[Trigger warning for misogyny, rape culture.]
So, yesterday we had this great thread about how telling people to "smile" is not merely impolite, but a gross disrespect of agency. As frequently happens in such threads, there was also discussion of other types of street harassment and getting hit on.
Often, we contributors/mods have our own private conversations about topics being discussed on the blog, especially when we want to chat about something tangential that would be a derail to the main point. Yesterday, in tandem with the aforementioned thread, we were talking about the truly fucked-up scenario in which women who deviate from traditional definitions of womanhood, or whose appearance is nonconforming to beauty standards, are excluded from such discussions by virtue of having rarely or never harassed in that way.
It's an important conversation, and it deserves its own thread.
It is a conversation I've had before with trans women, with fat cis women, women with noticeable physical disabilities, and with a women who has severe craniofacial deformities—the "I don't want to be treated like a piece of meat or an object or a possession, but because Visible Women are treated like pieces of meat and objects and possessions, the fact that I'm not makes me feel like I'm not even a woman" conversation.
The conversation about feeling excluded from the sisterhood, because you haven't been harassed in the way most women talk about being harassed.
None of the women with whom I've ever had this conversation want to be harassed, nor do they want other women to be harassed, either—and yet there is something akin to envy they feel, sheerly by virtue of being on the outside looking in.
Simultaneously, they feel guilty for feeling that way, because, to a harassed woman, there is nothing enviable about being harassed.
Except, of course, for how there is—because being harassed is a routine part of the Visible Woman's experience. And as long as women's value is determined by objectification, to not be objectified is to feel unvalued, even if to not be objectified is what you want.
This, of course, is not a commentary on women—objectified or not, feminist or not. This is a commentary on the Patriarchy, and how unfathomably fucked-up it is that a failure to be treated poorly—not in exchange for being treated well, but as an alternative to not being acknowledged at all—has the capacity to make women feel worthless.
What a choice: Acknowledged but harassed, or ignored and denied recognition of one's womanhood.
It's a terrible predicament, this place of horrible and shameful "envy," that most women (especially feminist women) probably experience at one time or another during their lives. An older woman finally free of being hit on and cat-called and told to smile may suddenly "miss" the harassment the despised, because its void is not born of a long-sought respect, but of a silent commentary on her diminished worth as a sex object per the Patriarchy's horseshit standards. Two female friends of different races might alternately "envy" each other for the unique forms of objectification by which they're respectively targeted: She gets harassed by people who ignore me because she looks like the Girl Next Door. She gets harassed by people who ignore me because she looks Exotic. Etc.
Knowing how fucked-up it is doesn't change that visceral feeling of alienation: We are all too keenly aware of the narratives used to marginalize us.
And this "envy" is not just about being recognized as a woman; it's also about getting access to the tables at which women sit.
I have had friends who have never been raped confess to me with wracking guilt that they "envy" my history, because to have survived rape is to have earned admission into what can be a very tight-knit group of survivors, not unlike a group of veterans who emerged from the trauma of war as "brothers," having experienced something outsiders cannot understand and sharing a bond outsiders cannot penetrate.
They needn't feel guilty: I understand what they are saying. They don't want me to have been raped. They are not minimizing it. They don't want to be raped themselves. They are simply acknowledging a feeling born of the reality that so many women are victimized by sexual violence that it can feel, to women who have not been, that a key part of what defines womanhood is missing from their histories.
We all view, if not consciously, sexual violence and harassment as a sort of rite of passage, a fire through which we must pass on our way to womanhood. To be denied that trial, even though we don't want it, is to be denied as Woman.
I can think of few things that more poignantly underline how truly and comprehensively woman-hating the Patriarchy is than its creation of an "envy" to be hurt, just to feel like a complete woman.
[Commenting Guidelines: Please note that if your immediate response to this is to assert that you've never experienced this "envy," that may well be a function of privilege. Visible Womanhood is an indicator of privilege—cis women tend to be more visible than trans women, straight women more visible than lesbians, white women more than women of color, able-bodied women more than women with disabilities, etc. I strongly encourage you, rather than reflexively challenging the concept, to listen to the experiences of less privileged women which will certainly be shared here.]
