I caught this movie “The Fever” on HBO a while ago, thinking from the title sequence that it was some sort of grisly dystopian horror movie of some sort. Five minutes into the movie led me to realize that I wasn’t going to be seeing any zombies, but by then I was hooked with the movie’s strange method of presentation – a monologuing main character. She was this rich, slightly aged urban socialite whose life had nosedived into existential angst after becoming aware of politics, economic exploitation, and the emptiness of consumerism, and how it related to her. She starts thinking, seeing things differently; she questions the morality and righteousness of her privileged life; her little bubble of comfort and contentment is popped. She travels to some unknown country in Eastern Europe, where she confronts herself about everything – economic divisions, the rich-poor gap, the brutality of the economic system, the stupidity of her own perceived tribulations, and the truth about her own life.
It was interesting, to say the least, because the character was far from boring – she was not only monologuing, she was talking to herself; it was a discussion with herself about her life, questioning herself if she deserved what she had. I *did* feel like I was watching something close to communist propaganda, yet I couldn’t ignore the fact that a lot of the things she had argued with herself made sense.
For example, those with money dictate the way things are. In the movie:
Where do all these objects come from?… How does it happen that these things are made and not others? Of course, there are only a limited number of workers in the world. And each day they do a limited number of things: some things and not other things. Who tells them what they ought to do? The holders of money. They bid their money for the things they want and each bit of money determines some fraction of the day’s activities. So the people who have a little determine a little and the people who have a *lot* determine a *lot*, and the people who have nothing determine… nothing.
What bugs me is that if the holders of money determine and maintain status quo, and if the current status quo entails the suffering of a great deal of people, does that mean that rich people are inherently selfish, ignorant, and oppressive? The ones below the line, at the bottom of the triangle, are the ones moving for change (revolution, in some contexts) while the ones higher up on the slope try to keep things the way they are, but if money dictates power, then those at the top are more well-equipped to change things – which is NOT what most of them want. I’m just pointing out the irony here. Are we people at the top and middle content with the way things are just because we’re not the ones at the bottom?
The movie made me think because I haven’t seen anything significant on TV in a long time (and because I was stalling doing my homework in Economics), so there. TBH, I’m thinking my richer schoolmates in Pisay should see it. Now for that Econ HW.
