Watch the Dr. Seuss cartoon posted to the blog. Post a thoughtful response to the movie on our blog. Your response should address your initial reactions to the film, what you think the film reveals about prejudice, who the star-bellies are in your community, school, etc..., and any other reactions/responses/connections you have to the story. How does this film connect to Anne Frank? Jim Crow Era? How does this story connect to the world we live in today? How might this film connect to the novel we have just finished and the play that we're currently reading?
My initial reaction is that I am very shocked and surprised! I can’t believe people would go through so much trouble just to try and be better than others. Although the video was very prejudice, it was very real and true! Just to be popular, the plain belly sneetches got stars and as a result of that, the star belly sneetches removed theirs. Doing all this didn’t help and led them nowhere. But then they realized that stars did not make anyone better, and were all equal.
ReplyDeleteThis reveals a lot about society and the people that live in it. In schools, there are popular kids who like the star belly sneetches act as if they are greater than all the other kids. Sometimes, it could just be because someone is another race or religion therefore no one wants to be friends or talk to them. In the same way, The Sneetches relates to Anne Frank and the Holocaust as well. Although there is really no huge difference between all people, Nazis believed that they were better than everyone else and were beat and killed because of it. During the Jim Crow Era, people were looked at in the same way. African Americans were mistreated because of their color. But there was no true difference between them and everyone else.
From The Sneetches we can learn an important lesson. There really is no difference between everyone in the world. If you act like the sneetches did and waste your energy and time to be better than someone, it won’t lead you anywhere. If people just thought about it and came to a realization, they would see that all people are equal and the same, no matter what race, religion, or color.
Wow, the video really shocked me in how much those plain bellied sneetches went through to be like the star bellied sneetches. It really surprised me how much they wanted to be popular, just like them. We shouldn't be like that, always wanting to be on top. We shouldn't be isolating people to be on top, or just because they don't have something that we have. We are equal in so many ways, that we may not even think about!
ReplyDeleteJust like in the Holocaust, the Nazis thought that they were superior to the Jews, and thought that they could just control them. Also, in the Wave, the kids thought that they had to join the Wave in order to be "cool" or to "fit in" with everyone else! In all these cases, there were many fights and disagreements between the two opposing teams. It shouldn't matter what race, religion, ethnicity, or color that we are, we are all the same when we break it down. We are all made of flesh and bones, so what is there really separating us? We shouldn't be like the sneetches and argue like everyone else!
Finally, in the end, the sneetches understood that they were "robbed" and basically got together and realized that there were no sneetches that were better than the other on the beaches. Then they made up and everything was good. We should all learn a lesson from these sneetches and learn to cooperate with each other, no matter what :)
The movie was pretty interesting. I thought that the cuteness of the movie was odd for such a serious subject. I guess if it was too serious no one would care. The film reveals that prejudice can happen anywhere, to anyone, no matter how insignificant the difference.
ReplyDeleteThere are many groups of star-bellies in our school. It's hard to explain exactly but it's almost like rock-paper-scissors. This group hates that group but doesn't care about that group. The group that hates that group that doesn't care about hating that group hates that group. At least that's how I see it. The question itself is too vague. In what way are they like the sneetches? Snobby and prejudiced? It's difficult to say. In school, most everyone hates one particular group. I'm not saying what that group is but I guess we are the sneetches in that case.
Interestingly this almost does relate to the Anne Frank case. People think Nazi's hated people for no reason like the sneetches. The Nazi's had many theories for why they hated who they hated. They believed in conspiracy theories and purist Eugenics. Eugenics being a sort of selective breeding science. Except it's more racist in Nazi hands. You see they believed Germans were the master race and the other races were simply pollutants which is far more serious than sneetches.
This fits a bit easier with the Jim Crow era. That was just ignorance and a type of xenophobia. Same as the sneetches. This fits into the world today. Things like nerds, and all those things seem like the sneetch predicament. It's not. Sneetches were only appearance wise. Nerds and geeks, etc. have an entirely different way of life. Socially, they are completely inept in most situations which causes them to be hated and scorned. The problems we have are much more serious and can only be fixed through persistence and understanding. These same things apply to the Wave. It's not appearance. It's a belief system.
Final note: The end of prejudice is something we may never see. Religions do not allow other religions for the most part. You may argue this but some people still believe if you are not apart of the religion they are in you are going to a very bad place. Some religions see other religions as affronts to their god and may see fit to cleanse those of another religion. Yeah. I have nothing else to say
i thought that this short clip was very funny and interesting. I think that the sneeches are very ignorant because the part where the sneeches were running from machine to the other they never stopped to look that monkey McBee was taking all of their money.
