A Spiritual Blockbuster: Avatar, Environmentalism, and the New Religions

Abstract

Abstract over the past ten years, religious studies scholars have used newly acquired knowledge of film history and theory to support pathbreaking research in the area of religion and film. Although valuable work on religion and film has emerged in media studies, the field’s coverage of this topic has not kept pace with religious studies. I believe media studies scholars should look to religious studies methods for ways of constructing interdisciplinary projects in this area. In this spirit, I take up work on the new religions to survey changes in the way Hollywood addresses religion and spirituality. New religions are religions that have emerged in the recent past. Scholars define them according to different time frames: the past century, the post-World War II period, or the post-1960s period. I am using a prevalent model that defines the new religions as religions that have emerged since the 1960s. This is a moment that corresponds roughly to the emergence of the New American Cinema. I argue that sociological shifts chronicled in work on the new religions help to explain changes in the way religion and spirituality appear in contemporary Hollywood.