COMMENTARY
Pandora: In a Mirror, Darkly
By Jesse Carey
CBN.com Interactive Media Producer
CBN.com
- CNN recently featured a story about how online forums and internet groups are popping up, filled with people who are suffering from post-Avatar depression. A strange phenomenon appearing in the groups is the amount of users who are describing an intense feeling of depression and disengagement after viewing the film Avatar, and realizing that the beautiful world of Pandora (the fictional planet the movie takes place is on) isn’t real. After observing the seemingly tranquil way of life of the Na’vi aliens who inhabit Pandora, the members of these groups are writing how disparaging it is to know that it was only in a movie.
One user quoted in the story said, “I was depressed because I really wanted to live in Pandora, which seemed like such a perfect place, but I was also depressed and disgusted with the sight of our world, what we have done to Earth. I so much wanted to escape reality."
The idea of escaping reality is a central theme in the new film from James Cameron (which is on track to become one of the most successful films of all time and the first major film of the new decade). In Avatar, scientists connect into brain-scan machines that allow them to operate their own Na’vi bodies. While they are actually in a sleep-like state at a research facility, their “avatar” bodies are being controlled safely out on Pandora. (They’re sort of remote-controlled.)
As TV critic David Bianculli recently noted on episode of NPR’s Fresh Air, the idea of escaping reality provides an interesting dichotomy when compared to another visual masterpiece released at the end of the last decade—The Matrix. In The Matrix, a computer hacker discovers that the world around him (his apartment, his work, his city, even other people) are all part of an elaborate matrix of computer code, meant to entrance the human race, keeping them unknowingly in enslavement.
When Neo, the film’s hero, discovers that the real world is actually a dismal wasteland being controlled by machines who are using the body heat of comatose people whose minds are enveloped in the matrix as fuel for an energy source, he vows to free humanity. Over the course of the three-film trilogy, Neo and his comrades travel back and forth from the simulated reality of the Matrix and the real world, in an effort to free their fellow humans.
There’s a scene toward the end of the first Matrix film, where Neo is talking with another human who knows of the sinister scheme of the computers, but decides that the computer simulated world the Matrix has created is better than dystopian real world.
While eating a steak dinner, the man (who turns out to be a villian) tries to convince Neo to give-up his mission. “ I know this steak doesn't exist. I know that when I put it in my mouth, the Matrix is telling my brain that it is juicy and delicious. After nine years, you know what I realize?” He takes a bite and continues, “Ignorance is bliss.”
But the message of the film is this—truth is freedom. Even if the real world has been all-but-destroyed in a war with machines, living in real life is better than the fake world of the Matrix.
Ironically, the depression that viewers of Avatar are experiencing describe a completely opposite idea: people want to live in the fake world.
“When I woke up this morning after watching Avatar for the first time yesterday, the world seemed ... gray,” one viewer was quoted by CNN saying. “"It just seems so ... meaningless. I still don't really see any reason to keep ... doing things at all. I live in a dying world."
In The Matrix though, the dying world—the one that was left beyond grey, in almost total darkness—was the real one that the heroes fought to reveal.
It’s interesting that at the beginning of the decade, moviegoers connected to a film whose message advocated facing truth head-on (no matter how difficult it is). And then, 10 years later (following 9/11, a financial collapse, and several major natural disasters), the same audiences connected with a movie that valued an ideal world over the real one—to the extent viewers became depressed when the escapism the movie offered ended.
The Bible frequently talks about the duality of the Christian life. On one hand, we live in a world of flesh and blood—one plagued with sickness, pain, suffering and tragedy. On the other hand, Christians believe that the kingdom of God is at hand—and in God’s perfect presence, every tear is wiped away. Revelation 21:3 says, “They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.”
In his letter to the church in Corinth, the Apostle Paul writes of the two realities: “For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when perfection comes, the imperfect disappears … Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known” (1 Corinthians 12:9-12).
The reason why neither film is a perfect analogy for our faith is because the heroes don’t seek to find the balance between the seen and the unseen. In The Matrix, freedom is existing only in the real world, and in Avatar, freedom is abandoning the known world and becoming reborn on Pandora. But for a Christian, being born again isn’t an immediate escape from this world to the next—it’s a mission to bring Kingdom of God to earth. Christ instructs us to pray, “Thy Kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as is it in heaven.” We are called to be in the world, yet not of the world.
This is the duality of the Christian life.
What these films can teach us, is that there is more than only what is seen. But even in our effort and desire to become closer to God, we must remember that we are called to reach those who are far from in him. In John 17, Christ prayed this for his disciples: “My prayer is not that you take them out of the world but that you protect them from the evil one. They are not of the world, even as I am not of it … As you sent me into the world, I have sent them into the world. For them I sanctify myself, that they too may be truly sanctified.”
Everyday we must remember that though the world around us is full of pain, hardship and tragedy, we are called to show a love so pure, that it will be evidence of another world yet to be seen.
Are you looking for truth and peace that can only be found in God? Here's a prayer to ask Christ into your life.
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Jesse Carey is the Interactive Media Producer for CBN.com. With a background in entertainment and pop-culture writing, he offers his insight on music, movies, TV, trends and current events from a unique perspective that examines what implications the latest news has on Christians.
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