Sample Introductions
Directions: Identify in each paper the elements of the introduction (opener,
orienting/contextualization, motive, and thesis). What element(s), if any, are
missing? What element(s) does each author convey most successfully? What
suggestions would you have for further revision? Which introduction(s) do you
find most successful, and why? Which paper(s) would you be most excited to
read, and why?
Assignment Context: Essay #2 (Lens)
Make an argument showing how James Cameron’s Avatar challenges, complicates, extends,
illuminates, resists, and/or supports Edward Said’s critique of Orientalism. You should
substantiate your argument by analyzing examples from the film; in addition to Orientalism,
you should draw on two other texts we have read. Your finished essay should be 7 pages long.
“Bobby”
The clash between civilizations has been an inevitable issue in world history and it is no
surprise that popular media is full of depictions of this phenomenon. Avatar is the story of the
conflict between two cultures, the humans and the Na’vi, over the precious mineral
“unobtanium” on the planet of Pandora. Through the lens of Edward Said’s Orientalism, it is
easy to see how the humans represent the West and the Na’vi, the East because the latter nation
is the one being colonialized and categorized by the former. More specifically, the way in which
the humans view the Na’vi culture and interact with them, on the surface, seems to be a
manifestation of the West’s perception of the Orient, as Said observes in his work.
However, Said’s view of orientalism does not accurately portray the clash of cultures in
Avatar. For one, Said assumes a shared view of the Orient among the West. In fact, it is not
possible to classify the humans in such a simplistic manner because there are significant
differences of opinion among them. The attitudes within the two groups are so diverse that to
generalize by comparing them to the two distinct mindsets of orientalism, is an oversimplification – Avatar is a unique case in which the divide between the two conflicting parties is
not definite. Pierre Bourdieu’s theory of “social spaces” can help us understand how intercultural perceptions amongst the two groups differ within their sub-groups, thereby blurring the
distinction between the West and the Orient as it appears to be represented in the film.
“Janice”
In his 2009 blockbuster hit Avatar, James Cameron paints indigenous Na’vi culture in a
sympathetic light while portraying the majority of the film’s human characters as exaggeratedly
belligerent and narrow-minded. As a result, Avatar initially appears to highlight the absurdity of
the same outdated Orientalist views criticized by Edward Said in his book Orientalism. Said
characterizes the institution of Orientalism “as a kind of Western projection onto and will to
govern over the Orient,” combining a narrow-minded system of thought with imperialistic
tendencies that often contributed to misunderstanding and conflict (95). Upon further analysis,
however, certain aspects of Avatar actually play directly into Orientalist thought, revealing that
Cameron unwittingly espouses some of the same Eurocentric ideas he is attempting to denounce.
While obviously more enlightened than the brutish humans he uses to parrot the views of
Orientalists of old, Cameron himself inadvertently comes across as a modern day Orientalist.
In this paper, I argue that Cameron’s portrayal of the relationship between Jake and the
Omaticaya tribe as well as the researchers’ attitude towards Na’vi spiritual beliefs both subtly
reflect traditional Orientalist views in a manner that conflicts with the primary anti-imperialist
message of the film. While many aspects of Avatar do in fact complicate Said’s characterization
of Orientalism or condemn the humans who act in an Orientalist manner, Avatar is still, in
essence, an Orientalist film that does not succeed in portraying the West-East relationship in a
more progressive light.
“Kathy”
“It is hard to fill a cup that is already full,” says Maot, the spiritual leader of the Na’vi to
Jake Sully, the stranger amongst them. (Avatar 45:25) This line signifies mankind’s difficulty to
identify with other cultures; that is, one’s cumulative knowledge shapes and fills his or her
thoughts, in the same way water would fill a cup, to the point that his or her ideas translates
themselves upon other cultures, limiting one’s “capacity” to understand and accept the “other”.
In Edward Said’s text, Orientalism, Said argues that such “learned judgment” is the dangerous
lens through which humans view other cultures, for these innately preconceived judgments leave
no room for acceptance and create an “other” that may appear dangerous or undesirable.
However, Said argues that it is “textual attitude” that fills the cup, or a bias created through
readings on other societies, that he argues can easily be solved by facing the reality. However,
such a view is blatantly narrow, for one’s surroundings, upbringing, and culture, ie: context, also
manipulate one’s thoughts. By bringing Avatar into conversation with Said’s Orientalism, with
support from Mitchell’s Colonising Egypt and Freud’s The ‘Uncanny’, one can see that
predispositions can exist even one without textual knowledge of another culture, and are rather
created as a response to a fear of something new, but these preconceptions can be removed so
that the “other” can be understood as it is.
