Avatar

The film Avatar is an excellent film that covers a wide range of topics that fall into the category of ecocriticism. Throughout the film there are looking at the idea of white colonialist wanting to exploit the planet Pandora. At the beginning of the film a solider who goes by Sully has been sent to Pandora to take his twin brothers place in an avatar that was created to only work with their DNA. Sully ends up being asked to be a spy for the Colonel and his task is to learn the ways of the Na’vi. He is taken under the wing of a Na’vi woman. After some time, Sully learns the ways of the Na’vi from this woman and they fall in love. Shortly after Sully is accepted by the Navi people it is time for whatever company that flew Sully out there to start deforesting Pandora in hopes of harvesting unobtanium that sells for millions of dollars on Earth. Classic case of white men taking advantage of a group of people and natural resources for monetary gain. The group trying to colonize pandora attacks the Na’vi people and destroy their home tree. At this time our hero, Sully who is not of the Na’vi people becomes the hero and rallies the Na’vi people to fight against their oppressor, and eventually send them on their way back to earth. One of the things that stood out to me watching this film for this class was the fact that the hero was a white male. In chapter thirteen of Ecofeminism Women Culture Nature the author Karren Warren looks at the idea around nature being defined as female and only being described by male authors like John Muir. This film is an amazing comment on human’s ability to damage or exploit our surroundings through the use of amazing graphics and a beautiful world.

There is also something to say about this film being used as a tool for environmental discourse. I hope that people watch this film and are able to look at their own practice or the practice of the world around them and recognize the similarities between our world and this film.