On Children Of Men

I saw Children Of Men in the theaters when it came out and I found it to be a solid film, there wasn't really anything I would deem shady or just in general not well done.

Yesterday evening I watched it again and my opinion did not change. There is one major aspect of the film I would like to discuss which I found thoroughly perplexing, and that is life in a shallow post-consumer society.

Today, we citizens of Western societies are surrounded by consumerism. Whether it be what we watch on T.V., what catches our attention, our financial decisions, our fulfilling of a certain image, whatever. I have learned, and thoroughly agree with, the idea that there is becoming less and less space for individual and creative thought and that consumerism is the culprit. Whether it be the slogan "Don't ask why, try Bud dry"( a slogan one of my professors seems thoroughly disgusted with, but maybe I'll share some insight on that later), the amount of ads that are shoved in our faces on a daily basis, etc. These are all merely distractions.

Children of Men sort of suggests a hypothesis about the future; people are distracted on an immense scale due to billboards on every street corner, televisions in every room of every building, commercials of people smiling and having the time of their lives, etc. In a way, this could be the U.S. and every society in the world someday. The world around could go to shit due to the lack of creative and individual thought and what we are left with is mass consumerism and anything artificial to preoccupy and sedate us.

What we will be preoccupied and sedated from is unclear, it could be infertility like the movie, it could be governments abusing their power, it could be a lack of anything that the human race cherishes or needs to survive.

I could explain this further, but whoever reads this probably has an idea of what I'm getting at. I shall jump ahead to the moral of this little soap box announcement, and say what I think could prevent such a situation. Bullet points shall do nicely.

-Money isn't everything
-Clothes aren't everything
-Big houses are simply illogical
-Cars aren't everything
-Our dependency on foreign oil and oil in general could indeed be our fatal flaw
-Fulfilling a certain image certainly isn't everything
-Picking up a book and reading it is everything
-Having at the very least a decent grasp of politics is everything
-Being open minded and trying new things is everything

If I think of more, I shall post it up. A world without creative and individual thought is something I do not want to be a part of.