Something clicked inside TOVI, 28, when he saw Avatar (2009). “I grew up with autism and other issues and have always had a hard time connecting with others. I found refuge in stories, in art, in puzzles. The idea of escaping to a new world where I wasn’t me, where it didn’t take me every day to get my brain to cooperate, was a wild dream for me,” she says. In James Cameron’s film, which returns to theaters again today, 13 years after its premiere and a few months before the second part arrives, a paraplegic soldier transferred his consciousness to the body of a Na’vi, indigenous to the planet Pandora.
TOVI, who defines himself as a non-binary person, is part of a huge community of fans of Avatar call Kelutral.org, dedicated above all to studying the language of the film, the Na’vi. She went to see the movie with her boyfriend in 2009. “Sadly, her health got worse in her last year of high school,” she relates, “and her cancer came back. We lost him in 2011. He identified with Eywa [una identidad espiritual de Avatar] And that memory, along with that concept of an afterlife, meant a lot to me and helped me through my grief. It has also made it hard to watch the movie again, because it brings back so many memories.” TOVI adds that when, on December 16, it opens Avatar: The Way of Water, he will buy two seats and put a picture of her deceased boyfriend next to them. “He was very sorry that there was so much time left for more installments to be released, so I want to make it possible for him to see them in some way.”
an intangible dream
After Christmas 2009, in the months following the film’s release, a conversation arose on one of the fan forums. It was titled “Ways to deal with the depression caused by knowing that Pandora’s dream is intangible”. He got to have about 3,500 messages. CNN echoed the phenomenonwhich some coined as the post-avatar depression either postpandora. The immersion in the world designed by Cameron in one of the few films that has made worthy use of 3D technology had serious side effects on some viewers; there were those who harbored suicidal thoughts. “Upon waking up this morning after seeing Avatar for the first time yesterday, the world seemed…gray to me,” one fan wrote. “It’s like my whole life, everything I’ve done and everything I’ve pursued has lost its meaning. I live in a dying world.”
Fans advised each other to rewatch the movie as many times as possible, listen to the soundtrack, paint Pandora landscapes, and even write fan fiction, that is, their own stories based on the same fictional universe. Other options went further: some began to meditate to get closer to nature, others considered becoming vegetarians and there were those who joined ecological and animal rights activism. “I feel that Avatar causes depression in people who see what is happening in the world, not necessarily because they can not go to Pandora, ”wrote another user. “It makes us see that the human species has caused such devastation that the worst scenes of Avatar They look like a joke.” The anti-colonial and environmental preservation message that James Cameron introduced in the film had a very strong influence on many of the fans: if Pandora is a dream, some thought, what can I do to make the world I live in come true? look like?
It is not the first time that a work of fiction instills positive values in its followers. Much of the fans of star trek (1966-1969) originals adopted in the nineties the philosophy vulcanic known as IDIC (Infinite Diversity in Infinite Combinations, or infinite diversity in infinite combinations), based on the racial and gender diversity that was prevalent on the ships in the series. That led to trekkies to defend tolerance, feminism, homosexual rights, pacifism and multiculturalism, but also more specific causes such as vegetarianism or the fight against AIDS. Then there are the broniesmen who are inspired by the series of drawings My little Pony (1986-1987) to construct an alternative masculinity to the alpha male stereotype, or the widely accepted androgyny and homosexuality among manga and anime characters.
“These communities are very generous, very cooperative, they share their knowledge very openly,” explains Daniel Cassany, coordinator of the study at the Reina Sofía Center The Fandom in the Spanish Youth. This Pompeu Fabra University professor has participated in several projects to better understand, explain and de-stigmatize a phenomenon that, according to him, is perceived “quite unfairly” by society. Meeting people from all over the world with whom you share a passion through the internet, translating texts and subtitles, organizing meetings, collecting and disseminating information… a fan club has, according to Cassany, a great potential for interaction and learning: “ Languages are not only learned, cultures are learned, technology is learned… There are clear examples of people who have developed relevant learning in these contexts, apparently geeks, and later have been able to transfer it to professions or academic fields that have generated personal benefit”.
