Wednesday, October 25, 2017
Burros? Icky? Apes? Monsters?
How do the thematic elements(i.e.- humans' destruction, reversal of the expected, inferiority, etc...) presented in Xenophobia Concept stories and movies make us contemplate and wrestle with the concept of xenophobia?
Does it pertain to anything in our modern lives and world? Use
quotations from the Socratic Seminar, movies, and texts to support your claims. Respond to
this blog by 2:30p.m. on Wed., Oct. 25th.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
The idea that people are so afraid of things that are familiar yet different makes me wonder about our future. We have come so far in terms of accepting others, and yet there are still extremist groups dedicated to eradicating those who are different. The most basic forms of kindness are absent in most stories, and even in Puppet Show, they show aliens respect only because they look somewhat like humans.
ReplyDeleteThey correlation between the Apes and Icky and monsters is that they are all made up things that may bring fear or curiosity to people and the mass majority of people are xenophobic towards things they don't know about.
ReplyDeleteXenophobia is still a legitimate fear that people have today, not in the same context as these stories but more realistic things that we know more about, new technology, foreign things, and even people or things from other countries. People to believe in aliens or ghosts could be xenophobic.
ReplyDeleteIt seems to be a common element in science fiction that humanity is somehow either eliminated or becomes an inferior race. In many cases this seems reasonable. In the "King of the Beasts" story it is clear through the dialogue about man that humanity has done something terrible. As of now, we are causing a mass extinction of species, so in this future we may have continued this trend and ultimately wiped itself out. Also in the "Silk and the Song" story, the role of humanity is reversed and it raises an interesting question about how we are treating our own livestock. Maybe because they are less intelligent is not a good reason to enslave their species, for example horses.
ReplyDeleteAll of the stories we've read so far have something to say about fearing unknown races, or about how self destructive humanity can be. Planet of the Apes even goes as far as saying, "Man makes a desert of his home." These messages are probably meant to be taken as warnings of how not to behave.
ReplyDeleteI think the thematic elements make us contemplate what we would do in real life if there were unknown aliens or sources of life. This pertains in our modern lives because we still are scared of people in our own human society, we will not accept aliens. From all the movies, the humans immediately assume that the unknown is violent.
ReplyDeleteThese stories make me think about xenophobia because they make me curious about what could potentially happen in the future. We, as U.S citizens, are already somewhat scared of foreign people because of ISIS and other extremist groups, let alone aliens. We have never really had contact with aliens or anything from other planets, so when we do, I'm almost positive we will be afraid of them.I'm also worried because someone said during the seminar that in one of the stories, the aliens assumed that all humans were like the two they met, which would not be true. How would we feel if we went to a different planet? We would want to be welcomed, not afraid of.
ReplyDeleteIn almost every story and movie people fear what they dont understand. Like in planet of the apes. Apes captured humans to study them. And in the mapel street thing every one was paranoid when the saw the ship and all the lights were turning on.
ReplyDeleteI think that in most of the text it seems so unreal, and so fake. Like it couldn't happen. There are many people who believe that these things are real and others who dont. But I think that the text show the big what if it is real, the side of the story where the unrealistic becomes real. And I think for some people that is scary, and that they shy away from it. Most of the time the will only believe it if it has proof.
ReplyDeleteXenophobia is portrayed in the short stories and the films that we watched as an allegory almost, using the most outlandish things to explain what we already know: Fear. Fear and hatred of the unknown is almost ingrained into us at a young age, and by using things like aliens or monsters, they give us a simple to grasp and understand to put our hatred on.
ReplyDeleteThe human race is a highly selfish and unwelcoming race. We as humans discriminate against anything that is different. Because in most minds different is scary and dangerous. And because we are "human" we automatically think we are superior to any other organism. Which is not true, other organisms have more things to offer the human race than realized which is why it doesn't make sense for our first instinct to be "destroy" rather then "protect".
ReplyDelete