Humans vs. Pandora Fight Scene

As I watched the clip that we watched during class of the human’s attacking Pandora in James Cameron’s Avatar, I was struck by something. This isn’t Pocahontas, I thought, this is Barbara Kingsolver’s The Poisonwood Bible. I don't know how many people reading this have read the book (I really recommend it if you haven't), but if you haven't, it is basically about a family that goes on a missionary trip to Africa, specifically the Congo, and ends up hurting the tribe that houses them more than helping. They try to bring their white practices to the Congo to tame it, make it more civilized. But, despite all their efforts, the wildness of the African jungle and its inhabitants simply cannot be controlled. In the same sense, in Avatar the humans were trying to force their white-ness onto Pandora, which in turn fights back using their “crude” weapons, and wins. Just like the Congo, Pandora is un-tame-able. This shows how these two different cultures and identities of the "civilized" man and the "uncivilized" natives simply do not mesh. As much as the civilized man tries to defeat their native "enemy," they simply can't. The enemy is too wild, too natural, too (dare I say it) "native." Looking at this further, it is seen that time and time again, this trend is shown everywhere in pop culture. It's the Congo vs. the missionaries. It's the ewoks vs. the sith. It's the Navis vs. the humans. It's an archetype all by itself, invented by none other than white artists. But why would they depict themselves as the bad guys? From an ideological standpoint, white people are brought up hearing about all of the horrible things that were brought upon other cultures when a white society conquered the “uncivilized” society or tribe. James Cameron depicts this conquer to a tee (kind of) through this battle scene. The human’s (aka the white people) come in with their equipment and technology and attempt to take over the not-so technologically advanced Navis (aka the other cultures). The only difference? The Navis win, out of all odds. It seems like a pretty steep difference between fantasy and reality. Looking strictly at wins and losses historically, the white man is batting a thousand. But strangely, in pop culture it is the opposite. It is the other team, the natives who are the perfect batters. Is this the white man’s way of repayment? Is it their way to make themselves feel better about these historical atrocities? Maybe they feel bad about the past, so they create this fantasy where the underdog natives upset the white man because of they are so native. In any case, I think it can be said that the scene of James Cameron’s Avatar that we watched in class gives a lot of insight to the rhetoric behind the movie and to white society today.