Soylent Green--Yes, Soylent Green
I had heard about this movie all my life, well, since the '70s, and it was on TCM last night at midnight, and I was up late writing doctoral papers and wasn't tired, so I watched it. It followed the two excellent movies, Babette's Feast and Big Night, which are food-themed movies but which I don't think of as food-themed movies, really. One is about the conflict of dualism and true spirituality, and the second is about family and love; they both have a lot of exotic dishes. The wildness of the food prevents me from being hungry from the movies. Even that timpano thing in Big Night makes me kind of nauseous.
(On the imdb board, people were all upset about the quails, turtle, and cows being slaughtered in Babette's Feast. I suppose they really were, which makes a difference from when people are killed in movies--we know they really weren't. I doubt that turtle was really killed though. He was a beauty. These people don't understand history or culture, only their own little comfortable world view.)
But back to Soylent Green. I was telling my husband this morning that I thought it was very good, and he sort of laughed at me because he had seen it in the '70s and thought Charlton Heston was all wrong for it. Maybe, but Heston was the big action star of the time. My beef is that he looked too healthy and buff for someone who hadn't eaten real food in a long time, maybe all his life.
There were a lot of things I liked about the movie, but primarily I see it as an historical document of what people in the 1970s thought 2020 (six years from now) will be like. Massive overpopulation, deforestation, pollution, starvation, dehumanization, global warming, and absolute lack of power, food, relationships. It is about as dystopian as anything, and I thought it was more realistic, all considered, than say a Hunger Games or Logan's Run (very dated). I thought the scene were Edward G. Robinson commits suicide at the "center" was touching, as was Thorn's and Roth's relationship. The "furniture girls" prostitutes were interesting in this age of sex trafficking. Of course there were plot holes, but what doesn't have those? There is something here to ponder.
The biggest plot hole for me is that we would have controlled population growth with birth control. People have been averaging less than 2 kids per couple anyway for a long time, so that pretty much shoots the concept out of the water.
So, why didn't it turn out this way? Well, I can't help but say abortion--we have killed 50 plus million unborn, so there's some of it. White and black population in the US is not really rising; it's Latinos who are the rising population. Population is going down in the northern hemisphere. Secondly, maybe enough dystopian futuristic things got to us and we as a nation passed more pollution laws (the city I live near, Chattanooga, has really turned that around in 50 years). Also, we have learned to produce more food more efficiently.
There is plenty of food. The problem is distribution, not production. People want to argue with me about that, but the facts are there. We let food rot, and there is a problem of obesity in the West. Food insecurity is a political (and choice) problem.
Mostly, the assisted suicide has come to pass in some places. We will have more and more concerns about what to do with the elderly. Some of us will be healthy in old age, but some not. Roth kills himself because he knows the truth and can't bear it; will we be expected to die to make it easier for the younger generations to support themselves?
(On the imdb board, people were all upset about the quails, turtle, and cows being slaughtered in Babette's Feast. I suppose they really were, which makes a difference from when people are killed in movies--we know they really weren't. I doubt that turtle was really killed though. He was a beauty. These people don't understand history or culture, only their own little comfortable world view.)
But back to Soylent Green. I was telling my husband this morning that I thought it was very good, and he sort of laughed at me because he had seen it in the '70s and thought Charlton Heston was all wrong for it. Maybe, but Heston was the big action star of the time. My beef is that he looked too healthy and buff for someone who hadn't eaten real food in a long time, maybe all his life.
There were a lot of things I liked about the movie, but primarily I see it as an historical document of what people in the 1970s thought 2020 (six years from now) will be like. Massive overpopulation, deforestation, pollution, starvation, dehumanization, global warming, and absolute lack of power, food, relationships. It is about as dystopian as anything, and I thought it was more realistic, all considered, than say a Hunger Games or Logan's Run (very dated). I thought the scene were Edward G. Robinson commits suicide at the "center" was touching, as was Thorn's and Roth's relationship. The "furniture girls" prostitutes were interesting in this age of sex trafficking. Of course there were plot holes, but what doesn't have those? There is something here to ponder.
The biggest plot hole for me is that we would have controlled population growth with birth control. People have been averaging less than 2 kids per couple anyway for a long time, so that pretty much shoots the concept out of the water.
So, why didn't it turn out this way? Well, I can't help but say abortion--we have killed 50 plus million unborn, so there's some of it. White and black population in the US is not really rising; it's Latinos who are the rising population. Population is going down in the northern hemisphere. Secondly, maybe enough dystopian futuristic things got to us and we as a nation passed more pollution laws (the city I live near, Chattanooga, has really turned that around in 50 years). Also, we have learned to produce more food more efficiently.
There is plenty of food. The problem is distribution, not production. People want to argue with me about that, but the facts are there. We let food rot, and there is a problem of obesity in the West. Food insecurity is a political (and choice) problem.
Mostly, the assisted suicide has come to pass in some places. We will have more and more concerns about what to do with the elderly. Some of us will be healthy in old age, but some not. Roth kills himself because he knows the truth and can't bear it; will we be expected to die to make it easier for the younger generations to support themselves?
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