"You think I am an ignorant savage, and you've been so many places, I guess it must be so, but still I cannot see, if the savage one is me. How can there be so much that you don't know?"
This line sets the scene perfectly. It reminded me of a quote I once read from the Native American John Fire Lame Deer, it read:
"Before our white brothers arrived to make us civilised men, we didn't have any kind of prison. Because of this, we had no delinquents. We had no locks nor keys and therefore among us there were no thieves. When someone couldn't afford a horse, a tent or a blanket, he would, in that case, receive it all as a gift. We were too uncivilised to give great importance to private property. We didn't know any kind of money and consequently, value of a human being was not determined by his wealth. We had no lawyers, no politicians, therefore we were not able to cheat and swindle one another. We were really in bad shape before the white men arrived and I don't know how to explain how we were able to manage without these fundamental things that (so they tell us) are so necessary for a civilised society."
This really does make you agree with the Natives, and look back at what white history has accomplished with regret. The way white men called, and still do call the members of 'under developed' countries savages. 'Savage' a word the real Chris Kyle used to describe Iraqis during his tours in the Middle East. Weather it is wrong for a soldier to speak like that, or weather it is what you must enforce into someones mind when sending soldiers into an illegal war to kill is another argument. I would argue that it is the governments fault, and not the individual who has been sent to witness such violence and terror, but seeing the bigger picture and seeing a perspective from both sides of a war is certainly something everyone should be taught, but wouldn't that knowledge make it that much harder to pull the trigger? If it did should it be taught anyway? This is another argument altogether, the mere point I was trying to make, is how these words are still relevant today. People seem to think that others different from them are lesser in some way, we can invade that country because we're smarter right? we're civilised enough to build guns and nuclear weapons enough to destroy the world several times over. So we can. When did this become or world? How has this state of mind remained in power for so long? Politicians. Ever since we've had them, this is the running theme. How do we believe we're smarter when we are literally killing our planet? do we have someplace else to go when were done with this? No. So why continue? Why not take ourselves back to a time before we had the power to destroy the world? Why not outlaw it? Profit. Money. Money has become so important that we value it over other lives. As another quote says:
"Only when the last tree has died and the last river been poisoned and the last fish been caught will we realise we cannot eat money. We do not inherit the Earth from our ancestors, but borrow it from our children."
Which pretty much sums up my point in a far more poetic way. This word 'savage' seems to be the wrong way around. They may have been more uncivilised, but when was civilisation a good thing? In the bigger picture. We are, and always have been the savages.
The lessons taught and lyrics in the songs say so much more and are still relative today compared with anything heard in Avatar. For instance, as Pocahontas stops John Smith from shooting a bear singing the line:
"You think the only people who are people, are the people who look and think like you."
This speaks not only to the bear, but also the way the foreigners see the natives, and sums up racism in a whole, in a way that makes it every bit as ignorant, arrogant and outright stupid as it is. This is not to say that the Native American was not racist to the white man, they were, it's only, from their only experiences with the white man, how could they not be? There is an anonymous quote from a Native American that sums up the way people 'believe' in a religion about peace and understanding and either find a way to twist it into hate or completely disregard it. Which is found in many religious extremist groups, from Al-Qaeda to the KKK. It reads:
"When your people came to our land, it was not with open arms, but with Bibles and guns and disease. You took our land. You killed us with your guns and disease, then you had the arrogance to call us godless savages. If there is a Heaven and it is filled with Christians, then Hell is the place for me."
The rest of the song goes on to describe how beautiful the world is, when you see it in all its natural beauty, something that is hard for us to do now with our depleting forests and species. My only real problem with this film, that I understand, but do not agree with, is how it leaves out how the Native Americans were slaughtered. In the film, the white man realises that this is wrong, lock away their boss and turn to go home. While in the real story of Pocahontas that this is all based on, the story and ending is completely accurate, however I do thing it's important in a film about the Native Americans to show what really happened, even if it is child friendly to not portray the white man as some hero. Although in the real story, this is accurate, in the grand scheme of things, I feel it doesn't quite show us for our true colours.
These points will make a major part of our world and the way Natives see foreign creatures, in a way that makes the audience completely agree with them.
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