The Dude Abides
GODSTUFF
AVATAR IS EPIC. A SPIRITUAL MASTERPIECE? NO.
James Cameron’s Avatar is a game-changer.
Visually and science-fictionally epic.
A technological masterpiece.
But is it also a spiritual masterpiece, as some critics have suggested?
Avatar takes place on Pandora, a technicolor primal rainforest teeming with dinosaur-like creatures, bugs and beasts, and magical flora that one critic described as “the garden of Eden, but with teeth.”
The hero, a young marine called Jake, is accepted into the local indigenous culture — the Na’Vi — where he learns the ways of the 10-feet-tall blue-hued humanoids who live in harmony with nature and with one another.
Through a kind of intergalactic Bildungsroman, Jake emerges transformed — physically, emotionally and spiritually — and must decide whose side he is on: the humans or of the Na’Vi.
Along with mind-blowing special effects and astounding feats of cinematic storytelling, James Cameron created a spiritual backstory for Pandora.
Unfortunately it is in this arena — the spiritual — where his virtuosity falls short.
The Na’Vi worship a Gaia-like deity called Eywa. They commune with her in every area of life, with the mediation of a female shaman.
One of the Na’Vi characters explains that “our great mother does not take sides … she protects only the balance of life.” Eywa is the watchmaker — a distant creator who put the world in motion and then stepped back, only intervening to restore the balance of all of life.
Eywa is an impersonal god. The Na’vi worship her and meditate at the foot of her tree of souls, where they can communicate with the souls of the Na’vi who have passed on.
It’s a beautiful idea.
In creating Na’vi theology, Cameron has taken the most inoffensive bits from a variety of spiritual traditions — including pantheism, Eastern spirituality, Native American theology, and animism — with the aim of appealing to the largest possible audience without raising many religious hackles.
The result is a picture of a God that I found terrifying, not nurturing.
Eywa doesn’t take sides, we are told. But in the climactic battle scene, where the mining company strafe-bombs the Pandora rainforest, destroying its sacred spaces and killing many of the Na’vi — Eywa does intervene.
Then we witness long battle scenes where the Na’vi are saved, but scores of human soldiers are killed. And we, the audience, find ourselves cheering.
What kind of a God takes sides in that way? Why are the lives of the Earthlings any less precious than those of the Na’vi, or even the trees on Pandora?
The hand of Eywa appears and she is an angry destroyer, protecting her own turf and laying waste to the interlopers. If this god Cameron has created is all about the inter-connectedness of life, why does that connection stop with humans?
Perhaps the most insipid spiritual message of Avatar is that somewhere — out there — there is a beautiful Eden unspoiled by selfish humans. An “other” place full of beauty and wonder. Nature at its most inspiring. The kind of place we yearn for, having killed our own Mother earth (as is the premise in Avatar).
Call me a Pollyanna, but I haven’t given up hope yet on old Mother Earth. And, frankly, I think this world of ours is a spectacularly beautiful place. The incandescent colors and creatures and geography of Pandora are glorious, but, to me, it looks a lot like here. Only brighter.
The creatures that inhabit our Earth are just as spectacular and epic as the fictional ones Cameron created.
If only we had the eyes to see them…
Would that the Na’Vi theology could have taught Jake and his cohorts to see the beauty that already exists, where they came from.
As I walked out of the theater, I couldn’t get another film out of my mind. And no, not Star Wars, the film to which Avatar is being compared.
My mind drifted to the far-less epic film “Joe Versus the Volcano.” In that story, written by the playwright John Patrick Shanley, Joe lives in a grey, dank world – he’s a cog in a machine. Until he wakes up.
In my favorite scene, Joe is drifting in the open sea on a raft, delirious from thirst and sun exposure. On a full-moon night, he awakens and staggers to his knees, in awe of what he sees, perhaps with clear eyes for the first time.
“God whose name I do not know, thank you for my life,” Joe says. “I forgot … how big. Thank you for my life.”
Avatar is spectacular, but it isn’t real.
We forget how beautiful our own world is. Here’s hoping that some of the millions of fans who are awed by the Avatar experience, will also see it for what it could be.
A wake-up call to open our eyes. Lest we forget.
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