ReligionDispatches.org

like say i wanna get a picture of Darth Vader inside of my little avatar screen, box or whatever the hell it is. how do i do that? im tired of having such a plan a** lookin' cartoon avatar.
Force Factor Reviews

It was really awesome on how you correlate the movie AVATAR and the happening in BIBLE. I’m not a bible reader but I heard some of the stories that always projects Armageddon or end of the world to be exact. Whenever I watch movies/films about world crashing down I can’t help but wonder how we abuse all the beauty and life that planet Earth given us. I supposes that even quick cash could not save us if there are invasions from other planet (if it exist) and if God will finally let our world fall down and start a new life. Maybe, just maybe, these movies serve as an eye-opener to all of us. That in due time all we have will finally turn into dust and no human trace will exist ever again. Prayers and living in God’s will is the best way to survive if “end” comes our way. Let’s hope for the best!

This commment will be in two parts. It's too long for just one part. Sorry.

Reading both this article and the one by Annalee Newitz about AVATAR (after having seem the film), I've had so many mixed thoughts. So this comment will probably come out a bit jumbled. So be it.

My own identity: I am a white disabled older Lesbian. Reading Newitz's article, I remembered when I went off to Mississippi during the mid 60s to participate in the Southern African-American Civil Rights movement. In many ways, I saw myself in terms of a white person going down south to help "save" the black people. I hadn't yet identified myself as a Lesbian in those days. I knew that something was "wrong" and that I didn't relate romantically to the male gender and I didn't know why. But I put all of that aside to join in what I saw as a soul-cleansing liberation struggle.

During my time in Mississippi, the first gleanings of women's liberation writings were being written and circulated among Movement people and I remember grasping at these writings and identifying completely. Even within the "liberated zones" of the Movement, oppression against women was rampant. As for Lesbians/Gays/Transpeople, we were completely invisible in those days. I still was accepting the lies of the dominant straight culture that told me that there was something "wrong" with people like myself and that I should change and become "normal." One thing that was stressed during our time in Mississippi is that the Norherners, particularly the white Northerners were not there to take leadership and "liberate" the natives. Instead, we were told by African-American Mississippi activists that we were to try to "work yourself out of a job" by stepping to the side and allowing the local African-Americans to step into and maintain their leadership roles. Which they did quite capably. Eventually, Northern whites returned to the North in the advent of the "Black Power" phase, and I returned to Chicago, my home turf.

The revolts at Stonewall and the varied revolts of women -- inspired in many ways by the Black Power activists -- demanded our own freedom, and this changed everything for me. I found my own Woman-hood and Lesbian-hood. I was no longer a "tomboy/female" version of the Great White Father liberating the Oppressed. Instead, I saw that I was one of the Oppressed, fighting for my own liberation. I have read the accounts of many women and LGBT people having gone through similar transformations from their times in the 1960s African-American Civil Rights Movement.

Fast-forward a few decades. Now we have segments of the African-American community actively opposing my rights, choosing to identify with straight male privilege rather than join in common cause with other oppressed people. At the same time, white racism is unfortunately alive and well within the LGBT community. And recently, even within some of the entries here, I have found a pool of trans-phobia among some Lesbian-Feminists who one would think would want to be allies -- but once more, they choose to identify with the dominant born-gender community and the privileges that come with not being Transgender. All of these people -- homophobic African-Americans, racist LBGT's, transphobic Lesbians -- have various rationales (which usually sound quite similar) for declaring the "other" to be "sick," "defective," "afflicted", etc. and thus keeping up their prejudices and their clingings to privileges of the dominant cultures.

And on top of all of this, there are still a number of straight white male activists who come into movements of oppressed people, but who want to make conditions for their support -- wishing to take over leadership roles and tell oppressed people what is really good for us.

So what does this have to do with films like AVATAR. Let me refer to another controversial film I saw a few years ago: A DRY WHITE SEASON (1989). This is another film that centers on a straight white man who ends up joining the anti-apartheid liberation struggle in South Africa. However, this film was made by an African-Caribean woman named Euzhan Palcy. Palcy was roundly criticized in some quarters because she chose to make a film centered on a white man rather than on one of the Africans who were leading in the anti-Apartheid movement. However, a crucial difference in this film is that Ben Du Toit, the white protagonist, doesn't become a leader. Instead, he sacrifices his life at the end to ensure that the struggle will go on.

