JSRNC 4.4 (2010) 425-456] JSRNC ... - Stanford University

[JSRNC 4.4 (2010) 425-456] JSRNC (print) ISSN 1749-4907 doi: 10.1558/jsrnc.v4i4.425 JSRNC (online) ISSN 1749-4915

© Equinox Publishing Ltd 2010, 1 Chelsea Manor Studios, Flood Street, London SW3 5SR.

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‘Ma<lama the ‘a <ina, Ma<lama the people on the ‘a<ina’: The Reaction to Avatar in Hawai’i

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Rachelle K. Gould

Emmett Interdisciplinary Program in Environment and Resources, Stanford University, 473 Via Ortega, Suite 226,

Stanford, CA 94305, USA [email protected]

Nicole M. Ardoin

School of Education and Woods Institute for the Environment,

Stanford University, 485 Lasuen Mall, Stanford, CA 94305, USA [email protected]

Jennifer Kamakanipakolonahe’okekai Hashimoto

Department of Cell and Molecular Biology,

University of Hawai’i at Hilo, 200 W. Kawili St., Hilo, HI 96720, USA

[email protected]

Abstract

We explored perceptions of the film Avatar in Kona, Hawai’i, using a mixed-methods study that included surveys (n = 149) and semi-structured interviews (n = 15). The two research questions that guided this study were: (1) After a delayed period, what messages from Avatar do viewers retain?, and (2) How do perceptions of the film relate to the present culture of Hawai’i, which includes post-colonial narratives? Quantitative analyses indicated that people of different backgrounds responded differently to the film. Qualitative analyses suggest that the majority of respondents retained moral messages from the film, and that those moral messages related to themes relevant in historical and present-day Hawaiian society. We provide detailed findings, including a discussion of how these perceptions relate to the emerging field of Cultural Ecosystem Services. We also suggest that popular and artistic works may provide effective avenues for spurring discussion related to sensitive issues in social research.

426 Journal for the Study of Religion, Nature and Culture

© Equinox Publishing Ltd 2010.

Certain films that portray accounts of contested historical and current issues have had a notable impact on societal awareness of those issues. Although cinematic fictionalization of real-world issues can be problem-atic, scholarly studies have suggested that these provocative art forms and social commentaries can also generate constructive public discourse. Schindler’s List (1993), for example, evoked a flurry of response and reac-tion to the Holocaust in both popular and academic forums. Although some critiqued it as bending historical detail, many people emphasized how moving and metaphorically eye-opening was the film’s representa-tion of the Holocaust (Classen 2009). Similarly, Dances with Wolves (1990) has been discussed in scholarly work (e.g., Bovey 1993; Appleford 1995) with a mixture of appreciation that it addressed issues in need of societal attention and criticism of its romaticization and simplification of native cultures. In an experiment, Bahk (2011) investigated the impact of the film Medicine Man (1992) on attitudes related to its content and messag-ing. He found that students who watched the film, which depicts defor-estation surrounding a village in the Amazon, expressed stronger anti-deforestation attitudes than those in a control group who watched a film that did not include deforestation-related content or messages. Film and popular media scholars note that such portrayals may be particularly effective in sparking emotional responses and spurring discussion as they ‘open a space of possibility that achieves its impact especially by the fact that it is not identical with reality’ (Classen 2009: 82). Cultural researchers such as Appleford (1995) suggest that people of indigenous heritage may appreciate cinematic representations of their culture, even if the details are inaccurate—that is, the value of presenting the idea of their worldview outweighs the damage that some contend, or fear, would be caused by inaccuracies. Building from this body of work, we explored whether Native Hawaiians, as well as non-Native Hawaiians sympathetic to the Hawaiian cause, noted Avatar’s spiritually imbued and pro-indigenous messages, even if those messages would be considered over-simplified. Traditionally, Native Hawaiians have considered nature and culture inseparable (Beckwith 1951; Maly 2001). For over one thousand years, Hawaiians have studied the movements, seasons, and structure of the land.1 Many of today’s Native Hawaiians profess a strong belief that Hawaiian culture would not exist without the land (Neal 2010); how-ever, historical events have often forcibly separated the Hawaiian people from their land (Herman 1999). In this article, we explore the

1. Archaeologists estimate that human settlement in Hawai‘i began sometime between 300 and 800 CE (Graves and Addison 1995).

Gould, Ardoin, and Hashimoto ‘Ma<lama the ‘a<ina 427


perspectives of current residents of Hawai’i,2 both Native Hawaiian as well as those of other ethnicities, by analyzing their perceptions of Avatar, a film released in 2009. We ask the questions: ‘After a delayed period, what messages from Avatar do viewers retain?’, and subse-quently, ‘How do perceptions of the film relate to the present culture of Hawai’i, which includes post-colonial narratives?’.3 Our analysis com-pares responses along three axes: ethnicity (Native Hawaiian versus residents of other ethnicities), engagement with forests (those with relatively high and low levels of engagement with Hawaii’s forests), and level of education. Although many consider Hollywood’s portrayal of these issues oversimplified and trite, our data suggest that discussion of the film can provide insight into sensitive topics that may otherwise be difficult to broach. Historically, Hawaiian culture has exemplified a close relationship with the land, largely developed and solidified through the people’s dependence on farming and fishing for their livelihoods. One Native Hawaiian scholar wrote, ‘My people have been cultivators from very ancient times; it was by agriculture that they made a living…’ (Kamakau 1991: 23). Historians and Native Hawaiian storytellers describe how Hawaiians’ hands became stained from the brown dirt, hardened by the lava rock, and callused by the tools they made (Flores 2008). There was ‘fluidity between culture and environment’ (Herman 1999: 80); in this culture, the human/ecosystem relationship was an integral component of a productive lifestyle (McGregor 1996). Working with nature equaled life; nature was life (Hashimoto 2000). In traditional Hawaiian culture there is a saying: If the land is taken care of, the land will take care of us (Flores 2008). Today, many Native Hawaiians retain this close connection to the land and ocean (Trask 1990). Though the arrangement of the land has changed dramatically—for instance, a Western system of land ownership has replaced the traditional land management system, which did not concep-tualize individual ownership of land (Herman 1999)—Native Hawaiians often describe their ancestors’ knowledge of their natural surroundings as powerful (Andrade 2008). Connections such as these are described

2. Contemporary transliteration of the Hawaiian language includes two diacriti-cal marks: a macron, which lengthens vowels, and an ‘okina, which represents a glottal stop. We have included diacritical marks in the Hawaiian words we use; however, when Hawaiian words have been modified to fit English grammar (for example, Hawaiian and Hawaii’s), we omit diacritical marks, as these words can be considered part of the English language rather than the Hawaiian language. 3. See Gilbert and Tompkins 1996 and Scott 1998 for discussions of post-colonial theory.



among indigenous cultures throughout the world (e.g., Burgess et al. 2005; Takano, Higgins, and McLaughlin 2009); for contemporary Native Hawaiians, that historical connection is equally intense and motivating. This link gives Native Hawaiians a sense of spiritual connectedness and cultural belonging, which may contribute to a contemporary Native Hawaiian sense of identity (Crawford 2010). This study is informed not only by our data but also by informal observations based on the authors’ experience in the community (see the Methods section for details). Formal and informal observations suggest that many Native Hawaiians feel a strong connection to the land and that this connection cannot be adequately expressed with words, particularly English-language words. Yet for reasons we hope to elucidate, Native Hawaiians indicated that their reflection on the film Avatar was at times helpful in explicating their feelings of connection to the land and how historical events have affected that connection. This research was spurred by pilot work con-ducted in January 2010, during which we explored the values associated with Hawaii’s forests. At that time, we were struck by respondents’ repeated and unprovoked references to Avatar; these often-profound references encouraged us to explore further the feelings evoked by the film. Avatar’s story addresses intense political, societal, and cultural issues. This research aimed to use the film as a vehicle for understanding more about a geography that, as many of our respondents brought to our attention in our pilot work, resonates with some of the film’s principal messages. The geographical, cultural, and historical aspects of Hawai’i offer a rich setting to explore reactions to the film for several reasons. First, the archipelago’s history provides a poignant parallel to the film. Hawaii’s vibrant, highly functioning society was taken over by colonizing powers in recent historical memory (Liliuokalani 1990; McCubbin and Marsella 2009), and that takeover was associated with the control and commer-cialization of land and natural resources.4 At the time of the takeover, and ever since, a complex spiritual and ancestral connection with the land has been an integral part of Hawaiian culture (Pukui 1997; Trask 1990). This intertwined political and spiritual history has formed a

