Get Some!

My friend David is not a huge Avatar fan. When we watched it together, him for the first time, he complained about the movie the entire time. That is, until we reached this character. He has only a couple lines in the entire movie, the main one being: “Get some!” (at about 15s in the video above). At this David busted out laughing, saying “Now that’s what I’m talking about!”. That soldier continues to be his favorite character, and any time I talk about Avatar that character is all I can think of.

However this character does ask us to think a certain way. The soldier acts like a teenager playing Call of Duty. He is interested purely in the “fun” of being in an awesome killing machine. He totally disregards the concept of the loss of life. I have no proof of this, but I’d assume that the typical attitude of the soldiers is that the loss of life is unfortunate, but necessary to complete the mission. This soldier seems totally unconcerned with the mission, participating primarily to kill the blue aliens. It tries to get us excited, because the soldier is excited.

As the military in Avatar fights alongside the American military metaphor against the Native American metaphor, this character represents an aspect of our military. For me, that’s scary. I don’t like the idea of service members behaving in that fashion. However, for David, a CoD playing, nerdy, teenage boy, it’s exciting and fun. He imagines himself in that position and is excited by the prospect of fighting. It is another way for David to fulfill his soldier fantasy, and it greatly appeals to him.

This character sends a message that fighting is fun, but he is also on the side of the antagonists. This gives different messages to different viewers. Viewers like my friend David are excited by it. Other viewers, such as myself, are disturbed. Some viewers are amused, and maybe some didn’t even notice this soldier. Regardless Cameron does make a statement with this minor character, one that is a disturbing representation of our own culture.