Essay on Imperialism in ‘Avatar’

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The movie Avatar written and directed by James Cameron is a remarkable movie that describes the impact imperialism has on innocent citizens. This movie is very similar to the imperialism in Africa during the 1870s. Both these cruel events show the audience how a group of people can conquer and hinder land, due to all the advanced tech they hold.

As seen in the movie, when the Na vis realize what the sky-people are doing to their homeland, they seek war to end the destruction of their sacred land. When they went to war, the Na vi outnumbered the sky people by 2,000 to 200 but lost the first half of the war because of their impeded war equipment. This is similar to the Boer war that occurred in the 1870s because even though the Boers outnumbered the Europeans, they still lost the war because they were fighting guns and machine guns with bows and knives. This shows the audience how developed countries can conquer vast amounts of obstructing countries due to the war technology and equipment they possess.

Another way the movie describes imperialism is by showing the audience how the sky people take no for an answer. In the film when the protagonist Jake Sully turns into one of the Na vis and becomes one of them, he tries to tell them to migrate from the sacred tree so that the sky-people can mine, but they say no because of how sacred the tree is them. When Jake tells this to Colonel Miles Quaritch, he doesnt care about the Na vis opinion and destroys their sacred land anyway since they didnt obey his orders. This event is similar to what happened to the Africans when the Europeans first arrived in Africa because when the Africans disobeyed the European’s commands they turned innocent citizens into slaves and separated them from their families. This shows how advanced countries don’t care about hindering peoples opinions and giving them one chance to escape their cruelty.

An additional way the movie describes imperialism is by showing us how advancing countries share their technology with the impeding countries as a way to show gratitude towards them for their abilities to mine in their homeland for valuable resources. At the beginning of the movie when Jake first syncs into his Avatar and steps outside, he can see all the Na vis learning the sky-people ways by playing sports, farming, learning their language, etc. In return, the sky-people wanted mining privileges but they didnt grant it to them. This is similar to what happened in Africa during the 1870s because when the Europeans first arrived they tried to educate them and show them cures to diseases for mining privileges. This shows how imperialism doesnt always do badly for a country but also educates them on advanced tech.  

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