Opinion The strain spreads
Panic becomes an infectious disease in Soderberghs film.
Steven Soderberghs smart new thriller Contagion is the perfect fairytale for our times. Not the kind of fairytale that Disney specialises in,but the sort where fairies are malevolent creatures with less-than-noble intentions,like the Grimm brothers originally imagined them to be.
Contagion is about a mysterious virus that spreads via simple contact and leaves a string of unanswered questions and dead bodies in its wake,while humanity struggles to formulate a response. Coming as it does after the multiple pandemic alerts of recent years SARS and H1N1,for instance Contagion is effective precisely because it is chillingly plausible. Health officials assure us that though it is a stretch,the world could indeed be brought to its knees by,as one character puts it,the wrong bat meeting the wrong pig. The interconnectedness of our world takes care of the rest a bowl of nuts at a bar,credit cards,international air travel and even a simple hug are tools of transmission. Human beings are social animals,we are taught,and it is that characteristic which could prove to be our downfall. A touch,a handshake,a hug,a kiss these are all ways in which we could be killing each other.
But as persuasive as Contagion is in exposing just how easily disease could spread around the world in a matter of days,its real strength lies in the examination of fear and panic as infectious diseases. The idea of supergerms destroying our civilisation in a matter of months or weeks is not new; nor is the over-the-top fear that led to millions of people getting vaccinated against swine flu. Almost two decades ago,Richard Preston warned us about the dangers of the Ebola virus in an article in the New Yorker,and our imaginations were infected with the severity of the symptoms and the gruesome deaths that await us should we contract the dreaded disease an eventuality that,in our minds,has been rendered all but inevitable.
The breakdown of civil society in the face of disaster is a common motif in zombie movies and,recently,in plague movies as well. When it looks like life is going to be short,it must also become nasty and brutish. In one of the most affecting sequences in the film,Soderbergh shows us how easily the trappings of civilisation fall away when survival is at stake. People riot over limited quantities of a purported cure,food and other supplies. Airports are empty and for the period between the news of the disease spreading and a vaccination being found,cities and towns are dystopian versions of themselves. Its Philip K. Dick via Michael Crichton. Scientists are able to find a way to protect against the disease,but no one has any way to combat the viral propagation of information,which is,for Soderbergh,the real problem.
After the panic over H1N1 had subsided and the disease was found to be less than civilisation-felling,World Health Organisation and other health professionals were criticised for over-reacting to the perceived threat of the virus and causing a worldwide panic,making big pharma even richer in the bargain. However,their defence echoed by the fictional director of the US Centres of Disease Control in Contagion is that their prompt reaction to H1N1 prevented the worst from happening. It is a counterfactual that is difficult to evaluate. After all,what do we really know about the odds of a supergerm destroying life as we know it? How much of our attention should we concentrate on addressing a potential outbreak like the one depicted in Contagion? Could we ever prepare for a virus like that? Where would we begin? What are the tools we would need to begin combating such an omniscient threat?
However loudly the film purports not to be trying to scare people,this approach to public health fear and panic to ensure compliance is flawed. It directs government spending on health away from necessities like clean water and health clinics in remote areas. It concentrates public attention on a fabled pandemic that we are assured will happen the only question is when at the cost of focusing our limited resources on tackling the health problems that already exist in the here and the now. As a portrait of the terrifying fragility of the tangled biological,social and emotional networks that govern our lives,Contagion is remarkably effective. But it isnt and shouldnt be seen as a policy directive to governments and public health officials to prepare for a threat that may never materialise.
The writer is Annenberg Fellow at the University of Southern California
express@expressindia.com
Share
