Avatar: Great White Hopeless But See It Anyway

So, on the surface (and beneath the surface) Avatar is what David Brooks describes as a "White Messiah" movie a la "Dances with Wolves" and a dozen other popular cinema, literary, and animated fables. The movie is of course about a white man that goes native, and in this movie he literally goes native in the end swapping his human body for an alien body, and leads the indigenous people to salvation. He falls in love with an alien version of Malinche/Pocahontas/Sacajewea/Insert Any Other Woman's Name Here Blamed for Giving Access to Her People By the Colonizers. And, of course the indigenous people are at one with the natural environment, have perfect bodies, exist without war amongst themselves, and live in a big tree. They are the noble savage perfected.

I should have hated this movie for all of those reasons, but I absolutely loved it.

I won't allow that James Cameron was sophisticated in his race analysis. He wasn't. But what he did was provide a very clear depiction of what corporatism and white colonization has done and continues to do to indigenous peoples and populations around the world. He doesn't represent the corporate/military industrial complex on Pandora as having some sort of benevolent intentions...he strips away the niceties that are often present in these movies that portray the "bad white guys" as simply misguided or doing evil in the name of good or higher intentions. He tells it like it is and shows how decisions are really made in the real world when indigenous communities are sitting atop a valuable resources that is desired by the industrialized world. And, the part that won me over, was that James Cameron, for the first time that I can remember in a major world wide cinema piece, directly and clearly makes the connection between capitalism, corporatism, and the military industrial complex. He shows clearly and definitively that they are conjoined, something many of us already knew, and that they can not and will not exist separate from one another. He pushes all of his characters to their illogical extremes. But in doing so gives a more realistic view of the "bad guys" than one is likely to get in a corporate backed theater in the Western World.

He also does a weak critique, but a critique none-the-less, of the clash between Western scientists and indigenous science and technology. Let's be clear, indigenous communities have had and continue to have technology that is culturally appropriate and may not look like Western technology but is still technology. Unfortunately, Western science fails to understand or understands incorrectly indigenous knowledge, medicine, science and technology. And, in this movie, they fail again. Except Sigorne Weaver, who magically comes to a complete understanding of the indigenous science and faith system just before she departs to live with Eywa. Pullllleaassse.

One interesting side note is that Cameron did something interesting. He used a derivation of the Aramaic word for God, which is Elaw. I know this because I use that name for God in the novel that I am writing. Score one for Cameron actually opening a book and doing some research.

In the end, I found value in watching Avatar, but not for the reasons, I am sure, that James Cameron wanted. The plot was thin, but it did communicate some messages, starkly, that the world needs to hear.

On another tip, entirely, I fully believe the special effects in this movie will redefine special effects in the way that the Matrix did almost a decade ago.

In the end, I support folks going to see Avatar. Walk into it knowing that it will again be a storytelling of the Great White Hope. If you accept that up front, you will be able to get past it and enjoy the movie for what it does offer in terms of originality. If nothing else, see it in 3-D...cuz...really...the special effects are fucking cool.

For the Homeland (A Poem for Bagua)

This is a fierce ass poem by my friend, brother, and co-Palabristas Rodrigo Sanchez-Chavarria. For those of you that don't know...some deep shit went down in Peru a couple of weeks ago. Indigenous people murdered for oil and natural gas. The shit is real, and it isn't right, and as much as I love Michael Jackson and think the coup in Honduras is fucked up...neither should have overshadowed the Bagua tragedy. You can hear this poem read by clicking on the Ninja in the side bar and scrolling to For the Homeland.

For The Homeland (A Poem for Bagua)

by Rodrigo Sanchez-Chavarria

With my hands I write these words for the homeland

Today my heart stopped
My blood spilled
On land that will be given
To oil companies that will rape it
Brand it, and sell it with my name on it

Today my body is motionless on the road
With no one to claim it
Until the bullets stop flying
Until they stop crying
Because no one asked them
if they wanted to perforate their people
asked them if they wanted to witness babies dying

The ground sobbed red tears as bodies fell
Painting a brief picture of living hell

With my hands I write these words for the homeland

Today Peru lost 2-1 and
people said they played with no heart,
I know where it lays.

In Bagua
where blood mixes with brown soil
In rivers
where brothers and sisters float boca abajo.
And mothers try to identify body parts
While I am trying to identify self worth

Remembering that the blood spilled is pumping through my veins,
that the land where I was born to the land where I stand
will always be indigenous land.
Remembering.
That when we left in 88 Alan Garcia was fucking up the economy
Then ran to hide in Paris
Only to come back for a reconquista
to kill people he sees as second class

Today the bullets cried
My brothers and sister died
Media blinded to the lies
That the cowards use to hide

With my hands I write these words for the homeland

Today I died in bagua
But when my funeral comes
Don’t put me in a casket
Or bury me 6 feet under

Instead baptize me in the Marañon River
So my soul flows south with the blood spilled

Bury me next to the mass graves
With my eyes wide open
So i can see
What others say is not there

Then broadcast these words over radio waves
Banned for speaking the truth

Indigenas nunca son cuidadanos de segunda clase
Indigenous people are never 2nd class citizens

This is for my people
In the homeland
Fighting in the trenches
Blocking streets, police
While we overseas fight the oasis painted by white picket fences
This is for Alfredo,Pelusa, Mariana, rodrigo, camilo y Apu
Who remind me of home and fuel the purpose of what I do
for our babies, who asked why we cry at this injustice

For jose Antonio Encinas who taught me about power
And how politicians’ abuse it, we call them cowards

This for Santiago Manuin
Because 8 bullets could not stop his heart beating
His strength
His fight for his people
Their land

This is for Pizango finding refuge in Nicaragua
While his heart and spirit stays in bagua

And for the rest of us
Who are away from home
In strange lands that we can’t call our own
Some of us facing death for the first time and
Raising fists, pens, and words in defiance
To form a global alliance with you, our people.
Because borders, time zones, years, guns and oppression
Cannot stop our love for you.
Today I died in Bagua
And was reborn to use my hands to write these words for the homeland