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The institutions which Althusser regards as Ideological State Apparatuses are:

•Religious

•Educational

•Family

•Legal

•Political

•Trade Union

•Communications

•Cultural

Unlike the Repressive State Apparatuses (RSA), the Ideological State Apparatuses (ISA) belong to the private domain of society — to churches, schools, families, etc. Instead of expressing and imposing order, through repression, the Ideological State Apparatuses reinforce the rule of the dominant class, principally through ideology; people submit out of fear of social ridicule, rather than fear of legal prosecution or police violence. From a young age we are taught the correct norms/values (ruling class ideology), although these teachings are very subtle and not visible to most, we accept and then comply to these norms in order to fit in with the rest of society.

Althusser stated that the educational ideological state apparatus had the most dominant role in society, this was due to the idea that children are taken from every class at infant age and then for years later, the age at which children are more ‘vulnerable’ and are somewhat brainwashed with the ‘know-hows’ of the ruling class ideology. They are then ejected into the world of work where they put into practice what they have been taught in school eg. to take orders, follow rules etc.

Sorry it’s a bit short, I deleted loads because I read it back n it was all just waffle. Also wasn’t sure how to link to avatar but I think james’ work might cover it??

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[Might be a bit long but when we present I'll only talk about the most important points depending on how much time we have]

> Althusser believes that ideology is a condition of everyone’s existence and is linked to an individual’s meaning of self recognition but also how they wish to be recognised by others within society.

> This means that ideological discourses produce “the mutual recognition of subjects and Subject, the subjects’ recognition of each other, and finally, the subject’s recognition of himself”

> A person’s ideology is complex because it consists of multiple layers which don’t conform to one truth. It's also complex because it can be influenced by how we want to be recognised within different social situations.

> Althusser highlights this by saying “We are most deeply implicated in the processes and subterfuges of ideology when we participate in regular institutional and social life”.

> In institutional and social settings our ideological discourse is constantly under scrutiny, which could explain why we adapt depending on our social settings.

> As humans we can occupy a range of different belief systems which within them have spaces of dissonance and discontent.

> Relative Autonomy describes this as it presents three levels of human practice: political, ideological and economic. The spaces of discontent within our human practice are called “interstices”. Interstices are the contradictions between our different opinions.

> Human practice is flawed because these interstices can develop to a point when two beliefs contradict each other so much a person feel’s like they must drop one as it’s no longer agreeable with how they wish to be recognised.

>“Althusser talks of ideology as a ‘material practice’ in this sense: it exists in the behaviour of people acting according to their beliefs.”

> Overdetermination creates a struggle for the meaning of self recognition because we are always overcome by contradictions and conflictions within our ideology. But through these conflictions change happens.

RELATING THIS CONCEPT OF OVERDETERMINATION TO AVATAR:

>Jake’s ideology functions in two opposing institutional and social spaces – which both reflect conflicting commonplace systems.

>The first space he must adapt his ideology to is the military base.

> Althusser believes that “Ideology is not simply a set of illusions (…) but a range of representations (images, stories, myths) concerning the real relations in which people live”

> In the military base the conventional ideal supports masculinity, strength and patriotism and provides representations through the model of other soldiers, particularly the colonel.

> These models result in him wanting to be recognised amongst these ideals. Instead of being a burden he wants to be prove himself as someone worthy of working within the institution.

> Belsey also stated that “As the necessary condition of action, ideology resides in commonplaces and truisms”

> At the beginning of the film Jake conforms to these ideals for his own self gratification because he’d be isolated if he questioned what was commonplace within the institution. If he opposed their beliefs, he’d be opposing the condition of the army.

> He is also conforming to the capitalist mode of production because he supports the invasion of a native race because it’s justified through financial gain.

> At first he doesn’t question the implications of ethics because he is too committed to benefitting his own race because he feels a more personal connection their ideologies.

> However, his behaviour is over determined because the army doesn’t suspect that he will stand up against their actions as he does.

> This leads onto the second space he must adapt his ideology to: living amongst the Na’Vi.

