Literary Studies Proseminar Analysis

Literary Studies Proseminar “Going Native” in American Literature and Film Mag. Dr.phil Maria-Theresia Holub

Proseminar Paper

An analysis of stereotypes and their function in “A Princess of Mars” and “Avatar”

by Omid Redjaian

July 10th, 2013

Introduction

L.A. Hirschfeld (1996) states, “the prevalent point of view in psychology is that stereotypical thought is a by-product of the way information is organized and processed”

Both in movies and literature we encounter stereotypical depictions of native and indigenous people or whole exotic cultures. They fill the wide spectrum of connotations, from extremely negative to incredulously positive. The one characteristic most of them have in common is that they are not so much
lies or pure imagination but rather distorted pictures of truths and facts that do lie hidden somewhere. Utilizing the movie “Avatar” and Edgar Rice Burroughs' novel “A Princess of Mars” and the 2012 movie “John Carter” (based on the novel), I would like to take a closer look at the way stereotypes are used. Further, I would like to compare the movies and the book and show which forms of stereotyping have been used and the possible reasons behind them.

Sereotypical Overview:

Movie
Hero Hero's occupation Heroine Heroine's occupation Natives Setting White conflict? Spiritual entity? Technological explanation? Heroic speech? Gets the girl? Saves the planet? Becomes a native?

John Carter
John Carter Soldier Dejah Thoris Princess of Helium Tharks (green) Mars Yes Helium vs. Zodanga Eywa Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes

Avatar
Jake Sully Soldier Neytiri Clan's princess Na'vi (blue) Pandora Scientists vs. Company Issus Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes

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The Natives They seemed mostly head, with little scrawny bodies, long necks and six legs, or, as I afterwards learned, two legs and two arms, with an intermediary pair of limbs which could be used at will either as arms or legs. Their eyes were set at the extreme sides of their heads a trifle above the centre and protruded in such a manner that they could be directed either forward or back and also independently of each other, thus permitting this queer animal to look in any direction, or in two directions at once, without the necessity of turning the head. The ears, which were slightly above the eyes and closer together, were small, cup-shaped antennae, protruding not more than an inch on these young specimens. Their noses were but longitudinal slits in the centre of their faces, midway between their mouths and ears. There was no hair on their bodies, which were of a very light yellowish-green colour. In the adults, as I was to learn quite soon, this colour deepens to an olive green and is darker in the male than in the female. Further, the heads of the adults are not so out of proportion to their bodies as in the case of the young. The iris of the eyes is blood red, as in Albinos, while the pupil is dark. The eyeball itself is very white, as are the teeth. These latter add a most ferocious appearance to an otherwise fearsome and terrible countenance, as the lower tusks curve upward to sharp points which end about where the eyes of earthly human beings are located. The whiteness of the teeth is not that of ivory, but of the snowiest and most gleaming of china.
Burroughs, Edgar Rice (2012-05-17). A Princess of Mars (S.9). . Kindle-Version.

