Thursday, October 22, 2015
Burros? Icky? Apes? Monsters?
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 the movie and texts to support your claims. Respond to
this blog by 2:30p.m. on Mon., Oct. 26th.
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Thematic elements in The Planet of the Apes make us contemplate and wrestle with the concept of xenophobia in that we have to wonder and think about us as humans being the victims of xenophobia. When we hear quotes such as,"The only good human is a dead human," we are forced to think about how xenophobia negatively affects both the victims and the perpetrators. We think about ourselves in a situation in which we are persecuted and killed for our born traits, and think about the real-life past instances of this on our home planet. It pertains to other science fiction we've read, such as The Silk and The Song, which also has xenophobia against humans and similarly makes one think about the Earth instances of xenophobia.
ReplyDeleteThe thematic elements in The Planet of the Apes make us ponder on the theme of xenophobia and what would happen if such situation would take place in real life.Quotes like "Get your paws off of me you damn dirty ape!" and "A good human is a dead human." is like the aliens taking control of humans and not being so friendly with us.It also makes me think of "Puppet Show" on how Garvane the grotesque being that appears in that story,on how what would the military do in real life if such thing would happen.It might be peaceful like in Puppet Show or it might be something like The Day the Earth Stood Still(1951) where the military might use lethal force.
ReplyDeleteThe thematic element of reversal of roles is definitely apparent in many science fiction novels and movies such as " The Planet of the Apes" and "The Silk and the Song." Both examples are controversial to the thought that humans are the "dominant race." In "The Planet of the Apes," the main character finds himself on a planet where simians run the society and humans are seen as dirty and savage. As stated in the Sacred Scrolls, "Beware the beast Man, for he is the Devil's pawn....drive him back into his jungle lair, for he is the harbinger of death" (Planet of the Apes). The short story "The Silk and the Song" has a lot of similar themes as the movie. It takes place thousands of years in the future where humans are kept as slaves by a race called the Hussirs. They are a small but powerful group that treat humans like we treat horses or like the apes treated humans. In the beginning, a small Hussir asks his father if he can ride a boy into town. The Hussir says "'You may ride it if you promise not to run it. I don't want you breaking the wind of any of my prize stock'" (Fontenay 131). Surprisingly, humans are thought of as "stock" or "cattle," not as equals with the Hussirs. This is exactly the case with humans and apes in "The Planet of the Apes."
ReplyDelete"The Planet of the Apes" reverses the role of humans and apes, on Earth apes are the beasts that are "ugly," "dangerous," and overall just being disease baring creatures. However, on the Planet that the astronauts land on, the humans are the beasts that are referred to as ugly, dangerous, and disease baring. This helps us think about xenophobia because it shows how we react to animals and how we almost fear them resulting in us mistreating them. This reminds me of "The Silk and the Song" because in both stories the humans were treated like animals, except the humans were treated like cattle instead of apes; they were eaten, slaves and rode like horses and if they're wild then they are hated even more than the captive ones. "'They're getting too bold,' said Wfln angrily. 'This close to civilization, in broad daylight!.......Start putting clothing on these humans and they might get the idea they're Hussirs," (Fontenay,2-3) This entire quote is xenophobic! Wifln represents pretty much every Hussir except Blik (who actually treated humans nicely) in the sense that they think humans deserve to be treated terribly. "Planet of the Apes" and "The Silk and the Song" have the same concept of xenophobia as a lot of humans do with animals: they believe animals are not to be treated as equals.
ReplyDeleteThematic elements in Planet of the Apes make us grapple with the fact that we have to think about that when we hear quotes such as "The only good human is a dead human," we are obligated to think about how xenophobia affects the person being discriminated most, but it also hurts the attacker in a way he/she does not know, but it does because the person attacking is missing out possibly on whole new knowledge that someone new could offer. And this relates to the short story, The Silk and the Song because the Hussirs enslaved the human race and technically shut them out because they were scared and the Hussirs missed out on very many technologies that they could have.
ReplyDeleteAll of the stories bring xenophobia light because in all the themes, human destruction, inferiority, and reverse of the expected, xenophobia is what causes these problems. In Planet of the Apes we hear from Dr. Zaius, "You are right, I have always known about man. From the evidence, I believe his wisdom must walk hand and hand with his idiocy. His emotions must rule his brain. He must be a warlike creature who gives battle to everything around him, even himself." This only goes to show how humans have completely changed the world based on the existence of xenophobia.