“Lucinda”
James Cameron’s Avatar is more than a box office hit; it is a commentary and critique of
Orientalist and colonialist attitudes. This is evident even in Avatar’s premise: that a humanoid
society exists on a distant planet, a society that does not quite follow human social order and is
thus destroyed foreigners who consider themselves more civilized and more powerful. Because
this same phenomenon occurred with Oriental colonists, it seems at first glance that Edward
Said’s book Orientalism, elaborated on by Sigmund Freud’s concept of the uncanny, provides a
lens through which to view Avatar and its prejudices: in Orientalism, Said explains how textual
representations of the Orient by Western scholars impacted the way the Orient was perceived by
the West, with Freud helping to explain the roots of Western prejudice against the Orient.
I argue, however, that while Said and Freud may help the viewer understand the racial
prejudices in Avatar, they do not help the viewer make the leap from prejudice to violent
colonization. This link is vital to understanding Avatar and all of its implications; the film ends,
after all, in a battle of native versus colonist. I argue, therefore, that in order to fully understand
the Orientalist and colonialist forces at work in Avatar, Said’s arguments need to be extended to
make that leap. Timothy Mitchell’s book Colonising Egypt serves at that extending force,
explaining the ways in which representations of the Orient implement “the real power
relationships in the sociopolitical sphere” and thus mobilize the force of colonization (9).
Through this analysis, I will make clear that Orientalism and its real-world impacts cannot be
completely described by Said’s literary approach; rather, it is Mitchell’s political science,
moving beyond the world of representation to its relationship with real political power structures,
that can make evident the consequences of Orientalism, consequences that continue in today’s
world.
“Scott”
A penny that lies “heads” side up reveals certain aspects of its identity. It shows the
national hero lauded on its surface, the year in which it was coined, and the motto that projects
the hope of an entire nation. However, to make assumptions about this coin based only on this
information, to essentially neglect the other side, would be an unjust treatment of the national
monument and Latin proverb that lay silently hidden underneath. In Edward Said’s Orientalism,
he critiques those whom he calls “Orientalists” for certain characteristics such as stubborn
“ignorance” and a perception of dominance when paired with the Orient (62). Just as with the
coin, these perceptions are certainly valid on one frontier, yet they seem to forget an integral
other side. In the film Avatar, by James Cameron, this relationship between Orientalist and
Orient is exemplified as we see a culture interact with a group of natives in two different ways.
In one sense, the humans that arrive onto the newly populated planet of Pandora establish a
distanced relationship with the indigenous Na’vi; thus creating the Orientalist-Orient separation
Said refers to and supporting his claim of a power hierarchy between the two. On the other hand,
within this same group of humans, a sub group exists who wishes to study the Na’vi and learn
about their customs from inside their own community. This group of scientists, led by Dr. Grace
Augustine, depicts a different side to the “Orientalist” definition set by Said and thus challenges
the attributes he gives to it. By encompassing the two different ways of looking at Orientalists
offered by Avatar, we can conclude that Said’s definition of the Orientalist encompasses too
simplistic a view of those that delve into unfamiliar cultures. By looking through each
characteristic that Said gives to his definition of “Orientalist,” we will be able to compare it to
the two groups in Avatar and see how the film broadens Said’s definition of Orientalist and
distinguishes between two types: the Colonialist and the Scientist.
“Sebastian”
To classify is to create. In his essay “The Social Space and the Genesis of Groups”
French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu says that it is human nature to seek to understand and to
explain the reality around us (729). Reality, he notes, does in fact lend itself to classification
inasmuch as it displays a myriad of patterns and routines that repeat themselves. Humans
naturally seek to bring these to public view and to make them explicit by giving them names,
thus generating or creating groupings that did not previously exist (730). In agreement with this
view, Palestinian-American literary theorist Edward Said adds in his book Orientalism that these
creations or groupings do not necessarily match reality fully, but that classifications are often
limited insofar as they are product of a so-called “textual attitude” adopted by the classifier –who
relies more on the information on books about the subject under classification than on an actual
experience of it (54). This, according to both Bourdieu and Said, confers the classifier with
power over the classified (Bourdieu, 735): “Cultures have always been inclined to impose
complete transformations on other cultures, receiving these cultures not as they are but as they
ought to be” (Said, 67). As we will see, James Cameron’s 2009 film Avatar both supports and
illustrates these authors’ views.
However, both Bourdieu and Said are offering us a “static” and hence incomplete
approach to classification insofar as they are assigning too great a degree of perpetuity to these
labels and are failing to contemplate the possibility of classification being a “dynamic” and
never-ending process. Indeed, the film Avatar complicates Bourdieu and Said’s conclusions in
illustrating the latter argument. Applying to real life Austrian neurologist Sigmund Freud’s
observations on his essay “The ‘Uncanny’” –where he argues that a certain word has the
potential to simultaneously mean something and its opposite (221)–, this paper comes to argue
that classifications of reality are part of an incessant process of refining and remodeling and that
avatars as well as human beings, whether or not consciously, are ready to incessantly revisit their
classifications of reality so as to account for the new insights that experience might bring to light.