Shayla Draft

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Essay Draft

Shayla McLean

Our history has played a very important role in where we are today, and how we are as people in our everyday lives.  The movie Avatar recognizes a great deal of our history, what has happened in the past, what is happening now and what is still yet to come. Avatar was a movie created by James Cameron; it was one of the most popular action movies of the year. Many of us may think it’s just a movie, but was that all that the famous director was trying to get across? They touch on cultural contact, colonialism, marginalization, ethnocentrism, and white man’s burden. These are just a few of the topics that they touch base on, which are key points in the movie and of course our history.

                 

                 

         The humans also referred to as the “Sky People” go in and they set up sites on the land and try to take over Pandora; Very similar to the situation when the Europeans came in and invaded the Native people and there land. The humans figured that since they were there now, that they were free to do whatever they may please. This is an example that represents cultural contact.

The humans have it stuck in their heads that the culture of their people and the way they choose to live life was good, the right way and the only way. Na’vi peoples culture was ignored, the sky people took out the Na’vi’s home tree, and the sacred trees with access to communication to the ancestors. Sky people were very selfish they wanted the Na’vi to leave off into the forest, and leave everything behind. Simply because it benefits the humans in a better way.

        

Jake Sulley goes into his second body, the one as an Avatar, there he will learn the Na’vi people’s way of life and become one of them. As well as learning the culture and identity of the Na’vi.