Avatar Buffer

To be completely honest I don’t really understand how Avatar Dichotomizes gender. To me I see everyone acting their own gender. Men are men, women are women. So I guess I just don’t really get what you want me to see.

Throughout the whole move Jake does put on different personalities much like we do in virtual space. He goes from military man to scientist to a warrior. He is loyal to the military at first then becomes more affectionate to Naavi as he learns more about them. He is learns how to be a warrior for the Naavi and their views and beliefs. One personality change that comes to mind is when he is first out in the wilderness with his avatar. The two scientists are studying how the network of the planet works, and he is playing protector, much like an escort for them. He then wanders off and becomes curious about his surrounding as he stumbles upon some flowers and becomes like a child. I find this to be similar to what we do in virtual spaces. For example when myspace was the social network of choice, I used to change my page multiple times a day. It usually depended on what was on my mind or my mood. Each page I felt showed who I was at that point in time or how I felt. I had a baseball background on there for a little while because I had a baseball game that day. I felt like a bad ass because I was an athlete. Another day I put on a Halo background because I love video games and back then Halo was the shizz, and it showed my nerdy personality.

So Jake showed many personalities throughout the movie, we can still liken it to our own virtual lives. We all use our web pages, or social network sites to present or show who we want people to see us as. I like the word I heard today in class from the presentation about how these are a “buffer” for us in our virtual and non-virtual environments. It gives us a sense of safety because we feel people will accept us more if we don’t have to face them in person. Much like Jake had a hard time facing his commander and telling him he didn’t want to attack the Naavi. It was easier for him to fight back through his avatar and express his feeling that way, than it was in his non-virtual space.