In Tim Burton’s film, Planet
of the Apes, the most obvious duality that I noticed was the issue of civil
liberties versus slavery.
Planet of
the Apes showed it’s viewers to separate worlds with completely opposing
values on who deserves civil liberties and who deserves to be treated as
slaves. It takes us through this journey between these two opposing societies
with Captain Leo Davidson, who worked with space programs for the United States
of America. In America, which is his world, apes were put in cages and trained
to do whatever the humans wanted him to. During a mishap in one of his journeys
in space Captain Leo Davidson ended up going through time and falling into a
different world. This world went against everything he knew, the slaves were no
longer the apes, but they were human beings. In this journey, Davidson went
from a man with civil liberties in control of apes to a slave controlled by apes.
A scene that shows
the apes as slaves is in the spaceship during the first parts of the film.
During this scene, a man who controls the regulation of monkey pods flying into
space forced Davidson’s chimp to go out of his cage and go through space even
though it was not safe. He had to fly into space because he was slave to the
choices of the humans. A scene that opposes this occurs when Davidson is in the
opposite world. During this scene, humans are trapped in cages and taken out in
order to be branded by the apes as humans. They branded these humans to show
that they were below them. These two scenes show a character development in
Captain Leo Davidson because it allows him to go full circle in this issue; he
experiences both sides completely. Davidson has a full understanding of what it
is like to have full civil liberties and what it is like to be a slave under
someone with full civil liberties.
Linsey Shubert
ReplyDeleteI really liked the topic of this blog. I liked how you put in perspective the civil liberties versus slavery with the apes at the beginning and then in the other world. I thought that the scene in which they force Davidson's ape to go out into the dangerous space but they won't let Davidson himself go out because it is too dangerous was a perfect example. You showed very clearly how the apes were treated like slaves although the humans didn't think of it like that. I also thought that your example of how the humans were treated like slaves was very clear. My favorite part of your blog was when you talked about how Davidson gets to fully understand the issue of civil liberties versus slavery because he gets to see both sides of it. This is something that I hadn't necessarily thought of and it was a great conclusion to your blog. I also love your picture!