The Gods Must be Crazy
As the Bushmen are portrayed in the film, they are a simple and quitenon-materialistic culture that lives off the land, gathering plants andhunting for their food and the survival of the entire tribe. They enjoyeach other, and do not feel any need for outside intervention or modernity. When the Coke bottle drops into the tribe's midst, it creates divisionsthat were never there before. It illustrates how just the slightestintervention by the white man can change the ways of a culture forever. AsXi travels with the "evil thing" to the end of the world, he encounters"civilization," but it does not seem very civilized to him. He is accusedof stealing a goat, and has many other misadventures before he makes it The film is a sociological study in a variety of ways, from how toolschanged the lives of the hunter/gatherers forever, to the roles and valuesof men and women in a non-structured society. Before the Coke bottle dropsfrom the sky, the people share their tasks equally, but after the Cokebottle is used as a tool, one person has the advantage over the others, and
What is most interesting about the Bushmen society is that they canrecognize how the bottle has changed their lives and that if they keep it,it will be the undoing of their society. The Coke bottle created a counter-culture thatdid not exist before it fell into their lives. As the Bushmen compete to use the Coke bottle for varioustasks, they build walls between themselves, and their society begins tochange. This illustrates an important concept in society, thatthose with the "most tools" are the most powerful, and the mostcompetitive. They have fought with each other, punishedeach other by coveting and holding a possession over their peers. They did not change because they did not have to, and their lifestyleworked perfectly for them. Theyhave had a view of materialism and ownership, and their values and moresare not the same as they were. Suddenly there wascompetition and dissention between the tribe members, and those whocontrolled the bottle were "different" than those who did not. Theirway of life seems quite simple and quaint to any Western viewer who isimmersed in the materialistic and possessive culture we live today. Their uncomplicated lifestyle is notonly to be admired, in a world where everyone seems to be only concernedwith visible possessions and wealth, the lifestyle of the Bushmen oftenseems to be so much less complicated that it would be a welcome relief fromthe pressures of modern civilization. Before the bottle, they lived simply, and continued the folkwaysand values of their ancestors, that had been handed down for centuries. This film not only shows howcultures can be altered by a single event, they show how far we have comefrom the roots of our ancestors, and despite all our modern conveniences,sometimes, this forgotten lifestyle does not seem so alien at all. The tribehad been divided from their traditional mores to a tribe that valued a"thing" more than they valued each other, and another culture within theirculture, one that valued individual possessions where none were necessarybefore.
Common topics in this essay:
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Acceptance Essays