We will start our analysis of some of the stereotypes with the most important one in terms of “going-native”; the natives. For the paper I only used the description of the “Green Martians” from Burroughs' John Carter universe. Though it is interesting to know that in his stories there are different races on Mars, just like on Earth, like the Red, Yellow, Black, Green and White Martians, which are a very obvious representation of the human habit of creating racial stereotypes first and foremost according to skin colour, which are then subdivided into smaller stereotypes categories such as country, region, religion, culture and so on. Looking closer at the “Green Martians”, who Burroughs named Tharks, we can find many similarities to James Cameron's Na'vi and even to some descriptions of the Native Americans by early settlers and conquerors like Cabeza de Vaca. Like the Na'vi the Tharks are taller than normal humans, wear hardly any clothes except for accessories and have smooth skin and muscular bodies. Further, they are ferocious hunters and very strong, wild warriors, who only believe in the survival of the fittest. Even though the “Green Martians” are not as closely connected to the peaceful forces of nature like the blue Na'vi, they are extremely superstitious and deeply devout towards their main goddess Issus. Together with the much more human-like “Red Martians” the Tharks are the most important natives in the story and are a contrast stereotype. That means that the natives in stories like “A Princess of Mars” are usually a stark contrast to the the society from which the protagonist originates or where the majority of the readers live in. It is a neutral contrast as
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there can be so called good or bad, or rather noble and ignoble, savages/natives within the same story. Although the “Red Martians” are a very special case in terms of native stereotyping, as they are actually highly advanced in terms of technology, capable of using natural energies to maintain a constant supply of atmospheric air and water for the dying planet Mars, which they call Barsoom. Still Burroughs manages to include them into his tale of going-native by giving them other supposedly primitive, native characteristic such as the same strongly superstitious and deeply devout belief system around the goddess Issus. Further, like the Tharks the “Red Martians” wear hardly any clothes and are practically naked, except for jewellery and accessories. These traits among others counterbalance the futuristic technologies and create a picture of the “Red Martians” which is not primitive like the “Green Martians” but exotic and mysterious. This seems to be the reason why John Carter ends up living, learning and fighting with the Tharks, who are obviously the more primitive native species but who only look humanoid though nothing like any human on earth. At the same time his love interest Dejah Thoris, the heroine of the story, belongs to the human-like, exotic native people. For me this makes absolute sense, as the copper skinned “Red Martians” are too highly developed to suffice as the catalyst for a going-native transformation but they are close enough to humans for the love affair to be normal and pure, while a love affair with one of the huge, hairless, tusked, sixlegged, green, egg laying Tharks would have been perverse and scandalous in the America of 1917. But why do authors use native stereotypes, which are mostly very racist no matter if positive or negative, to depict native cultures? I think there are several answers that could explain this common occurrence in all types or story-telling. One could argue that one reason could be the author's lack of personal experience with the described native culture, or any native culture at all, combined with the stereotypes every human learns within the society he or she grows up in. In this case it would not matter if the native culture in the story is based upon real people or completely fictional, as the lack or prior knowledge would probably result in flat racial stereotypes for both types. Another explanation we must take into consideration is the possibility of a deliberate utilization of racial stereotypes as an instrument of story-telling. This way an author could invoke a picture of the natives within the minds of the readers much faster and easier and even counterbalance the fact that also most of the readers probably never had any personal experience with a native culture. Even though stereotypes are a natural way our brains process
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and categorise new information, I believe that Bargh (p. 277) explains it in a very interesting way by saying that if we stereotype and prejudge, without thinking about the consequences, it can be seen as intentional. So might argue that people Burroughs might have used these racial stereotypes on purpose, maybe even going as far as actually expecting certain reaction to them. Could it be possible to utilize both peoples modern and imperialist nostalgia and the reactions caused by these as a narrative tool? I believe it is thinkable, especially when there is known demand for such stories, revolving around foreign and alien races and unknown worlds. The Temptations of the Frontier And the sight which met my eyes was that of a slender, girlish figure, similar in every detail to the earthly women of my past life. She did not see me at first, but just as she was disappearing through the portal of the building which was to be her prison, she turned and her eyes met mine. Her face was oval and beautiful in the extreme, her every feature was finely chiselled and exquisite, her eyes large and lustrous and her head surmounted by a mass of coal black, waving hair, caught loosely into a strange yet becoming coiffure. Her skin was of a light reddish copper colour, against which the crimson glow of her cheeks and the ruby of her beautifully molded lips shone with a strangely enhancing effect. She was as destitute of clothes as the green Martians who accompanied her; indeed, save for her highly wrought ornaments she was entirely naked, nor could any apparel have enhanced the beauty of her perfect and symmetrical figure.
Burroughs, Edgar Rice (2012-05-17). A Princess of Mars (S.21). . Kindle-Version.

