Tuesday, February 16, 2010

Connection: Heart of Darkness and Avatar

There's been a lot of talk in the media lately about James Cameron's mindblowingly expensive 3D film, Avatar. And why shouldn't there be? It was a movie I loved, as did everyone I know, despite having a slightly cliche storyline. Those floating mountains just blew me away. But the reason the storyline was a little weak (besides that fact that it mimicked the cartoon Fern Gully) was that we'd all heard it before. It was telling a story that has reoccurred throughout history, one of imperialism.

There was Hernan Cortes with the Aztecs in the early 1500s, the Dutch with the Khoi Khoi people in the 1650s, the British empire with basically the entire world from the 1600s-1900s, the Afrikaners in South Africa in the late 1860s, and the list goes on and on. Worldly minded people expanding their influence outward throughout the world to bring in commodities, labor, and revenue, at the expense of anyone who got in their way.

In Avatar, a business-minded man with no regard for anything but boosting his profits inhabits the planet Pandora in search of a rare and valuable ore. And along the way, he massacres and attempts to destroy the hometree of the Na'vi people. This is the exact theme told by Charlie Marlow in Heart of Darkness, only this time it's the Belgian King Leolpold II in search of ivory in the Congo Free State, wiping out Africans along his path.

This very familiar theme of losing all morality in the face of money is a strong characteristic of imperialistic occupation, which sheds light on the possibility that imperialism might not be gone from the world. When James Cameron made this movie, he brought the history of this sometimes dark occurrence back to the forefront of our minds. And the worrying fact remains: if imperialism were to come back into "fashion" in our world, it might not all end as well as it did for the Na'vi.

1 comment:

  1. Imperialism has never disappeared. In the Heart of Darkness, the Imperial force of the historical period was Great Britain. America is now the "Superpower" (no, I do not mean something positive like Superman lol) of the world. Imperialism and colonialism have always had a sinister undertone, and it is not a "sometimes" dark occurrence. On the contrary, overtaking other countries, along with their people and resources, could rarely be wholly perceived as a noble and morally right undertaking. Currently, America is helping to colonize the Middle East, even going so far as to demonize Middle Eastern people who don't even live in that region any longer. If the people are wiped out, the memory of the wrongdoings against them and their countries/regions generally disappear more effectively. The various reasons we have difficulty grasping the wrongdoings occurring are: vast physical distance between it and us; language barriers between the colonized and us; those people who integrate into other societies and cultures rarely speak out, or if they do, they are dismissed for various reasons; or it is simply easier for us to remain in our safe bubble and pretend we have no connection with those being colonized (we do, actually, as Americans. We ARE the colonizers). Examples of modern imperialism are constantly appearing; just open your eyes...

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