Avatar: Postcolonialism and Technological Hegemony

Avatar: Postcolonialism and Technological Hegemony

Submitted by:                                                                                     Submitted to:

T. M. Rakib Hasan Munna                                                             Farhanaz Rabbani

Roll: MM-1713                                                                             Assistant Professor

7th Batch, Section-(i)                                                               Department of English

M. A. 2nd Semester                                                                      University of Dhaka

Department of English (Literature)

University of Dhaka

Course Title: Eng. 506: Presentation and Viva-Voce

Submission Date: November 17, 2017

Avatar: Postcolonialism and Technological Hegemony

T. M. Rakib Hasan Munna

Introduction

               Today’s globalization is an ideological continuation of the west’s colonial dominance to eastern world and Africa. Gautam Basu Thakur mentions current postcolonial condition as ‘new avatar of European imperialism’ (p.6) in his book Postcolonial Theory and Avatar. Basically, the movie Avatar is a condemnation of ‘western imperialism’ as racist scientific exploitation of the environment and a replacement of worldview with Gaia Hypothesis, a scientific theory of technological advancement where humanity is a servant onto it. However, this film is popularly regarded for its technological advance, and because the film features with spiritual progress of a white male who literally possesses an indigenous body (Na’vi), I may observe that Avatar’s attitude towards colonial encounter is thematically ambiguous.

                       A postcolonial view of the film reveals similarity between Europe’s greed driven conquest and exploitation of native America, Asia as well as Africa, and the greed of high-tech military force to destroy local culture and gain vulnerable natural resources. To do so Palestinian Edward W. Said’s imperialism criticism will be applied. Moreover, a hegemonical view of the film reveals mechanized warfare to native, and grows uncontested 3D model to other films. I will analyze racism, imperialism, political condition, multiculturalism and military aggression to colonized era in Avatar by this paper.

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Postcolonialism and Hegemony           

                           Postcolonialism is an academic discipline that analyzes, explains and responds to the cultural legacy of colonialism or imperialism. As a critical theory it represents, explains and illustrates the ideology and practice of neocolonialism with examples drawn from history, political science, philosophy, sociology, anthropology and human geography. To define postcolonialism Edward Said says, “Every empire, however, tells itself and the world that it is unlike all other empires, that its mission is not to plunder and control but to educate and liberate.”(p.34). He also distinguishes colonizers as ‘we’ (superior) and the colonized as ‘they’ (inferior), and also ‘they are not like us.’ In The Wretched of the Earth (1961), the psychiatrist and philosopher Frantz Fanon analyzed and medically described the nature of colonialism as essentially destructive. Its societal effects, the imposition of a subjugating colonial identity are harmful to the mental health of the native peoples who were subjugated into colonies. Gayatri Spivak criticizes postcolonial activities as a kind of oppression rather nationalism. She says, “Nationalism can only ever be a crucial political agenda against oppression. All longing to the contrary, it cannot provide the absolute guarantee of identity.”

                                “The term Hegemony refers the political, economic, or military predominance or control of one state over others.” The Marxist theory of cultural hegemony, associated particularly with Antonio Gramsci, is the idea that the ruling class can manipulate the value system and mores of a society, so that their view becomes the world view (Weltanschauung): in Terry Eagleton's words, "Gramsci normally uses the word hegemony to mean the ways in which a governing power wins consent to its rule from those it

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subjugates".(p.43)

Plot

                           Avatar, is an American science fiction film of 2009 directed, wrote, produced and co-edited by James Cameron, and starring Sam Worthington, Zoe Saldana, Stephen Lang, Michelle Rodriguez and Sigourney Weaver. This film has beaten all records and has become the highest-grossing film of all time. The film is set in the middle of the twentieth century when humans colonize Pandora, a lush habitable moon of a giant gaseous in the Alpha Centauri star system, to extract non-ferrous mineral, a superconductor at room temperature. The expansion of the mining colony threatens the survival of a local tribe of Na'vi, a native humanoid species of Pandora. The title of the film refers to a genetically modified Na'vi body with the mind of a locally located human being to interact with Pandora's natives.

White narrative and other postcolonial films  

                          Although the film is a science fiction story set in the future (year 2154) and Na'vi (very similar to "natives") on the planet Pandora have blue skin, this allegory points to the history of colonization. Most colonists and Europeans oppressed others for not having white skin. In addition, Avatar's protagonist is a white man who is sent to submerge a distant village, then identified with these people after falling in love with one of them, and finally assumes some leadership role in their condemned fight against imperialism. This example is very similar to other postcolonial films, literature, and colonized states. However, I think that story of colonial fantasies Avatar Pocahontas and last of the Mohicans, Balla with wolves, The Last Samurai and even another science fiction movie, Dune. I think the Avatar movie is a