Avatar

One of the most expensive films to date, James Cameron's Avatar, is heavily laced with ecological overtones and borrows from classic films that came before it. Yet it is more than "dances with smurfs," as it examines the struggle between science for research and science for the sake of control; reality unto the imagined; heroism and martyrdom; and passion versus professional education.

I first saw the film over Christmas break at a 10pm showing with my father and brother. I wasn't prepared for the 2 hours and 40 minutes of a head-ache inducing 3-D acid trip. I was indeed overwhelmingly impressed with the advancement of CGI, the imagination and thoughtfulness of the film's visual design, and the attempt to argue for ecological awareness. Upon the car ride home, however, I could not say whether or not I liked the film; I was stuck debating whether or not I thought the climactic scene of a literal war on terrorism was ethical for the "network of all living things" to undertake. I hated how predictable and corny the dialogue was, I didn't like that the unobtainable resource bringing the humans to invade another planet was actually called "unobtainium," though I was interested in this plot as an allegory to the war on terrorism/war for oil in the Middle East.

After being undecided on my feelings towards the film, I bought the movie while in Fredericksburg, Texas. My stepfather is an avid science fiction lover and will spend his free weekends watching the Sy Fy channel and recorded Stargate episodes. My cousin is visiting from Arkansas and has a genuine appreciation for the world around her. We watched the film this evening, and I tried to ignore my English major's learned hesitancy towards an overwhelmingly Hollywood style production.

After having spent two weeks in Belize with a bunch of biologists, I was impressed with how closely related the CGI created nature was to a real jungle. Most of the life was recognizable, though with obvious deviations, and accurately represented an earthly balance of a complex ecosystem. The seeds of the sacred tree look exactly like bri-bri flowers (see above picture), and the lemurs acted and looked particularly like the spider monkeys who annoyingly swung from all the trees.

Interestingly enough, Cameron had his crew stay in Hawaii in order to get a feel for the "rain forest." With 60% of the film being computer generated, there was no actual rain forest set design for the actors to work with. The cast went hiking, built campfires and ate fish. At night, however, they slept in the Four Seasons hotel (imdb). Hawaii is also a series of small volcanic islands and the islands do not contain any sort of large mammal like the jaguar-like cat or the rhino-like tapir in the film. This attempt to be "one with nature" as an acting technique through false, unrealistic means is similar to that of the premise of the film. Jake Skully finds freedom through being an Avatar. The word avatar was first employed to mean an incarnation of a Hindu deity (Merriem-Webster). It was only recently used to define an electronic image controlled and representing a computer user. Through this "electronic" world, Jake is able to walk and move freely despite his actual paralysis. This is why Jake foolishly rushes outside of the hospital, gets bored in the forest and thereby gets attacked by a panther(?), and is also why he is chosen by Eywa in the first place--for he literally has nothing to lose since the virtual world gives him so much more freedom than the real world, therefore he has nothing to fear. In summation, Jake must artificially experience nature in order to understand it. Though he is racing with dragons and dating the chief's daughter, his real body is still sleeping in a machine.

This is much like the way we experience "nature." I scuba dive in order to better understand the ocean's inhabitants. I often believe I was a fish in a former life, yet I am still a human not built to breath underwater relying on equipment to keep my lungs from collapsing. Being a scuba diver is not much different than being a dual DNA Avatar in a fictitious planet. When we go hiking in national parks like Yosemite and Yellowstone, we are not trekking through raw, wild nature. We are walking paths set for us where many people have been and therefore chased off most wildlife we would normally see. It is a tamed wilderness, not much different than a zoo, and is a false image of what natural truly is.

If we can shake the hokey blue man Avatar image from our minds and put our own experience of nature in the film's intentions, we can arrive at a particularly valuable lesson. Jake begins to explore nature as a Marine, or as taking orders. We begin to experience nature because a. it's an "escape from reality" (though what's more real than nature?) b. we are curious, interested in travel and exploration and c. we are adventurous. Yet like Jake, once we immerse ourselves more deeply within nature and attempt to "read"the forest, we begin to notice things. Certain bird calls mean that the sun will rise the next day, leaf-cutter ants come out after a heavy rain, jaguars can smell the scent of a human and is thereby why they are so hard to see in the wild. Once we begin to understand the language of nature, we begin to lose the shell we go into nature with. This is comparable to the old fogy Thoreau himself when he stops fishing and merely watches the fish--we go into the woods and live falsely; the more we let go of what we think we should do and allow ourselves to be open, the more we actually contemplate nature.