4. The sandalwood trade provides a nuanced example of market-driven natural resource extraction. In the late 1700s/early 1800s, Hawaiian sandalwood (Santalum spp.) was heavily logged for the global market; the Chinese especially valued its sweet-smelling wood. In this case, the Hawaiian royalty directed much of the logging and received proceeds from it (Ralston 1984), but the Western businessmen involved also amassed benefits from the trade (Levy 1975). Although the Na`vi in Avatar did not help with the extraction of unobtanium, this situation offers one parallel between Hawaii’s history and Avatar’s story.



society sensitive to the tensions dramatized in Avatar. Second, many of the state’s residents are of Native Hawaiian ancestry—240,000 individu-als (approximately 20% of the state population) identified themselves as at least part Native Hawaiian in the 2000 census (U.S. Census Bureau 2010); their ancestors have lived in the Hawaiian islands for generations. Third, a recent renaissance of traditional Hawaiian culture has brought traditional beliefs, philosophies, and worldviews to the forefront (Linnekin 1983; Harden 1999; Meyer 2003). Many of these philosophies, such as that of the spirits of ancestors and deities being embodied in the non-human world (Trask 1990),5 have parallels in Avatar. Fourth, Hawaii’s society is highly modernized and diverse; people commonly attend films and otherwise participate in popular culture events, and thus, many people in Hawai’i have been exposed to Avatar. The relatively recent history of Hawai’i also includes a number of examples of a growing body of Native Hawaiian activists referring to tradition and cultural practices in protests of land-based action. The discourse of ‘ma<lama ‘a<ina’, or ‘care for the land’, has become a common component of efforts focused on land, culture, and the intersection of the two (Linnekin 1983). For instance, there has been active and at times vitriolic debate on Hawai’i Island over the spiritual and cultural implica-tions of geothermal energy extraction (largely because Pele, a powerful Hawaiian deity, is the goddess of the volcano’s energy) and of the construction of large telescope complexes on the summit of Mauna Kea, which is considered by many to be a sacred mountain (Zimmerman 2005). The story of Kaho’olawe, a small island that was used intensively by the U.S. Navy for bombing practice in the late 1960s and early 1970s, provides another example of both the abuse of land and a culturally imbued protest against military control and action (Blackford 2004). These and other issues illuminate the history in Hawai’i of relating infringements on indigenous land rights to cultural practices and traditions, as was arguably done in the film Avatar. We investigate whether Avatar presents an opportunity to explore elusive human/nature relationships and particularly challenging post-colonial narratives through a simplified and archetypal storyline. Thus, a brief synopsis of the film’s plot may help to situate the data and 5. In the Hawaiian language and culture, for example, ‘aumakua refers to ance-stral guardian spirits, or ‘deified ancestors who might assume the shape of’ animals, plants, rocks, or clouds (Pukui and Elbert 1986: 32). Akua is translated as ‘god, god-dess, spirit’ (Pukui and Elbert 1986: 15); however, as is often the case with language, many say that no perfect translation for the word exists, since akua can be more like a force, a formless spirit which is not necessarily supernatural (as discussed in Taylor 2010) or humanoid, but which can inhabit, embody, and be embodied by places.



discussion that follow. The film takes place on Pandora, a fictional moon in distant space, in about the year 2150. A society of aliens, the Na’vi, inhabits this moon; the Na’vi are a hunter-and-gatherer society whose belief system includes the interconnectedness of all living things and a sacred tree as principal deity. Pandora is one of the universe’s sole sources of a mineral resource, ‘unobtanium’, which is extremely valuable on Earth. One of the largest lodes of unobtanium on Pandora is found directly underneath the ‘Home Tree’, which is the primary residence of one group of Na’vi. The story revolves around the humans’ effort to mine that lode, which will require eviction of the Na’vi from their home and destruction of the ‘Home Tree’. The Na’vi refuse to leave, and the task of convincing them to do so is given to ex-Marine Jake Sully, who interacts with the Na’vi through his ‘avatar’, or alien body. Early in the story, the Na’vi accept Sully as a student of their lifestyle and philoso-phy, and he spends months learning their ways—in the process teaching Jake as well as the viewers about Na’vi culture and spirituality. Jake initially provides intelligence about the Na’vi to the militaristic humans who are willing if not eager to forcibly remove the Na’vi, but eventually, Sully turns against his own earthly species to help the Na’vi defeat the imperial humans.

Methods This study was conducted as a component of a larger study aimed at understanding the Cultural Ecosystem Services, or intangible benefits provided by ecosystems (de Groot and Ramakrishnan 2005; Chan et al., in press), associated with upland forests on the Kona side of Hawai’i Island (see Gould, in preparation). We conducted a mixed-methods study, using a combination of techniques to produce qualitative and quantitative data. Mixed-methods studies, which are based on the prem-ise of triangulation (Babbie 2001), employ a variety of methods with the intention of offsetting weaknesses of individual methods with the strengths of others (Singleton, Straits, and Straits 1993). In this way, the study design can decrease the likelihood that the data reflect biases of particular data-collection strategies (Maxwell and Loomis 2002). To this end, the study collected data through surveys, interviews, and informal observation in the community. The lead author lived in the South Kona community for 6 months during 2009–10 and the third author is Native Hawaiian, from Ho’okena (a town within the study area), and has lived in Hawai’i her entire life. The experiences of the researchers provided a basis for observation in the community and also informed the lenses used in data analysis.



Between June and August 2010, the research team conducted surveys and interviews in the southern portion of the leeward side of Hawai’i Island.6 The delay between the release of Avatar in December 2009 and our data collection allowed us to address how the film impacted respon-dents in the medium-term. Although the delay may have hindered the ability of some participants to remember fully the details of the film, we believe that the time lag strengthened our ability to explore the bigger-picture issues investigated in this study, because it shifted the focus of the data toward the sustained conceptual impact of the film. In-Person Survey We conducted the surveys with a convenience sample of residents of the South Kona area. The research assistants were located in public places—parks and grocery stores—and solicited participation of people passing by that location. Given that much of the survey’s content referenced upland forest lands, we recruited people to complete the survey by asking, ‘Would you be willing to share your thoughts about mauka [upland] Kona [the geographical study area]?’. Therefore, although the survey sample was not random, the recruitment verbiage was neutral to perceptions of the film Avatar. The survey required between 15 and 30 minutes to complete, with the average respondent requiring 23 minutes. A total of 215 individuals began the survey, and 205 individuals com-pleted the survey. Of those completing the survey, 124 were male and 80 female (the sex of one was unidentified). Respondents’ ages ranged from 18 to 81, with an average age of 46. The Avatar section of the survey was comprised of 13 questions, all developed after conducting pilot surveys and interviews. The 11 closed-ended questions (see Table 1), which were used to produce quantitative data, assessed opinions of the film and its messages, and the degree to which the film inspired specific emotions in people. We selected the six focal emotions based on pilot interviews and surveys within the study area, in which we asked people to name emotions precipitated by the film, especially emotions that might have been felt differently by people of different backgrounds. That process led to the emotions in Table 1. The two open-ended questions, which were used to produce qualitative data, were: (1) ‘What do you think were the main messages of the movie—what was the movie trying to say to us?’, and (2) ‘Is there anything else you would like to say about the movie and/or your reaction to it, or to what others have said about it?’.