Showing posts with label privilege. Show all posts
Showing posts with label privilege. Show all posts
Film Corner!
Below, the trailer for the new Justin Timberlake vehicle, In Time, which, as you will soon discover, is a very clever pun. (No it's not. Clever, I mean. It is definitely a pun.) The writer and director of this movie is Andrew Niccol, who wrote and directed some films I liked very much (Gattaca; The Truman Show) but also came up with the story for The Terminal, that garbage film in which Tom Hanks plays a Latka Gravas who lives at the airport, so it could really go either way.
Anyhoo, IMDb informs me that In Time is about a future in which "people stop aging at 25 and must work to buy themselves more time, but when a young man finds himself with more time than he can imagine he must run from the corrupt police force to save his life." Meanwhile, the trailer informs me it is also about a future in which women retain the timeless choice between dude prop or dude trophy.
Once again, I will observe the bitter hilarity of a mind that can conceive of a concept in which a digital life clock counts down on every person's arm, but can't conceive of a concept in which women, and men of color, aren't marginalized supporting cast for a graduate of the Mickey Mouse Club.
To the trailer!
Text Onscreen: "In the late 21st Century, time has replaced money as the unit of currency." ("Time is money!"—My Dad, telling me to get busy dusting the living room if I want my $2 allowance, 1984.) More Text Onscreen: "At 25 years old, aging stops, and each person is given one more year to live." ("What is this shit?"—My Dad, if and when he sees this trailer, 2011.) More Text Onscreen: "Unless you replenish your clock, you die." I originally read this as "Unless you replenish your COCK," which I'm pretty sure is a concept developed by S. Freud.
Cue the action thriller music. Justin Timberlake's clock is ticking down. He wants more time. He is OUTRAGED that it costs four minutes for a cup of coffee when yesterday it cost three. He doesn't get paid as much time at work as he expected; he met the quota but OH SHIT the quota has gone up since last week.
He and his friend Roseanne Conner's Son-in-Law meet a dude at a bar who has a CENTURY in his clock. Everyone oohs and ahhs at the guy with the huge clock. Some other asshole wants the guy's clock. Justin Timberlake helps the white dude with the huge clock escape the white dude with the smaller clock through the bathroom window. No, I am not making this up.
They go back to the dude with the huge clock's apartment, where he tells Justin Timberlake that he is 105 years old, but he's had enough. He exposits some stuff about how there wouldn't be room for everyone if everyone had a clock as big as his: "How else could there be men with a million years, while most live day-to-day?"
I realize the clock is supposed to be a metaphor for money/power/influence, but the absence of women in this trailer, combined with the fact that the acquisition and exhibition of wealth in a patriarchal system is itself often a metaphorical dick-measuring contest, is severely undermining my appreciation of the profound existential and justice commentary to which I'm supposed to be paying attention, because all I can think is that this film should not have been called In Time but In My Pants.
Anyway!
Justin Timberlake tells the dude with the huge clock that he "sure as hell wouldn't waste it" if he had a huge clock, so, after Justin Timberlake falls asleep, the dude gives his huge clock to him. Justin Timberlake wakes up to find himself with a huge clock, and a message scrawled in the grime on the window of the loft: "Don't waste my time." MORE PUNS PLEASE!
Blah blah blah now people, namely Cillian Murphy, are after Justin Timberlake's huge clock. JT is meanwhile using his new huge clock to get access to fancy limos and dress-up parties in "New Greenwich." I think he sleeps with a call girl, but only realizes it when he sees that there's less time on his huge clock…? He gets introduced to some very clock-rich white dude's mother-in-law, wife, and daughter, who all look the same age and very much alike.
Eww.
Cillian Murphy shows up to nab JT. It's not clear why, exactly, Cillian Murphy wants to get him, except, I guess, for how we're supposed to infer that the government (or WHOEVER) always wants to crush any threat to their power, but if there are truly white dudes running around with million-year clocks, is a hundred-year clock really that threatening? I'm sure all will become clear IN TIME!
