My scene is in the command room of the main human ship and starts when Selfridge is playing a little putt putt. Below is the text; I could not find the clip online but it starts about 11 minutes into the movie.
SELFRIDGE
Look. You're supposed to be winning the hearts and minds of the natives. Isn't that the whole point of your little puppet show? If you walk like them, you talk like them, they'll trust you. We build them a school, teach them English. But after - how many years - the relations with the indigenous are only getting worse.
Look. You're supposed to be winning the hearts and minds of the natives. Isn't that the whole point of your little puppet show? If you walk like them, you talk like them, they'll trust you. We build them a school, teach them English. But after - how many years - the relations with the indigenous are only getting worse.
DR. GRACE AUGUSTINE
Yeah, well that tends to happen when you use machine guns on them.
Yeah, well that tends to happen when you use machine guns on them.
SELFRIDGE
Right. C'mere. You see this? [shows Grace the sample of Unobtanium on his desk] This is why we're here. Because this little gray rock sells for $20 million a kilo. That's the only reason. This is what pays for the whole party, and it's what pays for your science. Those savages are threatening our whole operation. We're on the brink of war and you're supposed to be finding me a diplomatic solution. So use what you've got, and get me some results.
Right. C'mere. You see this? [shows Grace the sample of Unobtanium on his desk] This is why we're here. Because this little gray rock sells for $20 million a kilo. That's the only reason. This is what pays for the whole party, and it's what pays for your science. Those savages are threatening our whole operation. We're on the brink of war and you're supposed to be finding me a diplomatic solution. So use what you've got, and get me some results.
This scene is drenched in pro-colonialism viewpoints, well only Selfridge is for it. I am not going to analyze this in any order but just how I feel like it.
I love Edward Said's Orientalism, it provides many things to think about, and it pertains again to this class. Said says:
“Every empire, however, tells itself and the world that it is unlike all other empires, that its mission is not to plunder and control but to educate and liberate.”
This quote as well as how Said says that colonialism takes an economy and restructures the natives way of life so that it may benefit the colonizer. Looking at the third stanza where Selfridge is speaking this is exactly what is going on. The colonizers (Humans) come in and take what is important to them and force the colonized (Navi) to move or figure out a way to get them to work for you. Another colonialist view is that the colonizer needs to educate and civilize the natives which is in depicted in the quote above. In the first stanza where Selfridge is talking he is talking about building a school and teaching them, and then he says that the relations with the natives are not getting better. An empire usually thinks that what it is doing is just and is good for the people, and hinting at the native relations makes the natives again seem uncivilized thus further justifying what they are doing.
Now onto some visual effect digestion. So at the beginning of the scene Selfridge is shooting a golfball into a cup. This gives the aura that he is relaxed and that everything is normal and not a big deal. Showing how relaxed he is and having the topic of what is going on a the same time gives Selfridge this air of "douchiness" around him. The fact that he can be so calm and not care about ruining the natives lives emphasizes that he and the humans really do not think highly of the natives. By giving Selfridge this personality the golf club the air of "I don't care" around him the director is building a dislike for this character with the audience.
Grace on the other hand would be classified by Albert Memmi, as "the colonizer who refuses" as described in, The Colonizer and The Colonized. She would be considered this because she is totally against the whole reason why the humans are there, and refuses to force the natives to do what the humans want them to do. The director builds Grace's character to be liked by the audience by giving her this attitude. A way the director does this is by having her stand up against Selfridge combating his douchebaggery.
Building this character background and putting out these facts of what is going on in the movie asks us to take a stand. Well I think it is actually forcing us to take Grace's and the natives side. By playing on typical stereotypes of people the director was able to make us feel like this towards these characters and at the same time gets the viewers on the natives' side right away.
I like avatar but I do not have post Avatar depression. I also left the theater thinking that I want to be Toruk Makto.
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