Ecofeminism VS the Non-Human World

The movie Avatar, which this blog has already addressed, is filled with tensions between the human and non-human interfaces. In Avatar, in the human world, technology is completely overrunning their society. Many of the first images seen in the movie are that of excessive technology and the seeming lack of humanity present in their current society. There are hundreds of floating signs in different colors hovering over the population's heads (see right). The main character, Jake Sully, who is confined to a wheelchair is stepped over and pushed aside. Technology is more than king in this society, and humanity and the environment are second rate. This tension between technology and humanity helps to illustrate the relationship between men and women. Men are traditionally the domineering, plundering, and generally destructive group, while women are connected to nature, nurturing, and preservationists. This society has men dominating it and therefore has exhausted its natural resources, in contrast to the women-driven society on Pandora which still has all of its natural resources and life intact.

According to Rosemarie Tong in Feminist Thought one of the major tenets of deep ecology utilized sometimes in ecofeminism was the fact that "present Human Interface with the non-human world is excessive, and the situation is rapidly worsening" (Tong, 241). This is a completely true statement, about the current society that is present today, but in the world of Avatar, the "worsening situation" mentioned in the quote is alive and present. It is present so much so that human beings are venturing off world to Pandora to exploit another planet's natural resources. Technology, the male domination, has taken over, and there is no way to restore the Earth to its former, matronly, abundant state. As said so perfectly in the movie by Jake Sully, "They killed their mother, and they're gonna do the same here" (Avatar).

Even the name of the movie itself, Avatar, is a technological term. The Oxford English Dictionary, in the 2008 update, defines an avatar as "A graphical representation of a person or character in a computer-generated environment, esp. one which represents a user in an interactive game or other setting, and which can move about in its surroundings and interact with others" (OED, avatar). If the title was viewed from a New Critical perspective, someone would more than likely think of this definition in relationship to the title of the movie. There are technological terms used throughout the movie, not only incorporated into the title.

Even further, and relating to the title, some humans in this film have their own avatars in the form of the Na'vi people, the natives of Pandora; most of these people are scientists. They use these avatar creatures to interface with the world of Pandora and the Na'vi. The whole relationship that the humans have with the Na'vi world is through technology, and is quite surreal. Jake Sully in one part of the movie, representing his scientific video logs, expresses the feeling that he is so wrapped up in between the two worlds that he can no longer tell which reality from which. In the end, the mother of the Na'vi world, Eywa, helps Jake Sully, the main character, live his life truly as a Na'vi and cuts the technological ties to the human world for him. The Na'vi perform a specific ritual in which Eywa can choose to save the human body in Na'vi form. She felt that Jake Sully was pure enough in his human life in helping the Na'vi that his eternal soul was able to be transferred to his Na'vi avatar.