The subject of SF theology has been widely-discussed for the last
week, thanks to James Cameron's
Avatar. (It would have to happen when
I'm on vacation, huh?) In a column for the
New York Times,
Ross Douthat
demonizes the film for its pantheism; Beliefnet's Pagan blogger
Gus di
Zerega praises it for the same; for
Religion Dispatches, C. Joshua
Villines frames the film as a ritual of atonement for "the sins of
commercialism and Western triumphalism"; even
the Daily Show had its say. The encounter between religion
and capitalism is a central aspect of Avatar's story, so theology is at
the center of the film's very message-y message.
Avatar tells
the story of Jake Sully, a paraplegic Marine who is sent to the distant
moon Pandora to operate an "Avatar"-- a hybrid clone designed to let
Earthlings blend in with the alien Na'vi and negotiate with them on
behalf of a human-run mining operation. He assists Dr. Grace Augustine
(choose your own referents for the symbolism in that name), the
designer of the avatars, and Col. Quaritch, the mean ol' military
commander in charge of protecting the mining operations from native
attacks.
The natives in question are the Na'vi, a species of
extraordinarily tall blue-skinned humanoids who live in a really big
tree. Their culture is based around climbing trees, riding various
jungle animals, and communing with Eywa, an apparent earth- (or is that
"moon-?") goddess. We come to learn that this communion is concrete--
the Na'vi have a cluster of tentacles mixed in with their hair that
enables them to do all kinds of neat things, from linking up to steeds
(both ground-based and flying) and connect to their world's network of
living things. "Eywa," we realize, isn't some ethereal
personification of nature; it's an actual, contactable world-mind, and
the Na'vi experience it directly by plugging in their nerve clusters to
a particular "sacred grove."
Of course, the mining corporation
doesn't care about any of that, so they send their enormous bulldozers
and gunships to chop down every tree that the Na'vi care about in order
to get to their unobtanium (and oh my goodness I wish Cameron had just
used the fanspeak as a placeholder until they could come up with a
properly SFnal-sounding mineral name for the final script). Sully,
meanwhile, goes native, falling in love with an alien girl and becoming
the greatest military leader in Na'vi history. With the help of a few
"nice" humans, he's able to drive back the human thugs and save the
Na'vi from certain doom.
Most of the discussion of religion in
Avatar has focused on the Na'vi's pantheism. I wasn't too impressed
with this aspect of the film, to be honest, and not because I think
pantheism is a Bad Thing (indeed, I lean toward it a bit, though at the
end of the day I'm more into
panentheism). Rather, I thought it was a
bit on the lazy, underdeveloped side. Though I loved most of the
creature designs (I recognized the very skilled
hand of
Wayne Barlowe immediately), I found the
Na'vi culture to be human, all too human. These are supposed to be
aliens, but their culture comes across like a New Age-y romanticization
of African and Native American culture-- the monolithization of which
is part of the problem. (Few things bug me as much as the
homogenization of disparate cultures in New Age spirituality-- it's
really just a kinder, gentler cultural imperialism.)
There is one really interesting thing about the Na'vi's Gaea
religion, though, and that is its basis in their lived experience. They
don't just believe that all life is linked, they have the biological
hardware to plug into their planet's organic-electric network and
experience it. This was the single most original aspect of the
alien biology and culture, but I don't think its implications were
pushed far enough-- with the result being a half-baked nature
spirituality instead of a truly alien culture.
The
verifiability of the Na'vi religion is important in the story. A key
moment comes when the dying Dr. Augustine, connected to the roots of
Pandora's planetary bio-network, announces with her final breath that
the Na'vi deity is real. By connecting to the bioelectric network that
is Eywa, she "proves" the Na'vi religion. Of course, that proof means
nothing to Col. Quaritch, the very-very-bad military leader, who makes
mockery of the alien religion a key part of morale-building. His
statement that the Na'vi believe their god protects the Tree of Souls
earns a group chuckle from his subordinates-- a reaction that seems
particularly callous after the destruction we've already seen them
wreak upon the aliens. The placement of the comment suggests that this
kind of religious prejudice is central to the heartlessness the
soldiers display, and, more broadly, that wedding this kind of
belief-hatred to military conflict is a way to fast-track the
dehumanization that war requires. This kind of thing doesn't just
happen in imaginary battles in space, either-- witness atheist
spokesman Christopher Hitchens'
support of assorted wars in Muslim
countries, which is more than a little bit linked to his-- let's say
"strong dislike"-- of Islam. The
evil corporation is atheistic (as are, ultimately, all corporations),
and that atheism is part of its heartlessness: it is able to wreak
cruel devastation because it sees nothing to respect in the religion at
the center of the Na'vi culture.
The fact that the Na'vi religion is "provable" is intriguing, but
Elliot
(of
Claw of the Conciliator) brought up an interesting point to me-- does this
mean the oppression and exploitation of the Na'vi would be OK if their
religion
weren't based on the scientific fact of their biological
abilities? What does the Na'vi ability to demonstrate the grounding of
their religious experience say about the faith of those of us who don't
have planet-communicating nerve clusters growing out of our heads?
Faith-versus-reason isn't the only thing in
Avatar that's more
complicated than it may at first appear. There's actually an ironic bit
of imperialism at the heart of the story, which suggests that the Na'vi
would be helpless if not for the white earthling who dresses up in
alien drag and becomes their messiah. And technology gets a boost, as
well: the final fight scene shows us Sully (operating his Avatar)
fighting Quaritch (operating a big mecha-suit) to protect his alien
bride (operating a panther-like predator via her nerve connection)--
all three are using technology of a sort, and it's Sully's, which is a
sort of middle ground between the two, that we're supposed to find the
neatest.
Of course, all of this is ignoring the single most important thing
about
Avatar, which is the fact that it's really, really
pretty. (
Wayne
Barlowe, people!) Ultimately, plot, character, and themes are all
secondary to the central concern of this film, which is spectacle.
There are good guys, and bad guys, and the fact that that religion--
its absence, and its presence (with "proof")-- is part of the division
is interesting. But it's important to remember that-- hey, look at that
funky rhino-thing!
