Wilderness Idea

Avatar and the Wilderness Idea

In the wilderness idea of the Avatar movie there is a lot to be said in the form of a metaphor, this is exhibited in the organic worldview of the Na ‘vi people of Pandora. We see how the people live with the land and how the entire planet is interconnected. This is a powerful message that has been examined for many of years. We need to try to see nature in the same manner and realize the importance of the message this movie is trying to establish. In the world today this is a growing problem with companies that move in and take over an area for its resources.

In the picture above is a scene from the movie that shows the indigenous home of the Na ‘vi people, called hometree. The movie depict

s this in a sublime manner, to show the beauty and to give us a feel to help understand the wilderness they are trying to symbolize. This is an object that the people of Pandora live in and call home. The romantic views of the Na ‘vi people do not want the RDA to move them, they are content with what they have. There is no value in science and money in their culture. But they are forced to move with the destruction of the hometree. In the real world we find this problem with indigenous tribes around the globe. Th

ey are trying to survive in a civilized world with the uncivilized traditions. The Avatar movie tries to help us see the growing problem. They show us how a company moves in and destroys precious objects (the tree) in minutes, which took thousands of years to grow.

In the movie the RDA goes to Pandora with the anthropocentric and mechanistic worldviews. Why this is important to realize, is the creation of the word frontier, how it has been established by the same principals the RDA have. They can only see one thing and that is the substance called unobtanium, which we find the same problem in today’s world. For hundreds of years humans have had this great idea of civilization. In this we can find the birth of wilderness that is full of savage and wild creatures that have no rights. This is best described by William Cronon

“The removal of Indians to create an “uninhabited wilderness” – uninhabited as never before in the human history of the place- reminds us just how invented, just how constructed, the American wilderness really is. To return to my opening argument: there is nothing natural about the concept of wilderness. It is entirely a creation of the culture that holds it dear, a product of the very history it seeks to deny. Indeed, one of the most striking proofs of the cultural invention of wilderness is its throughgoing erasure of the history from which it sprang.” (Cronon p.16)

So in the wilderness idea the movie brings about the ideals of both spectrums. On one side you have the Na ‘vi people who see the wilderness as beauty and they cherish it. They are interconnected to the mother planet, holding their entire history in it. On the other we have Parker who is the RDA site manager with his instrumental value. All he can see is the cheddar which is the metaphor for money in the unobtanium. This shows us the views that are explained in Cronon, how one sees the wilderness as a vast uninhabited land that is at their beg and call, to allow an individual to show off their masculinity. In their imperialist views they see another being with less value to be discarded or deemed expendable in the attempts to achieve a goal. As he states in the movie the fly written savages in the attempt to eliminate the only thing that stands in the way of his wealth.

In conclusion we must look past the action of the movie and try to decipher the metaphors that are behind it. At hand is a real issue that affects all of use whether we realize it or not. For one day the anthropocentric way will lead to the destruction of our planet and the cultures that inhabit it. I am attaching a real Avatar culture that is being threatened by a large company.