Wars and Avatars
A white chaos in the Indigo Chorus
Late 2010, Avatar was news. Friends had sent IMs about it and I’d noticed blogs on it for months now. The ticket sales, (near 750 million domestic and 2.76 billion worldwide) indicated it was a phenomena. Avatar’s theme was transparent, its plot obscure. Other than the unseen energies of nature and a tribal culture all I had to go by were images of blue, beautifully rendered creatures displayed via Google News . A new race seared through the web, constellations adorning faces whose cat’s-eyes looked through the screen without sentience beyond an animal will for survival. As with the gallery painting everyone mentions, all clues indicated Avatar was something special. When my father came to visit he suggested we see it.
We drove through the bunkered down industrial complex of buildings and machines, once decried as urban sprawl until people gave up on the name calling as fruitless. In this urban landscape, one could only savor the hypocrisy of attending a film like Avatar by driving to the Megaplex ten miles south. Salt Lake City surrounding us sprawled in all directions for miles, one small appendage of a 21sth century behemoth sucking energy into its frame to glow with a toxic light. The most recent outcries over the way society grows rang in my ears with a tone of desperate futility. The electric hum of the city is almost silent but you can feel it. All the talk about our warming planet, dying ecosystems, the need to be Green and the undue strains our systems place on nature kept ringing in an insistent chorus as we drove to Jordan Commons.
The hollow feeling of the Jordan Megaplex seemed a phantasmal painting on a blank nihilistic backdrop. A black fire burned here, fueling apparent movement. Some in the crowd laughed, who knew at what. Others talked as if in a puppet show, while most passed through the mall-like atmosphere of the theatre’s food court, navigating countless vendors offering incredible helpings of our nation’s favorite foods. The only light that night was human motion and a tremendous quantity of electricity pulsating just below the visible spectrum.
Once you’ve selected a credit card these days, few services require anything or anyone else. We found a touch-screen for the IMAX theatre, simply inserted the card to see a map of all theatre seats magically display, letting us choose seats 13d and 14d. Tapping at the screen a few more times, our tickets purchased, an hour or so remained for the film to start. The employees talked to each other while guarding a tray of 3d Visors one of which they wore proudly on a string around their necks. Whatever Avatar was its mystique was building. As the crowd and ushers seemed halfway happy and so was I. I drank water from a fountain, the bright atmosphere of the theatre bubbling around us and for an hour nothing happened until they let us in taking our tickets. We had however made a slight oversight.
After we found our seats, I leaned back, trying to ignore advertisements and trivia and connect to the surrounding darkness with hope for inspiration or the semblance of aesthetic encounter. It was all I expected from the world’s most lucrative film. Avatar’s world seemed born from the cinema house’s legacy of a dark calm world, lit by an underhum of magic, light and energy; that of soft night and the illusion of starlight everywhere. Entering the theatre is a game in which we all know what to expect and still expect to be surprised.
Foremost in mind was Avatar’s ecological theme, the vague metaphysical question of the sentience of earth itself. How often and for how long have we wondered, is there a sentience to the earth, a Gaea moving things along, helping them grow, arranging them as she sees fit? For even with all the problems here, things on planet earth seem to keep working, moving and falling into place. I kept remembering the pictures in the media of these blue creatures, fascinating and bordering on ethereal. They possessed a novel quality, breaking new ground in our mainstream, burgeoning culture with a message we’ve always known was underneath.
My father left to go I didn’t know where and while relaxing in the quiet, a couple said, “I think these are our seats.”
“Perfect.” I thought, dead sure our tickets were 13 and 14D.
I had no tickets so I stumbled to explain: “I don’t know what went wrong. I apologize; my father has our tickets. He should be back very soon. Can we wait and see if a mistake has been made?”
We could be in row E, I thought, however 13 and 14 in row E behind us was filled. The two were accommodating and sat to the left and I waited, hoping he would return the film began; no such luck. The film started. A Marine in a space bay, popped into the theater in pristine 3-D. He emerged from his cryo-freeze sleep and started speaking to my now distracted mind. A group of people came to fill in the seats to our right. A little panicked, I rechecked the entrance way but my father was not in sight. Without the tickets I was just a scown (Na’Vi for idiot) but I’d learned by now not to go looking for someone when you’ve no clue where they might be. Immediately a boy, mid-twenties, slightly muscled from working out, wearing a white t-shirt with closely cropped hair surged up the aisle and said, “These are our seats.” and demanded I vacate.
