Avatar Essay Final Draft

Avatar Essay final draft Jake Williams

Jake Williams

The oppression of any peoples from any time or place is wrong and we should all know it! In this essay I will be exploring the different aspects that relate to our past and in the movie Avatar, as in the oppression of native peoples, ethnocentrism, colonialism cultural contact and marginalization. There is a very close relation between this movie and how our pasts played out, the humans in this movie travel to the planet Pandora and try to mine all of the unobtainium from this planets core because they believe their race is more important and they need it more.

  

The humans in this movie felt that the needs of their planet and existence outweighed the needs of the Na’vi peoples; this turned out as a terribly bad way to think for humans in this movie and usually does the same in our lives, for in this movie and most times in life thinning that you or your ethnic background is better than others will not turn out well for you like for example the Nazis, They believed that there so called Aryan race was superior to all others and tried to eliminate all inferior races, this as we all know did not turn out well for them and never will. Specifically in this movie the humans believe that their need for unobtainium outweighed the Na’vi’s need for life and religion this in common terms is ethnocentrism, like when the Europeans first travelled to America and tried to control all the land and felt that there need for space was more important than the First nations way of life and religion

    

The Humans set of colonies on Pandora with what seems like no care for the areas surrounding them and thought for the cultures they would be affecting which made the first contact between these two cultures to most likely be an unpleasant one starting of a harsh relationship. The contact between the Na’vi and the Humans was from what you see in the movie Avatar a very flawed and harsh reality. The humans only cared about themselves and the resources of the planet Pandora, not caring for the race of humanoids the Navi or there way of life, their religion or there people just what they had to gain from. Pandora. This relates greatly to how Europeans took advantage of the First Nations of America and used them in their circle of mercantilism, they bought the furs of beavers and other animals and shipped them back to Europe for a small cost, when in Europe the furs get turned into a product as in Hats or fur coats and sent back to America to be sold at a high rate of profit. This leads to the downfall and poor quality of life for the initial workers how killed the beaver and forces them into a state of poverty, that in a way is a form of marginalization     

The simplest way of identifying marginalization in this movie in the physical sense, the Humans had a home base set up on Pandora from which you can see is huge and takes up a lot of the land. They are forcing the Na’vi away from the area and therefore forcing them away from the humane society, in a more sophisticated level the humans are taking away the religion and the way of life the Na’vi have always had and making there society more harsh and undesirable marginalizing them in a way and they forced the Na’vi into schools and tried to make them part of their society but they always but their own race first, the humans always put their race first and there needs before the  needs of the Na’vi, just like how once again I am going back to the Europeans in America When they forced the First Nations into residential schools and forced them to become almost European and then when they did become European they forced them to do slave labour or have no jobs, barely a part of society and the Europeans (as seen in social class) endorsed the residential schools as a happy place and a place where the First Nations people  went from being “Flea bitten Savages” to a modern day gentleman or lady. Covering the whole thing up so the higher class people thought it was okay. Another example of marginalization is when the Americans went to Africa and kidnapped Africans to sell as slaves and when they were freed from slavery, if they ever where they were forced into the lower classes of society and forced to work for less money sit in the back of the bus use different washrooms et cetera.

In this day and age and from all of the mistakes we have made in our history we should know that no person or persons should be discriminated! But as a race humans are still very young and not the best at preserving our planet and resources and I do hope we will eventually find a way to explore planets and find resources to help use prosper but not if it turns out like the movie Avatar and we end up discriminating another species for the resources on there planet. I feel that this movie has a great lesson to teach use about or past and how to prevent anything like this in the future, it is a harsh reminder that ethnocentrism, colonialism and marginalization is  wrong and We should all understand that.