Alex Pasker

KSP Response
11-15-10
Truth and Misconception in Avatar
October 16 was a busy Friday night at Dordt. The campus was flooded with parents and

campus visitors, and Dordt was doing its best to keep everyone entertained. I was caught up in

the busyness myself as I pedaled across campus on my little blue bike. My destination was

SB101, the location of the first Faith and Film showing of the year. The club, which strives to

"see God's face in film (Reitsma)," had chosen to show Avatar, and I was not going to miss the

discussion, even though I had missed the first two and a half hours of the movie. After seeing

Avatar for the first time this past summer, I had the intense desire to sort through my response to

the experience. I wasn't sure how exactly to respond to the message of the film, which was...

well, that was another question that needed answering.

After an hour and a half discussion with the four other people who tore themselves away

from other campus events to be there, I walked out of the science building with a much better

sense of my opinion of the movie. I came to the conclusion that Avatar, a superbly-crafted,

visually imaginative film, has a message that can be neither wholly embraced as a truth or

disregarded as fantasy tied up with environmental extremism. Instead, the Christian viewer must

seek out both the misdirection and truth that are present in the story.

Avatar itself is an amazingly intricate and expensive piece of art. Director James

Cameron (who also directed Alien, Titanic, and one of the Terminator movies) wrote the script

in 1994 and planned to begin production on the film in 1997 (Goodyear). Cameron's goal was to

use computer generation to create another world. Unfortunately, the technology required to

create such a large-scale, realistic production was not yet available, so Cameron got to work

creating the technology himself. Finally, production for the film began in late 2006, though it
would be another three years before the film would be completed (Grover, Lowry, and White).

When Avatar was released in December of 2009, it quickly set box-office records, eventually

replacing Cameron's earlier film, Titanic, the highest grossing film of all time at $1,958,000,000

("How much?").

One of the first things a viewer notices (after the intricate computer animation and

advanced 3D effects) is the familiarity of the story line. It is almost exactly the same as that of

Disney's Pocahontas. In fact, if you avoid proper nouns, the two stories can be told as one. A

group of settlers have come from far away to a new world in order to mine a valuable natural

resource. They are led by a greedy, prejudiced, power-hungry man. A soldier goes into the wild

to explore and meets a native princess . Although the princess is at first suspicious of the new

comer, a mystical tree, that serves as a connection to the spirit of nature shows her that he can be

trusted. The princess is pledged to marry the next in line to be chief (Kocoum/Tsu'Tey), but she

falls in love with the soldier instead. The princess's betrothed tries to kill the soldier out of

jealousy, but is later killed himself by the settlers. As the settlers prepare to attack the natives in

order to get the valuable resource, whose existence the natives know nothing about, the soldier is

blamed by the natives and sentenced to death. Before they can kill him, the settlers arrive. The

chief is threatened by the settlers, and the soldier sustains injuries from his commanding officer.

In the end, the princess risks her life to save the soldier, the two cultures come to an

understanding, and the earth is saved.

In this story that is both Pocahontas and Avatar, there is obvious stereotyping. The

settlers have absolutely no concern for the environment or the rights of the native people; they

are driven by their own greed. The natives, on the other hand, seem savage and primal, but turn

out to be noble stewards of nature.

 Realizing these stereotypes is a good first step, but viewers must then try to understand

the message they convey. In his own words, Cameron explains the meaning of the film:

The Navi represent something that is our higher selves, or our aspirational selves,

what we would like to think we are or maybe what we realize we're losing, and the

humans in the film, even though there are some good ones salted in, represent

what we know to be the parts of ourselves that are trashing our world and maybe

condemning ourselves to a grim future. (qtd. in 'Avatar Friday')

Cameron makes it obvious which groups he believes are "trashing our world" when military

leaders with Texas accents and business executives in well-tailored suits lead the humans in the

destruction of Pandora. It's harder to identify the Na'vi parallel in our society. This group is

portrayed as very primal, yet noble. By refusing to be disconnected from nature, the Na'vi retain

many animalistic behaviors but gain a greater dignity than their technologically advanced human

counterparts. There is not a group in American society that fits into this picture. This is because,

according to Cameron, the Na'vi are "our higher selves;" they are what we should be. According

to Cameron, an ideal human society would be one in which humans submit to nature and honor it

as their source of life.

After I realized that this was worldview the film was going to promote (this realization

occurred early on), my response was to cringe at the reductionism of the stereotypes and reject

the pantheism they endorsed. I wasn't sure I wanted to see any more of the film, actually.

Obviously, Cameron's idea of the role and purpose of the human race is skewed. Humans are not

the same as the rest of creation; they are not meant to simply march to the rhythm that nature

beats out. No, human beings were made in the image of God. God is our life-source and our

provider. It is by his good and perfect will that we are sustained. Also, as image-bears, we are
called to create. We are higher than nature. We live within it, yes, but we also work on it.

