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RDA (Avatar)

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RDA
TypeFictional military-mining mega-corporation
Legal statusActive
PurposeColonization of Pandora
HeadquartersEarth
Location
ServicesMilitary Takeover
Key people
Parker Selfridge,Miles Quaritch

The Resources Development Administration (RDA) is a fictional organization that first appears in Avatar, the 2009 science fiction film written and directed by James Cameron.

Fictional appearance

For Avatar, filmmakers compiled an encyclopedia for the film called the Pandorapedia to describe its fictional elements. The in-universe encyclopedia describes the RDA as "the largest single non-governmental organization in the human universe". In the fictional universe, prior to the events in the film, the RDA constructs on Earth a global rapid transit system using the maglev transport method to commute people around the world for work. The RDA requires more resources to run the system and seeks unobtainium to this end. The organization launches a space expedition to the extrasolar moon Pandora to mine for unobtainium.[1]

The RDA contracts a private military company called SecOps. The organization initially dispatches scientists to convince the Na'vi to give up their land for mining, but when this fails, it deploys SecOps to use military action to take the land.[2]

In the film, RDA has a colony on Pandora called Resources Development Administration Extra-Solar Colony 01. It is nicknamed Hell's Gate.[3] Cynthia Erb, writing in Journal of Film and Video, describes Hell's Gate as a "gray, metallic, depressive world" with emphasis on strip mining and de-emphasis on nature, with the only visible green being the artificial turf used by RDA's CEO Parker Selfridge for putting in golf.[4] Kyla Schuller, writing in Discourse, said the RDA's compound had a "muted gray military-bureaucratic palate" that was in sharp contrast with "the verdant hues of blue and green" landscape of Pandora.[5]

Overview

Laura Birkin describes the RDA as "a company that symbolizes forces including white imperialism, capitalism, and militarism".[6]

Company comparisons

James Cameron compared RDA to BP, saying BP's Deepwater Horizon oil spill in 2010 was symptomatic of corporate greed, like how RDA's greed led it to pillage Pandora.[7][8] Critics of mining plans for the Athabasca oil sands in Alberta, Canada compared the involved companies BP, Shell Oil Company, and ExxonMobil to the RDA.[9]

Rebecca Tarbotton, the acting executive director of the Rainforest Action Network, compared RDA to Chevron Corporation. Like Chevron founded the boomtown of Lago Agrio in Ecuador in the 1960s, RDA in Avatar establishes an extraction base on Pandora. Tarbotton said, "Both corporations proceeded to drill like there was no tomorrow with no regard for the health of the environment or the communities... Both RDA Corporation and Chevron refuse to acknowledge basic human rights and use cut-and-run operations that leave communities devastated."[10][11]

Military comparisons

SecOps, the private military company under the RDA, has been compared to Blackwater (now known as Academi),[12] the private firm that was used in the Iraq War starting in 2003. Both firms consist of ex-military personnel who engage in killing noncombatants; Blackwater employees were convicted of shooting Iraqi civilians in 2007. The RDA's military base, Hell's Gate, is similar to the Green Zone, a fortified base in Baghdad during the Iraq War, as well as fortified bases in Vietnam during the Vietnam War.[13]

Dominic Alessio and Kristen Meredith, writing in Journal of Colonialism and Colonial History, said, "In Cameron's vision the RDA, like the American government, is keen to preserve a certain self-image," both readily deciding to engage militarily. Alessio and Meredith compare the RDA's attack on the Hometree of the Na'vi to the September 11 attacks, "Cameron’s visual analogy implies that American civilians have been the innocent victims of such attacks also and should sympathise with such atrocities."[13]

Representation of colonialism

Main article: Colonialism

Tanner Mirrlees, in Global Entertainment Media: Between Cultural Imperialism and Cultural Globalization, says RDA represents "the colonial self" with the Na'vi as "the colonized other", a dichotomy seen through "the lens of Orientalist stereotypes". Mirrlees said, "In Avatar, the colonial self is portrayed as active, technological, modern, forward-looking, and rational, while the colonized other is depicted as passive, naturalistic, traditional, backwards, and spiritual."[14] Tim Nieguth, writing in The Politics of Popular Culture: Negotiating Power, Identity, and Place, said some commentators said the film was a critique of colonialism, "They point out that Avatar portrays RDA and some of its key personnel as self-interested, violent, and ecologically destructive, while painting Na'vi society as community-minded, peaceful, and attuned to its natural environment." Nieguth said other commentators disagreed and found the film to have a regressive message with the Na'vi depending on the protagonist as a white savior to defeat "the forces of colonialism" represented by the RDA.[15]