ReplyDeleteThis is very similar to our world today, people are put into different groups like athletic, preppy, nerd and just in the middle, etc. If everyone wanted to be classified into one group sooner or later the group will switch to another one. Or if a couple of kids wear something that catches on like the rubberbands people will soon stop and switch to something new.
By the end the sneeches learned a lesson and co-operated with each other and found out that all men are equal. People today are very prejudice just because a person looks a certain way does not mean they act that way. In the sneech clip the Star bellis in the beggining were very snooty and acted better than the no stars.
When the no stars got stars the origional stars felt demoted so they took their stars off.
My reaction was shocked. How could someone treat someone else like that? It was terrible because the star bellied sneeches saw themselves as great because they had a star on their bellies. Popular people in school act the way that the star bellied sneeches do: better than everyone else. This is predjudice because by seeing the plain bellies the star bellied sneeches automatically hated the others. It's judging a book by it's cover. No one even dared to wonder what those other sneeches felt like. It is an awful situation to be in. In Anne Frank, Nazis saw themselves as the surperior race and demanded that jews wear yellow stars to point them out. It was even about appearance, it was about what someone believed in. The Jim Crow laws are a better example. In this case the star-bellied sneeches are whites and thhe plain are blacks. THey were segrated because they were "separate, but equal". I beleive that they just stated that quote to make everyone happy, whether it was true or not. But yes whites treated the blacks as the plain bellied sneeches and they acted the same way: snooty, snobby, arrogant. People (like in the Wave) join things just to get some soptlight or recongition. Maybe attention of following students, but they do it to fit in.
ReplyDeleteWhen I first saw the video, I was very suprised. I thought it was ridiculous that the sneetches would go so far as to change their body just to fit in with the other groups society. I feel that this clip really shows how far people will go to avoid prejudice.
ReplyDeleteThe Nazi's are similar to the sneetches in the way that they singled out a group of people and shunned them. For the sneetches, it was those with no stars upon thars, and for the Nazi's, it was the Jews. The big difference is that Nazi's were responsible for a massive ethinic cleansing for those they did not like, and the sneetches were just being mean.
This story fits better to the Jim Crow era. The star bellied sneetches treated the plain bellied sneetches in the same way that the white people treated the black people during that time. I think that this story is more of an allegory towards segregation during the Jim Crow era than the Holocaust.
It surprised me how the unpopular sneetches kept doing so much just to be like the popular ones and the popular ones did so much to be unlike the unpopular ones. I was surprised that there wasn’t one sneetch who decided not to change every single time. If I were a sneetch, I would not change, and if I did the first time or two I definitely wouldn’t keep changing every time.
ReplyDeleteThis film connects to Anne Frank and the Holocaust because during the Holocaust, Jews had to sew stars upon their shirts above their heart. In both this and the Holocaust, stars helped determine who would be discriminated against. It connected to both the Jim Crow era and the Holocaust because a large group was excluded from society and was forced to be separated from another large group. This also relates to the play we are currently reading because, in the beginning, stars were forced upon them and, later on, the sneetches tried to remove their stars. In both the time periods we have studied and this story, one group thinks they are better than another group. This is similar to the Jim Crow period because the only differences between the groups are physical ones.
This film reveals how prejudice has no basis. Once the sneetches forgot who was originally star-bellied and who wasn’t they didn’t discriminate anymore. Discrimination has no basis and there is no real difference between those who are discriminated against and those who aren’t.
I have to agree with Nick's first comment, Dr.Seuss sure knows how to portray a serious topic! The message of the film obviously says a lot about prejudice in general. Sometimes, people have prejudices/biases for no reason at all (almost always the case...)! Usually, it can't be helped. As the green little man said, things go out of style/fashion, just as old trends start to wear out, and new trends arise. This starts to give the hint that prejudice is something that can't always be helped. Even today, all of the stereotypes that have been developed against or supporting races, nations, religions, etc. are a form of blatant prejudice.
ReplyDeleteIn the real world (not the sneeches), social hierarchy has caused all sorts of prejudice. In school, everyone knows the first thing that starts when the year starts - making groups. Whether it's in the same group of interest, race, or maybe even just gender, we all hold different prejudices against each other. Star-bellies at the start of the movie might represent the popular kids, or the influential characters. At other points in the movie, they're considered complete outcasts! Although, this says a lot about how we think in general - moving on to a different point, everyone is unique! It's impossible to completely distinguish groups of people. As some people pointed out in class today, at the beginning of the story/movie, if the Sneeches with no stars on their bellies simply didn't care about their differences, why would it matter in the first place? Why cause so much trouble to start with?
