"The Gods Must Be Crazy" has been described as a "cruel caricature of reality" by anthropologist
Richard Lee. Lee has worked for decades studying the
Ju/'hoansi, the people depicted in the film. The Ju are also known as the
!Kung and the "
bushmen" and are part of a larger ethnic group, the
San.
While traditionally the Ju led a hunter-gatherer lifestyle, by the time Gods was made in the early 80s, things had changed. In Namibia, the South African government established a site at Tjum!kui where they brought together many Ju to live. The Ju here were given hand outs and a few wage jobs. The people were suddenly sedentary and idle, and alcoholism and social problems emerged. In the late 70s and early 80s, the South African Defence Force recruited Ju to work in the army. The SADF was fighting the South West African People's Organization for control of Namibia. The money earned by the Ju in the army led to greater social problems and the murder rate increased. The Ju also started to realize that they were fighting for the wrong side and started leaving the SADF.
It is against this background that "The Gods Must Be Crazy" was made in 1984. In the movie, the Ju/'hoansi are portrayed as foragers living in harmony with the environment, completely untouched by modern civilization. While in earlier times that may have been true in some ways, yet still quite a romantic view of things, by the 80s it was a gross misrepresentation. Depicting the Ju as the "noble savage" is racist. It perpetuates Western stereotypes of African "tribal" people and disguises the ugly reality of acculturation.
Perhaps if Uys had been more respectful to his subjects he could have made a provocative film that revealed the real plight of the Ju. John Marshall's ethnographic film "N!ai: The Story of a !Kung Woman" shows "the squalor of a Bushman camp in Namibia and then the arrival of the film crew to shoot the pristine coke bottle scene". The documentary "In Darkest Hollywood: Cinema and Apartheid" also illustrates the misrepresentations made by the film.
You can learn more about the people living in the Kalahari area at http://www.kalaharipeoples.org
On a side note, Uys paid his star /Gaq'o a paltry sum for his role in the movie. The arts community of South Africa were shocked by this, and Uys ended up paying /Gaq'o much more money later.
Sources:
The Dobe Ju/'hoansi (3rd Edition) by Richard Lee
http://www2.h-net.msu.edu/~africa/threads/filmthread.html