6. The study area ran from immediately south of Kailua town (19˚36”N, 155˚ 58” W) to Ocean View (19˚ 04”N, 155˚ 45” W), covering a linear area of approximately 40 miles.



Table 1. Survey Items Related to Opinions, Emotions, and Message Agreement among Respondents. Notes: (1) The responses were scored using a five-point Likert scale where ‘1’ indicated the negative response (negative or ‘not at all’) and ‘5’ indicated the positive response (positive or ‘most definitely’). (2) For respondents who had not seen the film but felt qualified to answer questions about it, the survey administrator replaced the word ‘you’ with ‘people you’ve talked to’ for all questions.

Question Category

Question N Response Mean

Response Standard Deviation

‘Opinion’ Overall, how much did you like the movie? 147 4.3 0.9

‘Opinion’ How much did you like the special effects? 147 4.5 0.8

‘Opinion’ How much did you like the story? 144 4.0 1.1

‘Message Agreement’

How much do you agree with the first message you gave? 130 4.6 0.9

‘Message Agreement’

How much do you agree with the second message you gave? 106 4.5 1.0

Please rate on the 1–5 scale how Avatar created (or didn’t create) the following emotions for you:

‘Emotions’ Angry 132 2.9 1.5

‘Emotions’ Disgusted 133 2.8 1.6

‘Emotions’ Frustrated 134 2.9 1.5

‘Emotions’ Hopeful 134 3.6 1.4

‘Emotions’ Proud 128 2.8 1.6

‘Emotions’ Spiritual 132 3.6 1.5

Interviews In addition to the highly structured surveys, the research team conducted a total of 21 semi-structured interviews. The interview sample was pur-posefully selected to represent a diversity of relationships with Hawaii’s forests. The interview sample included 14 males and 7 females with ages ranging from 34 to 74 years. Similar to the surveys, interviews covered a variety of topics related to uses of and values pertaining to Hawaii’s upland forests, and respondents were recruited without mention of being asked questions about Avatar. Interviews lasted from one-and-a-half hours to just under four hours, and Avatar was discussed at the end of each interview. The interview guide (Patton 2002) included four main topics regarding the film: (1) what the respondent thought of the film, (2) what its main messages were, (3) whether the film related to the



previous discussion about Cultural Ecosystem Services, and (4) whether the respondent was glad that the film addressed the topics it did. Data Analysis True to the mixed-methods approach, we analyzed the qualitative and quantitative data concurrently and were particularly mindful of themes emerging from the qualitative responses, which helped guide our explo-ration of the quantitative responses, and vice versa (Maxwell 2005). In both the quantitative and qualitative analyses, we catalogued and sum-marized various perceptions of the film, and then asked whether those perceptions differed among people with a range of ethnic backgrounds, level of education, and degree of involvement with the forest. Through-out this paper, for the purpose of clarity, we describe respondents by using the ethnicity with which they indicated that they ‘most identified’, even though we recognize that this simplifies ethnic heritage. (The nomenclature for ethnic heritage categories was derived from language provided by respondents through a free-response item on the survey and interview instruments.7) We digitally recorded and transcribed the interviews. We then analyzed the qualitative data—from interviews as well as from open-ended ques-tions on the survey—using a thematic coding scheme organized in NVivo 8 (a qualitative data analysis software program produced by QSR Inter-national). This coding process produced 10 nodes for main themes and 55 sub-nodes for supporting themes for the survey, and 37 nodes for main themes for the interviews. We discuss those themes in the Results section. Our quantitative analyses explored respondent opinions of the film on three levels: how much the respondent liked the film overall, how much the respondent liked its plot, and how much the respondent liked its spe-cial effects. (Hereafter, we will refer to these as ‘opinion’ questions.) We then questioned respondents about six emotions they may have felt in response to the film. (Hereafter, we will refer to these as ‘emotions’ ques-tions.) Table 1 lists these questions, including their exact wording. With these items eliciting affective responses, our goal was to explore whether people of different backgrounds responded differently to the film.

7. Although respondents of Native Hawaiian ancestry often referred to them-selves as simply ‘Hawaiian’, we use the term ‘Native Hawaiian’, a term used by a subset of respondents, to avoid confusion with non-indigenous residents of the Hawaiian Islands. We use the term ‘white’ to refer to respondents whose ancestors were from, or primarily from, Europe; although respondents of European heritage identified themselves variously as white, Caucasian, haole (common parlance in Hawai‘i for white person), and of different nationalities, we use the most common response (‘white’) to refer to these respondents.



We used Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) Version 18.0 to analyze the quantitative data, examining for patterns in responses to the nine close-ended questions described above. We analyzed how these responses related to the three primary demographic axes: ethnicity, level of education, and level of involvement with forest. To represent the level of involvement with forest for each respondent, we constructed a scale by combining ten questions about specific activities in the forest. We asked respondents about their participation in particular activities and had them indicate whether they had: ever done the activity; done it, but not recently; or done the activity in the past six months. We used these answers to create a binary scale of forest involvement; each respondent was categorized as either ‘low’ or ‘high’ interaction with forest.8 Cron-bach’s a for this scale was 0.747.9 Because the data from our five-point scale are ordinal, and the distances between the points are arbitrary, we used the Wilcoxon-Mann-Whitney test (Wilcoxon 1945; Mann and Whitney 1947) to examine possible relationships between responses and demographic characteristics. Our qualitative analyses revealed four major themes that collectively encompass many of the points made by both survey and interview respondents. These themes are consistent with other relatively recent scholarly works cited below, which have addressed similar issues. One of the themes related to respecting the land and the people associated with it. In particular, the theme of considering people in relationship to land they depend upon is being explored in a number of academic realms (Adams et al. 2004; Chan et al. 2007; Khan and Bhagwat 2010). A second theme was the link between people and land, and the spiritual and cultural dimensions of that link (discussed in Herman 1999; Maly 2001). A third theme was the diversity of perspectives of different peoples with respect to land (White 1967; Berghoefer, Rozzi, and Jax 2010), and yet the existence of underlying human tendencies. A fourth theme that emerged was the unfortunate but common subjugation of native peoples around the world (Pulver and Fitzpatrick 2008), including in Hawai’i (Trask 1990; McCubbin and Marsella 2009). We have struc-tured our data discussion according to those four themes.

8. To create this scale, we first assigned each answer a numerical value. The values assigned were as follows: ‘Never done the activity’ = 1; ‘done activity, not recently’ = 2; ‘done activity in last six months’ = 3. We then summed the ten activity-specific answers from each respondent. Respondents with a sum of 20 or lower were categorized as ‘low interaction’, and those with 21 or higher as ‘high interaction’. 9. A value of 0.8 of Cronbach’s a (a measure of the internal consistency for a scale) is considered ‘good’, and a value of 0.7 ‘acceptable’ (George and Mallery 2005).



Results

Of the 205 respondents who completed the survey, 125 (61 %) had seen the film Avatar. Of the 70 individuals who had not seen it, 24 (12 % of the total sample) had heard enough discussion of it that they felt qualified to answer questions related to it. Therefore, 149 survey respondents answered the questions about Avatar. Of the 21 in-depth interviewees, 15 had seen the film; all ‘interview’ responses below are from these 15 individuals. Preliminary statistical analyses of the quantitative data revealed four significant differences. However, when the Bonferroni correction was applied to account for the high number of relationships tested, none of these results remained significant.10 Thus, we report these results as suggestive, rather than statistically significant. In the ‘emotions’ questions, we asked respondents to rank the degree to which the film inspired in them the feeling of six emotions: angry, disgusted, frustrated, hopeful, proud, and spiritual.11 We found four patterns in these answers. (See Table 2 for the complete results from all analyses.) First, respondents who identified as Native Hawaiian were more likely than those who identified as Caucasian/white to report that the film made them feel proud (p < 0.05 before Bonferroni correction; Mann-Wilcoxon-Whitney test, U=715, Z=2.18). This finding is consistent with past work on societal perceptions of films (e.g., Appleford 1995) as well as findings from our qualitative data, which suggested that people of indigenous descent more frequently expressed a sense of pride related to the film’s story than those without a genealogical connection to the pro-indigenous messages in the film. Past interaction with Hawaii’s forest also may have affected peoples’ reactions to the film. Respondents with a higher degree of engagement with the forest reported higher levels of frustration (p < 0.05 before Bon-ferroni correction; Mann-Wilcoxon-Whitney test, U=1768, Z=2.60) and higher levels of anger (p < 0.05 before Bonferroni correction; Mann-Wilcoxon-Whitney test, U=1757, Z=2.57) than those with less engage-ment with the forest. This result may suggest that respondents with

