Children of Men

Saturday night, after class, I went with a group of classmates to see the new movie Children of Men at the cinema in Oxford. I thought it was an excellent movie. Children is graphically violent at times (although perhaps not exceptionally by today's standards), yet even more unsettling as a social statement. We all left shaken. Children depicts a near-future post-apocalyptic world brought on by the inexplicable infertility of all the world's women. But the premise of infertility is just a vehicle for a far more apt message. The movie depicts a xenophobic British government--the only world government left standing--deporting all foreigners, caging them, putting them in concentration camps. A currupt terrorist organization clashes with the government, fighting for humane treatment of the foreigners. This movie deals with dark themes all around, including assisted suicide, but mostly it addresses xenophobia and the swift yet massive erosion of human rights that might happen in times of crisis and fear.

I find the movie compelling because these two themes are among the most perturbing trends in America today. On the drive to Oxford Friday night, I saw a billboard in Batesville that said something to the effect that Harry Truman and the Enola Gay had the solution for that Iran/Iraq problem. Then this morning I saw this article on Yahoo about torture on TV. These are symptoms. That Abu Gharib was not any bigger scandal than it was, the fact that George W. Bush was still re-elctable even after those abuses and the policies which allowed them had been exposed, further indicts this new, cruel face of America. I am concerned that, in response to 9/11, terrorism, etc, America is drifiting not only toward an us-vs-them xenophobia but toward an unacceptably casual view of torture and a sad lack of respect for human rights.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070211/ap_en_tv/tv_american_torture