The film can be directly related to Anne Frank, as well as the millions of Jews that were exterminated in the Holocaust era. Based on pure prejudice - that Jews spread diseases, that their religion did not support the nation, etc. Hitler decided to implement his Final Solutions plan, to eliminate all Jews. Even though we're talking about some pretty big/controversial subjects here, I think it's still relatively difficult to achieve world peace. Lots of times, we simply can't accept the differences. Jim Crow Laws make an excellent example... whites were obviously prejudiced against blacks. In my eyes, prejudice is almost like saying, :" Hey, you're different. Therefore, you cannot be a part of us." This is true even in the world that we live in today.
My initial response to the film was amusement, and then on a more serious note, I thought it was very real and true. I think that accurately shows in cartoon form, what would be real life prejudice. It shows that even though there may be physical difference in people they are all equal and mean the same. One mustn’t be discriminated by religion, thoughts, heritage, or in this case, appearance. This kind of prejudice is shown almost every day in school by bullies who are insecure and popular cliques who consider themselves higher than the rest. I thought the film correctly portrayed what is happening all over the world. This picture can also be represented in Anne Frank and the entire Holocaust. Jewish people were discriminated because of their religion. Even killed for it. The Nazis blamed them for all the problems Germany was going through. This also relates to the Jim Crow laws because African Americans were segregated and were limited in their liberties because of their color, a petty thing to be hated for just like the bare-bellied sneetches. What has happened in the past has not stopped. Third-world countries in the middle-east are facing prejudice all the time. Women in Iran and Iraq are attacked and killed because of their want to learn. In their countries women are considered less than men, therefore unworthy of an education. The Wave relates to the topic of prejudice not because of appearance but because of thought and action, which is much more powerful. Something like that can evoke a lot of emotion and influence. One thing that i noticed was that both the Jewish (including Anne Frank) and the sneetches wore stars. Though two differnt stars none the less, they marked them as different and one more powerful than the other.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Nicolas about how the movie was terribly cute, considering it was on such a somber topic. I think, though, that the sneetches portray prejudice in communities perfectly. It seems to me that history keeps repeating its self in that people are always being discriminated against merely because they are "different". It saddens me that people (and sneetches) feel that they must degrade themselves to fit in. It tends to leech our world of some of its originality. This fits into some of the literature that we have been reading of late. At one point in "The Wave", students were signing up right and left to get into the Wave. They felt that once they belonged to this group, they would be just as popular as everyone else. Though, later on, some of their peers who resisted the Wave (such as Laurie, the anonymous writer, and the kid who got beat up) were picked on and Wave members looked at them with disgust. That is very similar what happened to the Jews, gypsies, homosexuals, handicapped, etc. who were persecuted during the Holocaust. They were stripped of all their rights! I also find it eerie that Dr. Suess decided to use the symbol of a star in his story, since that was what the Jews were forced to sew on their clothes. Yet another example of history repeating is the Jim Crow laws and the segregation that happened in the US. Blacks also had no rights, and they weren't allowed to use the same facilities as the whites were, just like the plain bellied sneetches weren't allowed on the same beaches as the starred bellied sneetches. I just hope that some day that all of us will also wake up and not care who has brown hair, who prays at a temple, or who has two starts on their back. I think there is definitely something to be learned from Dr. Seuss and what he teaches of the sneetches who live on the sunny beaches.
ReplyDeleteAs everyone else said, I agree with Nick. This was a very interesting movie, that portrayed prejudice exactly how it really is. In communities, the star-bellies are just the people who think that they are better than anyone else. The sneetches wanted to fit in so bad, they got scammed into getting stars and taking them off.
ReplyDeleteThe sneetches also relate to Anne Frank and the Holocaust. Hitler believed that he was better than anyone else, and he was willing to kill to prove his point.
During the Jim Crow Era, African Americans were treated terribly because of their race. There was no real difference between the white people and African Americans, and yet the white people thought of themselves as higher than the African Americans.
