Film Review: "Enemy Mine"
The film “Enemy Mine” could be viewed from many different perspectives. This post will explore how it is a film reflecting how we view “others”, specifically in a racial context. The film is about a war between humans and an alien species called Dracs. During a battle, fighter Willis Davidge crashes on a planet inhabited by a Drac named Jeriba. Will tries to kill the alien, but is unsuccessful. Eventually Will and Jeriba, forced to cooperate in order to survive in the planet’s harsh conditions, become friends. Isiah Lavender quotes Madhu Dubey who says that “the process of finding unity in diversity is necessarily risky and difficult, requiring the ability to interpret unfamiliar cultural codes and the alert balancing of suspicion and trust” (Lavender 24 2011, Quoted Madhu Dubey in “Folk” 113). This, along with the will to survive, is how two enemies developed a strong bond.
The story has strong reference to the Trans-Atlantic slave trade. While the war is going on there are humans who are enslaving Dracs, which is illegal. Since the humans are at war with the Dracs the human authorities do nothing to stop it. The scenes depicting Drac slavery show human slave drivers being unnecessarily cruel and violent and Dracs being obedient and docile. Slave drivers whip the Dracs, call them names, mock them, laugh evilly and try to kill Will.
Dracs are both male and female. For the entire film Jeriba could pass for a male (Jeriba’s voice sounds like a man’s and Will refers to Jeriba as Jerry the whole time--these are just two examples). This is why it is easy to forget that Dracs are both male and female. *SPOILER* Jeriba eventually has a child named Zammis which Will finds very disturbing, probably because Will thinks of Jeriba as a male. Adilifu Nama says that “the pregnancy of the male alien character invites the audience to question accepted norms of masculinity and femininity in American society” (Nama 74 2008). It is possible for an alien with a deep voice and fighting abilities to become pregnant.
Some parts of the film are difficult to figure out what the message is supposed to be. The ending clearly shows that Will developed a connection with at least two Dracs, but nothing more is really known. Does Will learn to befriend all Dracs, or does he still view most of them as alien enemies? Does he do anything to negotiate in terms of the war or does he go on fighting? Does he do anything to stop the slavery? Nama says that the ending, having not answered these questions, “settles for suggesting that American racial conflict and division are best resolved at the individual level and ceremonially applauded rather than collectively challenged and institutionally changed” (Nama 75 2008).
The film could be looked at from a very grim perspective in that we only come to understand and accept others through hardship, and, even then, we think that that individual is a rare occurrence and an anomaly not representative of the rest of “them”.
In the beginning of the movie humans, represented by Will, are exaggeratedly violent, stubborn, disrespectful, rude, close-minded and shortsighted. Dracs in contrast are forgiving and merciful. Will tries to blow up Jeriba and repeatedly tries to harm him while laughing maniacally. Jeriba instead captures Will but does not harm him. He actually saves Will from dying of electrocution. When Will demands food Jeriba feeds him.
In this way, humans are portrayed as very savage while Dracs are civilized. On the other hand, this does not completely seem to be the film’s intentions. Jeriba first appears without clothes while Will is wearing a spacesuit, making Jeriba look primitive and animal-like. Also, the food Jeriba feeds Will looks like a giant slimy slug, which is clearly more primitive than the food Will is used to eating. Drac language sounds animal-like and Will does not even bother trying to learn it until after Jeriba has gotten pretty fluent in English. The inconsistency of portrayal makes the intentions difficult to sort out.
To come up with an overarching idea of what it means to be human according to this film I would say that being human involves elevating ourselves above the “others”, whether the way we get there is civilized or uncivilized. At the end of the film being human means feeling strongly connected to who is not a part of you and risking your life for them. Nama believes that “Here the film suggests that cultural exchange can lead to increasing degrees of shared tolerance and even mutual respect” (Nama 74 2008).
Partially because of its indecisiveness in portrayals, this film does quite a good job of leading us to question how we look at ourselves and how we treat ‘others’. Audiences can relate to the foreignness of the Dracs in their strange faces, language, and food. Yet, the Dracs have some aspect of familiarity in their religion and strong ties to family. Spirituality plays a role in the story with the Dracs’ complex and important religion and Will’s lack of it. Spirituality can be seen as that the humans are too advanced, rational and scientific to believe in a religion while the Dracs remain spiritual. Spirituality can also show how advanced the Drac society is; Jeriba carries a tiny spiritual book in Drac writing and recites passages from it. It could also simply serve as a way of making the Dracs seem more exotic. Whatever the intent, religious belief is another example of a stark contrast between Will and Jeriba.
Connecting back to society, the film clearly has a message about race and acceptance of ‘others’. Nama has an optimistic view of the film’s message, that “Despite all the back-and-forth bickering between the two foes, the film tries to convey a message of racial acceptance” (Nama 74 2008). Despite all the underlying stereotypes in the film I think this film tries to challenge ideas about blindly being enemies with someone different. Lavender says, “external encounters with aliens symbolize the internal conflicts of a humanity marked, or perhaps scarred, by racial experience, our continual state of difference” (Lavender 25-26 2011). I think this film tries to show the problems, show what’s possible, and, regardless of its intentions, encourages discussion.
Lavender, Isiah. 2011. Race in American Science Fiction. Chapter 1 - "Racing Science Fiction". Bloomington: Indiana University Press, pp. 21-53.
Nama, Adilifu. 2008. "The Black Body: Figures of Distortion," Chapter 3 in Nama's book Black Space: Imagining Race in Science Fiction Film
