Wednesday, February 15, 2012
Xenophobia On Maple Street?
How does The Twilight Zone Episode: The Monsters Are Due On Maple Street address the concept of xenophobia? What alarms you regarding the inhabitants actions and attitudes? How does this episode align or differ with stories we have already read? Other thoughts? Please respond by 2:30p.m. on Fri., February 25th, 2012.
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"a mother and a father and two children that look just like humans..." why would a teenager be so knowledgeable about the science fiction... "monsters from outerspace" why does he call them monsters? why can't we just say people?
ReplyDeleteSiren, he was so knowledgeable about the "monsters from outerspace" because he said that he had read a comic book about something that happened like that. But in this episode, I think it's funny that the people on Maple Street have xenophobic fears, from people that aren't even foreign, they have a xenophobic fear of people that have been there for years that they have known for a long time. It's just the terrible things people place in their mind about foreigners and who could be foreigners that makes them so scared and completely over rides their mind to the point where they can't even use common sense anymore.
DeleteEveryone on the street was so afraid of each other because they were afraid of foreign monsters. They lost their trust and friendship just because the power was lost. Secrets started to spill out and even though they were normal, the people took them as frightening and challenged their neighbors. This story is opposite of the puppet show because the puppets were accepted in the society. This makes me think about who will still be there for you in a life or death situation.
ReplyDeleteThe twilight zone "Monsters Are Due On Maple Street" relates very much with xenophobia. As soon as something goes wrong everyone becomes afraid of everything because they don't know what's going on. They blame aliens which relates to "Puppet Show." They also respond with violence when someone does or says something they don't exactly agree with like in "Muse." I'm alarmed at how poorly they acted; they would never be able to work together in a hazardous situation because they would constantly blame or be suspicious of one another.
ReplyDeleteThis "Twilight Zone" episode addresses the concept of xenophobia because the people that are living on Maple Street are afraid of the unknown and what has the ability to do damage do their normal lives. They are afraid of monsters and eventually become so afraid that they destroy themselves. This is what alarms me because it can be seen as possible that this could happen today. This aligns with the story "Puppet Show" because of how the burro is treated. Monsters are treated the same way in this film. "Xenophobic- to be most horrified by, according to our psychologists."
ReplyDeleteThis episode addresses xenophobia by showing how anything that is out of the norm can lead to something that is shunned and accused. It alarms me at how quick people are to point fingers at and judge each other, their rude and accusatory attitudes are actually really disturbing. this episode is like the story with the slug I think, because they both have to do with people almost hating the unknown, they haven't bothered to learn about either of these unknown things so they are quick to judge them and attack them.
ReplyDeleteThe Monsters Are Due on Maple Street addresses the concept xenophobia because each person has some different reason to cast each other out, to call the other man a monster. In the film the man is accused of being a monster because his car started with out anyone and he didn't know why. Also another man's lights came on while the whole street was out of power. This man was also wrongly accused because the neighbors thought it was him that was the monster. Some things that alarmed me were that at the end of the part we watched, someone accused the boy as being the one behind the curtain. How could a boy do all of this and be called a monster? It didn't make sense to me even though he was the one with all the comics.
ReplyDeleteThe fear placed upon this community addresses the concept of xenophobia very well. This is because the situation the community finds themselves in is an unknown and foreign one, one they don't know how to handle. This makes them afraid of everything, even their friends. What alarms me is the distrust this community of "friends" really has. In "Muse", Icky is shown violence and eventually killed by those who don't understand it. This is similar to the Twilight Zone because the violence is a direct by-product of fear.
ReplyDeleteDuring the time when the power was out and the cars would not run. They all started pointing fingers at one another. Then i feel like charlie was playing them making it seem like he was the alien at first with his car. Then he just started making everyone else seem like they were the alien by playing with there head. The flickering with the lights was a nice job to get everyone rowed up and started blaming the person with the lights.
ReplyDeleteThe concept of xenophobia is expressed in this episode of The Twilight Zone because everyone on Maple street is scared of "them." The power turns off and they freak out to the point that they are attacking each other.This story aligns with the story, "Puppet Show" because like in The Twilight Zone, the humans are scared of the un-humanoid being the master race, but the key is fear.
ReplyDeleteThe people on maple street get all freaked out when the electricity goes out and then starts coming back on in spurts. This exhibits xenophobia because after the boy told everyone the story of aliens, the idea that something not human and unknown is out there. Suddenly they start questioning everybody. I think it is scary to think that this reaction could easily happen in today's society where technology is even more advanced. The street went chaotic when everyone started pointing fingers at everyone else. I found it funny at the end that it was just two men on the hill overlooking the town that was causing all of the power outages but everyone was afraid of the unknown.
