The film "Babel" stars Cate Blanchett and Brad Pitt who play the characters Susan Jones and Richard Jones who have decided to travel to Morocco on vacation in order to fix some problems they've been having and as a way of moving on after the death of there third child. While taking a bus tour Susan is shot by two boys playing with a rifle. The bus driver takes them to the nearest village that has a doctor. However, the doctors is only able to stabilize and she must be taken to a hospital, but not via the bus. Richard asks that the other tour group members wait until an ambulance can arrive, but the other members grow impatient and leaves while Richard is talking on the phone with the US embassy. After a while a helicopter finally arrives and get both of them out of there.
Meanwhile, back in the states, Richard and Susan's two children are being looked after by the nanny Amelia. With the kids parents in Morocco she is unable to find anyone to look after them. She wants to go to her sons wedding in Mexico very badly so she decides just to take them along. Her nephew offers to drive they go into mexico with no problems they attend the wedding and leave later that day. On the way back the Border guards notice the nephew has been drinking and after the border guards realize the children were taken out of the US without any consent the nephew goes crazy and runs off. Amelia and the two children are left stranded in the desert she wanders off to find help a border guard takes her into custody the two children are found and she is deported.
Back to Morocco and the two boys who shot Susan. Abdullah who is a herder buys a gun from a friend named Hassan Ibrahim to shoot jackals that go after his herd. He gives the gun to his two sons to watch over the herd. They decide to test out the gun on rocks and then on the passing tour bus where they shoot Susan. The two boys flee the scene and the shooting is called a terrorist act and begins pressuring the Moroccan government to find whomever is responsible. They find Hassan who tells them the rifle was a gift from a Japanese man and that he sold it to Abdullah. Abdullah's sons confess to him they shot the american women and believing that she is dead they try to flee. The police shoot one of the brothers after they were fired upon. The family ends up surrendering.
Across the Pacific to Japan. Yasujiro is a Japanese man who is a big time hunter he was the one who went to Morocco and gave the gun to Hassan as a gift. Yasujiro's wife recently committed suicide which leaves his daughter kind of crazy and messed up. She begins try to have sex with several different guys, but ends up striking out.
"Babel" to "Pedagogy of the Oppressed"
Given the poverty seen in Morocco and Mexico it is very easy to link these two together. Both of Abdullah's sons while neither is more so worse off then the other children in Mexico or Morocco they are not by any means upper or middle class. "For apart from inquiry, apart from the praxis, individuals cannot be truly human. Knowledge emerges only through invention and re-invention, through the restless, impatient, continuing, hopeful inquiry human beings pursue in the world, with the world, and with each other." I feel this quote helps to show that these children were in no way attempting to injury someone, but that there lack of education lead to them shooting at the bus without any thought of the people on board the bus.
Pre-Columbian
Beckyjean- "I chose this topic because it mentions the Mayan and Aztec’s writings which I find interesting."
Heidi- "There is no one answer to what happened to the Olmec people. Some say the high volcanic activity turned their lush, swampy land uninhabitable and they had to move on leaving way for others to take over and grow."
Conquest
Mary- "The Aztec empire was taken so quickly and I wanted to know why. I found out that a lot of the reason was timing on Cortez's part."
Philip- "I also think it's interesting that Columbus was a man who became historically famous from his exploits, and did so just because he was the first guy crazy enough to do what he did, and lucky enough to get enough elements right to make it."
Colonial
Dale- "The Latin American Art Colonial Era began in 1492 and ended about 1820."
Independence
(Could only find one for the colonial era)
Andrea- "By the end of the 18th, village lands were abruptly subject to expropriation by Spaniards."
Contemporary
Desiree- "This era was marked by a literary movement in which young Latin American writers were becoming popular for the subject matter in which they focused on-- politics and social advocacy."
Charles- "The "Boom" period of Latin American culture took place roughly between 1950 and 1970."
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