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Some questions about microfinance and self-help groups
The editorial examines how self-help groups and microfinance may not be what they were once intended to be – the silver bullet to eliminate poverty – and this could soon become a case of the cure being worse than the disease.
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Responses to the Editorial in Phalanx 4
Why Does the Anglophone Indian want to be a Novelist?
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Films: |
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Avatar
by James Cameron
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3 Idiots
by Rajkumar Hirani Read |
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| Home > MK Raghavendra |
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Review: |
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Avatar by James Cameron
Anindita Biswas
Hollywood has often taken upon itself to express regret for the current doings of the American state and a reliable strategy has been to employ a metaphor related to America’s ‘original sin’ – the annihilation of ‘native Americans’. The metaphor of the Indian wars was useful in the 1960s and early 1970s when Vietnam was the issue (Soldier Blue, Little Big Man) and it is employed now when Iraq and Afghanistan are issues - although the ‘Indians’ this time are blue rather than red and provided with tails. But they still ride horses bareback, give the same triumphant war cries and invoke similar forest spirits. But the following review has less to do with Avatar’s narrative strategy that with its politics.
Avatar is about how an American man who was into military service before, agrees to give his services to a corporate entity, being bound by personal necessities – because the state cannot take care of people like him anymore. The ‘corporation’ is engaged in exploiting an alien planet for resources. In exchange, they are ready to provide 'development' - roads, infrastructure, education etc. However, a few genuinely honest people – the scientist and the middle-class ex-marine commissioned to liaison with the natives and persuade them, realize that the natives are beings rich in their own knowledge and do not need to follow the human model. The scientist investigates the planet with astonishment and wonder while the ex-marine takes to living with the natives in order to fully understand them. Both finally revolt against the corporation and the ex-marine leads the natives into a war against the corporation. Peace is restored after the ex-marine becomes the accepted leader of the natives and the corporation is finally expelled from the planet.
Avatar is apparently a political parable but what is interesting here is that a 'corporation' is not necessarily an American entity - it works in its own interests and may even be international. A corporation may exploit 'India' much more that America but America too acts as a provider of goods, services and markets. In theory, all consumers and vendors are equal to a corporation whether in India or in the United States. Avatar, it seems, is deliberately mixing up the ‘evil corporation’ theory with a crude colonization narrative and identifying the corporations as the new colonizers. It appears to be uniting the world against a common enemy - the corporation, a symbol of pure capitalism without implicating the American state. It is important to remember here that 'corporations' have a smaller hand in initiating 'development' than Avatar makes out. The state (and institutions like the IMF, World Bank which are controlled by the Western states) first needs to create conducive situations before the corporations step in. ‘Development’ may be hastened as a result of corporations entering but they do not initiate it. Sometimes, the state even wages war in order to make a space fit for investment and war can only be waged by sovereign nations. If Avatar is entirely allegorical, there is a small misrepresentation when it shows a corporation actually waging war.
Avatar has been a success with audiences in urban areas with the closest links to the globalized world and who are exposed to the American media. They have lauded it as anti-capitalist and anti-industrialist and for being critical of America. Avatar is seen to be forcing average Americans to rethink politically when faced with the ‘common peril’ of avaricious capitalism. Avatar's popularity can perhaps be traced to its parallel with the Iraq story. It would seem as if the American state was rendered helpless because of the evil of the corporations. The popularity of the film perhaps stems from its reassurance, from the fact that it transfers culpability for what happened in Iraq from the American state to the abstract notion of the ‘corporation’. It makes it appear that the American people and those of Iraq face a common enemy: ‘the corporation’. The American people are, in effect, granted absolution for the development happening in Iraq although America’s thirst for oil cannot be separated from its citizens’ desire to drive their own automobiles.
The next logical question here is why does Avatar make corporations or capitalism as a whole the villains? Apart from becoming unpopular after recession set in, at least, in popular representation, capitalism can no longer be ‘controlled’ by America as it once was. And the weakening of America’s global image as the undisputed capitalist superpower has been brought about by the troubled economy as much as the expenditure on invasions. America has apparently been failing at capitalism – the one thing it was identified with. Looked at in this manner, it would seem that the 'common man' of American cinema has jumped ship. When he had faith it was in ‘America’ as a moral agent; now that he has lost faith, it is in ‘capitalism’ - as represented by the abstraction of the corporation.
At this point it would help us to focus on the narrative resolution of the film, which has its own import. The protagonist has jumped ship from the corrupt corporation in order to save the Na’vi and their world. He struggles with trying to become a Na’vi but succeeds and finally becomes their leader; he leads them in war and defeats the corporation. This resolution suggests that third world countries would do better to stick to their own models and they are right to resist the ‘development’ preached by the West. The difficulty with is that the concept of third world countries resisting development is dated and one cannot conceive of resistance to ‘development’ today. We know that this development can only lead to the degradation of the environment and it is the developed countries that are still the worst offenders. The unfortunate fact for the developed countries today is that what the developing world does to its own environment has huge consequences for their future – because of global warming etc. Bad environmental conduct on someone's part can be compensated for by someone else. What Avatar may be suggesting, therefore, is that if the Na’vi live as they have always lived, Americans can still consume as much gasoline as they have always been consuming.
Anindita Biswas has completed her B.A in Arts from Mount Carmel College, Bangalore. She is presently working in the IT sector.
To add only one point to this review, after all the destruction and mayhem caused by the corporation on Pandora, isn’t it strange that they should suffer what seems to be only one casualty, with their facilities still undamaged and everyone allowed safe passage home. Americans are still unprepared to accept any war except one with ‘zero casualties’ to their side.
Editor
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