Movies

Thesis Statement The dominance of the industrialized West is a recurring theme and ideology in the following movies.

Although hidden and subtle, the ideology of the superiority of the industrialized West has taken over other equally legitimate knowledge systems and considered them to be second class and unimportant. Thus, the black color of skin is associated with ignorance, the lack of sophistication, underdevelopment and primitivism. Other cultures of colonized peoples are portrayed as possessing fewer rights. And the primal wisdom of aboriginal cultures and their harmony with nature are treated as something to be laughed at.
A film, in its most basic sense, is a series of shots that portray a story that the scriptwriter made and the director gave life to. There are various factors that identify what a film should be. It is grounded by production techniques, camera angling, lighting, music and sound effects, dialogues, and many more. Nothing is more important than the other element. Even so, after the whole film is created, the synchronization of the parts will come up with a totally novel whole. Inherent within the creation of the film itself is a certain ideology which makes up the whole picture, which is actually something more considerable than the sum of its parts. Therefore, to fully understand the effect of mixing these elements together, people must know how to critically assess a certain film. The true meaning of this audio-visual story will only unfold before you if you know how to ask the question why

In the film Instinct, where Anthony Hopkins played the character of Dr. Ethan Powell and Cuba Gooding Jr. played Dr. Theo Clauder, the supposed mentally-deranged Dr. Powell was detained in a mental asylum for the murder of two men. This is the starting point of the analytical process. Why was Dr. Powell in Rwanda Why in that specific place Why not anywhere else in the world Does the place symbolize anything Are the apes vital to the story And how important are Dr. Clauders discoveries about the human behavior
Every story is made for a certain purpose, and in this case, it is made to evoke the sense of mystery of what happens in the mind of a person. Because no matter how much we study the perception and behavior of people, it is still a complex thing to master. As the tagline of the movie goes one mans mind is another mans mystery. The characters were only used as metaphoric impressions (Baker) to give the film some depth.
Since times immemorial, we have already been exploring the minds of animals and people. We have been trying to crack the code of life and play God regulating all processes in the world. But these are the mysteries that the film Instinct tries to impart to the viewers sometimes, our personality, our whole being is just beyond our ability to analyze and reason out.

Yet there is a deeper and more subtle symbolism that is hidden in the film itself. There are background assumptions that will be unnoticed if one is not critical enough. Following the plot, one seldom notices that those who play the roles of doctors and intelligent people are most often Caucasians. This is against the backdrop of an underdeveloped country populated predominantly by black and relatively ignorant people as compared to the stars in the film. Unconsciously, the ideology of whites being superior to blacks is revealed in the plot of the film itself. Although this is not actually the main point in the film, this kind of ideology is continually reinforced as one views different films with the same veiled assumptions.

Another example is the film Lamant. In relation to the symbolisms incorporated in movies, the film Lamant (translated as The Lover) is a very symbolic not only concerning love between two unlike people, but also concerning the ongoing contention between the warring countries. Lamant has two nameless characters in the person of the French girl and the Chinese man, who fell in love with each other when they were riding in the same boat on their way to Saigon. If a person views this film on the superficial level, heshe will only see an unusual love story that budded between two unlike lovers with a wide age gap and different cultural backgrounds. But, if a person looks more closelycritically heshe will begin to ask why the producer of the film made the French girl poor and the Chinese man rich. Considering that the setting was time when the southern part of Vietnam was under the French colonial rule, it was unexpected to see the Chinese people being prosperous. Here, we can already see a reversal of the social status the colonized is dominant while the colonizer is subdued. And in these particular circumstances, we are able to see the structural binary opposition in the definition of colonizer and colonized. The deconstruction was taken a little further which ultimately transformed it the other way around.

There is also more that can be noticed in their love affair besides the forbidden love scenes that were shown. Although it was also used to create a mood and to communicate his vision (Baker), it was more than that. Their act of making love was for a purpose other than intimacyor that is how we perceive it to be. It symbolizes how each of the two persons use the other one to satisfy their needs love for the Chinese man and pride for the French girl. But this transcends to a deeper level when we think about it. The film actually shows the paradox that exists between the Chinese man penetrating the French girl and France penetrating China. The French girl was hurt during the first time that they made love. But as the days pass by and they made love again, it became more natural, more accepted. Gradually, a point was reached where the French girl is the one initiating the sexual encounter. This reflected China having just decided to deal with its fate of being colonized by a more powerful country it became more natural as the time passed by.