10. The Bonferroni correction is a statistical method applied when a large number of relationships is tested, making it more likely that a given result will fall within the range of statistical significance by chance (Samuels and Witmer 2003). Given that we tested nine response categories for each demographic variable, the Bonferroni method indicates that the level of certainty needed to claim 95% confidence is 0.05 (the desired p-value) divided by 9; none of the results described below fall within this corrected confidence level. See Nakagawa 2004 for a criticism of the Bonferroni procedure. 11. We focused on these six categories based on pilot testing responses.



higher levels of interaction with the forest may have higher levels of emo-tional connection with that ecosystem; therefore, the forest-exploitation aspect of the film may have spurred more anger and frustration among those respondents than among those who rarely interact with the forest. In addition, respondents with lower levels of education (i.e., those in the following categories: no formal education, grade school, middle school, or high school) reported stronger feelings of frustration than those with higher levels of education (i.e., those in the following catego-ries: community college, four-year degree, or graduate degree) (p < 0.05 before Bonferroni correction; Mann-Wilcoxon-Whitney test, U=1587, Z=2.378).12 A straightforward rationale for this result is not obvious, but it may stem from those with higher education levels having more expo-sure to critical analysis, which is often emphasized in higher education. Perhaps those respondents would be less frustrated by the short-sighted-ness portrayed by the film’s characters than would those who are more familiar with the rhetorical devices commonly used in artistic works. Additional qualitative data probing why individuals rated each emotion as they did, which we did not collect, would be helpful in further illumi-nating the reasoning behind their responses. We conducted statistical analyses to compare the three ‘opinion’ responses (answers to three questions regarding opinion of the film overall, its plot, and its special effects; see Table 1) along the three demographic axes. However, these analyses resulted in no significant differences, even before application of the Bonferroni correction. To produce qualitative data, we coded open-ended responses. In the survey, we coded responses to the following questions: ‘What would you say were the movie’s two main messages? What was the movie trying to tell us?’ and ‘Is there anything else you would like to say about the movie and/or your reaction to it, or to what others have said about it?’. Collectively, survey respondents provided 242 messages from the film.13 The messages were diverse and nuanced. (See Table 3 for a selec-tion of responses representative of the more common subcategories.) In presenting our results, we often highlight ethnicity of respondents (see Table 3) as this is often an important distinction in the Hawaiian context, and as this axis provided interesting comparisons in a number of cases. As aforementioned, joint analyses of the survey and interview data sets revealed four overarching themes. These themes are discussed below, combining qualitative data collected through the survey and interviews. 12. We used Spearman’s rho to examine whether level of education was correlated with level of involvement with the forest. There was no significant correlation between the two (r=0.055, p=0.420). 13. Some survey respondents described only one main message from the film.

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Mea

n (S

td

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e H

awai

ian

3.1

(1.7

) 2.

9 (1

.6)

2.9

(1.6

) 3.

6 (1

.5)

3.3

(1.7

) 3.

6 (1

.5)

4.2

(0.9

) 4.

0 (1

.1)

4.5

(0.7

)

Mea

n (S

td

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hite

3.

0 (1

.4)

2.7

(1.6

) 2.

8 (1

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3.5

(1.3

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5 (1

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10

39

1007

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29

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at th

e d

iffe

renc

e in

rat

ings

bet

wee

n th

e tw

o gr

oups

ana

lyze

d w

ould

hav

e oc

curr

ed b

y ch

ance

. Res

ults

sig

nifi

cant

at t

he 0

.05

leve

l or h

ighe

r bef

ore

the

Bon

ferr

oni c

orre

ctio

n ar

e in

ital

ics.

We

repo

rt m

eans

and

sta

ndar

d d

evia

tion

s fo

r the

se o

rdin

al d

ata

beca

use

they

are

in

form

ativ

e, if

not

sta

tist

ical

ly r

epre

sent

ativ

e.

Tab

le 2

(con

t.)

Em

otio

ns e

licit

ed a

s re

port

ed b

y re

spon

dent

s w

ith

high

er a

nd lo

wer

leve

ls o

f eng

agem

ent w

ith

fore

st

A

ngry

D

isgu

sted

Fr

ustr

ated

H

opef

ul

Prou

d

Spir

itua

l L

iked

Ove

rall

Lik

ed P

lot

Lik

ed S

peci

al

Eff

ects

Mea

n (S

td

Dev

) hi

gher

eng

agem

ent

3.3

(1.6

) 3.

0 (1

.7)

3.3

(1.5

) 3.

6 (1

.4)

3.1

(1.7

) 3.

8 (1

.6)

4.2

(1.0

) 4.

0 (1

.1)

4.4

(0.8

)

Mea

n (S

td

Dev

) lo

wer

en g

agem

ent

2.6

(1.4

) 2.

6 (1

.5)

2.5

(1.5

) 3.

6 (1

.4)

2.6

(1.6

) 3.

6 (1

.4)

4.3

(0.9

) 4.

0 (1

.0)

4.5

(0.7

)

Man

n-W

hitn

ey U

17

57

2056

16

77

2360

19

48

2198

27

95

2698

27

70

Z

-2.5

7 -1

.42

-3.1

7 -.2

1 -1

.33

-.79

-.34

-.30

-.47

Sign

ifica

nce

(2-t

aile

d)

.010

.1

57

.002

.8

31

.183

.4

28

.732

.7

65

.639

Em

otio

ns e

licit

ed a

s re

port

ed b

y re

spon

dent

s w

ith

high

er a

nd lo

wer

edu

cati

on le

vels

A

ngry

D

isgu

sted

Fr

ustr

ated

H

opef

ul

Prou

d

Spir

itua

l L

iked

Ove

rall

Lik

ed P

lot

Lik

ed S

peci

al

Eff

ects

Mea

n (S

td

Dev

) Lo

wer

Edu

cati

on

3.0

(1.5

) 2.

9 (1

.7)

3.3

(1.5

) 3.

5 (1

.4)

2.8

(1.6

) 3.

5 (1

.4)

4.3

(0.9

) 3.

9 (1

.0)

4.4

(0.8

)

Mea

n (S

td

Dev

) H

i ghe

r E

duca

tion

2.

8 (1

.6)

2.7

(1.6

) 2.

6 (1

.5)

3.6

(1.3

) 2.

9 (1

.7)

3.8

(1.5

) 4.

2 (0

.9)

4.1

(1.1

) 4.

5 (0

.7)

Man

n-W

hitn

ey U

21

74

2170

17

68

2289

21

26

2030

27

73

2299

26

71

Z

-.52

-.67

-2.5

9 -.3

1 -.3

2 -1

.31

-.22

-1.7

1 -.6

7 Si

gnifi

canc

e (2

-tai

led)

.6

02

.503

.0

09

.754

.7

48

.191

.8

23

.088

.5

01

T

able

3. S

elec

tion

of M

ain

Mes

sage

s as

Rep

orte

d b

y Su

rvey

Res

pond

ents

. Not

es: (

1) T

he ro

ws

of th

e ch

art a

bove

are

ord

ered

bas

ed u

pon

th

e nu

mbe

r of r

espo

nses

in e

ach

sub-

cate

gory

(the

‘#’ c

olum

n). (

2) P

erce

ntag

es d

o no

t alw

ays

sum

to 1

00%

bec

ause

of r

ound

ing

erro

r as

w

ell a

s so

me

resp

ond

ents

’ ref

usal

to p

rovi

de

ethn

icit

y. (3

) If i

nter

este

d in

com

plet

e lis

t of r

espo

nses

, con

tact

the

lead

aut

hor.