ReplyDeleteThe stories/movies that we have watched/read in Science Fiction have all made us challenge our views on Xenophobia. But the movie, “Planet of the Apes,” challenged us greatly with the role reversal of Apes and Humans. It made us think about how we would feel if we were treated or judged as harshly as things/people we deem inferior to us. For example, it’s easy for us to call and Ape a stupid animal and put it in a cage without thinking twice. But when the roles are reversed and we’re the ones deemed inferior and being put in cages, you stop and think about how unfair we are being. We can see this in multiple stories that we’ve read. It is very evident in, “Puppet Show”. For example, the Burro or Donkey was greatly ignored because of it’s appearance. But at the end of the story, it is revealed that it is almost as if not more important as Garvane, the alien looking puppet.
ReplyDeleteEven though each of the stories relate to the concept of xenophobia, "Planet of the Apes" is the most influential because humans are the aliens in this story. The only other story we read that humans could possibly be the aliens is "The King of the Beasts" but it doesn't fully go into how much of an alien the humans fully are. Getting a view at how the other side of xenophobia feels is essential to understand the concept.
ReplyDeleteHumans are aliens in "Planet of the Apes", because they install a fear and hate, as a foreign race, in the Ape community. Humans were seen as savages, and so out of fear, the apes treated like so and were caged and put in captivity. At the end we learned that some of the apes knew all along about the human race. They kept it a secret, because they didnt want others to know that they were intelligent, and could overpower them. Another story that we read were humans could be aliens was King of the Beasts. Some race, in the future was, bringing back a "dangerous" race, along with other animals that were extinct. Seeing Xenophobia reversed or switched to humans being dangerous, has really helped my full understanding of the concept.
ReplyDeleteEven though each of the stories relate to the concept of xenophobia, "Planet of the Apes" is the most influential because humans are the aliens in this story. The only other story we read that humans could possibly be the aliens is "The King of the Beasts" but it doesn't fully go into how much of an alien the humans fully are. Getting a view at how the other side of xenophobia feels is essential to understand the concept.
ReplyDeleteAll of the stories we read in this unit challenged us to rethink our views of xenophobia. But Planet of the Apes presented the situation of human reversal, with apes being superior to humans. This challenged us to think about the way we view other species that we think are inferior to ourselves. This also makes me think about how we would handle all of these stories if they occurred in real life, such as "Puppet Show". How would we handle the situation of an alien coming down to Earth and sending a message to our leaders. What would our military do? Would they trust the alien, or would the military come and surround him to make sure he wasn't posing any threat. Planet of the Apes makes us change how we view things.
ReplyDeleteIn the story "Planet of the Apes" it shows how when something different or foreign to what they know which is Taylor they freak out and treat him harshly with the leash and all this other stuff. Which shows xenophobia because the Apes didn't think that man could evolve and be so sophisticated and smart.
ReplyDeleteIn Planet of the Apes the roles of humans and apes are reversed. This makes us think about our xenophobia for species that challenge our dominance of this planet. "Beware the beast man for he is the devil's pawn." This demonstrates the apes fear of men which is weird for us to think about. The same thing happens in The Silk and the Song, humans lose their dominance over that planet and we are forced to think of how we treat animals that threaten us.
ReplyDeleteThe thematic element of inferiority and how the roles are switched makes one think about the idea of xenophobia. The idea of xenophobia is the same where the roles are switched. Instead of having a feeling of dislike for another, they are the ones that have dislike towards them. This makes the humans be enslaved. This also pertains to “the Silk and the Song” where humans are also enslaved. A quote from The Planet Of The Apes is, “[reading from the sacred scrolls of the apes] Beware the beast Man, for he is the Devil's pawn. Alone among God's primates, he kills for sport or lust or greed. Yea, he will murder his brother to possess his brother's land. Let him not breed in great numbers, for he will make a desert of his home and yours. Shun him; drive him back into his jungle lair, for he is the harbinger of death.”
ReplyDeleteXenophobia in our culture is used against aliens, other species or races. We never turn the table and look at ourselves as the alien. The Planet of the Apes does that and shows that humans could actually be the beast. I think this movie is the most influential because it humbles our race to where we should look at our selves and maybe shine a light on our own problems. Those could be the way we treat other species on this planet, and how we treat our environment. Seeing both sides of the story is only fair and could help us in the long run of our existence.
ReplyDeleteThematic elements present in The Planet of the Apes that make us so xenophobic is the reversal of roles. In modern times apes might destroy or take our crops. In the movie the apes worry about humans destroying their crops. This seems weird to Taylor because when he came from apes were inferior and sometimes savage. When the tables are turned and the apes are now superior and smart, he does not like it and opposes it. This relates to xenophobia because it is different and unlike anything we experience today.
