Avatar, language, and the noble savage...

I finally saw Avatar this weekend. I will forego the obligatory deprecation of it as Pocahontas meets Dances with Wolves meets Ferngully meets Dune (I may be the only one referencing Dune, but I did love it when Jake conquered the great worm Shai-hulud! "Pandora was made to train the faithful!"). All this is true: the plot was painfully derivative and predictable. But I must agree with the reviewers that all of that paled in the face of the sheer wonder of the world Cameron created. It was simply stunning and exquisitely detailed.

That said, I do have two conceptual issues..

First--and this might be a tad picky--I was curious about the linguistic assumptions of the film. Cameron took the time to hire a professional linguist to create the language of the Na'vi. Yet it was the human language that left me wanting more. Why, in the year 2154, is the human language pretty much the same as it is in 2010? I'm an unapologetic Joss Whedon fanboy, so I have to compare Avatar's non-advanced human language to the subtly textured speech of Firefly which incorporates garbled versions of Chinese profanity and random slang to give the space-western a slightly "alien" feel.

On a more philosophically annoying note, I was intrigued by the way in which Jake Sully was instructed to tell his big-bird-dragon-thingy to "fly left" or "bank right." The orgo-cyber link established between Jake and the animal allowed him to communicate to/control it with his thoughts. In early training, he was encouraged to speak his thoughts in order to get the hang of it.

But does this not assume a structuralist or pre-structuralist concept of language in which speech is merely the semiotic manifestation of internal psychic phenomena? This seems especially true if the language of the Na'vi and that of humans is supposed to correspond to the same pre-linguistic thoughts. Perhaps this is just the necessary convention of science fiction. There has to be a modicum of structural parallel in order for communication to take place. Yet, it seemed a giant leap to assume that the different languages corresponded to comparable mental states.

Second, I was a little troubled by the portrayal of the Na'vi. The post-colonial critic in me--(he's there, just way, way down in there)--always balks at the stereotype of the Noble Savage. This Romantic notion came about in opposition to the dehumanizing view of "savages" as, well, savage, less than human, unintelligent, and superstitious (think romans vs. barbarians). However, the "nobleness" of the savage corresponds to a Romantic idealization of the natural state. Ultimately this valorization of the exotic other dehumanizes its object (as object) just as much as classical conquistador conceits.

The Na'vi have such a beautiful, untainted, pristine culture that lives in spiritual harmony with all living things! They are so much better than us! They are pure and wise in ways we could never dream! They lack all of our sophisticated technology--and because of it they are closer to the mother earth! They are so dreamy and precious!

These are no longer people (so to speak). They are manifestations of our own desires and discontents. Of course, in cinema that's exactly the point! Cinema is able to express such things through analogical storytelling. Yet, my fear is that this too closely resembles ways in which American Indians and other "exotic" groups have been (and continue to be) treated both in popular culture and in social practice. The escape into Pandora-world is fine. However, we ought to be more nuanced and cautious when speaking of/with the "other" in the real world.

As a United Methodist, I'm particularly reminded of John Wesley's failed attempt to evangelize the native inhabitants of Georgia. His early journals are filled with his excitement at meeting these pure, untouched savages whose natural spirituality would surely incline them to reception of the Gospel! Wesley quickly found the American Indians to be more than his stereotype had allowed, and he was unable to adapt his mission to coincide with who they really were.

Of course one might easily say that Jake had a preconceived notion of the "savages" that was challenged when he really got to know them on their own terms. But, from a narrative point of view, the story-teller has simply traded one dehumanizing trope for another.

There's a theological point to be made here, I'm sure.

But I'm tired.

That's it. Rant over.