M

ain

Cat

egor

y Su

bcat

egor

y #

% s

ubca

tego

ry

from

Nat

ive

Haw

aiia

n

% s

ubca

tego

ry

from

whi

te

% s

ubca

tego

ry

from

Oth

er

Indi

geno

us

% s

ubca

tego

ry

from

‘All

Oth

er’1

5 E

xam

ple

Com

posi

tion

of

Ava

tar

surv

ey s

ampl

e (f

or r

efer

ence

) 27

%

45%

9%

19

%

Tak

e C

are

of N

atur

e

Pres

erve

Nat

ure

and

Sav

e E

nvir

onm

ent

33

36%

39

%

9%

15%

‘n

ot d

estr

oy n

atur

e’

Tak

e C

are

of N

atur

e M

othe

r N

atur

e 9

22%

22

%

33%

22

%

‘the

la

nd

is

livin

g.

Mot

her

Nat

ure

is a

hum

an b

ein g

too’

Cul

ture

C

onne

ctio

n to

land

11

30

%

60%

0%

0%

‘im

port

ance

of

conn

ecti

on w

ith

our

plan

t bro

ther

s’

Ind

igen

ous

Rig

hts

Ant

i-su

bjug

atio

n of

nat

ives

10

20

%

30%

40

%

10%

‘in

dig

enou

s pe

ople

don

’t n

eed

sa

ving

by

whi

te p

eopl

e’

Pres

erve

N

atur

e H

uman

s lo

se

if

take

dow

n fo

rest

10

50

%

30%

0%

20

%

‘car

e fo

r the

ear

th, y

ou a

re c

arin

g fo

r yo

urse

lf’

Hum

an

Nat

ure

Peop

le

are

evil,

de

stru

ctiv

e, g

reed

y 9

11%

67

%

11%

11

%

‘peo

ple’

s gre

edin

ess,

selfi

shne

ss,

stup

idit

y’

15.

O

f the

eth

nici

ty c

ateg

ory

des

crib

ed a

s ‘A

ll O

ther

’, 53

% is

com

pris

ed o

f peo

ple

of th

ree

ethn

icit

ies

com

mon

in H

awai

’i: F

ilip

ino,

C

hine

se, a

nd Ja

pane

se.

Tab

le 3

(con

t.)

M

ain

Cat

egor

y Su

bcat

egor

y #

% s

ubca

tego

ry

from

Nat

ive

Haw

aiia

n

% s

ubca

tego

ry

from

whi

te

% s

ubca

tego

ry

from

Oth

er

Indi

geno

us

% s

ubca

tego

ry

from

‘All

Oth

er’

Exa

mpl

e

Cul

ture

R

espe

ct c

ultu

re

8 50

%

25%

13

%

13%

‘a

ppre

ciat

e cu

ltur

e an

d

why

ce

rtai

n th

ing

are

don

e th

at w

ay’

Hum

an

Nat

ure

Exp

loit

atio

n fo

r pe

rson

al

gain

or

pr

ofit

7 29

%

43%

14

%

14%

‘h

ow w

e ca

n d

estr

oy o

ur e

arth

al

l for

pro

fit,

and

it’s

eas

y to

lose

a

who

le c

ultu

re in

the

proc

ess’

Les

sons

U

nder

stan

din

g ot

hers

7

14%

71

%

14%

0%

‘im

port

ance

of

com

mun

icat

ion

betw

een

cult

ures

’

Rea

l W

orld

C

ould

an

d

doe

s ha

ppen

any

whe

re

6 50

%

17%

17

%

17%

‘the

mov

ie s

peak

s th

e tr

uth

a lit

tle

bit—

but

just

in a

lien

form

; th

ey d

idn’

t wan

t to

use

hum

ans

beca

use

of m

edia

and

stu

ff’

Spir

itua

l A

nim

ism

6

67%

0%

0%

17

%

‘all

natu

ral t

hing

s ha

ve a

sou

l’

Hum

an

Nat

ure

Tra

nsce

ndin

g R

ace

5 40

%

40%

0%

20

%

‘tole

rate

p

eopl

e w

ho

look

d

iffe

rent

’

Pres

erve

N

atur

e B

alan

ce

4 25

%

75%

0%

0%

‘p

rese

rve

our

fore

st

beca

use

play

s im

port

ant

part

in

th

e ba

lanc

e of

life

’

Pres

erve

N

atur

e A

ll co

nnec

ted

4

25%

50

%

0%

25%

‘E

arth

and

peo

ple

are

conn

ecte

d’

Rea

l W

orld

M

ilita

ry is

bad

4

0%

75%

0%

25

%

‘the

mili

tary

is b

ad’

Tab

le 3

(con

t.)

M

ain

Cat

egor

y Su

bcat

egor

y #

% s

ubca

tego

ry

from

Nat

ive

Haw

aiia

n

% s

ubca

tego

ry

from

whi

te

% s

ubca

tego

ry

from

Oth

er

Indi

geno

us

% s

ubca

tego

ry

from

‘All

Oth

er’

Exa

mpl

e

Cor

pora

tion

s C

orpo

rati

ons

hurt

ing

envi

ronm

ent

3 33

%

67%

0%

0%

‘e

vil c

orpo

rati

ons

can

take

ove

r an

d r

ape

the

land

’

Cor

pora

tion

s C

orpo

rati

ons

defi

ling

nati

ves

3 0%

33

%

33%

33

%

‘if t

he i

ndig

enou

s pe

ople

hav

e so

met

hing

th

at

the

ind

ustr

ial

com

plex

wan

ts, i

t will

take

it’

Les

sons

C

anno

t ta

ke

wha

t not

you

rs

2 0%

50

%

0%

50%

‘n

ot t

o ta

ke a

dva

ntag

e of

oth

er

plan

ets,

sit

uati

ons,

or

thin

gs w

e ar

e no

t ent

itle

d to

’

No

mes

sage

or

Don

’t

Rem

embe

r

Lik

ed

spec

ial

effe

cts

2 50

%

50%

0%

0%

‘I

don

’t th

ink

I was

look

ing

for

a m

essa

ge;

it w

as f

un a

nd h

ad

good

spe

cial

eff

ects

’

Spir

itua

l C

onne

ctio

n be

twee

n la

nd

and

spi

rit

2 0%

0%

10

0%

0%

‘hum

anit

y ne

eds

to r

econ

nect

w

ith

the

natu

ral

wor

ld b

ecau

se

the

unna

tura

l w

orld

doe

s no

t su

ppor

t us

sp

irit

ually

; an

d

peop

le w

ho a

re c

onsc

ious

of t

hat

tend

to

be

m

ore

soci

ally

re

s pon

sibl

e’.



Table 3 presents an overview of selected responses to the questions about the film’s main messages. We indicate the number of survey respondents who gave the message in the column labeled ‘#’, and the next four columns report percentages describing the division of that small pool of respondents by ethnicity. However, because this question was free-response, these quantitative results cannot be seen as represen-tative of the population and thus are only included as description.