Commentary

Avatar and Philosophy: Learning to See says, "Avatar's Resources Development Administration (RDA) corporation offers a picture of what British Petroleum (BP) or Halliburton might be like if they could operate on an interplanetary scale... If the actions of the RDA and its private military force bring to mind examples of American imperialism and environmental exploitation, perhaps it's because our own world is poisoned by similarly perverse values. The RDA's attempt to wipe out an indigenous population to clear a path to natural resources looks a lot like our genocide of Native Americans, as well as like our ongoing decimation of the rain forest. At times, the RDA's attempt to suppress the Na'vi insurgents evokes the jungle war in Vietnam."[16]

The Post-2000 Film Western: Contexts, Transnationality, Hybridity says, "Within the structural framework, the RDA, which represents the mining and resource development needs of Earth, can be metaphorically read as a futuristic Department of the Interior, which within the United States' political structure oversees federal land management and the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA)... On Pandora, the military and the scientific Avatar Project fall directly under the purview of the RDA... their mission also includes acting as liaisons with the Na'vi, educating them and convincing them to accept the RDA's mining operation. The military ensures the success of the operation; its placement in the story reminds us that when the BIA was first created in 1824 it was housed in the War Department."[17]

See also

References

  1. ^ "RDA". Pandorapedia: The Official Field Guide. 20th Century Fox. Retrieved October 19, 2015.
  2. ^ Mirrlees 2013, p. 3
  3. ^ Wilhelm, Maria; Mathison, Dirk (2009). James Cameron's Avatar: The Movie Scrapbook. HarperFestival. p. 3. ISBN 978-0-06-180124-2.
  4. ^ Erb 2014, p. 9
  5. ^ Schuller 2013, p. 184
  6. ^ Birkin, Laura (2018). "Avatar". In Murguía, Salvador Jimenez (ed.). The Encyclopedia of Racism in American Films. Rowman & Littlefield. p. 31. ISBN 978-1-4422-6906-4.
  7. ^ Staff (August 26, 2010). "James Cameron: BP Oil Spill Is Just Like 'Avatar'". The Huffington Post. Retrieved October 28, 2015.
  8. ^ Erb 2014, p. 15
  9. ^ Alessio & Meredith 2012
  10. ^ Tarbotton, Rebecca (February 22, 2010). "I want Avatar Oscar speech to mention real-life Ecuador struggle against Chevron". San Francisco Chronicle. Retrieved October 28, 2015.
  11. ^ Erb 2014, p. 15
  12. ^ Whipp, Glenn (February 10, 2010). "Is 'Avatar' a message movie? Absolutely, says James Cameron". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved October 19, 2015.
  13. ^ a b Alessio & Meredith 2012
  14. ^ Mirrlees 2013, p. 6
  15. ^ Nieguth 2015, p. 180
  16. ^ Dinello 2014, p. 154
  17. ^ Marubbio 2015, p. 173

Bibliography

  • Alessio, Dominic; Meredith, Kristen (Fall 2012). "Decolonising James Cameron's Pandora: Imperial history and science fiction". Journal of Colonialism and Colonial History. 13 (2).
  • Erb, Cynthia (Fall 2014). "A Spiritual Blockbuster: Avatar, Environmentalism, and the New Religions". Journal of Film and Video. 66 (3): 3–17.
  • Marubbio, M. Elise (2015). "Decolonizing the Western: A Revisionist Analysis of Avatar with a Twist". In Paryz, Marek; Leo, John R. (eds.). The Post-2000 Film Western: Contexts, Transnationality, Hybridity. Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN 978-1-137-53128-5.
  • Mirrlees, Tanner (2013). Global Entertainment Media: Between Cultural Imperialism and Cultural Globalization. Routledge. ISBN 978-1-136-33465-8.
  • Nieguth, Tim (2015). The Politics of Popular Culture: Negotiating Power, Identity, and Place. McGill-Queen's University Press. ISBN 978-0-7735-9686-3.
  • Schuller, Kyla (Spring 2013). "Avatar and the Movements of Neocolonial Sentimental Cinema". 35 (2): 177–193. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)

Further reading

  • Combe, Kirk; Boyle, Brenda (2013). Masculinity and Monstrosity in Contemporary Hollywood Films. Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN 978-1-137-35982-7. (pages mention RDA in detail)
  • Dunn, George A.; Irwin, William, eds. (2014). Avatar and Philosophy: Learning to See. The Blackwell Philosophy and Pop Culture Series. Wiley-Blackwell. ISBN 978-1-118-88676-2.
  • Grabiner, Ellen (2012). I See You: The Shifting Paradigms of James Cameron's Avatar. Critical Explorations in Science Fiction and Fantasy. McFarland. ISBN 978-0-7864-6492-0. (Index says, "RDA 9, 41, 41, 97, 102, 128, 133, 174; and the hero's quest 87; and imperialism 158; and the Na'vi 104)
  • Thakur, Gautum Basu (2015). Postcolonial Theory and Avatar. Film Theory in Practice. Bloomsbury Academic. pp. 87, 96, 111, 114, 145. ISBN 978-1-62892-565-4. (page numbers mention RDA)


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