Friday, February 14, 2014
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 21st, 2014.
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The show The Twilight Zone shows many examples of xenophobia the first is when the UFO flies over the neighborhood and everybody becomes scared and confused because they don't know what it was. Another example is when the mans car starts running and nobody's else's did so they immediately assumed that the guy knew what was going on and they didn't so that scared them. This is alarming because people when scared and frightened are totally different people and the unknown is so scary to some people it can cause them to loose their minds.
ReplyDeleteThe episode of The Twilight Zone exposes the reaction of an entire street to xenophobia. Once unexplainable things began happening on Maple Street, the neighbors began panicking and looking for a scapegoat. I found it particularly alarming that all the people who had known each other for years were so willing to attack each other in hopes of a return to normalcy. The actions of the characters relates to The Puppet Show fairly well. At the beginning of Puppet Show, Garvane, a strange and foreign character emerges and is at first accepted by the people of Cherryville until they see he wasn't what he appeared to be. The same goes for The Twilight Zone in that all of the characters accepted each other until there was a possibility that one of them was not as he truly appeared. From this point on he had a target on his back. In The Twilight Zone we can see the absurdity of the actions people will take when they fear things they do not fully understand.
ReplyDeleteAfter an unusual disturbance, the residents of Maple Street grow in to an uproar of panic, fear, and confusion. The combination of these feelings illuminate the concept of xenophobia as these inhabitants point fingers at old friends, and target one another in search for an explanation of the unknown. The most alarming aspect of this is that no one was actually in danger, but the people made the choice to harm one another. Not only did they destroy homes with bricks and stones, but they physically attacked one another as one person ended up being shot. All of these actions resulted from a pent up fear of the unknown, while the only answers they could find were the ones they made up. When people don't understand things, they find justification in the most absurd actions.
ReplyDelete"The Twilight Zone" addresses the idea of xenophobia by showing that fear from what the people of the street don't know could easily pit them against one another and then end up destroying themselves. When they should be working together and trying to solve the problem, they are too busy fearing one another. This is very alarming because we can see things in society with similar ideas (but different situations) that could prohibit progress towards the future.
ReplyDeleteThe Episode of the Twilight Zone showed the the true meaning of xenophobia. Witch was the fear of the unknown. In the story The Monster Are Due On Maple street, was about a group of people that were very scared of a person that was actually a Alien. They didn't know who it was so the just started incriminating each other out of fear. It was sad How they just pointed fingers at each other. This story was different from the others we have watched, because this had a very strong sense of xenophobia in it.
ReplyDeleteThe Twilight Show episode has a great example of xenophobia because everyone begins to turn on on another out of fear of what they don’t know and can not control. Once the power goes out everyone becomes worried, but they all keep their heads, but then once one of the cars that wouldn’t start starts on its own everyone begins to turn on one another and become frantic. It is a frightening idea that as soon as things begin to go bad, that everyone turns on one another and even go to the extremes of murdering a neighbor that you know very well out of fear that they could possibly be something that is unknown to them. This was a very different idea from our story in class about garvain, where we didn’t react violently but were very welcoming and were ok with the extra-terrestrial being on Earth. We met to the demands of the alien and even complied with some of his requests. It’s just very interesting to see how different of people react in these situations.
ReplyDeleteIn the episode there are mysterious things going on and the people of maple street start to panic and automatically assume that one of the neighbors is an alien. This is a great example of xenophobia because it shows that the neighbors had no idea what was going to happen next and they were all terrified. It was the fear of the unknown that scared them into making irrational decisions. One guy was shot and the people started to destroy the homes and cause damage all because they were afraid of something they didn't know about.
ReplyDeleteThis Twilight Zone episode was a very good example of a xenophobic response to such a simple problem. What disturbed me most about this particular example of xenophobia was that the response of the people was very possible, if not probable, given the circumstances. I remember that somewhere in the video, Charlie states, "It's like the Dark Ages or something" when referring to the lack of electricity. In reality, the people's response in this episode was more related to the Dark Ages than the lack of electricity. The Dark Ages held a lot of fear of the unknown and hypocrisy, both of which were clearly seen on Maple Street. Charlie was hypocritical when he used others as a scapegoat but did not want to be blamed for anything.
