Avatar: a postcolonial perspective

The 19th century has seen the emergence of a new genre in literature in the form of science-fiction with philosophical undertones. Space-oriented sci-fi has always attempted to prophesize conflict between mankind and extra terrestrial race, be it in War of the Worlds in the 19th century, Foundation in 20th or the Oscar winning movie Avatar in the 21st century. Today, with science and technology regulating every sphere of life, man realizes the need to save humanity from the murderous clutches of scientific advancements. The same need to save humanity is visible in Avatar when the inhabitants of Earth go to colonise the world of Pandora (for materialistic gains just as Britishers came to India) but, instead, are awed by the spiritual superiority of Pandorans and their harmony with nature.

What is political about the senses? Building on theorists such as Kara Keeling who explore cliché as a habituated sensory-motor response to familiar images, I turn to sentimentalism to propose that genre functions as a political organization of the senses. Feminist literary critics have described the sentimental mode as engendering a dynamic in which the capacity to feel as another feels (primarily psychologically but also physiologically) results in sympathy for the Other and thus motivates ethical and political change. The sentimental dynamic seeks to move the body and emotions of the reader or viewer in affinity with the movements of the characters. I explore James Cameron’s Avatar (2009) to ask, what happens to this fundamental liberal formula for social change in the virtual age when the status of the human body itself is in doubt? Drawing on the history of sentimentalism, science studies, affect theory, and film theory, I show how the film uses contemporary film technology to further develop the sentimental political premise, which depends on habituated sensory stimuli. I then show how sentimentalism—whether in the virtual age or not—creates the figure of the responsive, sympathetic, civilized body through the dismissal of the sovereignty of movement of the primitive.

Avatar has revolutionized the film industry. James Cameron introduced a new level of immersive visual storytelling that captivated audiences worldwide. While some previous studies on Avatar have highlighted some important research findings, they seem to leave Avatar's themes understudied. "Avatar" explores themes of colonialism, resistance, and environmental issues, highlighting the harm caused by resource exploitation and the need for responsible resource management. It depicts the exploitation of weaker groups by more powerful ones, with humans representing the colonizers and the Na'Vi people representing the colonized. The film emphasizes the resistance of the Na'Vi, their fight to defend their homes, and the involvement of nature in the war against humans. Additionally, it addresses environmental destruction caused by human greed and disregard for the environment. This study suggests that further research could explore comparative analysis with other works to provide a broader understanding of the themes.

Considering the controversial assumptions of 'Avatar's narrative, yet the massive box office success and the widespread fascination with the film's CGI effects, as well as the announced four sequels in the upcoming years, is it worth revisiting the film and with what aim? I wish to suggest yes; the film remains a worthwhile cultural phenomenon to examine for its particular staging of post/modernity that underlies environmentalist politics. In this paper I build further on Bruno Latour's and Tim Morton's readings of Avatar and argue that the film not only unconsciously undermines its ideology through the level of the medium, but also on the level of the narrative itself. Through a close reading of a dialogue from the film I show that, if taken seriously from a postcolonial anthropological perspective, the dialogue signals a decolonization of the hierarchical divide between western sciences and Indigenous knowledges, which the film overall remains unable to articulate.

2018

This research investigated Avatar movie by James Cameron to show the symbolic expresses of white supremacy towards Native American. Theory of hegemony by Gramsci is used as the tool of analysis. This research used qualitative research method. The result of the study shows that there are two ways of supremacy in Avatar movie, domination and intellectual and moral leadership. The domination leadership was carried out by Europeanthat is represented by military department while intellectual and moral leadership or hegemony was carried out by European in scientific department that is represented Jake, Grace, Norm and Dr. Max Petel. European carry out hegemony and domination to Native American who become the subordinate class. The purpose of European in doing hegemony and domination is based on the desire to take on the natural wealth in Pandora. In carrying out the hegemony, the scientist department opposes the European and defends the Native American, this process is called opposition. ...

2017

This book tackles the intersections of postcolonial and postsocialist imaginaries and sensibilities focusing on the ways they are reflected in contemporary art, fiction, theater and cinema. After t ...

Cairo Studies in English, 2021

As the consciousness of coloniality, diversity, and the necessity of not only token depictions of otherness but accurate representations of diversity in literature and film has grown, there has been a shift in the processes of adaptation and appropriation used by major film production companies and how they approach representing the other. One clear example of this is the comparison of the depiction of diverse, cross-cultural womanhood between Walt Disney Animation Studio's Mulan (1998) and Moana (2016). This paper will use a cross-period approach to explore the ways in which a global media conglomerate has and has not shifted its approach to appropriation of the multicultural as other and the implications for representational diversity in the context of globalization and a projected global culture. In one case, a cultural historical tale was decontextualized and reframed, while in the other, cultural actors had a degree of input in the film representation. By examining culturally specific criticisms and scenes from each film, I will explore how the legacy of coloniality can still be seen embedded in the framing of each film, despite the studio's stated intentions towards diversity and multiculturalism.

2011

Deleuzian conceptualizations of "desire," "deterritorialization," and "doubling," 1 this study examines Avatar (James Cameron's 2009 film) as a hybridity of becoming the Other. I will sketch the contours of an oppositional politics within the figure of Empire (or the American capitalist empire which is almost always transcendental). The binary structure of the movie oscillates between two utterly opposing modalities (deploying high-tech military force against eco-friendly indigenous culture, weapons against trees, killing to healing, earth to space, human to nonhuman-nature, white skin against blue skin, etc.) This dualistic tension seems to create a Neo-Platonic Augustinian confrontation between Good and Evil. Nevertheless, the Avatar's ambivalent body provides us with a post-human fable of becoming with an eco-theological edge. I suggest a reading of this movie as an allegory of the history of the Human (or American) Empire's colonizing influences-even though the movie is a science fiction story set in the future (year 2154) and the "native" Na'vi people on the planet Pandora have blue skinthrough Deleuzian 3D (Desire, Deterritorialization, and Doubling), focusing on the postcolonial term "hybridity," in order to provide a postcolonial eco-theological analysis. The primary conceptual repertoire of Deleuzian 3D enables us to view Avatar as the rhizomatic interplay of 1) Desire and Empire, 2) Deterritorialization and Reterritorialization, 2 and 3) Doubling and Becoming.