‘Avatar’ Dazzles, but Has Old Grudges to Settle

Last year’s blockbuster hit “Avatar” amazed audiences with incredibly beautiful vistas, intense action, and… humanistic naturalism with anti-military undertones?

If you’re inclined to see the film, which I highly recommend doing if just for the gorgeous CGI work, I won’t spoil anything for you. That said, the film’s protagonist is a paraplegic marine sent to the alien world of “Pandora” to help a mega-corporation. The corporation is after a precious mineral that the ‘post-Green movement’ Earth needs. Unfortunately, the planet is inhabited by a blue-skinned alien race and their home is directly over the largest deposit of the substance. However, a team of scientists have come up with a solution; create mind-controlled clones of the aliens called “Avatars” to study the people in the hopes of creating a dialogue between the aliens and the humans. But what does the industrial-military complex wish? Forget the aliens, relocate them, then blast their home away!

Waaaaaaaaaait a minute… Haven’t we heard this story before? Oh! Right… the Trail of Tears! More than a few people have commented on the facial similarities between the aliens and Native Americas and Africans. Indeed, the aliens even call themselves, “The People,” a rather clear allusion to the Native American name “First People.”

And, hey! A mega-corporation hellbent on capitalism? What is this? The 1980’s? At what point in the film will the “A-Team” come driving out in their van? Will Mr. T deliver a rousing, “I pity the foo’ who doesn’t respect these people’s belief”?

I don’t mean to be disparaging of environmentalism. I believe that some theological and pastoral resources should be used to define exactly the relationship between God’s people and God’s creation. I believe it’s there and it doesn’t involve hacking down millions of trees or driving species into extinction. However, I also do not believe it involves the anti-human (also read, anti-white guy) sentiment seen in the film.

The anti-military aspects of the film are apparent too. In one scene, a marine is trudging through the foliage of Pandora, spewing flame from a flamethrower, a clear reference to Vietnam footage of the same. The climactic battle of a technological and militaristic underdog winning against a superior force also has throwbacks to Vietnam. One character makes a reference to a “shock and awe” campaign against the aliens.

Several of my immediate and extended family members have been or are in military service. Two of my college roommates are also currently in service. This move into military service is an anti-Darwinian, wholly God-honoring sacrifice. The movie paints a vast majority of the military as being self-unaware, immoral animals with nothing but destruction and death on their minds. This flies in the face of everything that it means to be in the military. The military trains you to head towards almost certain death, when everything in you is screaming to run away, so that your family, friends, and country can be safe.

It surprises me, really, that an American film, made by Americans, and shot in America can be so anti-American. Now, before you think that I’m equating pro-military with patriotism, let me set the record straight. I am! The military is made up of, you guessed it! Americans! And what do those Americans do? Protect other Americans with their lives! What can be more American? As Jesus said, “Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends” (John 15:13).

My point is this; America has no idea who she is. She has no identity as yet. In the British TV show Doctor Who, a woman brings out a thermos of tea during a time where the Earth is being destroyed. Another character comments, “Tea. While we’re waiting for the world to come to an end. Very British.” I don’t mean to be pedantic, but is there a common bond, a common item, that all Americans can identify with? Or has our individualism completely stripped our culture of anything relatable between people? Sure, when I say, “White House party crashers” everyone knows what I’m talking about. But, who’s going to remember that next year? Or this year in fact!

Our greatest strength is also our greatest weakness. We are a tossed salad of cultures and experiences. My wife was part of a church who had services for Eritreans, led by an Eritrean pastor with whom my wife was good friends with. She also grew up next to a family of Hmongs and often joined them for festivals and meals. I like hearing stories of these people groups and their experiences. However, there’s a danger to this grandeur; because we have Chinese, Japanese, African, Spanish, etc. living in this country, trying desperately to hold onto their traditions (which I encourage), we, as Americans, have none of that. Almost all of us go out for Fourth of July to see the fireworks, but do we ever think about the Revolutionary War and the thousands that died to bring this country into being? We love the time off during Memorial Day, but how often do we think of the sacrifices of men and women that we are supposed to be memorializing? For goodness sakes, we can’t even shake hands at the end of a political debate! Our country was built to be a system of checks and balances; various political parties going at it for the mutual benefit of all. Now we have Democrats and Republicans practically throttling each other to get their way. These divisions will someday be our downfall.

We, as a country, have no identity, and an anti-human, anti-military, anti-capitalistic movie like ‘Avatar’  drives the wedge deeper between us and what it means to have national unity. For how can we have unity if we believe that the military will kill to get its own way and corporations have no heart? These are American institutions, run by people like us. Perhaps our distaste for these practices reminds us of our darker impulses. Perhaps what we’re raging against is not the fact that the military is elitist or that the mega-corporations take what they want, but rather that’s exactly what we want to do, if only we had the power and inhibitions. After all, “the hearts of the children of man are full of evil, and^(B) madness is in their hearts while they live, and after that they go to the dead” (Ecc. 9:13).