> Althusser claimed that “Ideology always manifests itself through actions, which are "inserted into practices" for example, rituals, conventional behaviour, and so on.”

> When his avatar is living amongst the Na’Vi he has to complete a set of practices in order to be accepted into the tribe. These include learning how to coexist with nature and also following their spiritual belief in Eywa.

> With time the Na’Vi’s way of life becomes normalised to Jake’s view of the world and when he returns to his human form he starts to question the practices he used to conform to.

> This questioning relates back to the interstices. He now experiences discontent with his previous opinions and this results in a change in his ideology because it isn’t compatible with how he wants to be recognised within his new social formation.

> This links with Elliot’s quote on Althusser: “Ideology (…) is less a set of well-articulated political ideas or doctrines than deeply resonant unconscious images and associations generated in everyday interaction which leads individuals to feel centred on others and the wider world”

> Overdetermination is active here because his initial beliefs, which supported the need for excess in the capitalist mode of production, now conflict with his current practices which are sustainable and harmonious with nature.

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My powerpoint slides just briefly sum up my script, which is separate, but I just wanted to get the important information up instead of everything.

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Ebert, Roger, "Avatar Movie Review & Film Summary (2009) | Roger Ebert", Rogerebert.Com, 2009 <https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/avatar-2009> [accessed 5 November 2017]

Hewitt, Chris, "Avatar", Empire, 2009 <https://www.empireonline.com/movies/avatar/review/> [accessed 5 November 2017]

Honeycutt, Kirk, "Avatar: Film Review", The Hollywood Reporter, 2009 <http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/review/avatar-film-review-93803> [accessed 5 November 2017]

Pulver, Andrew, "Avatar Review: 'James Cameron Just Got Slack'", The Guardian, 2009 <https://www.theguardian.com/film/2009/dec/11/avatar-james-cameron-film-review> [accessed 5 November 2017]

Red Letter Media, Avatar Review (Part 1 Of 2), 2012 <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uJarz7BYnHA> [accessed 5 November 2017]

Red Letter Media, Avatar Review (Part 2 Of 2), 2010 <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dLzKwTcGO_0&t=12s> [accessed 5 November 2017]

Sandhu, Sukhdev, "Avatar, Full Review", Telegraph.Co.Uk, 2009 <http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/film/filmreviews/6832593/Avatar-full-review.html> [accessed 5 November 2017]

Žižek, Slavoj, "Avatar: Return Of The Natives", Newstatesman.Com, 2010 <https://www.newstatesman.com/film/2010/03/avatar-reality-love-couple-sex> [accessed 5 November 2017]

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Interpellation is a process in which we internalise our culture’s values and express them in our everyday life subconsciously, whilst thinking that our ideas and opinions are individual and unique. Instead these are just ideas represented as social norms that we have accepted and practise in our day to day lives. This works most successfully when allowing us to think that our choices and lifestyles are an act of liberation and free will, however this theory suggests even our act against repression to rebel against the norm, is in fact another ideology and category created for us to fit into- you will never be completely original or escape ideology although it is an unconscious process.

The basic theory of Interpellation evolved from Jacques Lacan’s idea of ‘The Mirror Stage.’ This theory can be explained by using the example of children; they obtain a sense of themselves as separate from the world and class themselves as different from the world, only by a process of mimicry. One begins to recognise themselves when they notice similarities and think, ‘I am like that,’ along with mimicking adults. Althusser extends this idea in how this helps us to find our ‘proper place’ in society and ones participation in the process of participation. There can be seen errors in this theory, as for those who feel as though they cannot be what the dominant ideology wants them to be. However, it is thought that we are largely a reproduction and reflection of what we have seen before as well as what is expected of us by the culture and society we are a part of.