Another set of stereotypes used in stories, where a character knowingly or unknowingly goes native, are the temptations and allures found on the frontier. Usually, the list starts with the archetypical beautifully wild or wildly beautiful frontier itself … nature in its purest form, almost untouched. The dangers and the unknown together combined with the beauty of it all are thrilling and represent another form nostalgia for people in modern civilisations. Instead of using the term “imperialist nostalgia” as Rosaldo describes it, I would rather use “modern nostalgia” as already mentioned before. The reason being that it is obvious for me that we can find a certain kind of nostalgia for things past and gone in every culture, whether the lost things were part of their own regional environment, wild life, culture or religion or are altogether of foreign origin, even if the reader is not part of any majority, especially a conquering (political and technological) one, and hasn't been responsible for the disappearance. Of course, the nostalgia intensifies with the obvious alieness of the strange new cultures, customs and philosophies that seem to be so much closer to natural life, the universe
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and everything, as the author Douglas Adams would say. When we look at “A Princess of Mars” and “Avatar” we can find all these stereotypical depictions in abundance. There is the beautiful and mysterious setting of another planet and the unknown lifeforms on its surface. Burroughs chose Mars for his novels, using our sister planet and at the same time utilizing the great fascination, almost obsession, people have with the red planet. This has not changed within the last 100 years since he started writing his stories. A different world has the advantage of unlimited possibilities in terms of environment, races and cultural and spiritual aspects, which probably is the reason why Burroughs and Cameron chose alien planets for their stories. Finally, the possibly most important temptation for our stereotypical hero would be the character of the heroine, or the other way round. When reading about going-native, we immediately see that in this specific genre the sexual counterpart to our main character usually is a native within the story or someone who has already walked the path of goingnative. In Burroughs' novel we find Dejah Thoris, a princess of the “Red Martians”, who becomes the love interest of John Carter and the main force in his journey to become a part of the Martian world. We can easily compare the character of Thoris to Neytiri in “Avatar”. Again we find a native and again she is a princess … when taking a closer look at traditional heroic tales, one soon realizes that the temptation in form of a love interest usually is an interesting and important character, either socially or morally sublime. Very often the tempting love interest acts both as a guide and friend for the heroic main character, even when there is another typical stereotype in the story: the guiding native. If there is no separate guiding character in the story, then most of the time we will find the heroine guiding the hero, teaching him the ways of the strange land/world … which usually means hours and hours of close contact, the need for deep trust, a changing power relationship and the steady growth of friendship and affection. We find exactly the same succession of events in “A Princess of Mars”, “Avatar”,”Dances with Wolves”, “Pocahontas” and many other heroic going-native stories. The stereotypical view of the frontier, the romantic imagination of the unknown and the nostalgia for things vacant in our own lives form a powerful tool for pulling the reader into a strange new world, which still feels familiar enough due to the stereotypes used for the audience to feel comfortable associating with the characters. One can apply the proverb “the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence” here and I think most people immediately understand the almost universal fascination of human beings for other cultures, countries and worlds … places where maybe no civilised human being has gone before.
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Transfer and Transformation I looked first at my lifeless clay there upon the floor of the cave and then down at myself in utter bewilderment; for there I lay clothed, and yet here I stood but naked as at the minute of my birth. The transition had been so sudden and so unexpected that it left me for a moment forgetful of aught else than my strange metamorphosis.
Burroughs, Edgar Rice (2012-05-17). A Princess of Mars (S.8). . Kindle-Version.

How does the main character first enter the frontier and how is the act of “goingnative” achieved in the end?
In most stories of this kind the protagonist will ride, drive or sail to the New World but when we focus on “A Princess of Mars” and “Avatar”, we have a very special utilization of the stereotypical journey of the hero. Either the transfer is already part of the transformation or we find a transformation after the character has reached the destination and one can further differentiate between the typical physical transformation of the person going-native and the change of heart. Burroughs starts John Carter's transformation already on Earth before sending him to Mars, who doesn't actually travel to the red planet but is being sent there like data transferred, an unknown force actually copying him onto Mars, while leaving his real body behind in the cave in the Arizona desert. In “Avatar” Jake Sully travels to Pandora using a space ship. On the strange planet he encounters a different type of transfer, when his consciousness is technologically sent into his man-made avatar. Both characters “loose” their real bodies and have to learn how to use their “new” bodies after the first physical transformation. Even more than that they actually represent the image of rebirth, being reborn into a new body, leaving their original body, their old lives and mankind behind. When observed in relation to all the other themes in both stories, we can see the heroes not only being
heroic stereotypes but even Messiah archetype. Usually, the transformation is a gradual process. John Carter, still looking human, is naked when he lands on Mars and this is when the second transformation takes place as he has to use clothes worn by the natives he encounters, while Jake Sully has a completely different body but still wears human clothes at the beginning of his journey as a cloned Na'vi. This connection to his human life changes when he is accepted by Na'vi people and starts learning their ways from Neytiri. The learning process, the battles and the romance are all part of the internal transformation … and the most important aspect lies within the learning process: language acquisition. Language is the crucial link which connects all parts of the going-native theme and makes it possible for the main character to become part of the native culture. The stereotyping
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is hidden in the form of almost no language barrier. Most stories of this kind, including “Avatar”, do include the theme of the civilised foreigner trying to learn the natives' language but usually there are one or more native character ,luckily, speaking the adventurer's tongue to some degree, very often portrayed by the main character's native counterpart. This is a simple stereotype tool which makes it easier for the author to move on with the story without having a character, who has to learn the language first before verbal communication can even begin. Burroughs does include this learning part, though. John Carter has to learn the Martian language first, slowly but he manages in the end and there is no one on Mars who can speak English or any other Earth language. In the movie the director replaced the part where John is learning the language by listening and trying and utilizes a “potion” instead, which is being given to Carter and enables him to speak and understand the Martian tongue. The Hero, ready to go native I do not believe that I am made of the stuff which constitutes heroes, because, in all of the hundreds of instances that my voluntary acts have placed me face to face with death, I cannot recall a single one where any alternative step to that I took occurred to me until many hours later. My mind is evidently so constituted that I am subconsciously forced into the path of duty without recourse to tiresome mental processes. However that may be, I have never regretted that cowardice is not optional with me.
Burroughs, Edgar Rice (2012-05-17). A Princess of Mars (S.5). . Kindle-Version.

