To tell the truth, I didn't want to see Avatar. The film's trailer promoted it as another action flick, albeit with stunning 3-D graphics. The clips were about making a difference by being in a para-military group on another planet. It was advertised as one of James Cameron's action films, just like Terminator, Terminator 2, Aliens and True Lies, and as a major blockbuster like Titanic. I wasn't interested.
However, my movie-wise friend, Reba Vanderpool of The Visionary Edge, encouraged me to see it. And I heard that the movie was breaking so many records for attendance in Russia, China, and throughout Europe, as well as in the U.S. that -- worldwide -- it was now the second-highest grossing film of all time, surpassed only by Titanic. The film was quickly becoming an international cultural phenomenon. I wanted to know why, so last night I went to see it.
First, I had to sit through a trailer for the upcoming film Pacific and its grand pronouncement that "War is part of the human condition." Before I could consider the assumptions behind that statement, a very long and graphically violent National Guard recruitment music video, titled "At This Moment," powered onto the screen. Ironically, these previews highlighted the urgency of Avatar's message.
Despite the film's initial hype, and despite being preceded by trailers that glorified war, Avatar turned out to be an anti-war film that reminds the world of what it really means to live with integrity and "be all that you can be." No wonder it is sweeping the international stage.
The plot, which James Cameron wrote 15 years ago, is as current as our daily news: A rapacious American corporation/para-government agency innocuously titled "Resources Development Administration/RDA" (Halliburton/KBR) is bound and determined to please its stockholders by extracting the valuable mineral unobtanium (oil) from foreign soil (Iraq, Afghanistan) with the assistance of a paramilitary group (Blackwater). It doesn't matter how many of the local inhabitants die (they are demeaned and depersonalized -- the first necessary step towards wrecking violence on others) or how much local culture is destroyed, as long as the mineral is extracted and the shareholders reap their dividends. Corporate greed is reframed as a "war on terror." The ends justify the means. And the military machines glorified in the previews are the tools the American invaders use to achieve those ends.
The majority of the American invaders have clearly lost their moral compass. But one Marine Corps veteran has the integrity and the courage to refuse to participate in this spiritual bankruptcy. His soul is not worth any amount of money, or even the promise of reconstructed prosthetic legs.
All it takes is one Avatar to inspire more.
An avatar is a being of matchless integrity, that inner and outer coherence of resonating truth. Every culture has its great avatars: Noah, Abraham, Moses, Miriam, Zoroaster, Rama, Sita, Krishna, Buddha, Jesus, Mary, Mohammed, Fatimah, Chief Joseph, Nan'yehi. Over millennia, the stories of the avatars have defined human moral character. They are our saints and spiritual leaders. Their stories fund our own sense of "heroic imagination,"* that larger worldview that encourages us to take risks beyond our small selves for the greater good of all. Their examples help us "develop the personal hardiness to be 'different' or 'difficult'"** so that we are able to take a stand when we encounter injustice and oppression. The Avatars remind us that our spiritual life is our "real" life.
While taking risks for justice may seem to be a daunting proposition in our time, there are many s/heroes among us who are doing so on a daily basis. In their book, Standing Against the Madness, Amy and Dan Goodman profile librarians in Connecticut who took on the PATRIOT act, neighbors in the Ninth Ward of New Orleans, students at Wilton High School and Jena High School, service members of Appeal for Redress, and numerous others who have refused to let the ends justify the means. We need to hear these stories because every act of integrity matters. We need to hear these stories so that we have the courage to act with integrity ourselves.
Avatar has taken the importance of integrity to the worldwide stage, where it is being applauded. The movie does what American politicians fear to do: it identifies the profound spiritual bankruptcy that underlies our financial insolvency. And it reminds us of the antidote for our ailment: like the avatar, we must have the courage to make new choices for the greatest good of all.
*Philip Zimbardo, "For Goodness' Sake," The Oprah Magazine, April, 2007: 202. See also The Lucifer Effect (website and book).
**Ibid., 200-202.
All in all, Cameron seems to slap and borrow together some old scripts of the Wild Wild West while giving them tech upgrade and move the time line into the future.
We also need a future international language. One which is easy to learn, as well !
And that's not English ! Esperanto ?
Please look at http//www.lernu.net
Democratizing the hero concept means replacing the notion of special individuals with everyday people who have the potential to act heroically. The heroic act is extra-ordinary, not the personality of the actor.
We are developing an international organization "The Heroic Imagination Project" (HIP) to promote everyday heroism as a celebration of the positive potential in human nature. Our team will conduct new research on heroism, create new educational curricula at all school levels and for the general public, and develop new hero-based media.
Becoming a "big hero" requires big-time opportunity, such as wars and disasters. But we will enlist youth and elders alike to sign up with a public commitment to be a "hero-in-waiting," practicing daily deeds of goodness, courage, and compassion in our "hero-in-training" program.
Realizing these aspirations requires volunteers, and of course, major sponsors to provide financial resources to match our social capital investment.
Our HIP web site is under construction; so volunteer on:
http://www.lucifereffect.com/
Together, we can make Avatars of common folks in every neighborhood and nation.
Jake Sully makes the critical choice which the movie revolves around of which side he will fight for, based not on appearances, but on truth and justice and morality. He did not buy this, he earnt the choice through growth and action during the story. By growing a moral compass and seeing as the Na'vi see. This is what makes him a hero allowing him to overcome challenges and showing strength and leadership. These SECONDARY characteristics that come AFTER this, is what confuses people into asking why the hero is so special, but these people do not realise what comes BEFORE makes these things possible in time-warn fashion. This reaction is like the ignorant "sky people" in the story who "cannot see" as the Na'vi see. All they can see is BLUE and white and make false choices based wrongly on what they cannot see, not what is of real consequence in the story. A hero is judged by the audience on his actions and choices and not on his origins is the golden rule.
This imperfect world is no damned good. Only the superior values and wisdom of avatars will get us the the promised land of samelessness and predictability. Then we shall live happily ever after. The End.