The Image of the "Other" in Children of Men, Babel, and Cronos Annmicha Blugh College

In filmmaking, directors have subtly ascribed roles of the Self and the Other in discourse. Examining the movies, Children of Men, Babel, and Cronos, one sees the Self as the one who prevails in forming the worldview and conforming the viewers’ opinion to his own perspective; whereas the Other who has a secondary role in the movie’s discussion and an inferior part in the unfolding of the action. The Other is regarded as not retaining the rights of humans but are simply used as a way to accomplish an objective. The concept of the dichotomy between the Self and the Other is a challenging topic since the prejudiced statements are not made overtly. The self is positioned at the center, while the other borders on the periphery. The ethics of the movies are built on accepted and more superior views of a certain culture, while differentiating and discriminating against the Other who may not hold and wield such power. In the horror movie, Peter Hutchings in his book The Horror Film asserts that “in the typical narratives of paranoid horror the defenses protecting this world from the other have long since disappeared” (Hutchings). Hence the horror movie depicts a world which must come to grips with the invasion and threat of the Other,...