The Gods Must Be Crazy
A Coke bottle dropped from an airplane disrupts the quiet life of a family of African Bushmen (the San people) living in the deep isolation of the Kalahari desert. Xi, the head of the family, takes the evil thing and embarks on a journey to the end of the world to return it to the gods. At the same time, a white teacher is fed up with city life and takes a job in Botswana. She meets a shy and bumbling scientist. Their hilarious adventures and misadventures are intertwined with Xi’s journey. In the meantime, we learn much about Africa and are treated to beautiful photography of its landscape, its skies and its animals.
What is the coke bottle that should be thrown off the edge of the world represent in your life, your family’s life, and your culture? That is, what thing has come in from the outside and has disrupted the good order of things? How did it come into your life? What has it done to disrupt things? How will you get rid of it (throw it off the edge of the world)?
April 28th, 2009 at 8:21 pm
I think that the Coke bottle represents owning things.
It came through my life when Hawaii got colonized and the foreigners introduced that paradigm to the Hawaiians. Ever since then, that was the paradigm of the Hawaiians. What this did to change my life was it changed my ancestors’ lives by foreigners introducing land ownership to the Hawaiians. One way land ownership affected the Hawaiians was that the Big 5 owned a lot of land in Hawaii, and by owning all that land, Hawaiians were left with much less land and went to the bottom of society.
I am not really sure how to solve this problem because it is extremely large and I am pretty sure it brought good things as well as bad things. But the best thing I can try to do is to share everything I have and to not become greedy.
April 29th, 2009 at 6:41 am
I think the coke bottle in my life represents the feelings of anger, hate, and violence. Families are torn apart because of ownership and may not speak to each other again. The Hawaiians were torn apart when Queen Liliuokalani was imprisoned and overthrown. Now, the haoles are getting what they want, Hawaiians not knowing the truth and fighting each other.
The thing that came into my life that disturbed the order of things is my family’s new computer because my sister is always trying to go online when I am doing work, like this blog, for instance. No matter how many times I say no she keeps coming back. I don’t know how to fix this problem because I can’t get rid of a $900 computer.
April 29th, 2009 at 3:59 pm
I think that the video The God Must Be Crazy is a funny show. I thought the bottle showed that all people could get crazy when it come to ownership because the Bushmen used to do everything without it, but life became so easy with the bottle. Another thing that I thought the bottle represented that was bad is how we use other things that we didn’t use before like our pencils. Before we used berry or dirt, but now we use lead. So what I’m trying to say is it is not always good to do thing easily with technology .
I think a bottle came into our lives when the Christianity brought us God. Not saying that God is bad and I don’t like him. Don’t get me wrong, I love him.
April 29th, 2009 at 4:26 pm
The Coke bottle in my life is ownership and power.
It affected my family life when people say “that’s mine, why did you use it.” I don’t know why people can’t share just like Hawaiians would did because Hawaiians never believed in owning things. They believed the gods owned everything and that it was their kuleana to malama the land.
It affected my culture when the Westeners came and wanted to have power over the Hawaiians. They pushed the Hawaiians down to the bottom and the Hawaiians became a minority The Westeners believed in owning land. They wanted to tax the Hawaiians for the lands and that’s how the mahele got created. Many Hawaiians lost places to live because of the mahele.
It disrupted the good order of things because power and ownership spark wars between people. It can make some people so mad that they won’t even talk to someone ever again.
Power and ownership can damage family and friends so people have to learn that there are things more important than ownership like love and friendship.
April 29th, 2009 at 6:16 pm
The coke bottle in my life represents ownership, jealousy, and hatred.
It affected my life when people started not sharing and and people started to hate one another for not sharing. I mean why can’t we all share and get along? I mean we won’t feel hatred and we will live in peace. Why can’t we take turns? Just like Capri said, we should be more like to Hawaiians and share. I guess that’s what happened to Hawaiians. When the Westerners came, we learned how to own things. Now, all the Hawaiians are fighting against each other and we won’t be able to help our nation. It’s kind of like our world, if you think of it. I mean, in Japan during the Meiji Restoration, they had the war between the samurai and government. Some people liked it and some people did not like it, so they had a war. They could’ve saved couple of hundred lives if they just made a place for the samurai. Also, the Japanese in World War II were jealous of the Americans and wanted to take over the world!
Anyway I think that yes ownership and hatred and jealoiosy can desroy a lot of things!
April 29th, 2009 at 6:20 pm
I think that the coke bottle represented materialism because it was something that was very rare, and something that everyone wanted. I think the main reason that we, as civilized people, are fighting is because of greed and materialism. For example, Palestinians and the Israelis are fighting because both of them want the land.
I think that the Bushmen hardly fight with each other or get mad because they don’t have much of the things that we have, so there’s no materialism or colonialism.
April 29th, 2009 at 8:13 pm
I think that the coke bottle represents ownership and jealousy because when the coke bottle dropped, it was the only one in their world. Therefore, people fought to own it because they thought it was something special like a new resource. I think this is similar to our world because when a child has a new toy, it’s almost certain that the other siblings would be jealous and want what the other has.
Some examples of things that have disturbed our family is our computer because when one of us is on it, another person always needs to get on it at the same time. Or when I got an Ipod Touch for Christmas, my sister was sad because she wanted one too but my parents said she was too young. Also, my sister got a new DS Lite and I really wanted one too because it’s cool. Compromising is not always an easy thing to do.
I think this movie brings out a great message how times have changed where competition, jealousy and hatred are now felt more than caring and love. My parents teach my sister and I that the most important thing in life is family, God and and love.
April 29th, 2009 at 8:41 pm
The coke bottle represents ownership in my family.