After watching the video on the Sneetches, my initial reaction was surprise. Soon, I started to realize how true it actually was. Prejudice is srongly shown in this video but that is what is true in everyday situations. The Sneetches started doing all kinds of stuff with themselves. They weren't even careful about the fact that McBean was a stranger and no one knew anything about him. [This movie really was cute though :)]
ReplyDeleteI found the story of the Sneetches very similar to many things in the world. One similarity school. An everyday thing at school is being popular. You see people holding their heads up high just as the star bellied sneetches held their snouts up. People in society also separate different types of people. Here it may depend on race or religion. The Holocaust is very similar to this as well. The Jewish people were a different religion which caused them to be tortured in very harsh conditions. The Jim Crow Laws, on the other hand, was discrimination against the race of black people.
One thing I realized is that the star bellied and plain bellied sneetches couldn't be distinguished easily in the first place. They had the same eyes, the same fur, the same features and they all felt that they were superior to the other kind. I think that this is all just a way of thinking. All the sneetches think they are superior to the others, but I don't think they reallt were. Fortunately, they learned their lesson at the end (after all of their money was gone.)
I think Dr. Suess puts something interesting in all of his stories. It is really fun to read Dr. Suess :)
The clip had some interesting songs there, but there was also a pretty obvious morale to the story. Anyone, no matter what age could have told you the morale of the story. The only difference was that the younger kids would probably only tell you about how mean kids in the neighborhood shouldn’t be mean, or how bullies at school should treat people nicely. On the other hand, someone much older would probably be relating the story to recent news, such as the Rwanda and Darfur genocides.
ReplyDeleteThe story tells us that prejudice is usually over small things, and that the bigger reason behind discrimination is that people want to feel good, so they put others down to achieve it. If only people could look past their differences and accept each other as equals and individuals, the world might be much better. To get rid of discrimination, you need both equality and individuality.
If you only have equality, everything might end up like in The Wave, where everyone was equal, and no one was to think on their own, act on their own, be their own person. It was almost like everyone was one person, as they all thought the same, did the same, and believed the same. On the other hand, if you only have individuality, everyone would be on their own, and fights would occur quite often, with everyone believing in themselves, and not even trying to accept the other’s thoughts and ideas.
The Sneetches also relates to the Holocaust and the Civil Rights period. All three had one particular group, whether it was the star-bellied sneetches, the Nazis, or the majority of the white race, falsely believing themselves to be superior, all based off of their outward appearance. The victims of the discrimination are the same, only that their appearances are slightly different. Perhaps it’s only a coincidence, but all three groups seem to have issues with color. The sneetches were fussing about colored belly patches, the Nazis were worried about not having blonde hair and blue eyes, and the white people of America were obsessed with white skin.
“I wish the world was blind because that way, no one would know what color anybody was” quoted from someone who lived during the Civil Rights era.
Prejudice will probably never disappear from existence, although we can do our best to cut it down to size. People will always want to feel superior, oftentimes because they fear that if they don’t rise the top, someone else will. No one wants to be at the bottom of the pecking order. This might be things that occur in everyday life, but more recently prejudice in the countries of Rwanda and Sudan have caused mass genocides.
In the play about Anne Frank’s diary, Anne kept biting back at Mr. Vann Dan, and also upset his wife. Everyone can have a bad day or a bad week if you’re stuck with the same people, at the same place, for nine months straight. There really isn’t a whole lot of prejudice going on in the play, but we can still relate to the sneetches. Even though these people are sick and tired of each other, they should still try and understand from each others’ point of view. Maybe if the sneetches had tried that in the first place, they might not have had to go broke.
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ReplyDeleteMy initial reaction to this video was shocked, and not shocked at the same time.I couldn't believe that the star bellied sneeches would treat the plain belly sneeches so prejudiced over one silly little feature. As if life depended on whether you wore a necklace or bracelet. All the sneeches had let peer pressure and ranking get the best of them. But at the same time, I was not as surprised as I thought I would be. We see these kinds of things happening in every day life and instead of standing up and rebelling, or being an individual, all we humans seem to want is to blend into the crowd. Be treated like everyone else. And sometimes, for good reasons.
ReplyDeleteIn our community and school, the star bellied sneeches are the popular kids, the perfect people, the ones with the better advantages and treatments. Of course, it would be a natural instinct of the plain bellied Sneeches to want to be just like the cool kids and fit in. This film relates to Anne Frank and the Jewish people as well. Nazi's -like the star bellied sneeches- believed they were better than the Jews, the plain bellied sneeches.They were treated inhumanely, and millions were slaughtered, just because of their religion. It also relates to the Jim Crow era because everyone and everything was based on color. African-Americans were treated unforgivably just because they looked different than others. But in all three situations, no one was different, there was no real difference. Many just wanted to stand out as the superior race.