ReplyDeletePlanet of the apes defines the term of the xenophobia well. When apes become the master race the human that can think for himself still can not contemplate with the apes being more powerful. Also with the destruction of the human race is hard to deal with it. This shows xenophobia because the fear of the apes is like a fear of foreign things. Also with human not being the top race is a fear of foreign thing.
ReplyDeleteOut of all the stories we read "Planet Of The Apes" exhibited the most xenophobic ideas. This is because of the role reversal of humans, the movie shows how we view animals but also the xenophobic way we treat them. The other story that demonstrated the same xenophobic traits was "Puppet Show". "Puppet Show" has the same shows that the burro was the alien and because of the xenophobic way we treat animals, the burro is left out of the circle.
ReplyDeleteThe xenophobia comes up when all the apes instead of studying this new creature and figuring out why he acts the way he does, they exclude him because he will effect their culture and their belief system. when we find something that seems to go against our core beliefs, we automatically reject it. Sometimes its not just the new information that scares people, its change that scares people, the change they think that this new creature can create. I believe thats what creates xenophobia, people don’t want what they have to change, so they reject the new information thinking it bad.
ReplyDeleteI think the movie planet of the apes shows a lot of the reverse of the roles of humans, and the way the apes perceive us as just dumb animals, regardless of what actually was a long time ago. It makes you really think about ho we treat other living things.
ReplyDeleteIn the 1968 rendition of the film "Planet of the Apes", we see our hero, George Taylor, treated inhumanely by many but especially by those who are fully aware of the capabilities of man - whether they be positive or negative attributes. By the end of the film we are informed that the highest order of the apes are not only aware of the intelligence of humans, but know how dangerous the human race is, which instigates their xenophobia. Though from the on word of one, they judged and condemned all.
ReplyDeleteWhat I wrestle with, regarding the concept of xenophobia as defined in the "Planet of the Apes" film, is that we abuse and discriminate and slander those who resemble us. The apes saw a bit of themselves in the destructive nature of humans while those who didn't, such as Cornelius or Zira, held no contempt for George Taylor whatsoever.
However, the film doesn't overlap with concepts introduced in most of the science fiction text we have read in class. For example, in the "Muse" text we see Icky resembling nothing humanoid and his kind is collectively harmless, yet through the people's own paranoia of being controlled - because we, as human beings, have time and time again exercised control over each other whenever possible - by Icky's kind, they act out violently and discriminate against those who consort with them.
How the themes presented in "Planet of the Apes," makes us wrestle the concept of xenophobia is that it gives us a deeper understanding of it. The theme of human destruction gave us an understanding of how people will hurt others because of their differences. The ancient humans were lead to destruction because they weren't the same and now they pay the price for it. Another theme is inferiority, the orangutans would treat gorillas poorly because they think that they are stupid. I shows how today, we treat others because they aren't the same as us.
ReplyDeleteIn "Planet of the Apes" the humans and apes roles are switched. The humans are out in the wild and the apes are at a civilized village. All of the apes could speak and the humans had no idea how to talk. In the end we found out that some of the apes new about the human race a long time ago. Another story that is comparable is "King of the Beasts". A different race is superior to the humans and treated them like animals and slaves. Seeing the other side of xenophobia as we are the animal is necessary to know the true meaning of this.
ReplyDeleteIn "Planet of the Apes", the apes were like humans, and they treated humans as animals, and slaves. This is all because the humans were lead to destruction, after nuclear war. Also, within the ape society, they say all are equal, when the orangutans where acting like they were above all the other apes. It teaches us that if we think we are superior to other people, it will lead to our inevitable destruction
ReplyDeleteIn the film, the roles of xenophobia are flipped. This concept is typically referred to as humans being the ones who are xenophobic. However, in this film apes are the ones in charge with their own society where humans are treated like beasts by the apes. The apes are not only xenophobic towards the humans, but discriminate on each other. Much like how in our world people are xenophobic on other races, there are different races of apes in the movie and they have created a hierarchy. It puts a different perspective on the concept of xenophobia and seems silly, but us humans do the same thing in our society.
ReplyDeleteThe movie “Planet of the Apes” makes all humans uncomfortable whether it be disgust for the way Taylor was treated, or the realization that we treat animals the same way. We reverse the roles of the animal and human and discover the fault in humanity. It may make us uncomfortable that we realize our own xenophobia and possibly rethink our ways. This is similar to the themes of the short story “King of the Beasts”. The human is seen as the most dangerous and most feared animal to the alien breeder. Both stories view mankind as ‘born killers” that are threats to the world.
ReplyDelete