, but it was spectacularly great entertainment and fun. Besides the overall theme of the movie there where obvious and annoying splices of liberal references to Bush's handling of the Iraq war. Pesky as these where this was a very fine movie and... I'll probably see it again... in the theaters... in 3D of course.
Posted by: on December 21, 2009 08:08 AM