This story is very much like the world we live in today, where very many places are judged by superiority and small features. Places like school, the office, and even the streets. All want to feel as though their better than everyone else, therefore claiming that because of their insignificant features, they are superior than all the rest, segregating the ones who fit in, and the ones who don't.
This film also connects to the novel we just finished reading -The Wave- in where The wave began as a fun experiment of discipline, but ended up a superiority ranking device. Those who refused to join such as Laurie, the troublemakers, the anonymous writer, and the boy who was beaten up, were constantly harassed for not being part of the crowd. The kids in the wave claimed that it felt amazing to be just as equal as everyone else in a group where popularity doesn't exist, when in reality, their right to be individuals was stripped. The worst part is the kids embraced it, and became hostile towards those who didn't believe in the "wonders" the group would do.
It honestly shocked me that Dr. Suess decided to use the stars as a symbol of perfection, since in the Holocaust, it was the law for Jews to bear a golden star of David upon their clothes so society could mark them off as the inferiors. Overall, I agree with Nick's comment, in which it is a little strange for such a strong message to be displayed through a cartoon such as this.
Right after I saw the video, I was really surprised. It made me realize that everything in the book relates to everything that people have been through in the real world. I mean, right after the plain-bellied sneetches thought they were on top with star-bellied sneetches, everything turns around and they go back and forth just to fit in. The film really gives a good understanding as to what Prejudice was like and what people (sneetches) would to do avoid it as much as possible.
ReplyDeleteThe clip gave a clear idea about how the Jim Crow laws were back then. African Americans were treated like slums and lived in very bad conditions. Relating that situation to the sneetches, the plain-bellied sneetches were the colored people, and the star-bellied were the whites.
The film also realted to the Holocaust and Anne Frank. The Nazis thought that they were better than the Jews and thought they could take over them and treat them however they wanted to. They thought they were superior to teh Jews, which in turn made the Jews feel like they were less than Nazis as well.
Also, in the Wave, the kids in the school thought that in order to fit in with everyone else they joined the Wave. They didn't really care about the actual PURPOSE and just joined because it was "in" and everyone was doing to be cool.
I think that based on the film, all of us can learn that no one is better than anyone, and that everyone is the same no matter what race, color, etc.
I thought that the movie was interesting. The whole idea of an animated story added a less serious factor to the serious subject. I think that the idea of prejudices really depend upon who is on either side of the argument. If that doesn't make sense, heres an example. Ok so the original star bellied sneetches changed their stars after they saw that the non stared sneetches had stars. The only thing that made the other sneetches take off their stars was because they followed the "better" group. I think the star bellied people in our school are the ones with followers. The star bellied people will generally have people waiting to do what they want. This relates to Anne Frank because the Nazi's are like the star bellied people. They were able to convince the public that being a jew is bad. This is like how the star bellied people told their kids that the normal sneetches are not good. I think that this is a little like our world because so many people change with the times. They change their style of clothing based on what a celebrity wears.
ReplyDeleteFirst of all why does everyone keep saying the video was cute? The singing was just weird and creepy and annoying. And I think it’s horrible that people would make animated movies from a book like that because it completely ruins the book. But that’s just my opinion. My initial reaction to the film was not shock, like a lot of people have said. Instead I just felt kind of numb because I know that it is all true and we see things like it happening everywhere in history and today. The star bellied sneetches were prejudiced against the ones without, all over the small, stupid issue of whether they had a star or not. Almost all prejudice is like this; completely pointless over small stupid things like race or religion or skin color or almost any other thing someone can decide to use. The star bellied sneetches in our school are those “popular” kids; the ones who think they are better than everyone else and treat everyone that isn’t like them like dirt. In our community as a whole, there are so many people who are prejudiced against others, and the people who aren’t liked always try to fit in and be the same. In the Holocaust, Hitler and the Nazis were the star bellies that treated people they thought were inferior horribly. The same was in the Jim Crow era with the whites being star bellies and the blacks being the ones without. In The Wave people who weren’t part of the Wave were not accepted, and they all wanted to join to be like everyone else.