The final stereotype we will take a closer look at, is probably one of the most common, most used and oldest prototypical characters. Not only can we find the heroic figure in the majority of stories revolving around the theme of “going native”, but he is also a regular character in almost all genres and types of story-telling … and I say 'he' despite gendering conventions because in the majority of heroic stories throughout history, especially, when it comes to “going native', the heroic main character is a hero, not a heroine. In “A Princess of Mars” our hero, by the name of John Carter, is a former soldier, a cavalryman who fought for the Confederate Army. At the beginning of the story he tries to start a new life in the Arizona desert after the war. Normally spending his days in the search for gold in Apache territory, he ends up on our sister planet Mars after a strange chain of events in which first his partner is killed by the Indians on Earth. When we compare the figure of Captain John Carter to Jake Sully in James Cameron's “Avatar”, we see the immediate connection. Jake Sully is a veteran as well, he suffers both from a personal loss and a war he fought in and is now looking for a new life far away from
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home, finally ending up on Pandora. Both characters represent a very specific type of hero. They are no white knights, noble and perfect … they are former soldiers who have fought in a war, who have seen the dark side of humanity… the worst of their own civilisations and of themselves … and who try to start new somewhere far away on the dangerous frontier; one searching for gold, the other for unobtainium. This aspect of a terrible past of the hero character is a crucial part of the “goingnative” storyline. I believe it to be a tool which helps the reader to relate to the protagonist and understand why that character would be willing to leave his normal life and modern civilisation behind and become part of a more primitive, more dangerous and alien world. Like all hero types the “post-traumatic-stress-disorder” hero is the prototypical “good character”, no matter how flat or dynamic. Despite all flaws and short-comings the hero always represent the good side and either knowingly or unknowingly does the right things for the story to end well. Within the going-native setting the hero character has to go through specific phases before finally being allowed to completely immerse himself into the native culture: the dangerous first contact, saving a native or being saved by one, learning the ways of the natives, falling in love with a native/ with nature/the tribe or culture, becoming a link, fighting against his own people/the civilised people and finally either living or dying as a converted native. Even though most heroes start their journey with different reason and goals, we can observe that at some point in the story love becomes the driving force behind our hero. Both the love for the heroine and for the native people are the main reasons for John Carter and Jack Sully to go through all that hardship and even shed blood to protect the strange and exotic people who they have become a part of. We find the same theme in “Dances with Wolves” and “Pocahonats”. But why do we find the stereotypical heroic character in so many novels, ballads, movies and other tales? I assume the hero or heroine is how we would like to be, an ideal version of a human being. The more flaws and rough edges a heroic character has, the more we can associate with that person and even believe in the possibility of someone like that really existing. Going beyond reason, logic, pain and terrible obstacles to reach the happyend. The going-native represents even more than that as the character is more than just how we would like to be but even does things we dream and fantasise about. Leaving the comfortable and boring civilised life behind to embark on a dangerous journey full of strange and exotic mysteries.

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Yet, when taking “Imperialist Nostalgia” into consideration, I realised that there is more to the heroic character who unknowingly transforms. It is a manifestation of remorse … guilt and remorse. Some people debate the racist characteristics of the typical civilised hero, going-native and saving the poor primitive natives. I personally believe that this not the original intent, maybe it has never been a deliberate decision but again how we would like things to ... the need for things to work out, to end well. It is true that most of the time we find a stereotypical male white hero but this is also strongly connected to the fact that most of classical and popular literature has been produced by what we call white people. We could argue that this is the racist notion of white authors creating white heroes for mostly white readers. But there is more to the hero character than stereotyping, racism, sexism a general arrogance of mankind when it comes to technological advantages. I think that deep within most authors and readers know that the western, civilised, sophisticated or white hero or heroine in going-native stories is the only chance the native people have to survive. This is not so much a racist idea than a fictional solution to a real world problem. First I had the same opinion on these types of heroes and going-native stories but while working on this paper I realised that there is truth in these stereotypical character but no reality. Our own history shows us time and time again what happens when a higher developed culture comes into contact with a more primitive people. Every time something like this happened, and still happens, it results either in the conquest, the near extinction or complete annihilation of the less developed culture … as far as I know after days of research there are no documented exceptions. So even though the stereotypical white hero might be racist in a way, the concept still represents a disconcerting truth about our own history … without a hero who either is a member of the highly developed civilisation threatening to destroy them or belongs to an equal civilisation, the native people would simply perish alongside everything else the frontier represents. Although looking at reality even that is an optimistic fantasy to the extreme. I would like to quote professor Stephen Hawking's view on a possible encounter with sophisticated alien life forms he mentioned in one of his university lectures: “Meeting a more advanced civilisation, at our present stage, might be a bit like the original inhabitants of America meeting Columbus. I don't think they were better off for it.” http://www.hawking.org.uk/life-in-the-universe.html/ Omid Redjaian

