Postcolonial theory in Avatar

James Cameron’s Avatar (2009) is a science fiction movie set in the year 2154 where the human race has depleted earth's resources and they now look to colonise the moon, Pandora. Pandora is densely forested and inhabited by a species called N’avi; ten feet tall blue skinned human like beings. The humans supposed main purpose for this colonising expedition is to mine the mineral “unobtanium,” which according to Parker (the man in charge of the expedition and the mining company), who says “this is why we're here. Unobtanium. Because this little gray rock sells for twenty million a kilo.”

Jake Sully is a paraplegic marine who is promised the restoration of his legs if he can gather intelligence on the native population. Jake agrees, and uses the the technology of the avatar suit to blend in with the community. Yet over time joins the side of the N’avi, through his love of Neytiri, who also initiates him into their tribe. He later helps them defeat the invading humans (along with active help from mother nature) whom become greedy and try to destroy the native population and then gather the resources.

Throughout the film we see strong themes of postcolonial theory. Firstly the humans mission itself is very colonial. This can be seen when Tyson describes when Europeans first landed in the ‘New World,’ they believed that ““land that wasn't occupied by Christians was considered “empty land” and, therefore, theirs for the taking” (Tyson, 401) Furthermore, they would then send “European missionaries...to Christianize them” (Tyson, 401), which can be reflected in the movie by Jake and Dr. Grace Augustine who assimilate through their avatars into the native population to gather information on them.

As a whole, you could argue that the humans held a “colonialist ideology” (Tyson, 400) when invading Pandora and starting a war as this ideology states that colonizers believe in their “superiority, which they contrasted with the alleged inferiority of the native (indigenous) peoples” (Tyson, 400). In addition to this, the colonists “ignored or swept aside the religions, customs, and codes of behavior of the peoples they subjugated” (Tyson, 400) this is also reflected in the movie as they refused to acknowledge the close relationship the N’avi people shared with nature and their worship of Goddess Eywa. This attitude, in turn, led to their ultimate defeat in their quest for colonisation as nature helped the N’avi people for victory.

Furthermore, because they believe their culture was “civilised, sophisticated...more highly advanced” (Tyson, 400), they defined the native peoples as “savage” meaning they were  “backward...underdeveloped...evil...as well as inferior” (Tyson, 400). We can see this in the movie as both Quartich (Army colonel, arguably the main evil character) and Parker both address the native N’avi as “savages” and then proceed to blindly and ignorantly attack the N’avi.

Tyson also talks of “Cultural imperialism” (Tyson, 410) which consists of the “takeover of one culture by another: the food, clothing, customs, recreation, and values of the economically  dominant culture increasingly replace those of the economically vulnerable culture.” (Tyson, 410) This is observed in the movie when they come to the decision to use violence on the natives rather than peaceful trade and negotiations, as seen below.