ReplyDeleteThis shows different aspects of Nazi leadership and propaganda. In such a hard world people always try to find differences in other people discriminating them and proving that they are somehow better or elite. The Nazis proposed that the German people were the best and no other races compare. Instead of finding difference to make them seem better they decided that they should just eliminate the competition instead. The movie directly resembles this with the person explaining that he could make their group better than the other even though he knew the whole time that they were completely the same. This is how this type of propiganda works. It sweeps through large amounts of people making it look like outsiders were lower class and being part of the group made them elite
ReplyDeleteHowdy, Mrs. Greene and classmates. First of all, watching that movie was a magical experience for me. My initial reaction was surprised that the Sneetches made such a big deal over having a star or not. It made me think of them as quite stupid. Then, I realized that the story of the Sneetches was just like school and society today. The Sneetches without a star were prejudiced against for being different and "not as good" as the other ones. They were the same animal, but just because some of them didn't have stars, they were excluded by all of the others. In today's world, many people are prejudiced against for being a little bit different from someone else or "the norm." The star-bellied Sneetches would be the popular and snooty about it kids in school. They are the ones who don't want to be different and discriminate against those who are. This film connects to Anne Frank and the Jim Crow laws because both of those were a result of people being prejudiced against for differences they had. Anne Frank had to hide from society beause of her differences. In the Wave, those who weren't part of it were beaten up and maltreated by others. Overall, this story told a lot about society today.
ReplyDeleteMy initial reaction was a little bit of suprise. I realize that this is exactly what happens in our society, but Dr. Suess exaggerated it to a point. I also felt that it was so true. I don't feel much different about this than when Mrs. Greene read us the story because it's the same thing...but with scary singing. I'm not shocked to see this happen because it happens every day. The star belly sneetches were prejudice towards the sneetches without stars without even giving them a chance. This goes on in our society every single day. We see someone who might be labeled as 'uncool' and we don't want to be their friend, just because they might look different or act 'weird'.
ReplyDeleteThe 'star bellies' in school are all the popular people that everyone loves and wants to be like just because they are deemed 'cool' and 'popular'. It's our nature to want to be loved and have lots of friends. This video relates to Anne Frank because she was a Jew and Jews were discriminated against. Jews couldn't play with other kids, just like the sneetches without stars couldn't play with star belly sneetches. The Germans thought they were better than all the Jews. This relates to the Jim Crow era in around the same way. Whites thought they were much better than all the blacks, so blacks couldn't do some things just because of their color.
This is just like the world we live in today. Everyone thinks they are one step better than everyone else just because of a tiny thing that doesn't even make a difference. They kick out anyone who doesn't fit in with them and accept everyone else gladly. This video connects with the book we just read, The Wave, because kids not in the Wave were left out and even beaten. The kids that were part of the Wave thought of themselves higher and more superior than people out side of the Wave. It relates to the play we're reading just how it relates to Anne Frank, because that is the play we're reading.
My initial reactions to the video was that why did the plain bellied sneetches care so much about what the star bellied sneetches were doing they could have just treated the star bellied sneetches the same way. However this video dies show us alot about prejudice it shows that if people get it I'm their head that they are better then someone else they will go out if their way to treat that person badly
ReplyDeleteI think people that could star bellied sneetches are the Nazis and that. The plain bellied sneetches could be the Jews because they were just there to follow the orders of the star bellied sneetches. This is a perfect representation of the Jim crow laws and segregation.
I thought this film was very well made. Though at first glance it seems elementary, it makes a very good point, and teaches an invaluable lesson. The lesson is that you shouldn't hate someone just because they're different from you. Something physical, like the stars on the bellies of the sneetches, or the color of one's skin does not determine what a person is like. It is not something they can help, if they were born that way (I'm on the right track baby I was born this way!). Hating someone because they are different from you will not accomplish anything. They may be different from you, but they never did anything to harm you or gave you a reason to be hated upon. This film describes life for Jews during World War II. They were hated for the way they were born,as Jewish, something they could not change. Hated simply because they were differnt. Just like the plain-bellied sneetches.
ReplyDeleteWell, after several days of trying I've finally managed to find this (my home computer insisted that the blog hadn't been updated since February, and the ones at school block YouTube). I thought it was very sad the way young Starbellies are taught from childhood to snub the Plainbellies. Meanwhile, rather than seeing how cruel the Starbellies are and resolving to never be like them and try to make things better, the Plainbellies are desperate to be just like the Starbellies and snub others too. While the Starbellies can be compared to the Nazis, the Wave, or the white supremacists who created the Jim Crow laws, I'm glad the opressed people of the real world have more courage. The majority of Germany's Jews did not convert, and Germans like the Franks' friends helped them survive. African Americans fought back peacefully through the civil rights movement, and the students in "The Wave" were brave enough to speak out through outlets like the school newspaper. All those institutions of prejudice fell in the end, and I hope the ones that remain today will do the same.
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