Humans are called to recognize that death and suffering are not an original aspect of creation

meant to bring balance opposite life and prosperity and that they must therefore be opposed.

Cameron grossly misrepresents the place of humans in the world when he asks them to aspire to

reliance on and allegiance to the created world.

My opinion seemed to shift as I continued to watch Avatar. I was struck by the parallels

between the story line and the present reality of the destruction of God's creation on Earth. There

are places in our world where people are exploited and the beauty of God's creation is

desecrated. Lust for power can persuade companies to turn a blind eye to the effect their actions

have on community members and employees. I saw such destruction in the form of mountaintop

removal coal mining on my PLIA trip to West Virginian coal country last spring. As I sat

watching the Hometree of the Na'vi being destroyed, I honestly thought, "This is what's

happening in West Virginia." This was the source of my confusion after watching Avatar for the

first time. I knew the message was wrong, but saw truth in the portrayal as well. How was this

possible? How should I respond?

Much of this confusion stemmed from the fact that I grew up in a Christian culture that

taught, both implicitly and explicitly, that environmentalists are wrong 99.9% of the time. We

were told that yes, we have a responsibility to the earth, but that environmentalists take it too far.

Unfortunately, Christians tend to take too big of a step back from environmental concerns in

order to avoid association with these radical groups.

The truth is, creation is in pretty bad shape, and it is all our fault. Humanity's original sin

in the Garden led to the fall of all creation. God set humans as his stewards over creation, and

when we failed to be obedient to his will, creation felt the effects. Christians often fail to realize
the extent to which they are responsible to creation. As Paul writes in Romans 8:19-21,

Creation waits in eager expectation the children of God to be revealed. For the

creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the

one who subjected, in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its

bondage to decay and brought into the freedom and glory of the children of God.

(Zondervan)

According to Paul, creation cannot be made whole until God's children have been revealed in

glory. Some might take this to mean that it is pointless to try to preserve creation now, as it

cannot be restored until Christ's return, but this is not a valid argument. Christians are called to

bring the kingdom of God now. This mission includes restoring not only the relationships

between man and God and man and man but also between man and creation.

In his book Surprised by Hope, Anglican theologian N.T. Wright urges Christians to live

in light of the reality of creation's future renewal. As Wright correctly argues, the Christian hope

is not in leaving Earth and spending eternity in heaven but in living forever on a renewed Earth

with Christ. If God were going to destroy his whole creation, there wouldn't have been much

point in dying for it. Because of this truth, Wright says that what humans do on earth matters

(Wright, 143). Wright is not suggesting that the results of sin will be permanent or that the new

creation will be flawed because of our mistakes but simply that we cannot expect that our work

will have no eternal significance. Wright goes on to say: I don't know how my planting a tree

today will relate to the wonderful trees that there will be in God's recreated world, though I do

remember Martin Luther's words about the proper reaction to knowing the kingdom was coming

the next day being to go out and plant a tree (Wright, 209)." God certainly can repair damage

done to creation, just as he can free us from the sin that grips us, but to paraphrase Paul's words
in Hebrews 10:26, if we keep on sinning even when we know better, there is no sacrifice for sins

left, only judgment.

The Faith and Film discussion that night brought up these points, and I was thankful that

other Christians had the same confused reaction I had. Avatar is not a Christian film in any way

-- the plot is unoriginal, full of reductionism, and embraces pantheism. At first, it was hard to see

past this aspect of the film, but I could not deny the truth that spoke to me in the story. Humans

do rely on creation and have a responsibility to it. We must act in ways that restore the broken

relationship between man and creation. Avatar conveyed this responsibility of man's and

challenged its viewers to take up this responsibility in their own live. Although the makers did

not intend to honor Christian truths in their film, God's face can be seen in Avatar, by the work of

his grace.
 Work Cited

"'Avatar Friday': fans will be shown preview of James Cameron's 3-D film" Telegraph.co.uk. 18

Aug. 2009. Web. 30 Oct. 2010.

"How much did Avatar make?" ChaCha Search, Inc. 28 Oct. 2010. Web. 2 Nov. 2010.

Goodyear, Dana. "Man of Extremes: The Return of James Cameron." The New Yorker. The New

Yorker, 26 Oct. 2009. Web. 1 Nov. 2010.

Grover, Roland, Tom Lowry, and Michael White. "King of the World (Again)." Bloomberg

Businessweek. Bloomberg L.P., 21 Jan. 2010. Web. Nov. 1 2010.

Reitsma, Kelsey. "The Purpose of Faith and Film." Faith and Film meeting. 16 Oct. 2010.

Wright, N.T. Surprised by Hope: Rethinking Heaven the Resurrection, and the Mission of the

Church. New York: Harper One, 2008. Print.

Zondervan NIV Study Bible: New International Version. Kenneth L. Barker, gen. ed. Rev. ed.

Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2002. Print.