Clyde Taylor's concept of a 'Master Text' (Screen, 1988) is as ever-present in Avatar as it was in Stars Wars cycle decades past. It seems all western European mythologies orbit around recurring plots of modernity vs. primitivism as discourses of power. Whether Disney or Cameron, "the indigenous" haunts Americas' sense of shame, re-exploiting the rubble of imperialism with the instant replay of the noble savage and his spiritual habitat-the wilderness that we desire ravish once again. That spiritual habitat-Pandora-is opened, entered, of course without permission, and plundered, in yet another phallic dream undeferred. We've read other critics referencing Pocahontas and Dances with Wolves and I do wonder why the 'white man' needs to keep rubbing this old wound? Coming so soon after a disappointing Copenhagen climate treaty talks, the billions spent to make this movie might have relieved the requirements of global warming provisions in several small countries. Will we continue to be mesmerized and conquered by the visual text-the seduction of technological visual effects-and lose no sleep over the colonial nightmare of indigenous conquest that continues into the 21st century in many countries of Asia, Africa, the Americas, the Middle East? I believe in the oneness of humanity. And I believe there are many more compelling stories to be told in the cinematic medium, one of the most significant wells in which science and art coalesces. Don't miss those other subtexts here-cloning, the military industrial complex, and the western superman going native with the native princess, thus disgracing her intended. Thus spake [Cameron].
'Something's rotten in Denmark', Cameron-of-the-dying-planet. Let the natives be. Let them be.
[*"Let us pray....let them be" from the poem Museums (2001-Robin M. Chandler); Collage entitled Taking Away the Medicine.]
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