I made an attempt to explain, “I’m waiting for my father to return so we could verify if our tickets were wrong; could you please be patient?”
He was in no mood to listen and didn’t allow half these words to come to conclusion before he’d become furious.
“Get OUT!”- turning heads in a small ripple around the two of us.
“No,I replied calmly. I will wait here till we can verify our seats are wrong.”
“THESE ARE OUR SEATS. Move or I’ll drag you out of here with my hands God Damn You!”
His friend backed him up, “You’d better get out of here dude or he will make you.”
“Go ahead and try,” I said. I will press charges. “Please simply wait.”
At this he exploded, “I’m going to bust you in your God-dammed face! Get Out”
“Go on, we’ll see what happens,” I said.
He prepped to throw a fake punch as a form of territorial threat and I decided to sit and accept whatever happens, was the best I could do now without giving up what might be our seats. I hoped my father would return so we could quickly resolve who they really belonged to because the man now red-faced in his white shirt continued shouting and cursing.
“Look, your attitude is unacceptable,I started. just wait. If-”
Thwack.
I had meant to say, “If we are in the wrong seats of course we will move but only moved through a word or two of the sentence before he had cuffed me on the head, sending my hat flying across the room (I loved that hat.) and twisting my spectacles badly enough that I needed to get them adjusted back to normal a few days later.
“Get the FUCK out!” he screamed.
Everyone in the packed theatre around us was now dead silent, no one had anything to say, most simply focused on the film hoping it would all blow over. It was just an angry young man and a stubborn young man out of solutions in a pointless confrontation.
More determined than ever now, I said, “NO! Please wait, we’ll know soon enough and if we need to move we’ll move.”, wondering what the hell my father was off doing with our tickets .
We were already several minutes into the film. The man in the white shirt stormed off by everyone in the aisle, furious.
The male of the couple sitting next to me said: “Listen, my advice would be for you to go and find your father.
This guy is only going to get worse. If you have your tickets, you can resolve this. You should go and find him.”
This made good sense, yet something in me didn’t want to back down at all from someone acting this uncivilized. Maybe we were in the wrong seats, but it felt better to sit here than go off to find my father and let this man think his method of acting should merit the result of two plush seats. So I waited.
Thirty seconds later my new friend was walking down the side aisle with an employee to solve our real-estate problem. I carefully explained the situation. Of course she said, “Well if you don’t have your tickets, let’s move-” and then in came my father holding some drinks.
Within seconds we were all standing to the side of the theatre, staring at our tickets at under the beam of a small flashlight, looking at sure enough tickets 13 and 14 D. The employee began to apologize to all of us saying it must be a computer mistake.
Then she caught herself, “Ah! You two are in the wrong theatre.“
Sure enough we didn’t belong in the IMAX theatre, but one adjacent; finally some clarity. I felt like a true idiot while simultaneously thinking, “How could an apparently grown human believe that what he did was a proper way to act?” I hurriedly walked back to the center of the aisle to grab our coats and bags, apologizing profusely to the couple next to me, briefly those to our right explaining the reason for the scene and apologizing again for my mistake but feeling irate myself by now.
This fellow yelling and screaming had acted like a small hurricane in a packed theatre and even struck me, was that excusable? I spoke to the employee, “I want to file a complaint and I want my hat back!” This was one too many waves to deal with. I was told Megaplex staff could do nothing, best to let it drop.
“No, I’d like file a complaint”.
“OK, sir, you can go to our office and make a complaint.”
Out of the theatre, our show starting soon, we were able to find a manager. I repeated the story while another story, I was soon to learn not altogether dissimilar, was unfolding in the dark we had just left. So the manager did what she could.
Security was summoned with a mic: “We have a guest who was getting violent in the IMAX theatre; please come over.” Soon a moustachioed man, with a kind gait and look of concern joined us. We explained the situation and they told us theatre staff could do nothing of themselves; if we wanted to press the issue, police would have to be called. “Beautiful, what now?”
The way he’d acted was clearly unacceptable and I desperately wanted him to know it, but to call the police? I couldn’t help but think about disturbing the movie further for everyone else trying to enjoy it. I said aside to my father, “would that be appropriate; what do you think?”
“Entirely your call.”
I didn’t want to exacerbate the issue further, however, the security guard had gone ahead and called them on his own. Within 2 minutes an officer was inside.
