Resumen
Uno de los aspectos más interesantes de Avatar, la película de ciencia ficción y aventuras que James Cameron dirigió en 2009, es un guión que se parece a ciertos episodios de la historia temprana de la exploración y conquista del Nuevo Mundo. Cameron parece basarse en un 1 Michael Harney is Associate Professor of Spanish at the University of Texas-Austin, where he teaches medieval and renaissance Spanish literature. He is the author numerous articles and four books: the recently published Race, Caste, and Indigineity in Medieval Spanish of Travel Literature (2015); The Epic of the Cid, Translation and Edition (2011); Kinship and Marriage in Medieval Hispanic Chivalric Romance (2001); and Kinship and Polity in the “Poema de mío Cid.” Professor Harney holds a Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley.
Palabras clave: Película Avatar, Hernán Cortés, Bartolomé de las Casas, narrativas de conquista, colonialismo
Abstract
One of the more intriguing aspects of James Cameron’s 2009 science-fiction adventure film, Avatar, is a storyline that strongly resembles certain episodes from the early history of New World exploration and conquest. Cameron seemingly plunders a distinctly Hispanic terrain in his re-confection of a cluster of narrative motifs centered on such themes as going native; the role-reversing White renegade; the native princess; the advocacy of native peoples and indigenous cultures. Inspired by Bernal Díaz del Castillo’s True History and other Hispanic accounts, Avatar shows a protagonist reminiscent of the gone-native Spaniard Guerrero in Díaz’s history; the alien tribal princess is a Malinche who resists the outsider; there are secular missionaries who personify a pro-native advocacy similar to that of Bartolomé de las Casas; the ruthless bad guy is a sci-fi version of Cortés; the corporate entity despoiling the pristine pastoral wilderness of Pandora is a latter day version of Habsburg colonialism.
Keywords: Avatar film, Hernán Cortés, Bartolomé de las Casas, Conquest narratives, Colonialism