Justin Timberlake punches people and gets his huge clock the heck out of there by taking lookalike daughter played by Amanda Seyfried hostage. She wants to go home, but he won't let her, because she's his insurance policy blah blah blah. This kidnapping is obviously justified because he has a feeling they'll find him guilty whether they can prove it or not. Not only am I convinced, so is she! Cue the running while holding hands and the making out!
Montagery. A collection of random but suuuuuuuuuuuper trite quotes: "If you can buy loyalty, you can buy their trail." "For you to be immortal, many must die." "No one should be immortal, if even one person has to die." "How can you live with yourself watching people die right next to you?" "You don't watch; you close your eyes." "I'm going to make them pay; I'm going to take them for everything they've got."
Ah, okay. This is a treatise on privilege and is, in fact, just a retelling of Robin Hood. JT breaks into a time-bank (lulz) and steals a bunch of time, which he and Amanda Seyfried then hand out to people. "Take the time! It's free!"
More montagery. Evil white dudes with huge clocks say things about time getting into the wrong hands and upsetting the system. To underline that point, we get a scene of a poor black mother turning time over in her hands. Oof your racist symbolism.
THANK HEAVENS THAT NICE WHITE BOY WITH THE HUGE CLOCK IS GONNA SAVE EVERYONE.
"His crime," says someone who cares in voiceover, "wasn't taking time; it was giving it away."
Okay, player.
Anyhoo, IMDb informs me that In Time is about a future in which "people stop aging at 25 and must work to buy themselves more time, but when a young man finds himself with more time than he can imagine he must run from the corrupt police force to save his life." Meanwhile, the trailer informs me it is also about a future in which women retain the timeless choice between dude prop or dude trophy.
Once again, I will observe the bitter hilarity of a mind that can conceive of a concept in which a digital life clock counts down on every person's arm, but can't conceive of a concept in which women, and men of color, aren't marginalized supporting cast for a graduate of the Mickey Mouse Club.
To the trailer!
Text Onscreen: "In the late 21st Century, time has replaced money as the unit of currency." ("Time is money!"—My Dad, telling me to get busy dusting the living room if I want my $2 allowance, 1984.) More Text Onscreen: "At 25 years old, aging stops, and each person is given one more year to live." ("What is this shit?"—My Dad, if and when he sees this trailer, 2011.) More Text Onscreen: "Unless you replenish your clock, you die." I originally read this as "Unless you replenish your COCK," which I'm pretty sure is a concept developed by S. Freud.
Cue the action thriller music. Justin Timberlake's clock is ticking down. He wants more time. He is OUTRAGED that it costs four minutes for a cup of coffee when yesterday it cost three. He doesn't get paid as much time at work as he expected; he met the quota but OH SHIT the quota has gone up since last week.
He and his friend Roseanne Conner's Son-in-Law meet a dude at a bar who has a CENTURY in his clock. Everyone oohs and ahhs at the guy with the huge clock. Some other asshole wants the guy's clock. Justin Timberlake helps the white dude with the huge clock escape the white dude with the smaller clock through the bathroom window. No, I am not making this up.
They go back to the dude with the huge clock's apartment, where he tells Justin Timberlake that he is 105 years old, but he's had enough. He exposits some stuff about how there wouldn't be room for everyone if everyone had a clock as big as his: "How else could there be men with a million years, while most live day-to-day?"
I realize the clock is supposed to be a metaphor for money/power/influence, but the absence of women in this trailer, combined with the fact that the acquisition and exhibition of wealth in a patriarchal system is itself often a metaphorical dick-measuring contest, is severely undermining my appreciation of the profound existential and justice commentary to which I'm supposed to be paying attention, because all I can think is that this film should not have been called In Time but In My Pants.
Anyway!
