The Messiah Complex
In “The Messiah Complex,” David Brooks of the New York Times paints a macabre portait about a dominant fable of our age, the “White Messiah fable”:
… [the] story about a manly young adventurer who goes into the wilderness in search of thrills and profit. But, once there, he meets the native people and finds that they are noble and spiritual and pure. And so he emerges as their Messiah, leading them on a righteous crusade against his own rotten civilization.
Jake Sully (Sam Worthington), crippled in body and spirit, considers the mission before him — inhabiting an alien body on a lush and dangerous world in James Cameron’s much-hyped Avatar.
This is, of course, a story we’ve watched many times on screen, most recently in James Cameron’s Avatar, but also (as I noted in my review) in Dances With Wolves, as well as The Last Samurai, At Play in the Fields of the Lord, and for kids, FernGully and Pocahantas.
Avatar is fast becoming an unparalleled success because, Brooks asserts, it is “a racial fantasy par excellence”:
The white guy notices that the peace-loving natives are much cooler than the greedy corporate tools and the bloodthirsty U.S. military types he came over with. … Because [the Na'vi] are not corrupted by things like literacy, cellphones and blockbuster movies, they have deep and tranquil souls. … The natives have hot bodies and perfect ecological sensibilities, but they are natural creatures, not history-making ones. When the military-industrial complex comes in to strip mine their homes, they need a White Messiah to lead and inspire the defense.
But Brooks claims a grisly reason why Avatar is making so much money overseas (its global gross has already exceeded $1 billion): “The plotline gives global audiences a chance to see American troops get killed.”
Seriously? You think that’s the big draw for non-American audiences, Mr. Brooks? Where’s the data for that? Instead, he offers a standard right-wing complaint delivered under the left-wing shroud of sympathy for native peoples:
[Isn't] the whole White Messiah fable, especially as Cameron applies it, is kind of offensive? It rests on the stereotype that white people are rationalist and technocratic while colonial victims are spiritual and athletic. It rests on the assumption that nonwhites need the White Messiah to lead their crusades. It rests on the assumption that illiteracy is the path to grace.
It also creates a sort of two-edged cultural imperialism. Natives can either have their history shaped by cruel imperialists or benevolent ones, but either way, they are going to be supporting actors in our journey to self-admiration.
I’ve grown tired of the white people who reflexively become concerned about how native peoples and cultures are portrayed in movies, who suddenly are offended by how their history of pillaging is mythically portrayed as evil, how one of their own betrays them, and how offended nonwhites should be at being used as props in these types of fables.
It all seems to make sense to Mr. Brooks but it strikes me as facile — a theory so perfectly packaged by ignoring the actual complexities of history. Sound familiar?
Good connections made here, Carlos. James Burke would approve, I think.
I’d only add the crippling factor of a deteriorating public education system to the background of Kinsley’s dismissal of the need for context in journalism. From your description, Kinsley reminds me of all the tech writers who only praise the consumer electronics that they personally find useful, assuming all users’ needs match their own.
Carlitinho, good synthesis & interpretation. Oh, and when comest thou this way?
Talk about a messiah myth. I think you and “the modern Aesop” should get a room.
I wonder if he’d leave money on the dresser?
He’d charge you.
For the IMAX? Or the 3-D?