The Gods Must Be Crazy

The humour in “The Gods Must Be Crazy” has an air of innocence to it that makes the audience laugh for lengthy stretches of time throughout the entire movie (Baden). The movie’s production began in South Africa in 1981, with Jamie Uys serving as the director. The way the movie starts with a bottle falling from above and concludes with a vehicle climbing a tree is amazing. The film also exposes the Bushmen of the Kalahari Desert and the civilian metropolitan populations of postcolonial Africa as two separate societies. Similar to how modernisation is portrayed in the movie as bad, modernity is symbolized by the Coke bottle. Before it drops from heaven, things are peaceful to the side of the San people. The paper, therefore, intends to analyze the film through assessing the impact of the bottle on the society of Bushmen as well as determining if the San community deserves respect.

Impact of the Bottle on the Bushmen Society

The Bushman takes the bottle to his tribe, where it is put to various uses such as musical instrument, fire starter and sometimes a cooking utensil (Baden). However, the bottle slowly becomes an object of controversy as everybody in the society begins to fight over the bottle. The leader of Bushmen watches his people go astray because of the bottle. He decides to return the bottle to the gods to redeem the community from the evil that is befalling them. In the process, he encounters civilization to some extent as he bumps into a white insurgent leader and a biologist who are not in real terms. The character Xhosa with his bottle brings them together. It is, therefore, clear that the bottle is a sign of bad omen and lack at the same time to the Bushmen society (Baden).

Culture Respect

The culture of San people deserves our respect because of how peaceful and humble they are despite the little knowledge they have on the worldly things (Ebert). Their innocence is demonstrated in their dressing code, as they do not have much to hide compared to the civilized individuals. Despite the mocking of the Bushmen by the movie in some scenes such as Xi not aware that, the “stick” was not a gun as well as his inability to drive, the San people deserves respect because of their innocence and hospitality. The right people to tell if the San people deserve respect are the foreigners. It is because despite their mastery of technology they still need the help of the San people to drive away the lion that scares the Whiteman. Also, the technology of the white people sometimes failed hence the need of assistance from the San people to help them get through the odds of Kalahari Desert (Ebert).

Conclusion

The film stands to be an incredible piece the way it has a range of redeeming qualities. It serves as an outline of diverse cultures that interact with each other from both traditional and materialistic perspective. The film also acts as a caution to progress of technology through portraying it as a platform for control and supremacy. Apart from the morals learned in the movie, the comedy element that surfaces in the affair between the microbiologists and the schoolteacher leaves the viewer yearning for more actions (Ebert).

Works Cited

Baden, G. T. “Film Analysis - The Gods Must Be Crazy | Regarding Race, Nation, and Our Future.” 2014, grahambaden.com/2014/04/04/the-gods-must-be-crazy/.

Ebert, Roger. “The Gods Must Be Crazy Movie Review (1981) | Roger Ebert.” Movie Reviews and Ratings by Film Critic Roger Ebert | Roger Ebert, 2012, www.rogerebert.com/reviews/the-gods-must-be-crazy-1981. Accessed 2017.