Avatar- Study of Amer. Society

Avatar is a great representation of a comparision of societies. It takes the "American Dream" to a whole new level and basically turns it on another society. The Americans have started trying to take over a foreign planet, taking Manifest Destiny too far. The "American Dream" part of it is that all of these people want to take part in researching and discovering this new land and people. Everyone can't wait to get their hands on it because of the huge profit they can potentially recieve; they just want to get rich! The film also made light of some different American cultural values. I enjoyed watching Jake Sulley assimilate into the new society. It was a society of peace without guns and huge weaponry of mass destruction. Jake relearns the value of such trivial and easy parts of life that in American society are often forgotten about. American society has based itself of freedom of the people and being a democracy, but in Avatar, America's history with the 'Indians' (Native Americans) repeats itself. Clouded by their own visions, greed, and perception that because they are American they can have whatever they want, the men leading the project catagorize the Avatar society as being savage and primitive when they actually are a very advanced society, they just have no need for guns and computers. The film did a good job of helping the viewer to take a step back to realize that people value different things more or less than ourselves and people need to be considerate of culture differences at all times, no matter what race or society they are from.