Blue Girl Power!!

The record breaking film Avatar by James Cameron is not only a phenomenal film, but it is one of a few movies that show ecofeminism. For those of you who don't know what ecofeminism is here's a basic definition: ecofeminism is a feminist approach to enviormentalism. They use a framework that confronts issues of race, gender, class and nature.  Some ways that this film shows ecofeminism is with one of the main characters Neytiri, the Na'vi people, and the head scientist Grace.

Neytri is the chief and shamans daughter and is in line to become  the next shaman after her mother dies. A man, Jake Sully, who is in an avatar ends up getting lost in the forest and taken to the Omaticaya tribe. The tribe leader decides to let him into the tribe and for his daughter Neytri to teach him the ways of The People. While Neytri is teaching Jake the ways of the forest we see how much of an ecofeminist she is. Her and her people believe that everything is connected. The people, the animals, the plants, anything that is alive in the forest. All of it is controlled by their Deity Eyaw, which is a tree. They believe that you should not harm animals for any reason other than to eat them. They also they believe that all energy comes back around from the small animals, to the trees, the plants and The People. 

Based on the fact that Neytri teaches Jake all about the forest and how to not harm it, to take only what you are going to use makes her an ecofeminist. The only conflict that doesn't really apply to ecofeminism is that the women of the tribe weren't really suppressed, at least from what we could tell from the film. They could become warriors and hunt along side men, we really didn't see other women, but Neytri had a say in the way things went in the tribe. The only time she wasn't allowed to make a decision was when her father told her she had to teach Jake. Ecofeminists would classify the way the Na'vi people behaved under the race category and how that race was very respectful of the environment and women in the tribe. 

Grace was the women who was really oppressed in the movie. She was surrounded by marines and two of the main guys thought that she had to follow direct orders from them no matter what. They were really big jerks. Some of it had to do with the fact that she was a scientist and wasn't going into the forest and immediately telling the people to leave their Home Tree, so the Americans could get the natural resources that were under the tree. They were only in it for making money. They wanted results and Grace wasn't getting them fast enough. She wanted to learn about how the forest worked, how the trees were all connected to each other similar to the synapses in the human brain. She was constantly arguing with them to make peace with the people to learn the forest and see what other awesome things the planet had to offer, but they wouldn't listen. Had this information been coming from a man they may have listened, but we won't know. Grace did stand up for what she believed in and fought to the very end to try and preserve the forest and The People. Unfortunately one of the jerk wads shot her and she died.

I had never heard of ecofeminism before this assignment. It is something that people, male and female, should look into and support! If directors keeping make more movies similar to Avatar more people can learn about what ecofeminism is without even know it!  GIRL POWER!!!

Photos courtesy of creativecommons.com. All other information copyright of Logan Tallmadge'13.