Orientalism Cinematic Universe

Letterboxd screenshot of the posters of Lawrence of Arabia, David Lynch's Dune, Denis Villeneuve's Dunes, and Avatar.

Lawrence of Arabia is the story of a white man who comes upon the native population of a land his own people are attempting to colonize and becoming their savior. He falls in love with one of his new comrades, who was at first wary of him due to his proximity to their oppression. If this sounds familiar, that's because this narrative is mirrored in both Dune and Avatar. For simplicity sake I will refer to these films collectively as the "OCM" or orientalist cinematic universe.

Orientalism is a term coined by Palestinian-American academic Edward Said. It is used to describes the racist ideals imposed on any part of the "orient" ( Asia) by western scholars, usually generalizations of cultures or peoples that promoted European supremacy. So you can probably start to see my problem points within these films.

Now Lawrence of Arabia is based on a real person, T.E. Lawrence, author of Seven Pillars of Heaven (or, Revolt in the Desert) which details his time in "Arabia" (Modern Day Syria-Jordan area) the book is a great epic on how, in Said's terms "stimulated the Orient into movement." This is the crux of these OCM films, a stagnant land in conflict (often the Middle East or a parallel fiction) that is made victorious by a European main character (or character with perceived whiteness). These character become military and/or spiritual leaders, often exploiting cultural beliefs to propel themselves to these positions:

For Lawrence it is him crossing the Sun's Anvil, where be becomes a "man worth following" in his quest to unite the Bedouin tribes against the Turkish.

For Sully it is bonding with the toruk and becoming "Toruk Makto," a figure symbolic for uniting the Na'vi in times of crisis, to fight the genocidal human project.

For Paul it is taking the Water of Life and opening himself to his Kwisatz Haderach abilities and becoming the false-prophesied Lisan al-Gaib (Voice from the Outer-World) to convince the Fremen of the south to follow him against the Harkonnens and the Emperor.

Now to note, Dune is directly inspired by Lawrence of Arabia, both in film and in book, Frank Herbert was directly inspired by Seven Pillars of Heaven. Avatar is less so but James Cameron has called it an inspiration, though less direct than Dune. I would say that Avatar stands out in the way that it's protagonist, Jake Sully is viewed in a more positive light within the film than Paul and Lawrence. Granted we do not have a conclusion to the Avatar series so I may just be speaking too soon but Jake is viewed more as a savior both within the film and outside of it, a heroic figure to juxtapose Paul who is textually not a "hero" but the main character. While Jake's actions save the Na'vi from the humans (temporarily) Paul's puts the Fremen into a role that mirrors those they were trying to free themselves from. In Lawrence of Arabia, we see Lawrence's ego cloud him until he is unfamiliar to even Ali, who parallels the role of Chani or Neytiri as Lawrence's intimate to the people he has made himself a home in.

There is a lot more to unpack in the Orientalism Cinematic Universe, and it is not my intent to make these films out to be evil and bad to watch, they are all solid films. For many of them (Lawrence of Arabia, Dune) the Orientalist storylines are intentional commentary of it's unintentional presence throughout pop culture. But still they have their pitfalls. I might bring this back when the next Avatar film comes out this December but for now, this was my soapbox about White Boys Speaking Arabic*

*and Na'vi