Respecting the Land and the People Who Live on the Land When asked about the messages of the film, the majority of respondents discussed some variant of a theme we categorized as ‘Take Care of Nature’. Of the 242 messages provided in surveys, 103 (43%16) were coded in the main category of ‘Take Care of Nature’. Although this could partly be because of the previous content of the survey, which asked about people’s involvement in and thoughts on forests in Hawai’i, it neverthe-less indicates that many respondents considered the film to have an ‘environmental’ message. Thirty-nine of the ‘Take Care of Nature’ main category responses (16% of all messages provided) were coded as ‘Preserve nature and save environ-ment’ or ‘take care of the life of the forest’, and people of diverse ethnic back-grounds gave these responses. Examples of the former subcategory include: ‘conserve the forest’, and ‘have to save the environment’. An example of the ‘take care of the life of the forest’ subcategory is one respondent’s statement that ‘we tend to use forests as a resource just for our needs, but we tend to forget that other creatures…have their own needs. We have a responsibility to restore their environment if we damage it’. In addition to these responses related to ‘nature’ overall, eight respon-dents (5%) specifically mentioned nature and people jointly. For instance, one Native Hawaiian respondent gave as a message: ‘respect each culture: land, resources, environment, people’. Another Native Hawaiian respondent represented the concept of conserving both nature and culture in the combination of the two negatively phrased messages that he shared: ‘subjugation of another culture’; ‘destruction of another rain-forest’. Similarly, ten respondents (7%) provided messages that were coded as ‘humans lose if take down forest’. These messages—such as one Native Hawaiian’s statement that ‘we cannot survive without resources, nature; we cannot duplicate nature, no matter the technology’—reflected

16. Note that this statistic is derived from all responses, not all respondents, as some respondents provided two messages that were categorized under the ‘Take Care of Nature’ code.



the basic idea of ecosystem services: that ecosystems provide humans with benefits that are essential for life. Half of the responses in this category came from Native Hawaiians, perhaps partly because of the cultural orientation described above, which suggests a reciprocal rela-tionship between land and people. The two main themes described by a white male in his 50s, who is a long-time island resident active in Hawaiian affairs, summarized the idea of the intertwined responsibility for people and nature: ‘Ma<lama [take care of] the ‘a<ina [the land, literally ‘that which feeds’]. Ma<lama the people on the ‘a<ina. That’s probably it’.

Link between People and Land One of the frequently mentioned concepts most salient to this explora-tion was the intensity of the Native Hawaiian connection to the land. Many respondents noted its similarity to the relationship between the Na’vi and the land of Pandora. In the surveys, 11 respondents (8%) provided messages that were coded as ‘Connection to land’, a category exemplified by one Native Hawaiian respondent’s message that ‘they were trying to protect their culture and the “tree of life”‘. Respondents providing these ‘Connection to land’ messages were ethnically diverse; one white respondent men-tioned ‘people’s emotional ties to the forest’, while another white respondent said that the film taught us ‘what you’re able to draw from the land and forest, if you’re close to it, spiritually’. Next to the diversity of the ‘Connection to land’ category it is interesting to note that of the six messages that were coded as ‘Animism’, four came from Native Hawaiian respondents, one from a Chinese/Japanese individual whose family has lived in Hawai’i for ‘generations’, and one from a respondent who refused to provide ethnicity. As examples of this category, three Native Hawaiian respondents described messages from the film as: ‘plants have feelings, and everything revolves around the forest’; ‘all natural things have a soul’; and ‘the forest is a living thing—you must respect it’. Two respondents provided messages addressing the spiritual nature of the human–land connection; again notably, both of the responses in this coding category came from people of indigenous descent, though not, in this case, Native Hawaiian heritage. A Native American respon-dent said that one of the film’s messages was a ‘connection between land and spirit’. One respondent of Ma<ori heritage (the indigenous people of New Zealand) gave as a message: ‘humanity needs to reconnect with the natural world because the unnatural world does not support us



spiritually, and people who are conscious of that tend to be more socially responsible. We need the forest’. Interviewees detailed some of the ideas expressed in the surveys. One Native Hawaiian in his 50s said, ‘I could relate to the blue guys [the Na’vi]’. When asked why, he responded with a statement about the poorly understood meaning of natural features: ‘Ah, about people just coming in, and just building things, and knocking things down. And not understanding what that shoreline, or that hill, means. And just, “I’m gonna do my subdivision”‘. One Native Hawaiian respondent in his 30s expressed similar ideas related to the depth of meaning that can be associated with land and the features on it. He explicitly made a connection between that depth of meaning and indigeneity, or perhaps longevity of tenure in a place:

All aboriginal people, people who have identified themselves with a place, or have evolved with a place, probably felt the same, or have similar feelings…that land, that tree was their mother. I mean, that was part of their existence… Their symbiosis between the forest and that culture, or that people, was so close that they’d die. They just, [pause] they would have died if that forest was gone (Native Hawaiian male, 30s).

Two white respondents suggested that the connection the Na’vi had with their ecosystem was an appealing but unrealistic idea. The words of these two individuals (cited below) reveal the striking similarity of their comments.

I’m sympathetic with the views that the story portrayed… I certainly am attracted to the idea that there is a more perfect relationship between humans, or some kind of human-like things, and the forest. You know, that there’s a way that they live together in wonderful [pause] and I think it’s sort of a fantasy, but it’s a nice fantasy (white male, early 60s).

You have a people that seem to be very plugged into their environment and physically plugged into other species, I mean you can tell me how that can possibly evolve [laughing]. But, so some of it is unrealistic, but they are obviously a people that are very guided and that idea has a lot of appeal. I’m not sure it’s quite so realistic (white male, early 60s).

However, respondents with Native Hawaiian ancestry did not see the Na’vi connection as far-fetched. Two interview respondents powerfully expressed their thoughts using noticeably similar language. One respon-dent suggested that people with backgrounds different from his might not understand the connection.

And I think maybe that’s why I connected with…that movie, cause when I saw them communicating with the plants, I knew exactly what they were doing. And it’s, for me, it’s not an animated thing for me. When I saw them understanding their plants, I said, ‘I know what they’re talking about’…



Which kinda surprised me—that some guy in Hollywood would under-stand that. I thought that was kinda cool (Native Hawaiian male, late 50s).

I guess one thing for me is the connection to the forest, and learning from the forest, and quote ‘talking to the trees’, that’s not something that’s at all strange to me, in that movie. I have no idea what other people think, … they’d think, ‘Oh, that’s far-fetched’, or ‘that’s fantastic’, or that’s, you know, ‘living in a fantasy world’. That wasn’t a stretch for me (Native Hawaiian male, mid-30s).

People Hold Diverse Perspectives,

but Underlying Human Tendencies Exist Another common theme, which closely relates to and builds upon the preceding theme of the link between people and land, was that the world is comprised of a diversity of cultures and perspectives, and that there is a need to recognize and respect that diversity. However, concep-tually intertwined with comments on this diversity of perspectives was a message that human beings share certain innate qualities: on one hand an affinity for ‘nature’, and on the other, greediness, destructiveness, and pursuit of profit. Many survey respondents provided variants on the idea of respecting different cultures and backgrounds. Eight responses (representing 5% of respondents) regarded the need to ‘respect culture’. We coded comments regarding understanding and respecting a diversity of perspectives as ‘understanding others’ (7 respondents, 5%) and ‘transcending race’ (5 respondents, 3%). One Native Hawaiian respondent listed two messages that succinctly encompass many of the messages in two of these catego-ries. His first message, which reflected the eight messages coded as ‘respect culture’, was ‘the importance of keeping a culture alive’. He rep-resented the ‘understanding others’ subcategory with his second message, ‘the importance of communication between cultures’. For seven of 15 interviewees, the film evoked comments about differ-ent perceptions of the world. These comments often suggested that dif-ferences in perception correspond with differences in ethnic background, and that awareness and effort are needed to increase understanding of those differences. For example, a white respondent in her 60s said:

It’s true that Native Hawaiians are very spiritual, very linked to the land… The mining people [in the movie] had a sense of entitlement. It’s the same problem with people [who come to Hawai’i] from the mainland. They think: our way is right, and your way is superstitious. While on the main-land, there’s a big separation between religion and culture, the Hawaiian can’t separate religion and culture. There is a total lack of respect with the Western coming in; they don’t get that the ‘a<ina [land] is a living, breathing thing.



