B. Data Analysis
2. Avatar’s statement regarding environmental issues from the represent relationships
The best films are built around a statement that teaches the viewers something. This kind of approach often called the humanistic approach. In this kind of evaluation, we must determine whether the acting and the characters have significance or meaning beyond the context of the film itself – moral, philosophical, or social significance that helps us gain a clearer understanding of some aspect of life, human nature, or the human condition. This is driven by the judgment of the film as an expression of an idea that has intellectual, moral, social, or cultural importance and the ability to influence our lives for the better.14 In an increasingly urban society, nature writing plays a vital role in teaching us to value the natural world.15 Meanwhile Avatar can be included as one of the nature writing text because it has strong environmental messages. So the
14 Joseph M. Bogss and Dennis W. Petrie, The Art of Watching Films 7th ed, (New York:
McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc., 2008), p. 114.
15 Cheryll Glofeltly and Harold Fromm (1992), p. xxiv.
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viewers assume that Avatar‟s goal is to contribute to the struggle to preserve the biotic community by injecting the moral value in the film.
Classic narrative cinema, no matter what genre, must have closure, that is, the narrative must come to a completion (whether a happy ending or not). Any ambiguity within the plot must be resolved. Whatever form the closure takes, almost without exception it will offer or enunciate a message that is central to dominant ideology: ... What is interesting, however, is which ideological message supersedes all others.16 As explained before, Avatar shows in the end of the film that nature and the people of Pandora Planet successfully routing the baddies, human from Earth, then send them back home that express an ideological message that nature is unpredictably powerful. But above all, we should have preserved nature for our own sake. We are not going to become the kinds of beings that we are supposed to become. When we destroy nature, we diminish ourselves and impoverish our children.17
In the most science fiction film with ecological awareness, otherness or nonhuman creatures tend to be made the seemingly clear moral message that put them into the bad one or evil which want to destroy human world, such as any alien movies or robot technology which want control and take over human world.
This structure tends to send an almost subliminal suggestion that those who are like us are good, while those who are unlike us are evil.18 But Avatar is tipping over the structure by representing some different characters. Nonhuman alien
16 Susan Hayward, Cinema Studies: The Key Concepts, 2nd ed., (USA: Routledge, Taylor
& Francis e-Library, 2001), p. 65.
17 J. Claude Evans (2005), p.11.
18 M. Keith Booker, Alternate Americas: Science Fiction Film and American Culture (USA: Praeger Publishers, 2006), p. 117.
creatures and human beings are represented equal in this film to responsible for the stewardship of the planet. Indeed Avatar shows the collide characteristic of each characters that most of human beings are presented to be the villain that devastating the habitat and nonhuman alien creatures and nature are presented to be the victim.
After analyzing the relationship between human and the environment, the writer divided human characters in this film into two classifications; the people who abandon nature only for their own benefit and the people who take care of nature. The people who neglected nature are Parker Selfridge and Colonel Quaritch along with their staff. Then the people who caring for nature, in the end, are those who betray RDA Corporation‟s rule in order to save Pandora‟s environment such as Jake Sully, the main character, the scientist: Dr. Augustine, Norm Spellman and Max Patel, and the marine pilot: Trudy.
These differences happen because each character has a different proximity to the indigenous and the environment. So they make conflicting interpretation and different responsibilities. Parker and Colonel Quaritch only see environment as the tool to gain money because they never bother themselves to immerse into the environment. On the other hand, Jake Sully, the scientists and Trudy, who are classified as caring for environment, make direct interaction with the environment. Thus this interaction affects them and makes them more care about the environment compare with those who do not make the direct interaction.
Throughout the film, Jake Sully immerses himself in the Na‟vi culture in order to learn from them about their way of life and gain their trust. Jake Sully is
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the movie‟s lead character that happens to be the connector between human and Na‟vi. He gets up close and personal with the environment and the indigenous. He lives with them for about three months. He learns how they live. He seeks out how the relationship is between the Na‟vi and the environment.
As the time goes by, he begins to truly understand about the Na‟vi people and the forest. Then he is coming to love them in the process. From that understanding, he gains respect and admiration for that which he did not previously know personally. So it is obvious when he ultimately end up switching sides to help the Na‟vi save their land from exploitation instead of his own species, human. Because respect has to do with the way we as a species fit into the broader world in which we are inextricably interwoven.
Lopez in his 1991 essay, Renegotiating the Contracts, says, “If we could establish an atmosphere of respect in our relationships, simple awe for the complexities of animals‟ lives, I think we would feel revived as a species”. And this respect and awe are a crucial part of what it means to live a truly successful life – successful in human terms which are not dissociated from the world of which we are a part.19 Thus, the Avatar want to encourage the viewers to come along to get close and acknowledge the world we are living in to get better understanding of it.
Avatar also shows the deep interconnectedness between Na‟vi and their riding animals and their sacred trees. This shows that the oneness that Na‟vi have with their environment leaded them to a peaceful life. This sense of togetherness
19 J. Claude Evans (2005), pp. 15-16.
gives the spiritual message to viewer that to be the one with land and other, one should first understand another. By creating an emotional reaction, the director of the movie, James Cameron, wants viewers to internalize a sense of respect and a sense of taking responsibility for the stewardship of the earth.
From those relationships, the writer sees that they who respect nature are they who get close with nature. And to be in a good relationship with it, we need process. Thus, people should first get knowledge about it. Then the understanding will lead into respect. This respect, in turn, will make human to be better equipped to protect the planet. So this film suggests the viewers to visit or go out to experience nature in order to know better about nature. Because all of us are deeply entangled in a system that produces a mix of good and bad outcomes, and we are partly responsible for both.
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