Wednesday, March 20, 2019
Burros? Icky? Apes? And 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 3:40p.m. on Wed., Mar. 20th.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
The thematic elements presented in Xenophobia stories make us contemplate and wrestle with the concept of xenophobia by showing how different people react to change and things they are unknown about. For example in the Planet of the Apes, there were many instances where the humans and apes acted scared or withdrawn from each other because they were different from each other. In the story Muse, the father of a famous artists killed Icky who was his snail that never left his side because he wanted his son to be “normal” and know life without it. In modern day one example is how Trump is building a wall to keep out the Mexicans from crossing the border. He does not want them invading and immigrating into the US anymore.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDelete"The Silk and The Song" and "Planet of the Apes" made me think about how we treat animals. We sometimes treat animals with cruelty and not respect, and we don't respect that they have souls too.
ReplyDeleteThe thematic elements cause us to contemplate and wrestle with the concept of xenophobia by showing that xenophobia can be shown in many different ways. In the shorter texts, you are forced to think more independently than with the longer, more critical texts. In the shorter stories, the reader is forced to make their own observations about how xenophobia is shown because they have less info to go off of. In the longer stories, the concept of xenophobia is presented pretty early on, but had a tendency to change in minor ways throughout the story.
ReplyDeleteI think that all of the concepts of Xenophobia really make you rethink society. Seeing how other treat people when the rolls are switched like in the planet of the apes. It is sad to see how poorly we treat the unknown. For example like in Monsters are Due on Maple Street they all turned against each other because they thought that there could be a monster or something that they didn't know even though nothing was coming after them. With the slug, even tho he wasn't hurting him or anyone and he was actually helping people but since no one knew what he was and he wasn't normal they treated him very poorly. In modern society, you can see how badly people treat each other and somethings it is for things people can't control, like race or religion.
ReplyDeleteIn the end of Planet of the Apes when Taylor realized that he hadn't landed on an alien planet, he was still on Earth. I think when he found this out the world became far less alien to him this was an eye-opener he realized that the humans ruined the world and the apes took over. This doesn't relate to our world too much because we haven't destroyed the planet yet but if we had there could be correlation.
ReplyDeleteThe thematic elements cause us to contemplate and wrestle with the concept of xenophobia by showing that xenophobia can be shown in many different ways. In the shorter texts, you are forced to think more independently than with the longer, more critical texts. In the shorter stories, the reader is forced to make their own observations about how xenophobia is shown because they have less info to go off of. In the longer stories, the concept of xenophobia is presented pretty early on, but had a tendency to change in minor ways throughout the story.
ReplyDeleteScience Fiction uses the concept of Xenophobia to examine how we treat the animals on our planet and the people around us. We saw our cruelty of animals through Planet of the Apes and Muse. We saw our bias for familiarity in Puppet show. These stories let us think about the way we treat others and if we need to change for the betterment of humanity and the future of mankind.
ReplyDeleteI think that a thematic topic present in all of these stories is judgment, and how we are quick to make assumptions about certain things. These stories make us think about how we treat others, and how we make judgements about others. I feel that the world can be discriminatory to certain groups of people, and that these stories make us think about what we are doing.
ReplyDeleteI think we often must reflect upon our own behavior after reading a text built upon xenophobia. Especially after a film such as Planet of the Apes, one must ask themselves if they blindly assume some one else's behavior based off of where they come from. Fictional works on xenophobia often points out a small issue in society that could easily inflate into a massive world-changing prospect. In "Silk and the Song", we are challenged to look around us and recognize if we are being manipulated to act against our own interests because of a group we may be put in.
ReplyDeleteI think that it makes me contemplate with the concept of xenophobia because it shows me the different perspectives of all of the stories/films that we interacted with. I think this can relate to modern world because there are people who have a fear of outsiders. I think that there are people in our society that judge certain people based on race, religious, past, ect.. In planet of the apes, the apes looked down on the humans and I think that can relate to certain people looking down upon others.
