When it is no longer a tour...11/6/13

            The movie Babel shows a series of events through several different lenses. It gives you the perspective of the perceived superior and the view of the inferior. In this movie the American tourists are the superior party, they are given the tour of which they are all seemingly enjoying until they are faced with having to actually deal with the environment as if it were their own. Since it is no longer just a place they are passing through but must actually depend on for medical treatment we see the issues that Jamaica Kinkaid spoke of in her novel. When they were just passing through it wasn’t as much of an issue that the nearest hospital to a town was nearly two and a half hours away. It only became problematic to them when they were the ones in need of medical treatment. Even then the question of whether the local medical assistance being provided was up to par with the medical treatment they were so accustomed to receiving. Why is it only problematic when the persons in need seem to be of a superior state? Shouldn’t every human have the right to the most efficient medical service available? What makes the tourist any different from the natives of the country? When it is no longer is a tour but the environment and system you will depend on for aid what makes it no longer an okay situation?

            Another lens was one that is most familiar in the United States, the “illegal alien” bias that all Hispanics that cross the border whether illegally or legal seek to do the country more bad than good. Yet these are the people that are willing to work the strenuous labor jobs for little to no pay and do not complain, because this is their idea of the “American Dream”. The nanny had practically raised the children she watched as if they were her own and without a doubt loved the about the same. When she leaves them in the desert to seek help she is taken into custody as a suspect and permanently deported to Mexico. There is no consideration taken to the fact that she placed the children in the shade she could find so they would not have to bare the harsh climate of the desert. She was not given an opportunity to obtain the privileged citizenship in the country she had made her home for the last sixteen years, she was simply deported back to Mexico with only what she had on her being. No accommodations are made for these people who may not have been able to seek legal citizenship they are simply treated as criminals and removed from what they consider to be their homes.