Movie Analysis: Avatar And Sociological Perspective

Just as John Smith came to the New World to better his life with the riches so follows Jake Sully in search of a way to make enough money to pay for the incredibly expensive surgery needed to allow Jake to walk again. And like John Smith, Jake follows the white-man-assimilates-into-Native-American-Indian-culture narrative. Not only is Jake and his avatar initiated into the tribe, but he quickly becomes the most capable of them. The same parallels could be made with Kevin Costner’s 1990 film Dances with Wolves. And like Costner in Dances with Wolves, Jake chooses to stand with the indigenous population against his own race. This could be described as the "white savior" theme, where a member of the dominant race, often rejected by his own kind, proves to be the best. At one point Colonel Miles Quaritch asks Jake Sully (who are both white men): "How does it feel to betray your own race?" In the end, Jake chooses to permanently change species.

The movie Avatar is about how the human race invades a planet called Pandora to mine a certain kind of resource and fights with the Na’vi, the race of creatures that live on Pandora. The main character Jake Sulley decides to take his brothers

If one thinks an issue might be a conflict ask these questions and if they can be answered then this would be the correct sociological perspective.

1. The sociological perspective, as a way of thinking about the world, includes the sociological imagination from C. Wright Mills, the beginner’s mind from Bernard McGrane, and the idea of culture shock from anthropology. Explain what all three of these concepts have in common.

The conflict perspective, or conflict theory, derives from the ideas of Karl Marx, who believed society is a dynamic entity constantly undergoing change driven by class conflict. Conflict theorists generally see social change as abrupt, even revolutionary, rather than incremental (https://courses.lumenlearning.com).

A sociological imagination is the idea of how a personal experience can affect society as a whole. At some point a personal issue becomes a public issue. Conflict theory is the idea of competition over limited resources such as money. The theory is about domination and power rather than peace and cooperation. Those with power and wealth try to maintain that position by suppressing those without. The United States poverty is most easily explained by the conflict theory because in the US, the wealthy stay wealthy and the poor stay poor due to suppression.

The 2009 film Avatar directed by James Cameron is a stunning visual masterpiece that required state of the art animation technology. Avatar was officially budgeted at $237 million and became the highest grossing film of all time bringing in more than two billion at the box office. The film used a new form of stereoscopic filmmaking that was touted as a breakthrough in cinematic technology. Avatar was nominated for nine Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Director, and won three, for Best Art Direction, Best Cinematography and Best Visual Effects. Avatar can be analyzed from various new historicist perspectives and effectively makes provocative statements about social issues such as race relations, imperialism, environmentalism, and the tactics of the military industrial complex.

What are the three major sociology perspectives in regards to social issues? They are Symbolic Interactionism perspectives, Functionalism perspectives, and Conflict Theory perspectives. These perspectives offer sociologists abstract examples for explaining how society affects people, and vice versa. Each perspective individually theorizes society, social forces, and human behavior.

Conflict perspective or conflict theory is one of the major sociological approaches to analyzing social problems. This perspective originated with Karl Marx, a famous philosopher, economist, sociologist, journalist, and revolutionary socialist, and whom many credit contributions to the birth of modern

A sociological perspective on human behavior is connected to the society as a whole. It invites us to look for the connections between the behavior of individuals and the structures of the society in which they live. (Appendix 1)

Conflict theory focuses on the inequalities based on social order or class, and those that have more power and resources can influence our society. A conflict theorist would view the use of social networking as a platform in which the powerful can use their resources to promote social change.

Conflict Theory was "influenced by Karl Marx's socioeconomic view of the elite exploiting the masses." (Parillo 12). The conflict perspective focuses on the inequalities that create racial and ethnic tensions between groups. In contrast to the fundamentalist's emphasis on stability, conflict theorists maintain, "Racism has much to do with maintaining power and controlling resources." Society is seen as being continually involved in struggles and disagreements as diverse groups struggle over limited resources. The system is hierarchical and characterized by social inequality. Conflict theorists argue that the rich and powerful force social order on the poor and weak and that existing social patterns benefit some people while depriving others. "Conflict theorists

Sociological theory is a set of well defined concepts interrelated and interlinked with each other. The propositions contain concepts inter-related with each other with a logical explanation. Sociological theories are scientific and systematic symbolic construction which must be valid and reasonable but subjected to verification in the initial stages.

Since the dawning of racism, human beings have passed judgment on each other based on race and ethnicity. The views of people based on their skin color, place of origin, or their cultural background have caused a stratification of men and women. We now have majority and minority groups, hate groups, ethnic enclaves, segregation, income differences, and have even experienced mass genocide in our world (Carl, 2011). All of these are direct effects of a persons race or ethnicity. These all provide humans with a struggle between each other for various resources. Race and ethnic stratification is an integral example of conflict theory because a competition for resources takes place between people coming from different

Conflict theory is “A major sociological perspective that sees society as a set of groups in constant competition over wealth, power, and prestige. (Larkin, 2015)” Conflict theory is a more view primarily stating