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Conclusion In the beginning I encountered serious problems in analysing all the stereotypes in “A Princess of Mars” and “Avatar”. Comparing them was the easy part as they were complementing each other nicely, trying to analyse the stereotyping objectively, to create an understanding and finding a reason for their utilization was far more difficult than I had anticipated. Being dyslexic I have been reading almost everyday for many years now to keep my brain from falling back into bad habits, this way I have experienced many stereotypes and many of them over and over again. I never really questioned them as long as they weren't excessively racist or sexist. By working on this paper I realised that first of all stereotyping is a natural process of our brains trying to understand and categorise every information, especially, on other human beings and secondly, it is both a conscious and subconscious process and finally, that stereotypes are a common narrative tool. Although it is a natural process, I understand now that we still have a choice to which extend we use and accept them and that we are capable of drawing a line where stereotypes become intentional or even unintentional insults. The research showed me that stereotypes are a necessary tool for the process of story-telling, as they simplify the creation of worlds, characters and scenarios and even help convey those ideas to the audience who themselves either share the stereotypes or apply their own. The actual irony is that most people have a stereotypical view of stereotypes and stereotyping. When looking at the going-native stories I analysed for this paper, I realised that there is more to the stereotypes than the general negative notion of them might suggest. Of course, there are the racial and racist stereotypes, the sexual and sexist stereotyping and both modern and imperialist nostalgia. Still there is more to be seen than the negative ideas … mostly negative from our current, modern western point of view … I think the stereotypical goingnative journey is a representation of our inner maybe even subconscious needs and dreams; a need to be connected to nature, to our past, a need to change something in this world, to make a difference, the need for adventure and danger. The utilization of native stereotypes probably results from a lack of knowledge and exaggerations of real information and incidents. Even though I sometimes have the feeling that negative stereotypes of a native culture or people or any minority are generally seen as racist and wrong … not because all them are really wrong but because of something we call “white guilt”. The Native Americans, for example, have been pushed more and more into the

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stereotype of nature loving, peace seeking, spiritual sages during the last decades and savage and cruel stereotypes are seen as racist insults.
The truth is though that many Native American tribes were brutal in their wars, used torture on captives, some even took part in human sacrifices (including their own people) as we know from the Central American tribes. They were neither more or less cruel than other people and cultures all over the world. They were and are balanced as all humans, having both positive and negative traits and having both good and not so good representatives of their culture. Still there is the tendency to use racist stereotypes, positive racist stereotypes, to present minorities in an unnatural and almost saint like light. I strongly believe that the “white guilt” and “imperialist nostalgia” are the forces behind most native stereotypes, especially the positive ones and even though I hope that one day we can live without using racist and sexist stereotypes, I do know that life without any stereotyping at all is just as impossible as living without thinking at
all.

Sources:
-Avatar. Cameron, James dir. Sam Worthington perf. Twenthieth-Century Fox. 2010 -John Carter. Stanton, Andrew dir. Taylor Kitsch perf. Walt Disney Picture. 2012 -Burroughs, E.R. (1917). A Princess of Mars. Kindle Edition: Start Publishing LLC. 2013. -Browne, R. John (1869). Adventures in the Apache County: a tour through Arizona and Sonora with notes on the silver regions of Nevada. New York: Harpers&Brothers Publishers. -Bargh, J. A., & Uleman, J. S. (1989). ). Unintended thought. New York, NY: The Guilford Press. -Hirschfeld, L. A. (1996). Race in the making. Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press. -Knowles,Nathaniel. (1940) Torture of captives by the Indians of eastern North America [WWW Document], http://ufdc.ufl.edu/UF00080546/00001/1j (accessed 7.3.13). University of Florida. -Deloria, Philip J. Playing Indian. London: YUP. 1998. -Rosaldo, Renato. (1989) Imperialist Nostalgia. Representations. [WWW Document] (accessed 7.3.13) University of California Press. www.jstor.org/stable/2928525. 2008 -Hawking, Stephen. Life in the Universe [WWW Document]. (accessed 7.3.13). http://www.hawking.org.uk/lifein-the -universe.html
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