The study of fandom was born from the book by Henry Jenkins Textual Poachers (1992), or “text poachers”, where the participatory nature of these communities, formed by what Jenkins considered not so much passive receivers as active consumers, was deepened. When the internet had not yet become popular, fans of star trek wrote stories of fan fiction and they sent them to each other by post. Draw illustrations (or fan art), design and wear creative costumes (or cosplayaY), participate in elaborate role-playing games or learn fictional languages, be it Klingon, Elvish or Na’vi (in Avatar) are some of the most common practices among fans.
In the Spanish Tolkien Society there are commissions dedicated to languages, musical composition, painting or even goldsmithing, as well as prizes for essays, stories or crafts: any artistic creation is welcome as long as it is related in some way to Middle-earth. “It is a very lively and prolific association,” says member Francisco Javier Moñino Gómez, who belongs to Smial Montaraz. The different local groups throughout Spain are called “smiales”, a word by which the hobbits’ hole-houses are known (Murcia, for example, is the Smial of Mordor); the Smial Montaraz, which refers to the wandering people to which Aragorn belongs, is made up of members who live throughout the country. Since he is a journalist, Javier helps in the preparation of the news for the STE website, but he also participates in a project dedicated to writing children’s stories within the Tolkien universe.
the fandom of Avatar it is characterized by a strong emotional connection to the film and, in some cases, spiritual or even religious. In the universe created by Cameron there is an entity called Eywa, who governs Pandora’s life and watches over an environmental balance that is threatened by humans. It is a divinity to which the Na’vi pray in temples such as the Tree of Voices and the Tree of Souls, species of tree to which it is possible to connect, such as through a USB port, to join a network of consciousness. Like the force of starwarsthe fandom interprets the idea of Eywa in a personal and mystical way, and to honor it some adopt more environmentally conscious habits, such as recycling, participating in community farms and gardens or buying organic products. “Avatar was what launched me to seek my own religious path,” says TOVI. “I started to see the problems I was raised with, and I liked the idea of a network of voices. But there was a real incident that happened in July 2010 that cemented this concept in my mind.”
One day, while TOVI was doing his usual midday walk with his dog chow chow, Miss Nikki, were attacked by a wild coyote. The animal lunged at them and TOVI remembers that time slowed down. “A stream of voices, like a wave of color, gave me instructions. I grabbed the coyote by the back of the neck, and with the strength of an Olympic pitcher, I spun and threw him as far as I could. I couldn’t have thrown a ball ten feet if my life depended on it. But for some reason, I shot that coyote twice as far. And all the time, the voices, so many, and of all ages and races, telling me what to do and how to do it, and telling me to run in the other direction.” TOVI and Miss Nikki came out of the match unscathed. “I don’t know what I believe. But I like the idea of Eywa and the Tree of Souls, it fits with what I have experienced.”
When James Cameron was asked about Post-Avatar Depression, the director dismissed the concept as hyperbole. “If you really feel like you’re not getting enough of the wonders of nature in your life, you should take a goddamn walk in the woods. Or go diving.” proposed. But when Avatar was released in theaters slipped out of Cameron’s hands; now it belongs to the fans, who turn the story into a myth and extract sense and meaning from it, as if the film were his own Bible. In an increasingly non-denominational society, popular culture can serve as a source of values and customs, as religion has been for centuries.
There is something ritual and tribal about a community of fans. And it is a way of weaving interpersonal relationships that transcend the work that brought them together. There are 140 people in the Smial Montaraz Telegram group, and although not everyone speaks often, there is a “hard core”, says Javier, who says good morning every morning with coffee, as if they were a family . “If someone in the group loses their job, which is normal right now, the others encourage them, and even if someone lives in the area and knows of a position that may be related, it helps them. It’s nice, because it goes beyond all of us loving Tolkien.” This summer, Javier met another Montaraz in Pamplona, on a trip with friends. “The uncle came, he was with my friends, he showed us the city, he ate with us…”. What Tolkien has united, Avatar either star trekthat the man does not separate it.
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“The voices told me what to do”: how ‘Avatar’ went from being a movie to almost a religion