Avatar final draft

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Avatar essay

Adam

Avatar is one of the most elevated action movies that actually show many morals and a resemblance to our world today. The movie Avatar is a popular movie about the Na’vi people and the sky people who live on the land of Pandora together. In the movie Avatar there are lots of examples of ethnocentrism. The humans assume they are dominant over the Na’vi tribe; they express this by attacking and destroying home tree. Cultural contact plays a huge part in the movie Avatar. It relates to our past by the cultural contact of the First Nations and our interactions with them in the past. The world of Pandora is covered in many tribes of people. The humans think that they have to teach them to learn their ways because the humans consider themselves better than the Na’vi. Just like the in the poem the white man’s burden the humans think they need to control the lives of the lesser people in this case the Na’vi. The movie Avatar is jam packed and full of excitement. It is a fantastic example of all three cultural contact, ethnocentrism, and the White Mans burden.

"Up ahead was Pandora. You grew up hearing about it, but I never figured I'd be going there." This is one of the quotes Jake Sully (the Avatar) said on his way to Pandora this is the beginning of his journey. This moment is the beginning of the true interaction between his culture and theirs. The Na’vi start to trust Jake they teach him their culture and Grace comes to the camp and teaches the people how to speak English and their ways of life. This cultural contact was very fine in the beginning as they started to trust Jake, but the general had a different plan as Jake started to learn the ways and gain the trust of the Na’vi, and then the general decided it was taking too long. He sent in trucks to push down some of the trees and plants. Jake is quite upset and he goes berserk to destroy the cameras on their trucks. Then they accuse Jake of being a traitor. At this point the cultural contact between the Na’vi and the sky people had become horrific. This way the humans used to push the Na’vi away is called marginalization. The humans did not understand the ways of the Na’vi and how they were so connected to the land, they also did not see how much killing the land also hurts the Na’vi tribe. The humans were not aware what they had done; there for the cultural contact between these two cultures became extremely bad really fast. The interaction between these two cultures turned out very badly.

The next example I found that is presented in the movie is ethnocentrism. Ethnocentrism is the belief that your culture is superior to all others. The humans in this case are the example with the belief that they are above the Na’vi. They at first try to teach the Na’vi English and try to teach them how to interact just like we do. Ethnocentrism is expressed through the humans actions after recognizing the Na’vi don’t believe in the same religion, don’t speak the same language, and have a distinct appearance compared to humans. In so many ways the Na’vi are so different from the humans but they are also very much the same. Both the Na’vi and the sky people live on Pandora, but the humans do not understand the deep connection the Na’vi has with the land. They are so unaware that every missile they shoot at home tree damages not only the land but also the people and animals that interact with it. Ethnocentrism is brought upon the Na’vi and they are forced away. The humans declare themselves better and desperately attempt to push the Na’vi out for good.

The final main modern relation to the movie Avatar is the white man’s burden and how the humans believed they had to teach the Na'vi how to act like them. The white man’s burden mostly relates to the way the humans believed it was their responsibility to take care of the Na’vi. This is similar to the relationship between the Europeans and the First Nations; how the Europeans thought it was there duty to take care of the first nations. In relation to the movie the Europeans built residential schools for the first Nations people. Just like in this motion picture the Europeans believed that the First Nations should be assimilated and taught the religion and language of the Europeans. The Na’vi could have easily been left alone but the greed of the sky people became a distinct factor in the tragedy and disappointment of the film. This is a key example of The White Man’s Burden associated with the establishment of Canada and the motion picture Avatar.

Throughout the movie there are many examples of all three major topics, cultural contact, ethnocentrism, and The White Man’s Burden. In the movie we see that the Na’vi people are over looked also mistreated and neglected by the humans. This movie quite clearly shows and relates to our world today but mostly our past and the way we treated the First Nation’s people and how poorly we made decisions in our past. The reactions and way we interacted and treated the first nations an the way the sky people treated the Na’vi was unreasonable way of treating and dealing with the Na’vi and Natives. The discrimination of the Na’vi, and the force the sky people used to push them out just for the resources, was an unnecessary way of dealing with the dilemma. All around, this film is a great clip if you can recognize the symbolism and the messages that are in the movie.