I'm not saying we should gather all of our forests friends and take "an eye for an eye" as Cameron's film suggests. I am still bothered by this epic conclusion in which Cameron justifies warfare in order to achieve peace. I do think Avatar's simple use of the avatar to get into nature and teach the audience how to begin thinking ecologically is successful. Still, we must remind ourselves that we are still living falsely in reality. Green "fashion" is not true ecological consciousness, as while I am writing this blog entry, I am using energy and polluting the environment. Yet the more we pay attention to our actions, the more we are able to be conscious of how to read the world around us. The more we read of the trail, tracks, scents and sounds around us, the more we are able to return to the nature we live as avatars within.

The Jaguar Shark

It was only months before that I crossed state lines in my two door focus to catch a glimpse of the whale sharks of the Georgia Aquarium. Little did I know, I would soon see whale sharks in their natural habitat.

There's a scene in Wes Anderson's film The Life Aquatic in which the characters, angered and hurt by one another, come across the much anticipated jaguar shark. Though Steve Zissou intends to kill this shark in order to avenge his friend, seeing this shark swimming in the wild is so profound that no one can do anything but stare. "Staraflur" by Sigur Rós plays in the background and despite how much of an asshole Steve has been through the entire film because he has difficulty expressing human emotion, he wonders if the shark remembers him. It is at this point in the film where reconciliation occurs, as everyone in the cramped submarine places their hand on Steve as an act of human connection and comfort. Thus, this beautiful shark, though he may have taken a life, has brought everyone in the submarine together. (watch the scene, abbreviated, here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OZ8U9t4MgN8)

While in the Gladden Spit Placencia Sanctuary, a few biologists, biology students and I went diving into the open ocean. Literally all we could see was an abyss of blue all around us. Beneath us, however, was the ocean floor, over 125' below us and perfectly visible. We spent nearly an hour blowing bubbles and attempting to attract a whale shark, as bubbles can be mistaken for snapper eggs. The dive was unsuccessful though, and we begrudgingly climbed back into the boat. While finding a place for a second dive, however, my professor points out a fin and yells "DOLPHIN!" Upon the animal's second surfacing, we realized it was definitely not a dolphin. Rather, it was a juvenile whale shark. Almost without speaking, the entire boat dives into the water and swims after it. The whale shark swam so close to us that I had to swim out of the way in order not to touch him, as I wanted to respect the wild animal in a sanctuary. The entire moment was unreal--that creature less than two feet from me was one of the most beautiful animals I had ever seen. Even as a juvenile he was so much larger than me, yet he couldn't harm me at all. Of course, I forgot to grab my camera in the excitement of the moment, but I wasn't mad at myself. If anything, I got to enjoy the moment more fully than I could've with a camera to prove I had experienced it. We swam after the whale shark for a while. One of our girls even lost her flipper from a boat engine that was turned on despite the swimmers all across the water.

I didn't really even want to go diving again, my heart was beating so fast and I could feel warm tears on my face with the cool salt water. I had just seen my favorite animal, the largest fish in the world and the creature whose plush stuffed animal version I sleep with at night. But, the dive master threw our BCDs in, and we strapped our equipment on before descending again. This time, instead of the sandy bottom, we saw a swarm of snappers. They were a complete blur because there were so many of them, constantly swimming and engulfing the entire abyss. Suddenly we found ourselves with another dive group and we all kept swimming in circles, over and over, and I kept getting confused as to who I was supposed to be following. Then our dive master points his finger out into the blue abyss, and I try to make out what he's pointing at. Then, out of complete darkness, a figure emerges. I keep staring at the dark figure as it slowly starts to take a recognizable shape, and I see white spots. Once again my chest starts pounding and I have to remind myself that I'm 50' below the water and need to stay calm--it was a 35' whale shark. I start to swim faster than I knew I could swim after him, snapping pictures with my dive camera and completely disregarding the need to keep breathing. I just find myself staring at him, wanting to understand what I was looking at and in awe of just how huge he was and how he didn't seem to care that we were watching. I was so excited that I actually threw up through my regulator, a habit I've never had, but being someone who swears they were a fish in another life witnessing a whale shark will make you act quite strangely.

I think Wes Anderson captured the scene of complete awe with something so powerful in nature quite perfectly. Aquariums like the one I worked at help others to truly see what else exists in the world and builds curiosity and passion for such life. But actually seeing it in the wild and feeling completely insignificant to a life so profound is a concept beyond my limited understanding. This feeling must be what John Muir felt exploring the Sierra Nevada or why sailors were so afraid of whales. This feeling is what keeps people fighting for the environment when it's completely exhausting. The current situation in the Gulf of Mexico has made me hardly able to eat. To think that not only an entire ecosystem is being hurt by the inefficiency of a corporation living up to its responsibility, but an entire culture is now devastated. Perhaps this disaster will help our political leaders better comprehend how vulnerable the natural world is to our responsibilities. Even if it's hard to convince a politician to protect the whale sharks that he has no idea just how beautiful they truly are, it must mean something to see an entire region infuriated, seafood markets and tourism devastated, and an important coastline flooded with oil and suffering life.