I personally find A DRY WHITE SEASON to be a powerful, moving film. I think that some of us in oppressed communties might have some dreams, thoughts, and perhaps fantasies about those in oppressor communities having internal epiphanies and then giving up their privileges and joining in with the struggles of the oppressed -- which is what happens in A DRY WHITE SEASON. I do know that the group PFLAG (Parent/Friends of Lesbians And Gays) gets the greatest rounds of applause during LGBT liberation parades. We are so happy to see straight allies joining into our liberation fight.

I traveled to Japan last summer and had a powerful experience attending a convention of a Burakumin organization; Burakumin are descendents of the former "untouchable" castes that existed in feudal Japan, and are still subject to discrimination. Within the Burakumin event were some proud, openly LGBT Burakumin people celebrating the diversity of their movement and the embrace of ALL oppressed communities. One of the members gave me a LGBT Pride bracelet which I took to wear to the March for Equality in October, 2009. And at that march, Julian Bond, one of the Civil Rights veterans of the struggle in the 1960s gave the keynote speech in solidarity with the struggles of LGBT people in our own struggle. What amazing experiences!

This June, I will travel once more back to Mississippi (for the 4th year in a row) to attend a conference and rally in Philadelphia, Mississippi, of some of the 1960s Civil Rights Veterans, discussing our struggles, past and present.

So again, what do all of these rambling comments have to do with AVATAR? I wonder if James Cameron wasn't so much producing the straight white male fanatasy of a straight, white male "going native" and saving the natives. Instead, I found a straight white man subsumming himself within the natives and praying to their Deity. It was the Deity, the Goddess, who saved the Na'vi, not Sully, the straight white male -- that's what I experienced. There are some flaws of course, as LGBT people are once more made completely invisible -- perhaps someday a Hollywood SF film with LGBT people as heroes can one day be made, though we don't seem to quite be there yet. Sigh....

Thank you for making room for subversive readings of this film. I've desperately been looking for something positive in the movie that transcends mere eye candy. Annalee Newitz's review has been circulating and creating some rich dialog on the nature of white guilt and post colonial "salvation" objectives in the arts. I have to disagree with Newitz on District 9, however. District 9 seeks to address both issues of white transformation and liberation theology through slow transition. Unlike Avatar, it's one of the most powerful meditations on power and transfiguration I've seen in recent cinema.

Interesting review. I have to admit I haven't seen the movie and probably won't; I just don't go to theaters much these days, and there's too much great entertainment to be had on Netflix and the Internet for me to miss it.

I am intrigued, though, by your parallels between the religions of "Pandora" and Canaan. Outside of Hebrew scripture, what sources are you using to reconstruct Canaanite religion? And what evidence do we have that Canaanite society was any less sexist or oppressive than ancient Israelite society -- or, for that matter, our own?

I'm also slightly puzzled as I try to follow your argument that the film fuels anti-imperialist readings of the bible. What do we get from *Avatar* that we don't get from other "mirror readings" of the story of Rahab? Does the conceit of Jake's disability, for example, add anything? How does that affect your reading of the film?

And wouldn't it be ironic if the voice of nature and the disempowered rising up in revolt turned out to be white male American best known for big budgets and a bad temper? But I digress.

I'm interested in hearing more about your views of Canaanite religion and of what *Avatar* adds to older stories.

Good to see you, even in cyberspace!

Sarah Dylan Breuer

I generally agree with Pui Lan's suggestions and arguments along feminist and postcolonial Biblical readings. In this particular case I do not agree that it can be done. I often have to ask myself which of the things I enjoy that have oppressive aspects are worthy of saving and giving an anti-oppressive lens to. This applies to books I enjoy, movies I love, music I know the words too, and on and on. Avatar, in my opinion, is not something that can be seen as liberationist. Pui Lan acknowledges the white savior aspects of the primary character in the movie and highlights that others have written extensively already about the racist nature of the movie. I think the theological implications are equally imperialist. While the land based Goddess tradition may have not been looked down upon it took the prayer of the white man to actually spark the action of the planet to protect itself from the colonial human powers. It was also the white male character who led the charge to save "our" land. I do not think the Canaanites would have needed anyone from the occupying force to lead their religious and political revolution but rather have those who want to act in solidarity do so in a way similar to Michelle Rodriguez's character in the movie. She took the right side of liberation, did not claim the glory, and learned that when one turns against the oppressor class one was once a part of it can result in great personal sacrifice. The Goddess tradition of this film also seemed in many ways to fit into a stereotypical and exoticized version of Indigenous spiritualities rather than an authentically celebratory construction of a faith lived by Indigenous people who experience colonization throughout the world. I wish I could agree with Pui Lan's assessment of Avatar as the movie itself is absolutely beautiful and I crave stories that give a liberationist perspective in religion and politics.