Friday, March 16, 2012

Burros? Icky? Apes? Maple Street?

How do the thematic elements(i.e.- humans' destruction, reversal of the expected, inferiority, etc...) presented in The Planet Of The Apes movie make us contemplate and wrestle with the concept of xenophobia? Does it pertain to any of the Science Fiction we have read? Use quotations from any movies and texts to support your claims. Post to this blog after for Mon., March 19th at 2:30p.m..


24 comments:

  1. I think Planet of the Apes and other stories taught us we shouldn't underestimate anyone or judge them for what they can and can't do. We shouldn't make them feel alienated because they could somehow maybe get back at us. We should be more accepting of others and be way less judgmental

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  2. The Planet of the Apes movie made me contemplate the idea of xenophobia as a whole. From one perspective, someone might say that we as humans are xenophobic towards other races and religions. Yet, these stories are on a much bigger spectrum, involving humans and other creatures that are not even human like. I can relate the movie best to the Silk and the Song, because now the Humans are the inferior race, something that is not often thought upon. Even though we might fear each other, we mutually fear a creature unknown to any of us.

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  3. The Planet of the Apes and the Maple street movie both made me think about humans and how we are potentially the most xenophobic of them all. Humans are very judgmental because they want to feel superior to everyone else. They have trouble accepting different races or people who have very different ideas. Planet of the Apes was also similar to Silk and the Song because the roles of the Apes/Hussirs were reversed with humans. Both of those stories made me think about how different our societies would be if humans were not in control.

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  4. All these stories and movies have made me think about humans as a whole and how they could potentially wreck our society and the earth. We are completely xenophobic of anything that could disrupt our everyday lives. In "Monsters on Maple Street" lights going out and a mysterious object made everyone turn against each other. In the 1950's racial issues made people get into fights, because they didn't want their everyday lives to be integrated with the African Americans. Planet of the Apes was very similar to "Silk and the Song" because humans were treated like animals. The roles were switched and human's were abused; like what we do to our animals today.

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  5. The thematic elements of planet of the apes wrestle with the concept of xenophobia in a ever lasting battle for domination. The apes are xenophobic towards the humans. They hunt,kill and enslave the humans because they think they are savage beasts, while the humans dont like the apes. The planet of the apes movie reminds me of the story "the silk and the song" we read in class. The Hussirs and apes are similar because they do not like the humans and took over the earth.

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  6. All the stories we have read and the films we watching in this unit reminded me of the power of hate and fear. In Planet of the Apes, Dr. Zaius refuses to accept the irrefutable evidence that humans are capable of thought and speech because he is afraid of them. In The Monsters are Due on Maple Street, fear drives people to do insane things like throw accusations on their friends and neighbors and even kill a man. One quote that I think really sums this up is Rod Sterling's closing narration in The Monsters are Due on Maple Street, "The tools of conquest do not necessarily come with bombs and explosions and fallout. There are weapons that are simply thoughts, attitudes, prejudices, to be found only in the minds of men. For the record, prejudices can kill, suspicion can destroy, and a thoughtless, frightened search for a scapegoat has a fallout all its own--for children and the children yet unborn."

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  7. The movie, Planet of the Apes, showed me how people should not be so quick to judge or deem other people as inferior because someday they may be above you. I think this relates to most of the stories we have read during the xenophobia section in science fiction class because all stories discuss how humans end up falling into the hands of other species because they underestimated them. Monsters on Maple Street showed how the humans didn't believe the little boy who was trying to tell them not to leave and they underestimated him and ended up being wrong.

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  8. I saw a lot of repetitive themes within the stories that we read and watched in class. Those themes happened to be things like inferiority, savagery, and the destruction of humanity by humans. Inferiority and savagery showed up in most of the stories. Most prominently that of Planet Of The Apes, and The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street. The inferiority was usually exhibited by something alien in nature, such as the aliens in the Twilight Zone episode. The primates in Planet Of The Apes was another example of inferiority being shown towards humans. The savage part showed up in both of those mediums, either it be the actual savage humans in Planet Of The Apes, or the seemingly middle class individuals turned savage in The Twilight Zone. The destruction of humanity by humans was another one, which tends to show up in Sci-Fi a lot, so why even comment on it... But to rap it all up, those stories and themes that are present within the stories show that humans are afraid of the unknown, and maybe lifeforms beyond humans.

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  9. I think Planet of the Apes and the short stories we read challenged us to think about how we view people. As humans, we shy away and judge things that are strange and different in physical appearance. We also tend to rank other races, religions, and species on a social pyramid, placing ourselves highest. The need for power over others is a common trait in many humans (ex. Hitler and the Jewish people). Films like Planet of the Apes and short stories like The Silk and the Song place humans under the control of another race. It makes the reader question their own judgmental and xenophobic nature and inspires them to think differently.

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  10. The reversal of humans is also found in Silk and the Song, where humans are treated as cattle or horses on an alien planet. However, the concepts displayed in Planet of the Apes are separated from the rest of the stories through the distinct discrimination of a society. The other short stories we have read do not have such a large scale of prejudice and discrimination, and therefore have a lower total xenophobia. The social wafare that happens in Planet of the Apes allows a much stronger concept of xenophobia to be present.

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  11. I think that the themes from Planet of the Apes shows that the unexpected is just that, unexpected. The reversal of roles where apes rule over humans can strike fear into anyone who believes such feats can be achieved. With the concept of extrapolation, who knows, one day they might be achieved. I think this ties along with all of the short stories we read this unit.

