Interacting with the Roles of Gods

Interacting with the Roles of Gods

The Gods Must Be Crazy was both witty and funny.   This movie had so much to it, one time watching the movie is just simply not enough to catch everything that’s going on.    At first it seems like the entire movie will be based on the mundane lives of the native Bushmen of Africa.  However, the outside world is brought to them in the form of a glass Coca-Cola bottle falling from the sky (the Gods).  The way they filmed the scenes of this movie truly helps set a mood of funny accidental humor.  The way that it looks slightly “skippy” makes the characters seem to move in a cartoon like manner. 

            The movie has many aspects that I found funny that I don’t know if others might.  For instance when the man that collects animal droppings, when he becomes frustrated or is asked a question he doesn’t want to explain he just says “yah yeah yah.”  Many men I bet would love to be able to just say “yah yeah yah” when their wife’s are nagging at them to do something.  One of the themes of this movie that I found was highly varied throughout the movie was gender-roles.  At first in the case of the Bushmen, it is hard to really see the gender roles really having much of a difference between the men and the women.  The men hunt, help gather and the women prepare things like snake skins, however, you see these mold together simply in the means of survival.  Then as the modern society is brought into perspective, the man is more of a tough, strong man, whereas the woman is more of a delicate thing that must be waited upon and is educated and a teacher.  The gender role of men is shown from a few characters such as the main character, the man that owns the safari tour, the rebel leader, and the Bushman.  The main character is portrayed as an idiot, however he really isn’t unintelligent.  He simply is goofy and when he is in the presence of women he just gets nervous and ends up being clumsy.  In addition, it isn’t always his fault for screwing up.  For instance when he is using the wench to pull the vehicle out of the river, he does succeed which should impress some women, however when the woman becomes stuck in a thorn bush he leaves to help her, and as a result the vehicle ends up in the tree.  This then makes him look like an idiot to the woman instead of having been innovative and a handyman.  The other man is seen as a confident man that knows what he wants.  And of course the woman is attracted to her.   The rebel leader is mean and commands authority, but also has somewhat of a soft side when it came to the kids.  He didn’t want to hurt them; he just needed them as a hostage.   Even increasing the intervals that the food water and supplies would be deposited.  And of course there was the little Bushman that had a heart of gold.  He only cared to either help others or his family.  He was honest and loving.  Before having been exposed to modern society, him and his family hadn’t ever fought or become hostile to each other. 

            I just enjoyed how the differences in the different roles were intermingled and varied from the different characters and how they came together to make a funny story and a movie that is highly enjoyable.