Neytiri: our first look

Happy Halloween everyone! How about a nice story?

It's dark. Alone in the wild jungles of Pandora, Jake (our questionable white messiah) is alone, stranded in "the most hostile environment known to man". As darkness slowly creeps in, Jake lights a torch using a flammable, organic sap of some tree that he just happened to get lucky enough to find. As he is stumbling to illuminate the darkness, a thousand beady eyes stare at him, their hungry lips smacking and drooling at the thought of tonight's gruesome kill. A cold sweat pours down Jake's face as the sounds get closer. The noises get louder. They're coming for him! Run Jake!
As he lights the torch, the creatures come into view. They are as black as the night that engulfs the jungle, and these things have razor sharp teeth, three sets of legs, and almost glowing, green eyes. As the tension builds, these things (later described by Dr. Augustine as Thanators, rooting from Thanatos, greek God of death) attack. Jake manages to wound a few, but to little avail. As one mounts Jake ready to rip his face off, a blue flash comes into view. A strange woman wielding a bow and arrow fights off the creatures and drives them back into the night from wist they emerged. Her eyes are large and feral, She crawls on all fours and hisses, as if part humanoid, part animal.
Jake walks up to thank the mysterious savior, but she strikes him to the ground, and in a savage voice says "Do not thank for this, this very sad only." As she's walking away, leaving Jake alone, to be once again at the mercy of Eywa. As Jake begs her to help him survive, he slips and begins to lose his balance. To make matters worse he's standing on a huge vine way up in the canopy of the Pandoran rain forest! Well that's all we have time for tonight, lets analyze this sucker! (Talk about a cliff hanger, or should I say, vine hanger)
As a viewer, I crossed over Lepert's "Fantasy bridge" (That which connects image and self image) to the subject position of Jake himself, laying in the dirt as Neytiri fights off the angry Thanators. I really got into his perspective and felt probably as he did. Scared, excited, my adrenaline pumping, my heart racing. As if everything was happening so fast I barely had enough time to take it in. Visually, this scene is stunning. With its fast moving fight scenes, to its introduction to so many new creatures, concepts, and actions that the subject is left baffled and amazed. We see Neytiri crawling around on all fours, hissing, and kicking some serious tail, writing her off in our minds as this savage, strong, wild killer. Her body seems to be more animal-like, with her tail flicking everywhere, and her large yellow eyes gleaming like a cat’s in the moonlight. Again, I was amazed at the sight of her, almost intimidated by her ability and ferocity. But the thing that made me most surprised was that Jake, with his guns and knives, and “superior government training, was so easily beaten. Yet this “savage” was able to beat off the whole pack with just a bow and arrow. Even further, Jake admits to needing Neytiri’s help, breaking the convention that “We sky people can do what we want, because we are the more advanced, dominant species”.
The argument here is “Being in accordance with Nature wins over controlling it”. This breaks down so many conventions such as “technology over nature”, “savage over civilization” even “men over women”. We all hold the convention that the Technological, civilized man should hold power over the natural, savage, woman any day of the week. Yet this is not so in this scene. The power dynamics shift, giving the savage, natural, female power and strength.
Neytiri is the signifier of the “natural way” with her physical appearance, body practice and behaviors as signifiers representing nature. We again take the subject position of Jake when we see her for the first time, seeing her as a savage until we can fully come to know her. Jake, representing us as we have dived into his position, is a signifier of humanity. He is the only “human” in this scene. He supports the argument by being powerless to defend himself in the conflict that he created. His torch, is the signifier. The signified is humanity’s addiction to artificial convenience. In our culture it seems there is an artificial solution to pretty much every thing. The effect of this signification is that our artificial solutions sometimes create bigger problems for us. Finally, the argument is completed when Jake admits that he needs Neytiri. Jake comes to the conclusion that without her help, he will die, despite all the survival training a marine should have, he is clueless on how to survive once alone and in nature. (note the irony). Thus the argument is complete, that the human Jake with his artificial light and advanced technology and training is powerless to defend himself, thus the natural, powerful Neytiri is left to save this helpless man. Feminists and Eco-activists everywhere should be so proud.