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  12. All the stories relate to each other because they all have xenophobia. Now I know that sounds vague but each story is altered. They all contain the main theme of the fear of change. That's big because when Taylor finds out Earth has been over turned by apes, he is horrified. And with Maple Street everyone on the block is scared of the change that is put upon them with the alien invaders. All of the pieces of xenophobia are all linked together but some are more distant.

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  13. The thamatic elements in planet of the apes makes me think about how The humans show xenophobic traits towards the apes and how they are basically enslaved and have no control what they do. It makes us question what power we actually have

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  14. Xenophobia is related in The Planet of the Apes and also, Silk and the Song. Both relate because each share the backwards way of humans and how they are treated. Both have a man (Taylor or Alan) that was treated like animals. Just like in the 1950's with Russia and communism, we were completely afraid of our neighbors because we thought they could turn against us at anytime. This historic connection is made in The Monsters are Due on Maple Street. The fear of the unknown or the fear of each other really plays a role in our society still today.

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  15. Our readings made us contemplate how humans are xenophobic to many foreign things, but Planet of the Apes proves how threatened we are by other races and cultures. I believe these stories and films are created out of a fear that they might actually happen, that we could become the less superior race whether it be to Hussir like creatures seen in The Silk and the Song or Apes, or aliens like in the twilight zone, it seems as though many things created in science fiction carry threats to the human race in one way or another, even if its just threatening to a few, like in Muse. Our defense mechanism towards these threats is to be cautious and xenophobic.

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  16. Planet of the Apes challenges us to rethink how we treat/react to those that are foreign to us. As humans, we tend to dehumanize what we don't understand because we want to make it "less" than us for fear that it may have greater power than us. But "Why does knowledge have to stand still?" Why cant we learn about what we fear other than shutting our minds down and sticking to the "script"?

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  17. I think that all these stories and movies we are watching on xenophobia are really showing us how truly poor we treat each other. All humans are equal but we declassify others because they are different. We fight to much also. I heard a quote one time, but i don't know who said it."When the power of love overcomes the love of power, we will know peace." I think that really shows that if we start to love each other instead of loving power and always wanting to be above our peers. These exerts show that human destruction might just drive our race to extinction. This is showed in the planet of the apes.

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  18. Planet of the Apes as well as The Silk and The Song both address the topic of xenophobia in a similar fashion. Both present humans as a subservient race, and both give us perspective as to how we treat other species. It may be that both stories were meant to show humans how other races or species that we treat unfairly might feel. The silk and the song even goes so far as to portray humans as prisoners. The enclosures that humans are detained in resemble war camps, and their controlled mating season is animalistic. In Planet of The Apes, humans are subjected to genetic testing much like prisoners in Nazi concentration camps. Both stories in their own respect are great portrayals of the concept of xenophobia.

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  19. The Planet of the Apes and Monsters on Maple Street demonstrated the fear humans have towards ideas and living things that are unknown to us. I feel the fear lead to an overreaction in most cases and that reaction destroyed the humans and turned them against one and another. This fear often caused the leading race to take extreme actions like the apes feared what the humans could do to them and their forest so they killed them and experimented on them. The fear overall seems to be the controlling factor of the lives of all involved whether there is a reversal in role like Silk in the Song or just paranoid humans.

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  20. Planet of the Apes I believe can relate to a lot of the short stories we read like how in Muse when Leo was looked at as un-human because he had Icky. Even thought Icky was so helpful he was looked at with disgust, and xenophobia. Icky's treatment was comparable to the humans in Planet of the Apes because even thought they had so much potential they were just beaten and mistreated because of people misunderstanding of these creatures.

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  21. Planet of the Apes shows a lot of xenophobia because of how the apes treat the humans. This can relate to us because it makes us think about how we treat each other. Even though we may say that all humans are treated the same way, there is always prejudice amoung us and we are classified by how much money we make and what we look like. We need to learn to stop judging others and learn to live in harmony with one another. If we don't, we may have the same fate as the apes. We might destroy ourselves.

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  22. The Planet of the Apes film showed us that humans are in the wrong. They don't treat other animals with respect because they can't communicate with us and they aren't as intellectually smart as us. The whole movie really just turned the tides on the human race. They stated that long ago humans did inhabit the earth but they eventually pushed the limits far enough and destroyed themselves. The film is really trying to say that if we don't change our ways we could be that planet. I believe that it does pertain to some of the other works we have read. Take for example the story muse. The father wasn't use to the new ways of things and his lack of understanding ended up killing the talent.

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  23. The thematic elements present in Planet of the Apes, like the reversal of the expected and human destruction of humans, make us contemplate xenophobia by presenting us with a situation that humans can relate to. Most humans can relate to being fearful of aliens, but it startles us when we must fear ourselves. Human enslavement in Planet of the Apes makes us think about how we treat animals and how we would feel if the tables were turned. We also see this in “The Silk and the Song”, and “Muse”, where the xenophobic attitudes are directed towards the main character.The theme of reversal of the unexpected can be seen in other stories we have read in Science Fiction, like “King of the Beasts” and “Random Sample”

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  24. The largest issue tackled in Planet of The Apes was the xenophobic attitude towards a past that the leaders didn’t want to admit to. They had their way of lives based in the fact that humans didn’t exist and were in power before their own existence began. The apes planet is fully founded in their “higher power” and its control over the past. This film and this theme relates to “Silk and the Song” and the desire the Hussirs had for keeping human existence as a secret. “There was a legend that humans had not only lived in the Star Tower once, but that they had built it… such tales was a good way to get whipped” (133). The Hussirs worst fear was humans gaining power again so they kept it a secret for the most part about who had power before and what the Star Tower really was. The apes know that such a secret coming free would dissolve their whole belief system and would end in disaster. As a way to prevent it, they untimitly destroyed the revealed evidence.

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