Besides, the girl used to claim that he did not like the Chinese. The main hero said, after they first made love, that he cannot marry the girl because she is not a virgin anymore. In here, the lines were dedicated to show the kind of culture they grew up in and how much they have imbibed these practices. But this is a problem created due to words. For people who do not know when to spot what is faux and what is real, dialogues can easily blur the whole essence of the story and they are likely to be completely lost throughout the film.
The movie The Gods Must be Crazy is another film laden with symbols. If someone really needs to study the art of identifying symbols then this film is a good place to start. Coke bottles are items which our current society perceives as nothing more than a container for soda. But what does soda even mean to these natives How important is a soda bottle to their daily lives It was used for a variety of ways that we have never thought of before. We have never though of using it as a back scratcher or as a hammer-like tool because we were limited by its traditional use. We were taught that soda bottles were containers, which is the knowledge preventing us from doing things that are contrary to what we know and being creative.

Although the film is couched with humor, one seldom notices the binary opposition presented between the superior white and primitive black people. As one laughs at the ways of the latter, the battle inside ones head becomes civilization versus primitive ways, modernity versus tradition, the Western knowledge versus the African ignorance, and so on and so forth revealing a deep seated ideology and Messiahnism of the West.
John Fraim supported this by saying that America is as much a prisoner of its own symbols as the rest of the world (Fraim). If we can really understand a culture from their own perspective and not from our perspective, then the plot would be reversed into a stinging criticism of the failures of our own culture in terms of community spirit, ecological practices, and spiritual fulfillment.

Similarities of the Films
In the three films presented in this thesis, it is clear that each one of them has a purpose why they were put in that certain story. The characters, the setting, the plot, the angling of the cameras, everything has a purpose. Every element represents an ideology. For the film Instinct, Dr. Powell was the mind that Dr. Clauder tries to understand. But they are more than characters in a story because they are representative of the society as a whole.  The two personas are representative of the researchers who tries to figure out what the other one has been doing all along. And while he thinks he is right, the researched thinks this researcher is the one who must be detained for insanity. But the real binary which represents a deeper ideology is between the black and white, the industrialized West and undeveloped Africa, civilization and the rest of the world.
The same goes with Lamant, which represents not only two lovers who fell in love or used each other for anything other than love. They were used to represent two characters, but also two countries.

And, the third film clearly speaks about how modern culture is superior and makes a laughing stock of traditional cultures. It is all about people who strive to make their lives easier, but in the process even makes it more complicated. How are we supposed to compare life today and life 100 years earlier In what ways were our lives complicated by the inventions that will supposedly make it a lot easier
Thus analyzing those 3 films with seemingly different plots and settings, one cannot help but realize the hidden ideology being repeated incessantly in the films that of white superiority, European or American modernity and sophistication, in contrast with the ignorance and helplessness of traditional and colonized peoples. These films clearly demonstrate the power of the West over the rest of the world. Viewed separately, the representations and the stereotypes in these films will play incessantly this hidden ideology leaving no space for a black criticism of the white, a colonized peoples criticism of the colonizer, and a traditional peoples criticism of modernity.

It is a good point to note how the directors of the film visualized the elements as carrying dual meaning in the film. The concept of the director can be commended for creating viable characters, who can represent greater issues at hand. But, as Frank Baker puts it for a symbol to be truly a symbol, it must be repeated throughout a work. And all the three films have succeeded in doing so. All who are involved in the production of the film know that they will be able to reach a wide range of audience and it is therefore important to send a strong message that their film is worthwhile. Every piece of art is made for a certain purpose. And more than expression of ones feelings and intentions, a work of art like that of film-making is very important for the promotion of cultural awareness, of deeper meaning subdued by seemingly shallow lines, and the symbolisms in the elements incorporated within a motion picture (Baker).