Retelling the scenario, I said, “I’m not at all sure about pressing charges, but I am sure he needs to know it isn’t right for people to act like that.”
“Of course not.” the officer said; “We can charge him on assault. Did anyone else witness the event?”
My thoughts weren’t working, my being was only a raw emotion that some things shouldn’t be. Two more police arrived handed me a clipboard and had me writing a report of this incident. Very soon, the man who had given me advice as well as the hothead in white were dragged out of the film and talking vociferously to officers while I was filling out the paper, too fast and in atrocious handwriting, glancing up occasionally to see this would-be-marine talking sincerely to a more powerful force.
Soon the officer was over and said, “I talked to him and he admitted to striking you in the face and throwing your hat. He says he feels bad about it and wants to apologize. It is entirely your choice if you want to press charges; if you do, we’ll take him into custody.”
“I only want him to be aware people can’t act like that and I want my hat back!” I paused, “but no I don’t wish to press charges.”
“Can I bring him over to apologize?” the officer asked.
“Sure, please do.”
The two men walked over, with no bluster. I stood from the bench to meet them, three of us trying for satisfactory resolution. In a peaceable confrontation I spoke first.
“Listen, I’m not going to press charges. I only want you to know you can’t treat people like that.”
“I really, really apologize” he said and continued, “I shouldn’t have done that. After you left, I was thinking about it the whole time and I felt really bad. I just snapped. I don’t know why.” All traces of anger were now gone.
“We were in the wrong theatre. I’m sorry. That was our mistake.” I said, “But please, please in the future don’t treat others like that.”
It was as if he were mechanized and I had pushed a button because he all of a sudden stood up straighter and said automatically,” Got it. OK.”
Later, I ran it through my mind several times; what the Hell was going on? It must have been one of the strangest exchanges I’ve ever had. Was this for real?
He then said, “I do want you to know, even if you hadn’t had the same seats from a different theatre, I shouldn’t have done what I did. It was completely wrong.”
We shook hands and that was the last of it. We’ll never meet again and I’m sure the badly written report is in now in a dumpster, hopefully recycle. I felt surprisingly better and we found the correct theatre, not IMAX although still 3D to find the previews still playing. I was now trying forcefully to push all thoughts of the matter away so as not to ruin any sympathetic contract with James Cameron’s phenomenon . This was entirely unnecessary as I became totally engrossed in the show without thinking why. It was captivating enough that it wasn’t until near the film’s end that I even began to remember the prior real-world event and draw the obvious parallels.
Avatar was simple and a truly beautiful tale. Rainbows of an indigo spectrum, the visual symphony of green, blue and purple, with oranges and reds providing flickers of light was arresting. Likewise, the whole sea-green undersea world, in the translucent and glowing air spoke of the common roots we share that are primal. The narrative, as simplistic it was in form, wore the film’s ethereal garment like the most gorgeous model and spoke volumes. Watching this tale of the roots of our race and society one couldn’t help but be moved.
I have tried the last few years to be aware of the illusions Hollywood seduces us with besides any truth it tells. Notorious for happy endings only a fool believes possible, with Avatar nothing’s changed. What one does with the inspiration received from California is crucial. Lifes too short to misuse these entertainments. The world’s highest grossing film, despite its rainforest of high-resolution sensations is a cartoon. Cartoons can help us see facts more clearly but they can also obscure the reality. Avatar at heart an elaborate cartoon is also a caricature of the happy ending.
Had our dispute over two seats evolved into a brawl, nothing good would have come of it, nor could there have a victory for either side. Would some Ewya have stepped in to back either of us and overwhelmed the entire security staff of the theatre as well as the police they’d call in, leaving the victor to face no consequence for a public brawl? Unlikely. In Avatar this is the thinking validated. The Na’vi get to keep their way of life and the military sent away without any unobtanium “cheddar.”
We have an example of the British relinquishing control of India. Can it happen again for green or human interests? Can history repeat to take the side of those who wish to do away with the likes of BP oil or the Chinese occupation of Tibet? How realistic is this cartoon that captured so many’s attention less than a year ago. No one I associate with likes our changes of the last hundred years, they are decried, but still the corporate Juggernaut craves its margins and diplomatic solutions. This is fact and straightforward enough for a good cartoon.
