Presence of Ethnocentrism & Primitivism-Free-Sample-Myassignment

Question: Analyse an example of Ethnocentrism in the movie Avatar. Demonstrate your argument through a discussion of one of the following concepts: exoticism, romanticism or primitivism. Support your argument with a in depth description of one or two relevant examples from the film. Answer: The Sci-fi movie Avatar was filmed under direction of James Cameron. The movie was plotted in the year 2154, based on Pandora, which is a satellite of a planate in a distant planetary. The human like inhabitant of the planet called themselves as Navi. Human visited the planate to extract a mineral called Unobtainium, which is considered precious to solve the environmental issues they are facing back on earth. The movie can be evaluated form the anthropological point of view, examining the ethnocentrism reflected in it. Moreover, the movie also highlights the contrasting view primitivism and advanced civilization that will be discussed in the following. Ethnocentrism as defined by Bodley (2011) is considering ones culture superior to the others. This perception is highlighted in the movie under discussion and some of the direct scenes are present that justifies this thought. The human in the movie sought to extract Unobtainium, which was underneath the habitat of the Navi community. One can encounter the presence of ethnocentrism within the human community living in the satellite. Many scenes are viewed, where Colonel Miles Quaritch and Parker Selfridge refer the navi community as animals or vermin that they seek to wipe out from the ground, so that they can extract the mineral they are looking for. Both the character are positioned as the extreme ethnocentric, as they are always disrespectful for the community and their culture. Moreover, there are multiple scenes where the human tried to teach the Navi community their language that is English is spite of learning theirs, so that they can drive them off their home ground. Moreover, the human were disrespectful for both the native community of the satellite and their spiritual ground. It is reflected by the use of firearms that was shown throughout the movie. The highest level of ethnocentric act was demonstrated at the end of the movie where the human called for war to drive the Navi community out of the home ground destroying the tree they live in. The movie on the other hand reflected primitivism and primitive way of living of the Navi community. Multiple examples can be drawn from the movie to define the statement. The communal way of living is considered as one of the signs of primitivism as compared to the primitive human society (Bell, 2017). The second example of primitivism is shown through the Vitraya Ramunong or Eywa that is the tree of souls for Navi people. They held the belief that the soul of individual goes into the tree of soul and their ancestors live in the form of the tree. This is a primitive religious belief as defined by Halbmayer (2012) in the concept of Animism. The tree of soul represented in the movie can be considered as a totemic object for the Navi community. Another example of primitivism is reflected through the use of primitive technology used by the Navi community. The weapons used were bow and arrow, stone knives etc, which are primitive form of technology in human history (Richerson Christiansen, 2013). Another significant example presented is the presence of shaman. Moat, the leader of the Navi community is reflected as the shaman of the community as she is seen to perform spiritual activities to heal people (Cowan, 2014). Though the movie not only highlighted the concept of ethnocentrism and primitivism throughout the entire time and presence of romanticism and cultural relativism is also presented; a strong presence of the concepts are evidenced. Primitivism is reflected less number of time than the rest by the presence was strong enough to make an impact on the mind of the viewers. The cultural relativism is only presented through a few number of human in the movie, whereas, the larger section represented extreme level of ethnocentrism. References Bell, M. (2017).Primitivism(Vol. 19). Bodley, J. H. (2011).Cultural anthropology: Tribes, states, and the global system. Rowman Altamira. Cowan, T. (2014).Shamanism as a spiritual practice for daily life. Crossing Press. Halbmayer, E. (2012). Debating animism, perspectivism and the construction of ontologies.Indiana, (29). Richerson, P. J., Christiansen, M. H. (2013).Cultural evolution: Society, technology, language, and religion. MIT Press