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Cargo Cult: Difference between revisions
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[[File:Calvin-worship-TV 3852.jpg|link=Calvin and Hobbes|frame]]
A [[Cargo Cult]] is
The trope name comes from the documented effect that [[World War II]] military forces had upon natives of various South Pacific islands. Seventy years after the war, some tribes in Vanuatu are still building elaborate fake airfields and praying to idols shaped like DC-3 cargo planes. There is a mythical character they call "John Frum", whom they believe to be the source or harbinger of their prosperity (some anthropologists think this may have been the result of American soldiers introducing themselves as "John, from [America]"). Interestingly, it has helped prevent many older traditions of the islanders from being wiped out by conversion to Christianity.
Many Cargo Cults are distinguished by a mixture of native spiritual systems with elaborate economic rituals, as capitalism has come to replace military power as the force of the developed world that is most heavily felt and appreciated in daily life. Such rituals similarly have the aim of appropriating what the natives perceive as the westerner's "power" from his symbols, such as money or materials in addition to technology.
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* Averted and played with in ''[[The Gods Must Be Crazy]]'', a careless pilot throws an empty Coke bottle from his aircraft. It lands in the middle of a Bushmen community, who decide it must be a gift from the Gods. However, it only causes jealousy and inequality and it is decided that, yes, the gods must be crazy, and a member of the tribe is sent to throw the object off the edge of the world. Much of the humour of the film comes from the lone Bushman interpreting the things he encounters from his stone-age perspective.
** With more than a touch of [[Clarke's Third Law]] thrown in as the bushmen never actually worship the bottle, but only consider it a gift, as noted above.
** Compare ''Gods Must Be Crazy'' to ''[[The Lord of the Rings]]''. [[Nigh Invulnerable|Indestructible]] [[Artifact of Doom|evil bottle]]. Recalls the [[Death of the Author|revisionist interpretation]] that the whole notion of the One Ring was a primitive misunderstanding, or a [[Xanatos Gambit|Big Lie]] designed to mask an economic fight over resources.
* In ''[[Rango]]'', the animals treat human artifacts like pipes this way for their 'divine' ability to provide water in a desert. Verges on [[Humans Are Cthulhu]] at points.
* In the sequel to ''[[Planet of the Apes]]'', Taylor uncovers a group of humans survived the apocalypse but had been turned into disfigured mutants. They worship an intact, unexploded bomb which they keep enshrined in St. Patrick's Cathedral.
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