I think that the line was meant to echo the other recurring thread about two beings choosing each other, regarding the bond with the flying creatures.

But that makes the line about choosing a woman perhaps even more problematic, because I don’t think the flying creatures were fully sentient; I think the movie treated them more like horses (smart animals, but still animals to be used and controlled by people) than like people. So drawing an analogy between that and two people choosing each other as mates is pretty unfortunate.

The archetype behind Avatar isnt original, but it does offer a place for reflection. As two civilizations meet, the strongest begins to build the extinction of the other, specially motivated by a precious resource that can maximize the wealth accumulation of the first civilization. In Human History, we had european colonialism taking slaves from around the globe as costless workforce that built and served the europe’s elites interests. Now we have the main capitalist multinationals forcing the governments to engage in declare and hidden wars against third world countries filled with energetical resources like oil or natural gas.

This last case is quite visible in the movie, a private company, RDA, that probably earned the rights of exploration of the moon Pandora, or just settled there, researches resources that can be turned into merchandise, such as the Inobtainium they mentioned, that, if I’m not mistaken can be transformed into an energetical good.

Avatar could be a perfect metaphor for the economical exploitation behind the wars and geopolitical games now existent in the Middle East.

If one looks out of the “race issue” box, one can actually fathom a curious act of remembrance of a period, acknowledged as tragic, of a social group’s collective memory. And while the almost extinction of native americans is a stain which belongs to white european colonizers, the mass murders existent in the Middle East today belong to the collective memory of all american population.

Yes you can interpret the term “choose” as a possessive – however it would make sense that a tribal culture it that violent and dangerous a world would have a prerogative to choose mates and produce offspring quickly.

Also that doesn’t take into account that Neytiri was speaking english not na’vi.

Really we should ask what was James Cameron trying to show us?
1) Neytiri had excepted James into the tribe and as a Na’vi
2) That she loved him and wanted to see to his needs even if it made her unhappy
3) She tells us what qualities Na’vi men would find desirable

I have some other questions:
Why did Neytiri say that they were “mated for life” and why didn’t this surprise Jake?

Granted it was suggested that they were soul mates, but one night of love under a a glowing tree and we’re life mates? More over there was no indication that Na’vi formed pair bonds – no split off dwellings, no pairings in any of the group scenes etc.

Why did Jake start calling Tsu’Tey “brother”?
None of the other Na’vi men seem to refer to each other in that way and there was no event that would have formed a bond between them.

Fantastic post.

I have Cherokee on my mother’s side of the family. I’ve spent frustrating years trying to find out more about that part of myself because my grandfather was always taught NOT to talk about his heritage and just pretend he was white, so there are nothing beyond spoken records to go on. On top of that I’ve had people outside my family tell me that trying to research my American Indian heritage was just an ‘attempt to single myself out and fixate on something that makes me special’ which is about the dumbest crap I’ve ever heard, and is just such a WHITE thing to say.

I am CONSTANTLY annoyed by these sorts of movies. The random caveman approach to things does not help. I don’t know who to slap, the guy who wrote the line, or all the women involved in production who let it lie…