Critical Reflection 2- Aliens Stereotype

We have seen so many films about the alien and many of the films showed Alien have bad personalities and is bad guy. Even though now we have much more advance technology compare to last time but the true stories about Alien is still unknown to us. Whether they have really came to Earth from the outer space? We still don't know yet and not sure whether should believe the existence of the Alien but we do believe in the fact that our galaxy and space may have the possibility live by the Alien. Since we not really seen Alien before, but why do people depict Aliens with cruel intent that snatch people from earth to do their crazy experiments and whatever else? All of this is because the power of media. The media creator tries to create some stereotype for the Alien, so that they could grab the audience attention but at the same time they will change people view about Alien. When someone stereotypes someone as something, whether they want it to or not, that image spreads and soon others will begin to see the victim as the stereotype. This is just same like a virus spread because even though without any prove, audience will still feel and believe the alien stereotype that has been created by the media. Besides that, stereotype of how an alien looks through media is also another thing which is no concrete proof.

Diagram 1.1 (see above)-Do you really think Alien look like this? Or all the while we are just influenced by media stereotype?

For example, let us talk about the popular science fiction-disaster film in 2005, The War of the Worlds. The story tells about the worlds was being attacked by the Tripod machine which was operating by the Aliens. The Tripod machine able to vaporize all human within its range, and it starts to destroy all the buildings in its path. (Do the real Aliens have such machine?) Besides, the Tripod is harvesting blood and tissues from a helpless human victim. (This show Aliens are cruel killer and intent to kill all the humans, but in truth do they really like that? We still don’t have any prove yet and it was just an imagination message convey by the media creator). All the weapons on Earth were no match to the Alien Tripods Machine. (This shows the Alien technology is much more advanced than humans). In the end, the Tripods were breaking down because the invaders and their weeds were suffering from terrestrial diseases, which they have no resistance to. So, after audience watched this film especially the children, they will started to afraid of the Aliens because they thought if one day Aliens really invade Earth’s, they will be killed by the Aliens. So this is why we must think and treat Media stereotype carefully because it can create us a negative image or perception on certain thing.

Diagram 1.2- War Of The Worlds (2005)

Another famous film in 2004 which really bring negative stereotype on Alien is “Alien VS Predator”. This film show to us that the Aliens were evil, cruel and they killed humans. Besides, it is a horror type film as the Aliens looked really frightening and create a very scary impression to the audience. This is how the negative stereotype has been created towards the Aliens.

Diagram 1.3- The Alien in the film, Alien Vs. Predator (2004)

So, personally for me, I think it is actually depends on our own self whether we should trust media stereotype or not and more importantly we must have the knowledge to make critical thinking on the media stereotype. One should always remember that sometimes what our eyes see and what our brain think may not be true all the time!