For this assignment I had no clue where to start to find modern examples that related back to Afrofuturism. I started by thinking of recent movies and literature that I’ve read that were in the science fiction genre and how African American characters were portrayed in them. In doing so, I got to thinking about the 2010 remake of the movie Predators, directed by Nimrod Antal. In this film, members of our society, usually trained in some type of combat, are drugged and sent away to a distant planet which turns out to be a game preserve for these alien species known as Predators. The predators hunt down the humans for sport and each year new humans are sent to their planet.
Laurence Fishburne is the only African American actor in the film, and he plays the character Noland. Noland has survived on the alien planet for years and has learned how to outsmart the Predators. The viewers initially think Noland is helping the group of humans to escape the planet; however we learn he is only a scavenger trying to kill them for their weapons.
What relates Noland back to Afrofuturism is the way in which he represents an “Other” figure to both the human survivors and the alien race. He has lived in solitude for years, and even created an outfit out of the Predator armor in order to camouflage in the forest areas. Due to lack of human contact, Noland repeatedly speaks in fragmented sentences and speaks to a voice that is talking to him in his head. In the clip I attached, producer Robert Rodriguez describes Noland as “completely crazy” because of these constant strange behaviors. Noland becomes an Other that is “broken, irregular, and fragmented, not unified and whole” (Melzer 256) because of his time spent in isolation, on an alien planet, while being hunted by Predators.
Melzer’s essay asks questions of the Other and the Self, and at what point do we stop and realize that the self becomes the Other? The character of Noland represents the struggle to sustain the Self when “the other becomes inseparable from the Self.” (Melzer 257) Noland may look human, and at times at human, but he has inherited traits as a result of living among the Predators for so long. He begins to dress like them, camouflage as they do, and even kill humans for personal gain. What Predators does is portray Noland, the only African American character in the movie, as a middle boundary between human and alien, and constantly battle with the self as he argues with a voice no one else can hear.
I have not yet seen the movie “Predators” but you blog post definitely makes me want to see it! I see a lot of connections between your description of the movie and Butler’s afrocenturistic works. In both Predators and Lilith’s Brood, humans are taken against their will and take control of them. In the beginning of Dawn, Lilith’s awakes, held captive in a new environment as well as in a new body. On page Butler states that this is “one more thing they had done to her body without her consent…we used to treat animals that way”. Subject vs. the object place a huge role in Lilith’s Brood, similar to Predators. When Earth because home to the alien race, the Human race must decide whether or not to embrace alieness, difference, and mutation. Furthermore, Butler plays with the idea of how we differentiate alieness and what control we ultimately have over our own definitions.
ReplyDeleteIn Dawn, the humans work hard to differentiate themselves from the Oankali Others. They rebel against those who are trying to “corrupt/ change them” in order to preserve their idea of what humanity is. Even though the Oanki modify the bodies of humans in a number of ways, mixing the human vs. alien identity, the humans continue to resist. They kill those they feel have “betrayed the race”.
I see a strong similarity between Noland in Predators and Akin in Adulthood rites. Both appear as the Other to both races, belonging to one particular identity. In this way, both these characters break the human/alien barrier. His speech even breaks the binary; his English is choppy and broken, appearing alien. However, while it seems that Noland is fighting for humanity, Akin takes a different approach. Using his unique understanding of both subjects and himself, Akin attempts to reinterpret alienness. He can understand the aliens and has a special bond with them, but due to his human appearance he can shift and communicate in the human world as well. He explores the connection between power and boundaries, ultimately working to connect the two worlds. He adheres to humanity’s rules while interacting with the human race in their world; He does not attempt to claim the people and the land, as the Oankali have a habit of doing. Akin acts as the bridge between the Oankali and the humans. He offers the human race a choice by offering them a solely human colony on Mars. After metamorphosis, Akin ends up with a non-human body, but he learns to redefine the definitions of “human” and “alien” to become comfortable and accepting of himself.