For example when African American people came to America. White people were mad because to them the African American people were different so they treated them unfairly. Xi wants it to go away just like the White people wanted the African Americans to go away back then, but they just have to accept that the Blacks all the same and they should just share and not argue.
It disrupted my life because people treat people horribly just because of their ethnicity and it makes me feel bad for the people that are getting mistreated. It has disrupted things because if you look at history, you see cases when a black person went to court against a White person. Even though they know the white person is at fault, the White person would normally win. Also, in sports, they were not treated equally.
I think we can’t get rid of racism but I think that if African Americans start to show that they are no different from White people, things will change. For example, Barack Obama is now the president Of the U.S.A.
April 30th, 2009 at 4:01 pm
I thing that the coke bottle represents all the anger and hatred in the world. I also think it represents selfishness and ownership. The Bushmen know almost nothing of the things that are outside of the vast Kalahari desert so they don’t know about cars, T.V. or modern technology, but the get along with without hatred or selfishness.
I think something like that happened was when the Westerners and foreigners came into Hawaii and disrupted the peace that Kamehameha the Great had worked hard to earn. They started to introduce ownership and materialism and then after awhile, the Hawaiians stopped sharing and they began wanting money too. Because of that, they are now at the bottom of society because of the lack of money they had during the 1800’s, and the racism against them because of their dark skin.
I don’t know how we can get rid of this problem because it has been going on for so long that it seems sort of normal.
April 30th, 2009 at 4:46 pm
It is so amazing how possessions can change emotions and bring anger and hate. The bushmen found the coke bottle that someone ignorantly threw out their airplane window. The bushmen were fighting over who got to use it. They called it the evil thing. Xi said he would take the bottle to the end of the earth and throw it off.
Xi met other humans and thought they were gods. t is cool
how some people think other people don’t exist.
Lastly, this show was HILARIOUS!
April 30th, 2009 at 7:02 pm
The coke bottle is something that will disrupt your life when it was in balance, and make it something a whole lot different.
For me, the coke bottle my family’s life is the economy because before things were in balance, people had money and people could make a living fairly easily. But now with the falling economy, it’s harder to make enough money to buy what you need. I know that my family is not the only one whose way of life has changed, just like the coke bottle, dropping into their lives.
You can’t really get rid of the bad economy, but you can cut back on spending money on things that you don’t need, and reuse and repair things that you have. You could also think of other ways to get stuff such as bartering and doing more activities that are free. Just watch what you spend your money on.
April 30th, 2009 at 8:08 pm
The coke bottle represents ownership and how that can lead to hatred and other things that will affect a family. For example, if there is only one fork in the whole family, and everyone has to use it, then people are going to start being clever and hide it where only they can find it and only keep for themselves (which leads to hatred).
For me, I think it came into my life when my parents got divorced. When my mom left, she didn’t want me. She only wanted the money from my dad that he would pay if he got me. So he paid the money and he got me, and now my mom realizes that she should have took me instead of the money. Now she is fighting to get me back, like Xi and the other people fighting over the bottle. I don’t think that I can stop my parents from fighting and remarry, but I will just live my life to the fullest for now.
The show is very interesting and very funny!!!!!!!!! : D
April 30th, 2009 at 9:16 pm
The coke bottle represents ownership, hatred, and selfishness. I think they thought the coke bottle was evil because the more people wanted to use it, more people got hurt and soon the family was torn apart. If I were in Xi’s family, I would just leave the evil thing alone and try to stop the fighting.
Electronic devices disrupted my family since we were born. For example, the television has distracted us from more important stuff like homework and each other. Now my family argues at least 3 times each month.
I wouldn’t know how I would get rid of all that stuff because all of the electronics are all really expensive.
April 30th, 2009 at 9:58 pm
I think that the coke bottle represents our dependency on money.
Most people feel that things would be better if they had more money. They would have power and the freedom to buy whatever they want. I think this has made many people lazy, and not know the value of money. People become wasteful and greedy.
Money is known as the root of all evil. It makes people fight and has torn families apart. The economy is an example of how money has ruined our country because people got greedy. If everyone lived for their needs and not their wants, then we probably would not be in debt.
May 4th, 2009 at 4:07 pm
The coke bottle of my family’s life are the non-essential things. For example, my family’s television. We all want to watch different shows but we have to pick one show we all can watch. We cannot watch all at once, just like Xi’s family when they wanted to all use the coke bottle for their daily chores. They could not do that so they fought over the bottle, just like my family. When we fight, it disrupts our time that we have to watch television.
The way my family “throws the coke bottle off the end of the world” is when we all decide on another show to watch or we record the show on DVR so we can watch it later.
May 25th, 2009 at 9:49 am
In the modern world, the coke bottle is garbage. Even the contents inside the bottle is worth more than the bottle. We didn’t care what happened to it, because there was so many of them. But in the eyes of Xi’s family, it was a tool. It was a thing harder than anything they had. It was a thing sent from their god. It would cause ownership in their family. The ownership of that bottle caused chaos in ways never did before. One way is everyone wanted to have the coke bottle for their own needs, but there was only one coke bottle. So everyone was fighting over the coke bottle until Xi decided to throw it over the end of the world.
In the Bushmen’s point of view, the way that the bottle came into our life is that the gods sent it. They think that way because there was no such thing as airplanes in their life. They couldn’t recognize the bird that dosen’t flap it’s wings because there was no one around them. They were in the desert. They had nothing that could fly in the air, there was only wood in their desert.
In our point of veiw, the bottle got into their desert by a pilot throwing a coke bottle out of the window. They’re messing with their minds!
i would get rid of the bottle by digging a hole far away and burying it, not risk your life throwing it off a cliff.