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Essay on The Gods Must Be Crazy

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The Gods Must Be Crazy

The Gods Must Be Crazy 1 is a South African comedy film which tells the story of Xi, a Bushman from the deep Kalahari Desert. He lived happily with his family and tribe because he thought the god provided them with plenty of things. The film contains various elements about cultural differences and intercultural communication concepts. In this essay, I aim to analyze the film in the light of the concepts of ethnocentrism and values. The literature review of the concepts will be discussed in the first two paragraphs, and a description of the segments relevant to the chosen concepts, followed by analysis and discussion on how these segments informs the concepts and what could help viewers to understand.

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Values are separated into three different types: universal values, cultural values, and personal values. Universal values being that humans universally value good manners. Personal Values provide an inner suggestion for what is good, important, beautiful, beneficial, useful and so on. It also influences behaviour and helps solve common difficulties and problems for human survival. Members of a culture will share similar values, which are transmitted by family, media, education, and religion.

There are two segments from the film that I found particularly relevant to the concept of ethnocentrism. In the first segment (S1), when Xi saw Kate Thompson in the bush and he thought she was the ugliest god he’d ever come across from Kalahari Desert, because her skin was white, and she was covering her body with skins that looked like it was made of cobweb. The second segment (S2) is when Xi got arrested for shooting a goat. In fact, Xi didn’t know he did something wrong and was getting in trouble, he shot the goat because he was hungry and he observed the goat as food which he would like to share, but the people who arrested him thought he was stealing the goat.

Furthermore, there are two other segments from the film that I also found particularly relevant to the concept of values. In the first segment (S3), before the Coke bottle drops from the sky, the Bushmen shared everything equally and with respect. When the bottle dropped from the sky, they thought

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