Is the planet sentient, an Organism; perhaps, perhaps not. This question is Avatar’s most novel contribution to our rapidly evolving mainstream culture. The film gives pause to the thought of earth as a being It asks us, does the ecosystems have will in what happens to here, or are humans now sole rulers of the show? Events happening to a purpose, the planet fighting back, Cameron’s film was enough to give pause.
What I am sure of is that for billions of years earth has been a sustainable system, nurturing life in a way no other planet we are currently aware of is capable. And one of the newest inventions in Mother Earth’s kitchen, Man, has reached a point of wreaking havoc with those systems. Ice caps, poisoned and disappearing salmon and countless other species both animal and plant, massive deforestation, chemical hazes, mountains and mountains of lethal and poisonous trash and now a whole ocean made of oil, we see atrocity after atrocity. Only the willfully blind can deny this. In this cinematic caricature of our reality, Avatar’s solution, called for or not, is violent revolt backed by Eywa, what in our world we know as the incompletely understood network of living matter.
And in a flash, as a battle waged onscreen towards the end of our viewing, as only hollywood battles can, similarities between the events the IMAX and those on the screen occurred to me with a jolt of insight. The Na’vi were sitting on Hometree; of value to both sides, and didn’t want to leave, of course not. Hotheaded humans attempted and succeeded in using force to remove them. They also wanted the squat and its benefits. Power seemed on their side and they took the land. The similarities ended there.
The Avatar’s front a complete revolution. Revolution, the American revolution, the French Revolution, the Communist Revolutions, the Hippie Revolution, untold other examples, is the gospel. Eywa routs the forces of human technology. In the actual world, I can only hope, society will save what remains decent in our way of life; it if it is to be saved at all. I also know that the avenue of war only scars that decency beyond recognition.
My personal incident ended with a handshake and a good feeling but so many cry for upheaval.. Can revolution work once again within the modern industrial-military complex today as it has in the past? Can we honestly expect upheaval, the battle so many now feel a need for, spurred by the much maligned impulse to save the earth?
Groups peacefully mobilizing in mass, like Martin Luther King or Mahatma Gandhi, against the century old net of corporate systems is highly doubtful. We seem to have run out of the energy. For such a project I can’t help feel hopeless. Violently removing the Monetary Monolith is impractical, if not impossible and thoroughly unobtainable. The incredibly destructive lethal machinery of world military would easily be able to suppress any revolution, for law and our comfortable lifestyle would back the oil, industrial farm and corporate manufacturing interests. Boycott them yes, but entirely? Good luck with that.
Can we return to a completely Na’vi lifestyle in order to find our real living? That more than anything, is illusion. The tribal way of life goes through a hell to cohere the little it does in our money driven world nor is there a way or place for it to isolate to maintain itself. The world as it is now will always draw such projects back into her loom. However, the cartoon is still right. Without addressing our greed and lack of connectedness as human beings there is no hope for things to get better.
Whenever I look at the situation or meditate on it, I am at a loss. What can be done to effectively change anything? Realistically, what can be done, fight a war you can’t win? In a vendetta against the nation, the companies, other peoples chosen lifestyle, victory is just a bad joke. Boycott harm with my dollar then? If for every dollar I spend on greener interests 1,000 are spent on unsustainable ones, will that give us our happy ending?
These are the commonly proposed solutions. To care at all means to be bound to oppose what is happening somehow; to learn to use our current rules to change this game and its rules. What we cannot forget is any scenario has solutions. This is not illusion. For as long as people have been evolving almost all of us have had roles along with a certain quota of energy to use as we may. In these jobs we contribute to the human ecosystem draw sustenance for our bodies and through them find activity for our minds. To the last such they have a place in the vast world-wide-web of human activity. Our roles will always have a place within both a corrupt or a much better society.
Before the unfolding of Avatar, the current sensation, -the real world put on a display that night. Wars like ‘s will wage as long as we pay to have them onscreen. If we can’t topple their terror head on, then the other option is to work within them for realistic avenues to a solution. I just pray the solutions for our monolithic society with its monolithic headaches can be found that eschew flared tempers and violence for handshakes.
There’s hope if we find solutions where idiots who can’t find the right seats are directed correctly by capable employees who assess the situation with a flashlight; where police, security guards and managers respond on the spot, know how to act and what to say. We’ll be o.k. if we can find solutions where senseless aggression is apologized for and both parties get what they want, the world of their choice, viewing it in peace; and at the end of it all, as when we exited the theatre that night, there’s the security guard standing outside with a hat.
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