ReplyDeleteI think that this episode very effectively exemplifies the concept of xenophobia. I think that it is a little exaggerated for a child to have such a great effect on the community, but it does make sense that people create a larger fear in themselves than anything else would be able to do. In Muse, the characters who were human took on an extraterrestrial race with open arms trying to understand. In this, they want nothing to do with the thought of aliens inhabiting their street. It just never quite made sense why they believed a comic book. Maybe they just wanted a scapegoat.
ReplyDeleteIn The Monster's are Due On Maple Street, we see how man gets paranoid so easily by anything foreign, and when something unusual happens they start going crazy and attack anyone who isn't completely normal. This is a prime example of Xenophobia, not in the actual life form but the thought of something else that isn't there, and their reaction to that idea of unknown people with violence.
ReplyDeleteThis twilight zone episode shows xenophobia by how the whole town reacts to the situation of the power simply turning off. They attack the scariest thing they know and eventually kill themselves because they can not stand that something is different. They all jump to conclusions really quickly and want to kill whoever has the most evidence against them. They are so afraid of something different and foreign things being in there town. This aligns with Muse because in both stories there xenophobia is to great for there existence. No one can live with so much xenophobia.
ReplyDeleteThe episode of The Twilight Zone clearly displayed xenophobia because all of the town's people became extremely frightened by not knowing why all the power was off and none of the cars were working to the point where they began to blame others for one reason or another. To me, xenophobia is complete arrogance in thinking that we are the only natural beings on the earth and that anything that is foreign to us, automatically stuns our minds with fear and we have to blame/explain our unanswered questions by making things up or pointing the finger at others.
ReplyDeleteI thought it was interesting how the end of this episode ended with the space men watching maple street destroy themselves. The men mention that they really had nothing to do with the violence that occurred except for the fact that they turned the power off. This really goes to show that we are our worst enemies and xenophobia and our judgmental nature are our tragic flaws. This also reminds me of the short store we read called Muse. The main character relied so heavily on something (Icky) that when people started judging him for it and he lost it, he couldn't survive on his own. J
ReplyDeleteThe episode addresses xenophobia by creating a scenario in which the fear of the unknown creature and possibility of it invading their world makes the neighbors resort to extreme actions. Their fear overcomes trust for their friends and they decide that the best method for finding out who the “alien” is would be to interrogate almost everyone. This is similar to the scene in Puppet Show when the town interrogates the alien about its purpose. Puppet Show ends quite differently than this episode of the Twilight Zone, but both show that information about the feared is needed either to become unfearful or to rid of the creature. The inhabitants attitudes don’t surprise me. Fear is natural and they may have taken it to extremes but the overall reaction is to uncover the truth.
ReplyDeleteThe Twilight Zone episonde clearly addresses xenophobia by creating a frea of the unknown. The people on Maple Street are so quick to put an answer to the problem that they will jump to any conclusion, no matter how logical it is. At first, Tommy brings up an idea to what is happening out of a comic book. At first, the people of Maple St laugh at him but with no other options at hand, they believe that is the only reason for whats going on. Their behavior is just like how any humans will react to prediciment. They are quick to blame others but when the fingers are pointed back at them, they have a panic attack. This episode realates to Muse because to get rid of the unknown they resort to violence.
ReplyDeleteWhat alarms me about the inhabitants of Maple Street are that in a time that is all about the unsure, and the unknown, they turn to each other and point fingers. Trying to find a scape goat to explain what going on. They are trying to find the monster while what they are doing are turning themselves into monsters. This differs from "Puppet Show" because in the story people aren't running around screaming, they are simply sitting on the side waiting for something to happen. Humans are more scared of the unknown than they are of the unusual that sits in front of them in plain view.
ReplyDeleteIn the film Twilight zone: the monsters are due on maple street, xenophobia plays a major role in the story line. When the power went out, the people of maple street started blaming friends and neighbors for un explaned occurences, one man even gets shot for trying to figure out the problem. Everyone is hating on eachother and xenophobia is showing through all of their skins.
ReplyDeleteIn the Twilight Zone: The Monsters are Due on Maple Street creates a situation in which the fear of the unknown causes the otherwise pleasant inhabitants of Maple Street to become monsters themselves, throwing the blame on whom ever seems to be the most convenient. What was alarming to me was how quickly people would decide who the "enemy" was and how quickly that decision could change. This is very different from "Puppet Show" because in "Puppet Show" they do not break into chaos at the appearance of the alien but accept him with calm wariness.
