DTC #6

Avatar dichotomizes gender in most of the same ways we always see. In the Na'vi, the men tend to lead war and battle. They tend to act with aggression and hot-headedness. The women, more often, act with compassion and reason. They are the leaders of the less violent pursuits like spirituality. Meanwhile, while Jake Sully is the prototypical male hero -- active, aggressive, head-strong, athletic and full of charisma -- Dr. Augestine falls in to many of the supporting female roles: nurturer, teacher, empathizer, naturalist.

When humans enter their avatars, they tend to take the forms we've come to associate with ideal for genders. For a woman like Augestine character, that means becoming slimmer and bustier. For a man like Sully, that meant become built and athletic. I'm not one to claim every movie should be required to buck gender conventions, but many of the gender dichotomy we view in society -- be they inherent or created -- show up in Avatar.

I shy away from the concept of "contradictory identities" as Charles Cheung uses them, because I feel humans are very diverse creatures and few personality traits are necessarily contradictory. He mentions a profile creator who "supports feminism and yet likes Sylvester Stallone's movies a lot" (277). The emphasis in the quote is mine, and I don't think supporting rights for women is inherrently contradictory to liking popcorn movies with a lot of violence and machismo; many are simply able to compartmentalize aspects of reality and enjoy or support them purely for what they are and not how they relate to other aspects.

I digress, however, and do understand what Cheung is getting at with "multiple identities," and I understand even why he uses the term contradictory, if I disagree with the connotation. In the case of Sully, he displays the single-minded "jar head" stereotype, wanting only the advancement of the goals of his superior officer and caring little for nerdy things like the scientific process (like sound record keeping). At the same time, he shows wonderment at the natural world and a genuine interest in Na'vi and their culture when they are the enemies of the Marines and the company. Further, while he's a "cutter" who wants to jump right in and get things done, his ultimate battle is against others for also being cutters, as well, diving in and trying to get to "unobtanium" in less-than-careful ways; his very nature is similar to that he fights against.

Also, I don't think Jake Sully is a particularly deep character, so I don't think he offers many great opportunities for studying multiple identities. He presents himself as a good Marine to his superior officer and presents himself as a good Na'vi to the Na'vi; he just changes which identity he likes more over the course of the movie.

Avatars are like personal web pages in that they can give humans the emancipation to explore Pandora in ways they couldn't otherwise, without breath masks and with the physical abilities to roam the terrain and experience a nature that is beyond human limitations. Unlike personal web pages, however, the operator of the avatar doesn't have the freedom to adjust his "profile" the way he can on a web page. What he has is what's created from his DNA; it's a different creature, but it's still based on himself.



Works Cited

1. Avatar. Dir. James Cameron." Twentieth Century Fox Film Corperation: 2009, Film.
2. Cheung, Charles. "Identity Construction and Self-Presentation on Personal Homepages: Emancipatory Potentials and Reality Constraints." The Cybercultures Reader. Ed. David Bell and Barbara M. Kennedy. New York, NY: Routledge, 2007. Print.