Racism in Avatar

Reagan Campbell

September 12^th, 2012

Racism in Avatar

            Courtland Milloy, the author of the article: “’Avatar is a part of important discussion about race”, states in the movie Avatar, there is more to the plot than just a former Marine transforming into the body of an avatar. He says, “Then he infiltrates the cat people to gather intelligence for a military invasion but ends up falling in love with a cat woman. A "race traitor" to his fellow humans, Sully leads the cat people in thwarting the military invasion”. From this statement Milloy says Jake Sully is a traitor. In my opinion, Jake is not a traitor, but is a human adapting to the ways of the Na’vi people. He then shares his experiences with the humans, or Sky People when he returns to being human. For example, Jake wakes up from his avatar body and keeps a video log. This is used for the humans to gather more information on life in Pandora, the world in which the “blue people” live in.

            Giving his opinion on the underlying meaning of the movie, Milloy says: “Avatar is a fantasy about ceasing to be white, giving up the old human meatsack to join the blue people but never losing white privilege”. As a watcher of the movie, this can easily be seen. Jake originally is frightened by the Na’vi people, but gives up his human ways, and learns how to adapt to the blue people. Jake never loses sense of his human “ways”, but learns how the Na’vi people live and become one with the animals and land. When Jake is on Pandora in his new body for the first time, he is frightened, unstable, and scared when approached by the “blue people”. Eventually Jake shows freedom and equality. Freedom is shown after Jake battles the dragon and shows peace and equality by attaching his braid. In Native American literature equality between man and land is a common theme.

            Courtland Milloy says “Only white men are privileged enough to have such choices”. When saying this, Milloy refers to how only the humans have the choice to choose what they want to do. Essentially Jake is demonstrating shape shifting when he goes from being human to a Na’vi. Only Jake or other humans have the choice, and the Na’vi people do not. This could resemble how the Native Americans were stuck being who they were, but at any time the white men could come and overthrow their land or property. 

Original Creation Myth

Reagan Baylee Campbell

September 2^nd, 2012

            Before the humans came to be, only the land, water, sun and stars existed. Everyday the Earth would change from day to night. While doing so, the sun and stars would swap places. The sun emerged from the core of the Earth, and the stars pulled in from a galaxy far, far away. One day, the stars did not come and the night was dull, dark, and lightless. This led to the great fire.

The great fire spread across Earth in every direction. All the stars combined with the sun, creating a sky full of beautiful colors. From this fire, the moon was born. As the land grew old, so did the sun. One day the sun did not rise from the Earth’s core, instead it created the reefs in the oceans and the soil on the land. The moon, created from the sun and stars, shined a bright yellow glow across all the oceans and land every evening. Eventually the moons outer layer burst and down dropped the first egg. From this egg, Ellis, the leader of all the land, was born. Ellis is known today as the child of mother Earth.  Every evening Ellis returns to his eggshell, the moon. This is why the moon shines bright white in the sky every night above our heads, representing the egg of first child born from mother Earth. 

All About Me!

Hey there! My name is Reagan Campbell! My passion is dance, and I love to cheer, draw, and just have fun! Something that makes me unique is my port wine stain on my left cheek. Soon after I was born, I had my first laser surgery! In order to kill off all the tangled blood vessels in my cheek they needed to perform 6 surgeries in total. My parents were always very supportive of me and always told me if I ever felt uncomfortable with my appearance they would pay for me to have another surgery performed. Although I was teased when I was younger, I believe the teasing and name calling allowed me to become a more confident person, making me stronger, more outgoing, and fun-loving. Something else interesting about me is all the places I have lived! Two weeks after I was born in Atlanta, Georgia I moved to Florida. I am so excited for junior year! I love my friends and school. 

XOXO Reagan :)