when they just kept referring to the bees as 'africans' rather than 'african killer bees' was i meant to see it as an underlying racist feeling towards african americans commiting street crime in the 70's?
'Only stupid people sleep easily.'
I know this is horrible, but when the computer gave the alert about the Africans heading for Houston, it immediately made me think of the post-storm evacuation for Hurricane Katrina!
shareIt is rather disturbing, isn't it?
Bush doesn't care about the African Killer Bees!!!!
You get Superman in a truckstop men's room, you won't need kryptonite to bring him to his knees!"
I know this is horrible, but when the computer gave the alert about the Africans heading for Houston, it immediately made me think of the post-storm evacuation for Hurricane Katrina!
There does seem to be a weird sub-text there, huh? And there are no black actors among the principal cast.
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"The Swarm".....a metaphor for black civil unrest during the 70's? Doubt it, but ya never know.....stranger things have happenned.
shareCould be - but I very much DOUBT IT.
In the 1970's Blacks in the USA were still referred to as "Black Americans" NOT "African Americans". They were not really linked or associated with Africa. The African American term did not really start until the mid 90's.
Plus - the black population of the US were significantly American. Only a very very tiny percentage were non-decedents of American slaves. Nowadays - although the immigration from The Caribbean, South American and, indeed, Africa has slightly changed the make up - the US Black population is still around 85% American. By that I mean that their families have been in the US for over 400 years.
In the 1970's Blacks in the USA were still referred to as "Black Americans" NOT "African Americans". They were not really linked or associated with Africa. The African American term did not really start until the mid 90's.
Of course. Actually, upon leaving the cinema, you were supposed to grab your Uzi and start killing blacks on the streets. Didn´t you get that?
"facts are stupid things" - Ronald Reagan
This thread is ancient and scarcely seems worth responding to, but the level of stupidity of this question demands to be addressed.
Either philupthebong lacks the ability to objectively analyze the subtext of movies or his question is an obtuse expression of his racist bigotry.
While I appreciate when people look for deeper meaning in a film's subtext, as Freud once famously said: "sometimes a cigar is just a cigar."
Subtext is only valid if there is sufficient evidence - either overtly or covertly present in the film - to back it up. Outside of that, one is merely imprinting their values on the film, rather than the other way around; hence why it's clear to me that the OP is expressing his racist view of African Americans in the 1970s; it is a simple-minded interpretation to a much broader and more complex problem that does not at all fit into this movie's textual narrative.
It's pretty clear that people like the OP use these kinds of obtuse questions to broadcast their views.
That said, even if the answer was genuine - it can be dismissed by a few facts:
A) as someone else pointed out, in the 70s and 80s the preferred term for people of African descent were typically called Black. The term African American didn't really come into parlance years after this movie was made.
B) throughout the 60s & 70s there was a real worry of African Bee invasions coming from South America by experts who said that these aggressive species were going to take over parts of the South, kill people and wipe out whole species. Indeed this never came to pass (though if I'm not mistaken, these species are here now, but have never become the disaster that experts predicted). These myths persisted until 1980s when they fell by the wayside.
It's not much of a stretch that a guy like Irwin Allen would use the source of this contemporary anxiety as a vehicle for a disaster movie.
In the old Saturday Night Live reruns", from the same era, the killer bees were Mexican Frito Bandito types mouthing bad movie lines. Talk about bad stereotypes. Of course it helped almost everyone was in on the joke.
Seriously scientists, who were tracking the bees is real life, called them Africanized Bees because that was the continent the invasive species were originally imported from. It was news media that came up with killer bees. "The Swarm" was trying for some level of scientific accuracy by referring to the bees as "African bees". No racism intended.
TAG LINE: True genius is a beautiful thing, but ignorance is ugly to the bone.
"The Swarm" was trying for some level of scientific accuracy by referring to the bees as "African bees". No racism intended.
Either philupthebong lacks the ability to objectively analyze the subtext of movies or his question is an obtuse expression of his racist bigotry.
While I appreciate when people look for deeper meaning in a film's subtext, as Freud once famously said: "sometimes a cigar is just a cigar."
Subtext is only valid if there is sufficient evidence - either overtly or covertly present in the film - to back it up. Outside of that, one is merely imprinting their values on the film, rather than the other way around; hence why it's clear to me that the OP is expressing his racist view of African Americans in the 1970s
Africa is a continent, not a race. I've met Africans who were not Black. Politics aside, this is possible the worst movie I ever saw.
shareYes, Africa is a race. Nobody is speaking about Icelanders who happen to live in Africa. It's just not a race due to today's annoying politically-correct analysis of everything. Starting from the OP >>to you. And if somebody said that African was not a race, you'd chime in to protest that. God, I hate millennial-times.
And of course it's the "worst" movie you ever saw, due to the same spoiled extreme mentality of the new-age.
To be honest though IY, it is a pretty rotten movie regardless of what generation views it. It is good for a laugh, if one has the time to spare.
Don't eat the whole ones! Those are for the guests. 🍪
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