“One does not sell the land
people walk on”- Crazy Horse. One major difference between the Aboriginal
people and the explorers from Europe was that Aboriginal people feel no
ownership to the land, they are only borrowing and it must be returned. The
white explorers feel it is there duty to build the natives schools and teach
them English. This all relates to the movie avatar because the humans come to
Pandora to mine the unobtainium, they feel that they should teach them English
because they feel that it is the best language, this is not the case. The Naí
vi people feel like they are being marginalized and their planet is being
colonized. In this essay I will tell you how the movie avatar relates to
moments in our own history through the themes of ethnocentrism, colonization
and cultural contact.
Ethnocentrism is that one
believes that their race or culture is better than all others. In the movie
avatar the humans call the Naí vi fly bitten savages, blue monkeys and other
insulting names that show ethnocentrism. They want to show the Naí vi how they
should live and they should go to school and learn English. This is very
similar what happened in Canada’s history, they sent young aboriginal children
to boarding schools to learn English.
Colonization is where two or more people inhabit the same
area. The Naí vi have lived on Pandora
for a very long time and the humans suddenly show up and start knocking down
trees, mining for unobtainium, and killing their people. The way the Naí vi have lived has been
changed forever.
Cultural contact between the
humans and the Nav’ vi should never happened, they are completely opposite
people and a lot of things vary between them such as religion, food, shelter,
technology, and weapons are just a few. All these things are new to the indigenous
people of Pandora, but the humans know how the Nai, vi lived because they have
seen how the aboriginal people have lived long ago in history. The aboriginals
of North America and Pandora are very similar.
Over time we have seen these themes
repeat themselves in our own history. The movie avatar represents the themes of
ethnocentrism, colonization, and cultural contact in a realistic manner and
portrays real themes from our own history.
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