ReplyDeleteI think the concept of xenophobia the fear of something foreign or strange is presented by the themes of human destruction and lose of dreams. For example, in Planet of the Apes Taylor dreamt of finding a species that were better than humans but his dream was crush when he meet the apes. They enslaved him, treated all the other apes on the planet unequal, and shown how corrupted a society can be. Also, Planet of the Apes show that human destruction lead to the distinction of humanity of itself. These examples represents how humans react when they are afraid. Humans resort to violence and try to destroy something that is different. Either something/someone or even different thought. An example of this is Monsters on Maple Street when everything is acting weird. People who lived with each other for years end up fear each other and end up killing and hurting each other.
ReplyDeleteI think that "reversal of the expected" is a very effective way to get the audience to contemplate xenophobia. It challenges us to consider a new perspective, available only in an alternate society. For example, The Silk and the Song forces the reader to contemplate a society where humans are treated as working animals. It makes us rethink humans’ place in society and how we treat animals that serve us.
ReplyDeleteAll of the thematic elements of xenophobia in certain stories and movies make you really think about xenophobia. Sometime it becomes very apparent and sometimes it is very subtle.
ReplyDeleteThe elements in xenophobia make us rethink about what we as a human race do like the advancements in technology and also how we treat the world and other animal species around us by making it over dramatic. This can be seen in Planet of The Apes with the entire movie showing humans what will happen at the end of humanity.
ReplyDeleteA lot of the thematic xenophobia concepts in the stories and movies seem very strange and unrealistic to us. But, by dissecting the stories and films in the socratic seminar, it took a lot of seemingly peculiar elements and put them into perspective in a way we can see in our own lives. I think especially the reversal of the expected suddenly shows us what judgements or biases we may have, and clearly shows what they are. Whether these were illustrated to us in worlds that are either similar or different to ours, they still relate to us and really show us and force us to face our own xenophobia.
ReplyDeleteWithin the stories we have read this unit about xenophobia there has been a repeating theme of one species thinking another is lesser than them. today humans may see other humans as lesser from their own race/species.
ReplyDeleteThere is many ideas that are presented to us through the concept of xenophobia. Many of these fears and discriminations or even violence are very prevalent to societies today excluding aliens. People treat others the way that aliens are in these stories. For example, racism, sexism, or really any other type of discrimination. These ideas and lessons that are taught to us through these stories should be applied to our own lives. Judgment should not be a thing anymore because of the possible ideas that can be shown to us through people that are sometimes over looked or discriminated against.
ReplyDeleteThroughout this unit of xenophobia I have found that people are very quick to have fear of things that are unknown to them. If we are unable to accept the people in our own world that we have right now for whatever reason, then it will be much harder for us to handle new beings or creatures.
ReplyDelete"Reversal of the expected", "human destruction", and "inferiority" helps us to contemplate the concept of Xenophobia because they all challenge our thinking about the world around us. "Reversal of the expected" allows the reader to experience an alternate universe that is so absurd it points out flaws of humanity. "Human destruction" reveals the inadequacies of the human race as we carelessly destroy our environment.
ReplyDeleteThe thematic elements presented in Xenophobia Concept stories and movies that make me contemplate/wrestle with the concept of xenophobia by how humans were treated in “The Planet of the Apes” film, the apes weren’t accepting to the human culture and wanted nothing to do with it. The concept of xenophobia presented pertains in our modern day lives/world seen through the common fear of other religions, cultures, and races which is somewhat related to discrimination.
ReplyDeletemainly focusing on Icky, and the father's response to Icky.
ReplyDeletewe see his son, who is using Icky as the muse-parasite its meant to be. the dad doesn't understand or know anything about icky and since he is just latche don to his son's back, he understandbly doesn't like Icky. He doesn't realise the good that Icky does for his son. the Xenophobia towards Icky from the dad shows the fear people have to the odd, and alien objects in the world.
I think this can relate to modern world because there are people who have a fear of outsiders. I think that there cuz people in our society that judge certain people based on race, religious, past, ect.. In planet of the apes, the apes looked down on the humans and I think that can relate to certain people looking down upon others.
ReplyDelete