ReplyDeleteIt addresses Xenophobia in the sense that people will always be afraid of the unknown, and they will respond to it in almost the same way every time. I think they even say about the same thing at the end of the T.V. show. But getting back on track, people tend to be frantic when their lives are thrown out of whack, which may result in there being a great deal of unknown appear. That is demonstrated in this Twilight Zone episode. However, I was kind of surprised by the people’s actions in the story. Somewhat of course, I personally was surprised when they shot their own neighbor just because they were being told stories about alien monsters. They seemed to think that by destroying the unknown they would be safe, which is expected, but these guys were just crazy. But it might be about the same case if you were to take away electronic capabilities from a random neighborhood, and start messing with them afterward. I don’t know first hand, but this episode definitely gives us a look into what would possibly happen. This episode also relates to the story that we read in class, which was called Muse. That story exhibited the reactions of humans to an unknown alien life form. The humans in the story weren’t really all that afraid, but the alien was out in the open it appeared, in somewhat humanoid appearance, which probably alleviated some fear off of the humans. However, in the Twilight Zone episode, the humans don’t know what is messing with them, which causes a different reaction to come out.
ReplyDeleteIn this Twilight Zone we watched about people on Maple Street who go mad with fear of xenophobia, but strangely enough it wasn't monsters or aliens or anything strange that made the people go mad. It turned out that all there xenophobic fears were just suspicions against there neighbors, friends, and family just because the reasons for there power outages were unknown. This film shows us the dangers of how harsh and rash we can react when we don't know or understand things. In the end it really made you realize the truth of this when it shows the aliens that the people were originally feared, just watching the people destroy themselves.
ReplyDelete“The Monsters are Due on Maple Street” addresses xenophobia because everyone is afraid of the unknown. They are terrified that an alien or a “space monster” is coming to their street, that they start to take their fear out on each other. They get paranoid and start to turn their violent fears toward each other. What disturbed me was how quick they were to blame a child and to attack a child. I was also disturbed by how quickly they switched scapegoats. Their fear and hatred of the unknown caused the residents of Maple street to loose all sense of reason and rational thought. This aligns with the story Muse that we have read. In Muse, the fathers fear of Icky and their unknown connection causes intense violence as well. In both cases, fear turns humans against each other. Perhaps the main message in these stories is that xenophobia can start as fear of the unknown, but can cause us to lash against that which is known. In both Muse and Twilight Zone, the fear and hatred causes human against human conflict.
ReplyDeleteIn the Twilight zone xenophobia is expressed when xenophobia is showed. It starts out when the mans car starts by itself, and hes the only one with electricity when all the power is out. Everyone becomes hectic and is scared for the lifes. Its shows that there could be a different life form there and everyone is very afraid of that.
ReplyDeleteIn "The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street" every person exhibits xenophobia. The citizens of Maple Street find something different, and they get afraid. They turn against each other, because they are afraid that their neighbor is an alien spy. They are very xenophobic, but not towards something that is physically different. They are afraid of the idea that one of them has different intentions than all of the others. This form of xenophobia seems more justified than a physical form, because they are actually afraid of something dangerous, or at least they think it's dangerous. In the last scene of the episode, the aliens are shown in their space ship, and one tells the other that they don't have to invade the humans, because the humans essentially invade themselves. They invade themselves with their own apprehensions about an alien attack.
ReplyDeleteIn the Twilight Zone episode the neighborhood demonstrated xenophobia to the highest degree I think possible because the people weren't scared about what had just happened even though nothing was working after a meteor until the boy suggested it was aliens. The boy told a story how a group of humans in the neighborhood could have been aliens that had caused it so all the neighbors turned on each other no longer trusting anyone who they used to be close friends with. The fear drove the people to physically attack and ended up killing a neighbor over the idea that aliens were there and a figure was coming their way.
ReplyDeleteHysteria spreads rapidly with the fear of the unknown. The residents of maple street haven't a clue what they are experiencing, and, as human nature would have it, they must find a scapegoat. The hysteria causes neighbors and family members to turn on one and other much like the father and son in muse. Human disagreement and fear manifests itself in a multitude of ways, xenophobia being one of the main forms.
ReplyDeleteEveryone was afraid of even their own neighbors and friends because they did not trust anyone at all. What alarmed me was how all the the people decided who the enemy was without getting to know what was really going on first. People tend to make irrational decisions when they are confused or panicked. It relates to other stories we have read because it shows how humans are judgmental and can be afraid of things even when they aren't sure what that something really is.
ReplyDelete