The report is about a film screening on November
25, 2013. The title of the film was ‘The gods must be crazy’ and it was directed
by James Uys and released in 1980. This film was screened for the students of
MA Applied Sociology as it is an important tool to understand numerous
sociological concepts.
The movie juxtaposed two varied cultures
which include a technological developed society and tribal society, namely that
of the Bushmen of the Kalahari. The film paints an exceptional portrait of
differences between human culture as well as ethnocentrism that runs common to
all.
The Bushmen’s culture is one of simplicity
and contentment. The pace of life in the Bushmen culture is relaxed and slow.
They seem to have a deep respect for all life both for human and non-human.
They are self sufficient and happy with what they have, whereas the modern
society is very different from the world of Bushmen. The ‘developed’ society is
one that moves at an incredibly fast space. It is a culture of alarm clocks,
traffic jams and coffee cups etc… Where people create complex things and make
it clear then they create complex ideas. The social construction of reality
seems to be wonderful and there are several sharp contrasts that come to light
through the thoughts and behavior of characters in the film. The first such
difference is standard of beauty, where the Bushmen saw a teacher Kate Thompson
is not regarded as the beautiful in the eyes but was instead thought to be
ugliest creature he has seen. The second difference is prevalence of fear,
where Bushmen was not afraid of gun, when he picked it up it was just nothing
more than a funny stick. Gun in modern society was considered as scared to
death. The prevalence of bottle was another incident that created fear in
Bushmen.
To conclude this film was successful in
accomplishing its intended purpose which was to show that people socialized
into different cultures which were to see the world through very different sets
of eyes and also helped us understanding how the social change is. Just because
we are different does not mean that there is nothing that we can learn from
each other.
Ambika
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