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Tarzan was avatar too
E. Ablorh-Odjidja
In other words, let film be film, an entertainment vehicle
that can sometimes teach us something. But very often, this
attribute is stretched to exceed its limit.
The story of AVATAR took the film world not exactly by
surprise. Its author, James Cameroon, is a known entity.
AVATAR got the world’s attention because of its pictorial or
cinematographic majesty and innovations, all because of the
skills imparted by Cameron.
But since AVATAR had its preview there has been a world of
interpretations out there, most of which have been
political. Will Heaven of The Telegraph, UK, for instance,
said “James Cameron's Avatar is a stylish film marred by its
racist subtext.”
That may be true, but the bigger story embedded in the film,
that of a love story between man and woman, has been
deemphasized by the critics.
Would it be death or life ever after in the arms of the
pretty Navi girl at the end of the movie? A litmus test is
to put the chances for revivification of the comatose avatar
in the viewer’s hand.
Instead of a love story, the emphasis has been one of cruel
exploitation of a primitive society by capitalism gone mad –
never mind the fact that the Chinese and the communists are
doing the same in parts of Africa today.
AVATAR’s author, James Cameron himself, is a victim of the
capitalist exploitation theme. It is such thinking that
makes the people of the Third World the “Whiteman’s burden,”
and for reasons because it is first assumed that they are
plainly infantile.
Naturally, what follows from such thinking is the making of
the plot of AVATAR. And unfortunate for us, the people of
Pandora (The Third World), we have to be rescued by Jake
Sully, a paraplegic hero played by Sam Worthington.
Not that this hasn’t happened before. Tarzan was the first
avatar when he showed up naked in his whiteness in Africa.
Jake, the paraplegic, had to undergo a transformation before
contacting the people of Pandora. But, regardless of the
avatar transformation, this whole idea of a lame hero going
to war in the name of capitalism is a bit too surreal!
The movie has its high moments. Jake’s avatar and the Navi
(Pandora) girl’s encounter is one that brings out the magic.
Though love as a fulfilling movie device has been overused
over the ages, a paraplegic in the shape of a virile avatar
can still make it here.
Thus the centrality of love to the AVATAR story should have
been evident from start, but it became the sub-plot to the
tale of capitalist exploitation. The love here is not the
Romeo and Juliet kind. But witness how the two are helped
along on their romantic quest; the meeting with parents and
people, and the taming of nature and the beasts they ride.
Love permeates everything else on Pandora.
At the end, you pray that the love for Jake will help the
Navi girl restore the comatose avatar (Jake).
Still, it is amusing to view how the theme of helplessness
of so called primitive people informs the plot of this
movie. A paraplegic warrior in charge of the rescue effort,
fiction or not, is a clear mark of the intractable mindset
that controls works of western liberals like Cameron.
And so do we become “the White man’s burden” in our own
land. Countless helpless “do nothing” natives have been
helped in their own jungles by Tarzan. The significant part
of this notion is that it is helped along, generation after
generation, by our own individual native stupidities.
The saving grace for Cameron’s plot is it never called the
Navi stupid. Not a single citizen of Pandora fronts for the
capitalist enterprise or betrays his country. Wish the same,
in a limited sense, can be said for Africa.
In Africa, all forms of destructive ideas, starting with the
purely religious to the acutely insane have representations,
some for reasons of personal gains. Thus do we sometimes
embrace our own destruction on a scale far beyond the
capabilities of mere armaments.
But, the most virulent representation, however, is the
thought that Africa, at this stage of her political
independence, is the helpless victim of capitalism. Such
belief ultimately undercuts our own discernment.
As for the love interest in AVATAR, I say revive comatose
Jake and allow him to be with the Navi girl for the sequel.
E. Ablorh-Odjidja, Publisher
www.ghanadot.com, Washington, May 11, 2010
Permission to publish: Please feel free to publish or
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