Cincinnati Business Daily

How to define a historical topic that provides context for a movie?

Hi there, I'm having a little trouble with a school history assignment. I have chosen The Killing Fields as my 20th Century Historical movie, however I'm finding it difficult to define a historical topic that provides context for the movie. I have done a tad of research but am finding the amount of information and events overwhelming, I am unable to decipher a single, relatively simple historical topic. Any suggestions/ help would be appreciated! Thanks in advance

Public Comments

1. The Khmer Rouge reached Phnom Penh and took power in 1975, changing the official name of the country to Democratic Kampuchea, led by Pol Pot. The Regime, heavily influenced and backed by China, immediately evacuated the cities and sent the entire population on forced marches to rural work projects. They attempted to rebuild the country's agriculture on the model of the 11th century. They discarded Western medicine, destroyed temples, libraries, and anything considered western. Any person with trained skills, doctors, lawyers, teachers, were especially targeted. According to Robert Kaplan in The Ends of the Earth (Vintage, 1996, p 406), "eyeglasses were as deadly as the yellow star." Over a million Cambodians, out of a total population of 8 million, died from executions, overwork, starvation and disease. There were almost no drugs in the country.[21] Estimates vary as to how many people were killed by the Khmer Rouge regime, ranging from approximately one to three million.[22][23] This era has given rise to the term Killing Fields, and the prison Tuol Sleng became as notorious as Auschwitz in the history of mass killing. Hundreds of thousands more fled across the border into neighbouring Thailand. The regime disproportionately targeted ethnic minority groups. The Cham Muslims suffered serious purges with as much as half of their population exterminated.[
2. Your question is a little hard to follow, but it seems you want some help comparing The Killing Fields to other relevant genocides? Like the Holocaust? Or Rwanda (Hotel Rwanda would be something of a comparison) You have opened up a dark and ugly box, but more light will dispel the darkness.