The Tao of Avatar - and why this sort of movie cannot be made in the PRC at this point in time...

We saw Avatar last night (I know, I've been on a movie kick of late...).  It was visually stunning.  The story was unremarkable: a melodramatic morality tale (the good guy wins in the end!).  But it did have a couple of Taoist elements, which were no doubt quite consciously incorporated into the story.

First is the indirect invocation of Qi (Ch'i).  In the movie, the planet of Pandora is, as the Sigorney Weaver character says, a complex, organic network of energy.  Everything is interconnected and a life's-force energy flows through and around all.  That is pretty much the notion of Qi.  Now, strictly speaking, this is not just a Taoist concept but something more general in Chinese culture.  Confucius and Mencius both mention Qi.  But the notion of Qi as a broader natural force, which humans must learn to live with and through, is very much a part of Taoism, in both its philosophical and religious forms.  In the film, the indigenous people are able to flow with Qi to such an extent that they can use it as a restorative and healing force. This is the essence of Chinese medicine (which owes much to Taoism): working with the flow of Qi to gain maximum physical health.  

The movie also embraces a notion of Tao (Way) that comes rather close to a Taoist understanding.  The grand maternal spirit, said to encompass all things, is called upon at a critical juncture: the hero character asks it to intervene in the consummating battle.  But he is told by his indigenous lover that the grand maternal spirit does not take sides.  All inclusive but indifferent - sounds like the Tao Te Ching to me:

Way is the mystery of these ten thousand things.

It's a good person's treasure and an evil person's refuge.  Its beautiful words are bought and sole and its noble deeds are gifts enriching people.

It never abandons even the evil among us.

When the Son of Heaven is enthroned and the three dukes installed, parades with jade discs ans stately horses can't compare to sitting still in Way's company.

Isn't it said that the ancients exalted Way because in it whatever we seek we find, and whatever seeks us we escape?

No wonder it's exalted throughout all beneath heaven.  (62)

It turns out, in the film, that the grand maternal spirit does intervene at the crucial moment, which suggests that Way is not perfectly neutral but may tend in certain directions.  This, to my mind, comes close to Chuang Tzu's notion of Way, which provides a kind of liberating joy.  Way "acts," it "governs," in a manner beyond human comprehension, but with a tendency to balance "evil" with "good." 

In any event, there are other more obvious Taoist themes: a pro-environmental message and an anti-militarist stance.  All told, Pandora, the planet-utopia, is something of a Taoist ideal, which the greedy earthling humans are destroying...

I should also mention the name of the mineral that fuels human greed: "unobtainium."  Nice!  The thing we desire the most is unobtainable.  Again: an idea right out of the Tao Te Ching...

Finally, let me comment on the Chinese reactions to the movie that Roland, over at ESWN, posts.   Take this response by film director Lu Chuan:

I felt as if I had gone back to my childhood and became a small boy full of dreams ... but the simple story was flawless and the plot was very engrossing.  <Avatar> let us know that we lack not only just in technology.  Technology can be acquired.  <Avatar> let me realize how far our movies are from simple perfection; how far our movies are from crystal-clear purity; how far our movies from passionate dreams; how far from genuine sincerity are we who are embroiled in grim entanglements and dim vulgarity!  We ought to ashamed in the face of the purity of <Avatar>.  This is a complete defeat that we Chinese filmmakers must collectively witness and concede.

This strikes me as an overreaction, but one with a kernel of truth.  I suspect that Chinese filmmakers will embrace and expand upon the technology of Avatar with little trouble.  And certain kinds of storytelling, especially melodrama, are very much a part of the Chinese cinematic repertoire.  But something that distinguishes Avatar, and makes it unlikely to be reproduced in Chinese film making any time soon, is its critical nature.

The film is a direct assault on American modernity in general and the Bush administration more particularly.  Yes, the critiques lapse into caricatures - the evil military man crying out that we must "fight terrorism with terrorism" and launch a preemptive attack (Dick Cheney is clearly the model here) - but they are critiques nonetheless.  And such obvious criticisms of specific political authorities and broader historical trends are just not possible in the PRC, given the political sensitivities of the CCP and the power of state censors.  Even though ideological policing has relaxed significantly since the Maoist period, it is still constricting enough to prevent movie stories like Avatar.

If China wants to make movies like Avatar, the powers that be will have to press further with a famous Deng Xiaoping line: liberate thought - 解放思想.  Or, as Wen Jiabao said in 2008:  "We have to free the minds of everyone, particularly of leaders, so that everyone can have independent thought, critical thinking and innovation capabilities"... 

