Hard to missAvatar 2, one of the biggest blockbusters in the history of cinema. The status of works of fiction has always been ambiguous in relation to collective representations of an era. Sometimes they precede them by digging a narrative furrow that disposes us to endorse certain beliefs; sometimes they follow them with a little delay. Avatar 2 offers, meanwhile, a fictional setting that makes one of the great contemporary ideologies sparkle: “anthropophobia”, a term that designates a clever mixture of fear and hatred based on stereotypes concerning humanity.
There are many examples of this angry self-criticism on social networks but also on press sites in the comments of articles where it is a question of the disappearance of a species or the damage done to nature. Vigilance against human activities and their uncontrolled side effects is quite healthy; but should it take the form of a generalized detestation of humanity? Avatar 2 does not ask the question: the human species is the evil. This small anthropophobic music, we find it almost everywhere in the contemporary world: under the pen, in particular, of Yves Paccalet, head of the list in the regional elections of 2010 for EELV and author of a book with the explicit title, Humanity will disappear, good riddance !
Some militant movements take over from this hatred and propose nothing more or less than our eradication by inciting, for example, sodomy or suicide, or even advocating to allow starvation when this scourge affects a country. All this to save the Earth – which is called by them Gaïa, Greek goddess, universal mother earth – from the “cancer” that humans represent. The personification of our planet was developed in several texts by the scientist James Lovelock. He considers the Earth as an autonomous life form capable of maintaining its balance and defending itself. Defend against whom? Humans of course! And it’s a theme taken up in extenso in Avatar 2since the men who venture into certain areas of Pandora – the exoplanet of the film – are immediately attacked by all the fauna coordinated by a natural power which takes the form of an omniscient god.
Chase God out the door, he’ll come back through the window of fiction
The only humans who are not “bad guys” in this feature film are species defectors or seeking to be. The only way to get rid of the primordial sin of being human is to become a Na’vi, these big blue beings, sophisticated substitutes for hunter-gatherers. They possess almost no technology, but the symbiosis they maintain with nature allows them to use the animal or plant world as prostheses. Thus, they have planes or submarines which are none other than creatures living with them in harmony. Isn’t there, from this point of view, a relationship of subordination that anti-speciesists would hate? Not really, as some animals are considered superior in intelligence and, explicitly, siblings, when it comes to tulkuns, gigantic, “mathematically strong” whales hunted by evil humans. Science is surpassed by the magic of the Na’vis which makes dispensable sophisticated technologies. The only area where humanity is superior is that of war and destruction.
This cinematographic fable exhibits anthropophobic ideology in a caricatural way and joins well-known religious stories. Thus, it is obvious that the universe of Na’ vis resembles to be mistaken there with that of Eden that the Bible describes: a marvelous world before the primordial sin; an immense garden where Adam and Eve know neither hunger nor war, and where they live so peacefully with the animals that they are able to communicate with them… In the Bible, it is the act of biting into the fruit of the tree of the distinction between good and evil which precipitates humanity in its history made up of misfortunes and technological developments. The uprooting of humanity from its Edenic condition: that is the evil. It’s nothing else to tell Avatar 2 which turns towards an imaginary past a gaze full of desires and regrets. This contemporary mythology conveys a religiosity that hides under good feelings. When we drive God out the door, he comes back through the window of fiction.