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To counter the Ideological State Apparatuses (ISA’s), Althusser also identified Repressive State Apparatuses (RSA’s) within our society such as:
The government
The army
The police force
Prisons
Courts

The key thing that differentiates ISA’s and RSA’s is that RSA’s function primarily through repression and not ideology. While ISA’s encompass a universal positive sense of ideological encouragement, RSA’s encourage us to comply through the threat of violence or some other negative outcome. RSA’s are not as directly involving as ISA’s- the threat of prison does not take as big a part in our everyday life as family or education does. However although they are external as long as we live by their terms, they are omnipresent entities that dictate how we live our lives. While each ISA is an entity in its own right, the RSA’s are similar and unified in the sense that they are all capitalist systems of repression.
Although the RSA’s are repressive, modern day RSA’s do not always need to utilise violence in order to repress us. They work first by appealing to our own moral compass by presenting us with ideals; for example the model citizen who doesn't commit crimes, rather than the demonised criminal. This gives us a sense of self worth if we comply with this ideal, which prevents us from committing crimes more effectively than the fear of arrest. Thus the majority of us comply voluntarily to being repressed, with the the threat of a prison sentence for those who don’t. While at first this may not seem repressive, the underlying threat of violence if we don't comply voluntarily makes it so. This is more effective because it represses us while conditioning us to believe that we are doing in out of free will.

The film ‘Avatar’ utilises the idea of RSA’s as the majority of the film is dominated by the military force. At first they encourage Jake to join their ranks by appealing to both his moral compass and his sense of self worth. They present the idea of capturing the rare and precious mineral that is on the planet of Pandora as noble and patriotic- he will be saving the future of his planet and his people and therefore be crowned as a hero. It is therefore implied that joining the Avatar program is the moral and right thing to do. They also appeal to his low self esteem due to his disability and seem to paint his brother as a better version of himself. When he is amongst the military, people approach him to say how amazing his brother was and how much they admired him, and seem to look at him with disappointment that he is in a wheelchair. As an Avatar he has working legs, which encourages him to comply with this able-bodied ideal and join them. Although they work this way at first, they quickly become forceful when he doesn't comply by cutting off the power to his avatar and being violent to Jake. They use this same method to get what they want from the Na’avi; first they try and get them to cooperate by impersonating them and persuading them to leave their homeland voluntarily. The moment they realise this wont work they immediately resolve to taking the planet by force without consideration for any Na’avi they might kill on the way. All through the movie it is clear that the military program is exploitative and repressive, but by the end the presence of huge military tanks, bombs and guns is overwhelming. This fits with Alhusser’s definition of a Repressive State Apparatus because the threat of violence is omnipresent if not always directly utilised. Although the subjects are at first given the impression that they have free will, when they don't comply they are repressed using force and violence.

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The Ideology of James Cameron’s Avatar and Interpellation (James)

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The Ideology of James Cameron’s Avatar and Interpellation (James)

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[It's a bit waffly and it needs some more work to iron out the kinks, but I'll post what I've got so far here for now. Plus the references need sorting but I'll sort that in a bit.]

If interpellation, at its most basic level, is about choosing to make oneself the subject of an ‘acceptable’ identity, then we must consider which identities Cameron’s film allows us to choose between and which one it inevitably coerces us into adopting. In order to do this, it is necessary to examine what each faction in Avatar represents because, according to the Telegraph review of the film, ‘every […] character […] represents a type rather than an individual’.

“Cameron is not a director for whom complexity and moral ambiguity rate large,” argues Sukhdev Sandhu in his review of the film. This is never clearer than in the ‘1D’ character of Colonel Miles Quaritch, who reviewers have described as a ‘comical stereotype of a crew-cut wearing racist white man’ who attacks the Na’vi with ‘genocidal glee’ whilst remaining ‘stuck an eighteenth century mindset in terms of cultural understanding’. To quote Empire Online’s review of the film, the military-industrial complex ‘are the monsters; avaricious, rapacious, planet-killers.’ It is inarguable that the military are the film’s antagonists; it is logical to assume, therefore, that we are not expected to interpret their blunt, ruthless destruction of the natural world as qualities that we wish to see in ourselves.