ReplyDeleteThe other part of this episode that was unsettling was the fact that no one, when put into a state of panic, was willing to look beyond what was right in front of their faces to search for the answers to what was happening. This sort of oblivion is also seen in the short story "Puppet Show". In this story, the people that were meeting with the puppet-alien were unable to look past what was happening at that specific moment for a glimpse at what was going on behind the scenes.
This episode of The Twilight Zone shows almost defines the word xenophobia. Just being afraid and acting upon an unknown. I believe the main point of that episode was to show that humans are very capable of violence and hurting those who you know the best around you. At the same time that shows how xenophobia comes into place with the aliens and the unknown safety of Maple Street.
ReplyDeleteThe episode of Twilight Zone shows the exact definition f xenophobia. In the show they were afraid of what they didn't know. I believe the main point of the episode was to show that when there is trouble and theres no answer to why it is hapoening the characters are blaming others to come to an answer.
ReplyDeleteMonsters are Due on Maple street shows the consequences of xenophobia. A neighborhood is thrown into turmoil because of the irrational fear of the unknown. True, aliens were behind it, but not in the way the characters thought. The power around the town goes out and a young boy plants the idea of aliens into his neighbors heads and they surprisingly believe him. It didn’t take very much until friends are killing friends and families are pointing fingers at each other. Similar to The Puppet Show the real terror is happening on the outside world. The aliens In Monsters are Due on Maple street are blocks away watching the chaos from above. It scares me to think things like this have actually happened. During the Cold War the fear of communism was so intense that everyone was a suspect. Monsters are Due on Maple street shows reality in an exaggerated scenario.
ReplyDeleteXenophobia is present throughout Monsters are Due on Maple Street, the people of Maple Street don't know what is causing them horror, or the fear of the unknown.
ReplyDeleteThe twilight zone episode displays the fear of xenophobia by showing how afraid people can get from something that they really know nothing about. I think that the main idea of this story is to show how easily the human race can get scared of something that they don't know anything about and how one person or one thing can put fear into a lot of people
ReplyDeleteThe episode of the "Twilight Zone" does capture and address the term of Xenophobia with the reaction of the inhabitants of the street. Their reaction seemed a bit over the top. Sure, we may blame others for things going wrong, but will we kill each other over said problem? This episode doesn't really align with a few of the other literature pieces we've read.
ReplyDeleteIn the Twilight Zone episode The Monsters are Due on Maple Street it made me really think that our society today is like the citizens on Maple Street because we are always finding someone to blame. I think this is because we want to find the source of a problem because we are all xenophobic in a way and just want to find an answer for everything. This is where the xenophobia comes into the picture in The Monsters are Due on Maple Street.
ReplyDeletethey reacted in the biggest stereotypical way possible by killing and blaming each other
ReplyDeleteThe Twilight episode addressed the concept of xenophobia by expressing the extreme feelings and reactions that people get when they are unsure of what is going on. That humans are willing to blame any one just to feel good about themselves. There has to be an "alien" conducting the abnormalities that happen. The most alarming part about the show is the fact that they are ready and willing to kill one another without guilt, that as long as they feel like their neighbor is an alien, it justifies their "right" to protect each other.
ReplyDeleteThe twilight zone episode is a perfect example of xenophobia as soon as the UFO flies over the town they are thrown into a panic. Soon after they turn against eachother blaming one another witch leads too the downfall of there society. One scary thing about this story is the human willingness to kill because they belive there neibor is an "alien" its scary too see because what if the world ever saw such a situatuon?
ReplyDeleteThe show The Twilight Zone shows many examples of xenophobia, the fear of the unknown. When the UFO flies over the neighborhood the whole neighborhood freaks out and panic. They then lead on with blaming each other for being "aliens"
ReplyDeleteThe writers of the Twilight Zone episode, "Monsters are Due on Maple Street" display xenophobia through the characters. The characters are used to the same thing every day time after time. They like no change in their lives, but when a little change in the form of the lights going out is thrown their way, they get afraid. The people show xenophobia because they are scared of the unknown to them, they don't the lights and electricity going off randomly.
ReplyDelete