The Gods Must Be Crazy
(C.A.T. Films, 1980, 109 Minutes)

Review by Dr. Jeff Mio, California State Polytechnic University, Pomona

Film Relevance and Connection to the Text
This film is most related to Chapter 14-Intergroup Relations and Multiculturalism. However, it also has relevance to Chapters 3 (The Self in Culture), 10 (Prejudice), 11 (Aggression), 13 (Group Dynamics), and 15 (Conflict Resolution, the Law, and the Developing World).

Summary/Synopsis
"The Gods Must Be Crazy" is essentially a comedy about how people from different world views can misperceive their social situation. The movie begins with a description of the gentleness of interpersonal relations among the Kalahari bushmen. Because they do not own anything, there is no need to be jealous of others. Everything is shared by the community, and knowledge is passed down from generation to generation. The hardest things in the world of the Kalahari are tree branches and bones. This pastoral existence is contrasted with the "rat race" of modern cities. A white woman from a busy city hears of the need for a school teacher in a village on the outskirts of the Kalahari Desert, and decides to leave her hectic life for a quieter existence.

The story takes a turn when the pilot of a single-engine airplane throws an empty Coca Cola bottle out the window of his plane. The plane is flying low enough so the bottle does not break. The clan of bushmen see the bottle fall from the sky and think the gods have sent it to them. The bottle is the first manufactured object this clan has ever encountered, and the bushmen find many uses for it, like smashing tubular plants into pulp, boring holes, and rolling snake skins. Emotions such as anger, jealousy, hate, and violence touch the clan for the first time as they all fight over ownership of the bottle. The leader of the clan gets angry at the gods for sending such an evil object, and tries to return the bottle by throwing it up into the sky a number of times, but to no avail. The third time he throws the bottle, it comes down and hits a boy on the head, causing pain and drawing blood. The leader then buries the Coke bottle, but because it has blood on it, hyenas dig it up and return it to the clan. The leader then embarks on a journey to the end of the world to throw the bottle away. On the way, he encounters the woman seeking refuge from her hectic city life, some revolutionaries trying to start a war, an anthropologist doing field work, the "civilized" criminal justice system, and other "modern" objects and people.

Discussion Questions
  1. Why did the Kalahari bushmen call the Coke bottle the "evil thing?"

  2. Discuss the importance of "time" in the modern world. What point was the filmmaker trying to convey by the characterization of time?

  3. Contrast the justice system of the Kalahari bushmen with the justice system that incarcerated the leader of the clan.

  4. What misperceptions of events did characters display in the film?

Student Assignment Suggestions
  1. Have students visit the university's international center, a local international consulate, or even a Web site of a foreign country to determine a major difference in perception between people from a different country and Americans.

  2. Have students write about how the terms "individualism" and "collectivism" relate to the movie.

  3. Ask two students to interview an individual who has seen the film and ask each person what idea from the film resonated the most with them. Have the two interviewers report on what they found, and center a classroom discussion around people's differing reactions to the film.

[TOP]
[W. H. Freeman and Company]