Blog 6, Avatar.

How does Avatar separate gender?
I see Avatar placing men and women into their stereotypically played out roles. The men play the leading roles while the women are merely supporting actors. We can see this with Jake, for the story revolves around him, and his support character is his love interest. They place the general as a male character, having authority over all divisions. Even in the Navi part, the chief is a male character. They also stereotype male as being more aggressive and prone to action, as seen in all the battle scenes. Noteably, there are female characters who are portrayed as strong characters in battle, but we see them as different--going against the norm for they are so few and far between.

Jake plays a few contradictory identities in this movie. First of all, he's a disabled white marine who is looked upon as an outcast within his marine division. Then we have Jake Sully, the amazing Navi'i outcast who rises up to become the Navi'i's hero. He's playing both sides of the fence, able to identify with two separate cultures and thus carving out separate identities for himself. We can view the human version of Jake Sully as a man who is without hope, a disabled working man who has to join the army in order to obtain his legs back. We can also view him as a Navi who is rich in athletic ability and natural resources--with the dragon serving as a huge status symbol giving him power. We could say that Jake Sully's life as a Navi has more opportunities and freedom than his human counterpart. We can in turn relate this to our lives and our interactions with the web. The web can serve to open up different avenues and explore different identities which are not possible outside of the digital realm. We have more power to sway how we want to portray ourselves in different digital realms, with some people giving up their normal lives outside of technology to persue those online, such as in a popular massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG), World of Warcraft (WoW).