Cycnos | Volume 28.2 - Le cinéma américain face à ses mythes : une foi incrédule | Du western

Résumé :

If American science fiction is superficially about the future, it very often uses that setting as a way to represent, just like the western, the nation’s history and hence to reflect on national values and on the country’s identity. At the heart of both the western and science fiction lies the mythology of the Frontier, and very often science fiction, especially its space opera subgenre, uses other worlds as stand-ins for the New World that was once America. Avatar illustrates this phenomenon very well, using its otherworldly setting to stage its own (re)vision of American history and the Frontier. Using the local population as a transparent metaphor for American Indians, the film also references the Vietnam War and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and even 9/11, in an attempt to offer its own sweeping synthesis of American history and its own demythification of the myth of America. Yet ultimately the film cannot escape subscribing to some of the key aspects of that myth, showing how Indians and the West still stand as powerful symbols for American audiences to ultimately regenerate the myth of America.

Mots-clés : western, Avatar, science-fiction, cinema, Frontier, Indians, Vietnam, 11-septembre, the West

Date de publication : 2015-06-09