UPDATE: more Chinese reaction to the film over at Chinasmack.

Comments

[gmoke]

I think the underlying message is less directly Taoist and more explicitly Gaian although I take your point. It would be interesting to compare and contrast the Gaia Theory with Tao. I think Lynn Margulis could speak to it but I'm not sure about James Lovelock. I know that Ursula K LeGuin, who has published her own version of the _Tao Te Ching_, would be up to the task.

[philosophy project]

Im planning on doing a philosophy project on the philosophy of avatar. This article that you have written helps a large amount. Any other philosophical thoughts?

[freedom]

to the minorities, especially to the Uighers and the Tibetans this movie clearly resemble close to reality, the way their land has been taken away by the more powerful neighbors through brute force, all the natural resources are extracted, the numerous resources that have been tapped away - oil, gold, uranium, old growth forests, you name it.. now even the water is being diverted into the mainland... all in all, it would be interesting to get reactions from the minorities in China who've seen this movie... but then again, no one would want to risk their lives going to jail simply because making a honest comment or the "truth".

[perspectivehere]

"The Tao of Avatar - and why this sort of movie cannot be made in the PRC at this point in time..."

Really? I thought you would reach the opposite conclusion from your Taoism theme. A traditional people relying on Taoist Qi Gong practices, fighting against modern armies equipped with artillery and machine guns...isn't that the Boxer Rebellion?

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/roadshow/fts/omaha_200402A36.html

"The Boxer Rebellion of 1900 was one of the defining moments in the history of Chinese nationalism, and the first major rebellion in that country against imperialist powers, including the English and the Japanese, involving issues of international tension that resonate to the present day.

The bloody peasant revolt was led by members of a group known as the Yi Ho T'uan, or the Righteous and Harmonious Fists, a centuries-old secret society in China whose members practiced a form of shadow boxing that they believed gave them supernatural powers. The Boxers, as they were called in English, had a belief system that drew from Confucian, Buddhist, and Taoist strands and also opposed the influences of foreigners. The ranks of the Yi Ho T'uan swelled after flood and drought struck the country in 1898 and 1899, exacerbating the poverty and foreign aggression that already plagued the country. The Boxers were further provoked by Christian missionaries and converts who often disrespected Chinese traditions.

The secret group allied themselves with anti-foreign members of their government and in the summer of 1900, bands of Boxers freely roamed the countryside around Peking looking to destroy all things foreign. They burned houses, missions and schools, and slaughtered hundreds of Chinese Christians, missionaries and practically anyone else that they believed supported foreign ways. The Chinese dowager empress, Tz'u His, supported the rebels and declared war on the foreign powers.

The rebellion only ended after an armed force of 20,000 from eight nations crushed it. The Manchu government signed an agreement with the foreign invaders in which the Chinese agreed to execute some of the leaders of the rebellion, destroy its forts, and pay $330 million in damages and reparations. In large part because of the humiliating conclusion to the rebellion, the Ch'ing dynasty collapsed little more than a decade later, leading to the establishment of China as a republic.

The Chinese Communists, who came into power in 1949 under the revolutionary leadership of Mao Zedong, have stressed the strong nationalist strains that were part of the rebellion. Former Chinese Premier Chou En-lai went so far as to call the Boxer Rebellion 'one of the cornerstones of the Chinese Revolution.' "

*********************************************

But unlike the Na'vi, there was no happy ending for the Boxers.

[erinhcao]

Clearly James Cameron was conspiring on using his movie to strike at the heart of China's political issues! These not-so-subtle allusions to forced evictions, ethnic strife, are no more than futile attempts by evil white blond anglo-saxon foreign racist colonial chauvinistic imperialists to split the great Harmonious Han Nation.

[Casey Kochmer]

I agree with your assessment Sam and thought the Taoist references were strong and at times very purposeful.

[isha]

Why China even need to make "this sort of movie"? One Hollowood not enough for this world?

Even from the Taoist point of view, didn't the old man say something about provoking the senses?
"
The five colors blind the eyes of man;
The five musical notes deafen the ears of man;
The five flavors dull the taste of man;
Horse-racing, hunting and chasing madden the minds of man;
Rare, valuable goods keep their owners awake at night.

Therefore the Sage:
Provides for the belly and not the eye.

"

...