Yet it is debatable if we’re truly meant to ally ourselves ideologically with the Na’vi either. Depicted as a ‘sort of grab-bag of generic tribal characteristics’ with ‘big puppy dog eyes’ they exist in technology free harmony with their planet. On this point alone it becomes impossible to really see ourselves as anything like them. Avatar itself is a marvel of modern visual technology. We are sold the naturalistic ideology of the Na’vi via a big cinema screen. Can we really see ourselves in them? I’m not so sure. They are ‘a little too perfect’ whilst we are flawed. They are peaceful, we historically are not. Indeed, despite the comparisons to ‘Native Americans’ made by critics such as Ebert, Žižek is keen to point out that “[The plight of the Na’vi] should not be confused with the miserable reality of actual exploited peoples.” And so we, as a Western, technologically literate audience, do not interpolate with the Na’vi. Then who do we interpolate to?

The review of Avatar in the Hollywood Reporter makes the strange claim that Cameron relies on ‘no underlying novel or myth to generate his story’. Other reviewers have, in my opinion correctly, disputed this point. The Guardian’s review states ‘there is no mistaking what Avatar is taking aim at: the founding myth of America, and the incursions of European colonists into indigenous civilisations.' Likewise, I think it’s reasonable to argue that another myth, that of the white man’s burden, serves as a foundation for the film. The plot follows the “long tradition of the resigned white hero” as he helps defend a ‘peaceful people in perfect harmony with nature’ from destruction. The human scientists who help him are portrayed as the only acceptable group to identify with, and this is problematic. Though we are asked to relate ourselves to the people who ‘save’ the Na’vi, we begin to root for them and not, in the words of the Guardian’s reviewer, “not pesky human invaders. (This may not be the most tasteful approach though [he adds], to use on an American audience that still doesn't appear to feel especially guilty about what happened to the indigenous people on their own continent.)” And so just as the Na’vi are offered the choice of being “the victim of imperialist reality, or to play their allotted role in the white man's fantasy” we are offered a choice about which faction we will become the subject of. Almost by default, Avatar tells us, we must become the subjects of the white man’s burden.

So we’re back to square one. The movie isn’t anywhere near as progressive as it claims to be, as we are still interpolated as the carriers of the white man’s burden. Though giant steps forwards have been made in the visual technology of the film, the underlying colonial ideology remains the same as ever, and we are expected to soak it in whilst simultaneously congratulating ourselves for our progressive values. We have, in the words of one reviewer, ‘been played by a Hollywood snake oil salesman for the [money in our] wallets’; Cameron’s movie is as much an exercise in what Žižek calls ‘basic conservatism’ as any other. Any attempt to disguise this is a façade.

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“Althusser was particularly insistent that individuals have no essential unity, and derive whatever sense of meaning and value they have in their lives from the signs and social practices that go on around them.”

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"an ideology always exists in an apparatus, and its practice, or practices" . Ideology always manifests itself through actions, which are "inserted into practices" for example, rituals, conventional behaviour, and so on.

- Could explain why the Na'Vi's way of life is normalised to Jake's view of the world. He has to complete a set of tasks in order to be accepted into the tribe and this makes him feel at one with the community. When he returns to his human form he starts to question the practices he used to conform to.

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Catherine Belsey Critical Practice (Natasha)

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Catherine Belsey Critical Practice (Natasha)

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“Ideology obscures the real conditions of existence by presenting partial truths. It is a set of omissions, gaps rather than lies, smoothing over contradictions, appearing to provide answers to questions which in practice it evades, and masquerading as coherence in the interests of the social relations generated by and necessary to the reproduction of the existing mode of production.”

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If everyone adds me on Facebook, I'll make a group chat as I've already got some people in the group on it :)

https://www.facebook.com/natashaaaturner

Group roles:
Danielle – Ideological State Apparatus

Elena – Repressive State Apparatus

Britt – Interpellation

Natasha – Overdetermination with Relative Autonomy

James – Ideology related to Avatar

As we have 6 members of the group two people will be doing the same subject but if we speak to the other person doing the same to make sure we have different extracts that should be fine.

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I'm not sure what the best way to communicate about this is... if we're all on Facebook we could make a group chat or something? But yeah, I guess the first step is to decide who's doing what.