therefore aliens



this is a meme

    Aliens. They represent the unknown, foreign powers, whatever. The best example of fear of the unknown is ‘religion’. Very religious people hasten to fill the void of the unknown with beliefs. And that’s cool. But I imagine part of their conviction comes from wanting to be sure of something. Aliens – from somewhere we know nothing about, who do things we know nothing about, and could or could not exist for all we know… a huge void to fill.



this is Paul

   In literature; they are often presented as evil corrupting forces. We have our typical come away with me I’m gonna abduct you and probe you and other awful things. (Scary stuff.) However one of my favorite raunchy movies: Paul; is about a good alien –who is being hunted down by the CIA. Paul is a cool dude –er, alien. He’s from another planet (obviously), and has been trapped in some CIA base making powerful friends and enemies. He meets our main characters while they are on an alien sightseeing tour. So I guess they get lucky. He meets them and freaks them out totally but eventually they become friends. So, relating back to my idea; he is mysterious, weird, disturbing looking, and he represents everything humans fear. We even address the whole religion thing when we meet a character played by Kristen Wigg named Ruth. Ruth lives in a trailer park and is a Christian fundamentalist. She is totally convinced that there is a God. Paul says; 'sorry, nope'. He’s messing with her convictions see? Basic human fear right there –doubt. He’s making her question what she has known for sure all her life. The funny thing is this movie is set up perfectly to prove my point. The basic structure of all of our main heroes is they meet Paul, freak out, but then he does this mind meld thing on them. He touches their foreheads and “copies all his knowledge and experiences into their mind.” After this they like Paul. Because they KNOW him. They UNDERSTAND him. He no longer represents a huge void to fill with explanations. So along with being a ridiculously entertaining movie the movie Paul helps me explain why we as a society fear aliens.               
    Now I know the example given to us as a class was foreign powers. That as a society we fear the foreign. And aliens represent that. And my idea is similar- you could argue foreign things are ‘unknown’. But do we really fear foreign countries? Or do we fear what we do not know about them? I’m not trying to prove you wrong here- but I have to get you back for that eye roll comment Mr. Lindsey!  I think that we don’t fear foreign countries. At least not today. Look at America – we love foreign countries! We’re practically a foreign country ourselves, American has become such a huge blanket for a bunch of different cultures. However we do fear change, racism is real and it comes from fear. The fear that things that we are so used to will change and a lot of the blame gets put on immigration or whatever. Wow I’ve gone off on a tangent. I better wrap this up. So basically – I don't know; therefore aliens. 

this is an adorable breadcat