But in another sense, one needs to give devil his due. During the last depression, Hollowood made a lot of money by providing the masses with an illusion to escape reality. It is doing the same thing right now. I guess the show business is going to be the next growth industry.( Don't count on it as an investment tip)

Let's China keep on producing gargets rather than fairy tales …

[mike3]

@erinhcao: I'm not sure what the intent of that comment is. If anything, this film is meant to *criticize* imperialism, not promote it.

[isha]

... this film is meant to *criticize* imperialism, not promote it...

====================================================================
... first kills them all, then makes the victim nations into a legend and mass marketing the legend and rake in the money from the next target ... that kind of "criticize" is smart to the extreme. More than a hundred years' ago, a guy see through these games:

西人之将灭人国也，则必上之于议院，下之于报章，日
日言其国政之败坏，纲纪之紊乱，官吏之苛黩。其将灭人种也，则必上之于议院，
下之于报章，日日言其种族之犷悍，教化之废坠，风俗之糜烂，使其本国之民士，
若邻国之民士闻其言也。仁者愀然思革其政，以拯其难，鸷者狡焉思乘其弊，以逞
其志。夫然后因众人之欲，一举再举而墟其国，奴其种，而俨然犹以仁义之师自居。

...

俨然犹以仁义之师自居

[justsomeguy]

I got Christian themes from the movie m'self. The hero is fully both "Sky People" and "Na'vi" and through self-sacrifice (not his own mortal life, granted, but it did involved the exclusion of everything and everyone he knew) prevented the seemingly irrational rage of the Sky People from entirely obliterating all of the Na'vi.

That sounds a lot like Protestant Christianity to me!

Heck, there was even a scene that featured an "open coffin"! And it happened just before the Sky People were prevented from killing all the Na'vi.

[isha]

Just dawn on me:

The Tao of Avatar = the Weapon of Mass Distraction and very successfully deployed, just like bread and circus scheme used to be deployed by the Roman emperors. Hollowood, NFL, NBA, etc… the whole nine yards.

[Bao Pu]

Oh, my reply is gone. :-(

[Bao Pu]

Hi Sam,

I wrote and posted a long reply and it disappeared. So, here's a few points I made.

I can see a parallel with the Chinese notions of Qi, but I think this notion occurs in many aboriginal cultures, including the Native American cultures. Same with the ancestral cult we have in the movie. In fact, the movie really reminded me of Native American culture, and Cameron has conceded influences from movies like Dances With Wolves. I can also see some resemblance of Dao and Eywa, but not too much. Eywa does take sides, which, perhaps many religious Daoists may accept. But not my idea of the Dao and its workings. The floating mountains were largely based on mountains in China.

The Wikipedia article on the movie has a lot of information and links to interviews with james cameron, where I learned a whole lot:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avatar_(2009_film)

Quotes of Cameron:

"[Avatar] certainly it is about imperialism in the sense that the way human history has always worked is that people with more military or technological might tend to supplant or destroy people who are weaker, usually for their resources ... So there's a conscience within the film, but it's not boldly stated. It's kind of there if you want it to be there; it's not there if you don't want it to be there. It can be as classic a story of fighting back against cruel might as 'Star Wars.' You can take it back to the origins of America in a fight of rebels against an imperial dominating force. You can interpret it many, many different ways. The bad guys could be America in this movie, or the good guys could be America in this movie," he says, laughing. "Depending on your perspective."

"War and the consequences to the soldier is a theme in my movies. Terminator has a scarred soldier character. We have to face the consequences of setting our people off to do our bidding in a foreign land. But it's not a major undercurrent of the story. I'm not trying to make some anti-Bush statement."

Although Ben Hoyle of The Australian tries to argue the movie "contains heavy implicit criticism of America's conduct in the War on Terror," Cameron repeatedly says it's not.
"That's not what the movie's about - that's only a minor part of it. For me it feels consistent only in a very generalised theme of us looking at ourselves as human beings in a technical society with all its skills, part of which is the ability to do mechanised warfare, part of which is the ability to do warfare at a distance, at a remove, which seems to make it morally easier to deal with, but its not."
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/arts/war-on-terror-backdrop-to-james-camerons-avatar/story-e6frg8pf-1225809286903

"The film is definitely not anti-American. It’s not anti-human either. My perception of the film is that the N’avi represent that sort of aspirational part of ourselves that wants to be better, that wants to respect nature. And the humans in the movie represent the more venal versions of ourselves, the banality of evil that comes with corporate decisions that are made out of remove of the consequences."

[Bao Pu]

Oh, just found this interesting article about Avatar and panentheism:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jay-michaelson/the-meaning-of-avatar-eve_b_400912.html