Although this woman could also be considered a ‘Westerner’ from the mainland, her comments throughout the interview suggested that her many years on the island, combined with her study of Native Hawaiian perspectives and active involvement in community affairs, may have added to a perspective atypical of newcomers. Another respondent, a Native Hawaiian woman in her late 50s, pro-vided nuanced reflection on the different relationships to the environ-ment portrayed in the film. In her view, ‘the two main [messages] were that if you’re disconnected you’re going to behave badly, and if you’re connected you won’t’. However, in concordance with the implication of the white woman’s quote directly above, she doesn’t view ‘connected-ness’ as a static, pre-determined state. Previously in the interview, she had discussed the need to recognize that everyone and everything is a part of the ‘whole’, and that dividing ourselves along so many lines is ultimately unhelpful. In reference to Avatar, she said:

I think that people from the disconnected group were able to join the con-nected group is an important message, but there again, it misses the mark that we’ve talked about, that even the disconnected guys are part of the whole… The us- and them-ness was perpetuated. So, that would be, um, my concern, is that it perpetuates the notion that we cannot become whole.

Likewise, Appleford (1995: 100) suggests that films such as Dances with Wolves perpetuate an ‘otherness’ that leaves intact ‘the ideological division between Self and Other, white and Indian…’. Our results are consistent with Appleford’s critique: many of our respondents, such as the woman quoted above, did not feel that the connection to the natural world—or the lack thereof—was limited to people of any particular ethnic background. Instead, a number of survey and interview respon-dents implied the existence of innate human propensities. Many respon-dents spoke of the underlying human affinity for the ‘natural’ world in ways that resembled E.O. Wilson’s notion of ‘biophilia’ (Wilson 1984). For instance, one white interview respondent in his 50s commented about the reason for the film’s success. His words imply that the human–nature connection depicted in Avatar resonates with and appeals to many viewers:

The popularity of the movie had to indicate that people weren’t there looking at the special effects; they’re interested in the message. And…a lot of people have seen that movie one, two, three, four times. And…all the greenery that shows there, and [the Writer/Director James Cameron’s] depiction of how a human can integrate, or a being can integrate them-selves into a natural environment…that’s soothing to the viewer’s soul to see that, and it wasn’t any, you know, grand story.



Similarly, some respondents discussed the negative aspects of human behaviour without reference to ethnic differences. Nine survey respon-dents (6%) made statements about what they considered to be innate human greediness; for instance: ‘people’s greediness, selfishness, stupid-ity’, ‘humans are evil’, and ‘humans in general are pretty destructive’. Seven respondents (5%) made statements that we coded as ‘Exploitation for personal gain’, stressing the human propensity to pursue profit. None of these respondents connected these characteristics to ethnicity; rather, respondents mentioned them as more general statements about the human condition. To emphasize this point, some interview respondents explicitly stated that greedy and destructive behavior is not connected with ethnicity. For instance, a white respondent in his early 30s said: ‘I don’t wanna say it’s white man, because I think that even the Hawaiian, Inuit, or whoever else around the world can still have those drives to do those bad things, you know, and destroy things’.

Portraying the Plight of Native People Worldwide, and Particularly the History of Hawaii

The final emergent theme was the mistreatment of native peoples around the world and, specifically, in Hawai’i. In the survey, 10 respondents (7%) provided messages regarding ‘anti-subjugation of native peoples’. These messages were expressed in diverse ways and by people of many ethnic backgrounds (see Table 3). A Native American respondent, for example, described one of the film’s messages as being that ‘indigenous wisdom and tradition should be honored at all costs’, and a Hispanic respondent stated a similar idea: ‘leave indigenous people alone’. A white respondent expressed the same idea with ironic sarcasm: ‘the people [Na’vi] shouldn’t worry about it, because eventually they’ll get casinos like the Indians’. When describing the film’s messages, 6 respondents (4%) expressed statements along the vein that this abuse ‘could and does happen anywhere’. Three of these six comments were made by Native Hawaiians, and one by a Native American respondent who stated that the film ‘delved into tribal tradition as a whole—not just in Hawai’i—and a lot of the crises they’ve dealt with’. Four survey respondents referenced the universality of the phenome-non of domination of native people, but specifically mentioned that the situation portrayed in the film mirrored the story of Hawai’i including one who said, ‘you can see how the haoles [common parlance in Hawai’i for white people] do it to everyone—the Hawaiians, Indians. Egyptians did it to South Africans, the British did it to Hawaiians, etc.’.



Of 15 interviewees, nine discussed the similarity of the film’s story and Hawaii’s story, and many referenced the global nature of the problem. Although two interviewees (one Native Hawaiian and one white) commented that the film portrayed a highly clichéd indigenous society, both nevertheless contended that the film addressed deep and important topics. One interviewee—a Native Hawaiian man in his 30s—described the impact of the modern world on traditional cultures in general and in Hawaiian culture in particular, in this way:

I think the movie was really trying to say that in certain areas of this world, if this world keeps going down the track that it’s going, people will [pause], will die. And maybe not physically [pause], but Hawaiians will not be called Hawaiians anymore. They’d be a thing of the past. Um, we’d evolve into something else. Our names would be lost. That whole culture would be gone. And, and I think if it hasn’t happened, it’s probably hap-pening already—um, to other cultures. They’ve just completely lost their cultural practices.

In a similar way, a white woman in her 60s described the congruence between the film’s plot and the situation in Hawai’i along with the global nature of the scenario:

It was about special interests wanting resources, wanting to take down that tree that was in the way of the resources. We have that same situation here… It was very obvious in the movie: it didn’t matter what they [the Na’vi] did or felt… They came to Hawai’i and they took our story. But it’s not a unique story; it’s what the Western world did to the Native Ameri-cans on the mainland, too. It happened all over.

Discussing the film led a Native Hawaiian in his 50s, as well, to explain Hawaii’s statehood in grim terms:

Well, that’s why Hawai’i is part of the United States—because ‘the natives didn’t deserve this place. They just don’t know how to maximize the return on it. They’re just squandering it away. So let’s take it from ’em, turn it into this prosperous place. And if they die, so what?’

In another sweeping comment, a Native Hawaiian respondent in his mid-30s encompassed many of the messages discussed above—the message of differing views of land, that of the Native Hawaiian link to the land, and that of the symbolic relevance of the film to the situation in Kona, Hawai’i:

I think there are a lot of the newcomers here…want to come here and ‘we want to learn to dance hula, and want to ma<lama ‘a<ina’…but I don’t know if they truly get it… The movie might be sort of symbolic of some of the challenges facing Kona, and especially Kona because the population is shifting to a very Caucasian population… That is a challenge of just a dif-ferent perspective and outlook of what the forest is—some place to be



accessed, and some place to be able to go hiking and to do whatever you want, and to take pictures of birds, or to do this thing. Then it’s a whole different outlook on it; it’s not a genealogical connection. They don’t come from that place. It’s sort-of: this is America, and we can access wherever we want… There’s no idea or thought that this is where I come from…this is who I am, this is where I’m born from. It’s a completely different outlook.

This quote touches on profound issues related to perception of land and the gravity involved in combining differing perceptions, with spe-cific reference to the situation in contemporary Hawai’i. The respondent raises issues central to study of values related to forest, and the context of Avatar’s storyline seems to have encouraged formulation of this potentially controversial message.

