Avatar Essay

981 Words4 Pages
The camera obscura and the stereoscope serve not only as devices that capture imagery but also as manifestations of larger trends in visual and media culture. Both tools serve as ontological structures. Otherwise stated, they can be studied as a theory of what is. The metaphors surrounding the stereoscope directly challenge the metaphors surrounding the camera obscura, but themes surrounding both are relevant in the film Avatar. Perhaps the most important correlation between the camera obscura and the film Avatar is the blatant existence of euro centrism. The obscura contributed to euro centrism because its creation was the first time that things were oriented in a way that separated the inside from the outside. It created binaries in terms…show more content…
This is the same exact idea of orientalism: fixation on the exotic. The obscura was a device long before modern times. However, all of a sudden during the Enlightenment, it became a source of strong cultural significance and provided an epistemology to justify colonialism. It created the false idea of the existence of objectivity. The centrality of the Enlightenment period further serves to prove the existence of euro centrism, as it was just about finding one truth for everyone, not a multiplicity of truths. Underneath the notion of euro centrism comes the notion of logo centrism, which is a western idea of thought. It, like orientalism, shares the need for binaries and creates a further need for opposition between the inside and the outside. This is explicitly seen throughout Avatar. The film accurately portrays how Orientalism occurs, with the idea of superiority. For example, Jake Sully, a white man coming in to save the day, paints the Americans as civilized and the Na’vi people as in dire need of a white savior. Secondly, the culture that we see is not the actual culture of the Nav’i people. It is the western version of the

More about Avatar Essay

Open Document