Connection to Cultural Ecosystem Services As was described above, this study was part of a larger project investi-gating the Cultural Ecosystem Services (hereafter, ‘CES’) associated with Hawaii’s forests.17 When interview respondents were asked if the discus-sion of Avatar related to the discussion of CES that preceded it, all but one of the respondents saw a connection. It seems that the film touched on a number of concepts that fall into the CES framework. This was expected, and was the reason for the combination of the two studies. The CES concept deals with the intangible benefits that ecosystems provide to people, although it is important to note that CES does not necessarily attempt to monetize those benefits, as do many other Ecosys-tem Services analyses (e.g., Fisher et al. 2008; Jenkins et al. 2010). A Cultural Ecosystem Services analysis attempts to characterize connec-tions between ecosystems and humans that are difficult to define, and often even more difficult to quantify or encapsulate—connections related to, for instance, spirituality, aesthetics, sense of identity, and cultural heritage. For many scholars, the interaction between intuition and experience demonstrates the depth and interdependence of connections between nature (‘ecosystems’), spirituality, and culture. It is often unclear, how-ever, how to approach and characterize these connections such that they can be appropriately included in a decision-making sphere. The develop-ment of methods to study adequately and portray this connection is thus the subject of much research and thought (e.g., Chan et al., in press). Given that CES research addresses the connections between ecosystems

17. See the Methods section for references that elaborate on the concept of Cultural Ecosystem Services.



and topics such as spirituality and cultural heritage, the story of the Na’vi, with their tree-based deity who protects and nurtures the ances-tors, provides a fictional setting for discussions related to CES. For instance, the Native Hawaiian in his mid-30s mentioned above said: ‘[Avatar’s story] relates to identity…it relates to the ecosystem. Well, they’re kinda one and the same. For me, anyway, the ecosystem is what has made my identity, is what has made me who I am’. This statement, precipitated by reflecting on the film, is closely aligned with theoretical concepts of Cultural Ecosystem Services (such as the notion that ecosys-tems can contribute to the formation and maintenance of people’s sense of identity). Our study, exemplified by reflections such as this respon-dent’s, suggests that representing issues through artistic and cultural mechanisms such as the film Avatar may provide a conceptual platform that facilitates discussion of these interconnections.

Popular Media and Societal Beliefs and Practices Many survey and interview responses expressed doubt that viewers of Avatar would retain the ‘deeper messages’ of the film. However, our survey data indicate that the vast majority of people (n = 143, 98% of our survey respondents) were able to identify moral messages from the film months after viewing it. A middle-aged male interview respondent, who called himself ‘Japanese on paper but Hawaiian at heart’, said, ‘I think a lot of people…from Hawai’i got that message’ of how it’s wrong to change ‘a whole society…because of what you need or want’. The implication of his comment is that in a place like Hawai’i, where some of the film’s messages closely reflect historical and contemporary events, those messages are especially salient. The data reported in our study support his statement. Many of our respondents indicated that they were deeply passionate about the basic issues that they felt the film addressed — issues such as indigenous rights and the spiritual connection between people and land. To explore further the respondents’ opinions about the film’s treatment of such topics during the interviews, we explicitly asked respondents: ‘Are you glad that the movie addressed the issues it did?’. A few inter-viewees expressed disappointment about how the film addressed certain social issues; for instance, respondents suggested that the film’s treat-ment of indigenous rights was cliché, its treatment of spirituality was superficial, and that its portrayal of anti-colonialism was violent. How-ever, all interviewees suggested they were glad that the film had addressed the issues that it did. One white male in his 50s called it ‘a statement in a movie form’. A Native Hawaiian in her 50s described her



appreciation by saying: ‘I think it translates, or transposes, the conversa-tion into popular idiom. So it can be a good springboard for discussion with a variety of age ranges and economic backgrounds, and geographic backgrounds’. Again, our data support this respondent’s claim. Interviewees also noted the significance of the opportunity of using a blockbuster film as a springboard for discussion of issues such as indige-nous rights and post-colonialism. Two Native Hawaiian interviewees remarked that the presence of Avatar’s plotline in a blockbuster film may be a marker of societal change. One said that the film and its success ‘signal a different time we’re in’. The other stated, ‘when I was growing up, I just don’t think [this kind of movie] would have been made’. Both of these respondents indicated that the anti-imperialist, pro-indigenous sentiment in the movie would not have been socially acceptable 20 or 30 years ago. Survey respondents also expressed appreciation for the film’s messages: when asked for additional thoughts on Avatar, 15 of the 149 respondents for the Avatar section of the survey (10%) indicated that the film had an important or appealing message. As one respondent said, ‘I am heartened that it seems that many people did hear what the theme was, even though times are dark’. Three interviewees were skeptical, however, regarding the possibility that the film would precipitate positive changes in the world. One said, ‘[it is] just a movie’. Another respondent who doubted that the film would spur massive change, however, thoughtfully noted that ‘very seldom in human history does one thing make a difference. It’s a series of events over a period of time that has attitudes evolve. This is just one’.

Conclusion This study was limited in a number of ways. First, our respondent pool was a non-random survey sample. Second, our sample size was not large enough to demonstrate statistically significant quantitative results. We also had an under-representation of women in the interview sample, largely because, for various reasons, it was more difficult to arrange interviews with women. This is a notable shortcoming. Despite these limitations our findings provide insight into the reception of Avatar in Hawai’i, as well as ideas for further research. First, our quantitative data suggest that people of different backgrounds had different emotional responses to the film; these data thus lay ground-work for future research into the variegated societal response to power-ful films and the implications of those varied responses. For instance, our finding that those with more interaction with the forest reported more feelings of anger and frustration than those with less interaction with forest ecosystems suggests that such exposure might cultivate emotional



attachment to those ecosystems, which can even be evoked through symbolic representations of them—in this case, through cinematic art. The idea that art can evoke and affect humans’ emotional and spiritual connection to the natural world is discussed in a number of fora (e.g., Taylor 1993; Kellert 2005), and our findings reinforce that possibility. Similarly, our finding that the film seemed to evoke in respondents of Native Hawaiian heritage greater feelings of pride than in those of white European heritage suggests that even simplified and archetypal artistic portrayals of indigenous societies may be appreciated by native peoples (as discussed in Appleford 1995). Our qualitative findings suggest that the majority of respondents in our sample derived powerful messages from Avatar. With respect to many of the messages, ethnic background did not appear to dictate respondents’ interpretation of the film, but for some of the messages, respondents of different ethnicities seemed to relate to the film differ-ently. Specifically, our qualitative data suggest that people of varying backgrounds retained pro-’environment’ messages from the film, includ-ing of the importance of humans connecting to the land, and readily identified the connection between Hawaii’s history and Avatar’s plotline. The data also suggest that respondents of Native Hawaiian background more frequently identified and related to messages related to animism and the need to respect culture than did white respondents. However, because the questions about messages were free-response, we could not conduct reliable statistical analyses to explore relationships between messages and demographic data, including ethnicity, education, and age. Overall, the messages respondents garnered represented contempo-rary issues including the nature of cultural and spiritual connections to land, post-colonial political power relations, subjugation and displace-ment related to natural resource extraction and use, and questions of property and domain, among others. These issues are relevant not only to Hawaii’s history, but also in Hawai’i today. As many respondents indicated, the film is not likely to create a tidal wave of change; however, the depth and diversity of responses suggest that the film may help increase awareness of and dialogue about important environmental, cul-tural, and natural-resource issues in ways that are relevant to residents of Hawai’i and many other areas of the world. Using Avatar to promote discussion allowed unconventional explora-tion of these issues. Our interaction with survey respondents was brief and thus, a fictional story facilitated a depth of discussion that would have otherwise been difficult to achieve, given the relatively short dura-tion of the relationship between researchers and their interlocutors. It is also worth noting that our principal interviewer and three of the five



survey administrators were white; the focus on Avatar may have increased respondents’ comfort with expressing anti-colonial views, as they were superficially discussing the agreed-upon antagonists in a fictional story. The idea of investigating perceptions of the forest in Hawai’i through the lens of a recent blockbuster film may seem outlandish. Many of our respondents, however, all of whom were selected without any mention of Avatar, had strong reactions to the film. Moreover, those reactions precipitated discussion about profound spiritual, cultural, and historical concepts related to the connection between people and the land. These relationships represent a core of the human experience, but they are often difficult to articulate. Using the platform of a film to explore such ideas, issues, and experiences may help provide insight at a time when that insight is particularly important.

Acknowledgments We are grateful to the many people who made this study possible. We thank the survey respondents, who generously shared their thoughts with us. We are especially grateful to interviewees, who spent hours addressing what at times were difficult issues. We also appreciate the thoughtful feedback from three colleagues in Hawai‘i as well as our anonymous reviewers; their comments improved the quality and content of this article. Finally, we thank our funders: the Heinz Family Founda-tion, Stanford Graduate Fellowship, Stanford Interdisciplinary Graduate Fellowship, Stanford School of Earth Sciences, and the Stanford Center for Conservation Biology.

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