Justin Timberlake tells the dude with the huge clock that he "sure as hell wouldn't waste it" if he had a huge clock, so, after Justin Timberlake falls asleep, the dude gives his huge clock to him. Justin Timberlake wakes up to find himself with a huge clock, and a message scrawled in the grime on the window of the loft: "Don't waste my time." MORE PUNS PLEASE!
Blah blah blah now people, namely Cillian Murphy, are after Justin Timberlake's huge clock. JT is meanwhile using his new huge clock to get access to fancy limos and dress-up parties in "New Greenwich." I think he sleeps with a call girl, but only realizes it when he sees that there's less time on his huge clock…? He gets introduced to some very clock-rich white dude's mother-in-law, wife, and daughter, who all look the same age and very much alike.
Eww.
Cillian Murphy shows up to nab JT. It's not clear why, exactly, Cillian Murphy wants to get him, except, I guess, for how we're supposed to infer that the government (or WHOEVER) always wants to crush any threat to their power, but if there are truly white dudes running around with million-year clocks, is a hundred-year clock really that threatening? I'm sure all will become clear IN TIME!
Justin Timberlake punches people and gets his huge clock the heck out of there by taking lookalike daughter played by Amanda Seyfried hostage. She wants to go home, but he won't let her, because she's his insurance policy blah blah blah. This kidnapping is obviously justified because he has a feeling they'll find him guilty whether they can prove it or not. Not only am I convinced, so is she! Cue the running while holding hands and the making out!
Montagery. A collection of random but suuuuuuuuuuuper trite quotes: "If you can buy loyalty, you can buy their trail." "For you to be immortal, many must die." "No one should be immortal, if even one person has to die." "How can you live with yourself watching people die right next to you?" "You don't watch; you close your eyes." "I'm going to make them pay; I'm going to take them for everything they've got."
Ah, okay. This is a treatise on privilege and is, in fact, just a retelling of Robin Hood. JT breaks into a time-bank (lulz) and steals a bunch of time, which he and Amanda Seyfried then hand out to people. "Take the time! It's free!"
More montagery. Evil white dudes with huge clocks say things about time getting into the wrong hands and upsetting the system. To underline that point, we get a scene of a poor black mother turning time over in her hands. Oof your racist symbolism.
THANK HEAVENS THAT NICE WHITE BOY WITH THE HUGE CLOCK IS GONNA SAVE EVERYONE.
"His crime," says someone who cares in voiceover, "wasn't taking time; it was giving it away."
Okay, player.
This is what privilege looks like.
Wealth Gaps Rise to Record Highs Between Whites, Blacks and Hispanics:
The median wealth of white households is 20 times that of black households and 18 times that of Hispanic households, according to a Pew Research Center analysis of newly available government data from 2009.The piece cites "plummeting house values" as the "principal cause of the recent erosion in household wealth among all groups," which disproportionately affected Latin@s, but, of course, there are other reasons: Whites are more likely to be invested in the stock market (even if merely through a retirement account like a 401k), which recovered its value in a way home equity has not; people of color are more likely to have been targeted by predatory lending; whites are more likely to have inherited wealth; etc.
These lopsided wealth ratios are the largest since the government began publishing such data a quarter century ago...
From 2005 to 2009, inflation-adjusted median wealth fell by 66% among Hispanic households and 53% among black households, compared with just 16% among white households.
...Moreover, about a third of black (35%) and Hispanic (31%) households had zero or negative net worth in 2009, compared with 15% of white households. In 2005, the comparable shares had been 29% for blacks, 23% for Hispanics and 11% for whites.
...Household wealth is the accumulated sum of assets (houses, cars, savings and checking accounts, stocks and mutual funds, retirement accounts, etc.) minus the sum of debt (mortgages, auto loans, credit card debt, etc.). It is different from household income, which measures the annual inflow of wages, interest, profits and other sources of earning. Wealth gaps between whites, blacks and Hispanics have always been much greater than income gaps.
All of which is a function of privilege.
[Related Reading: Can't Vs. Won't.]
Black Women's Hair Ain't Public Property
Woot! Check out two of our favorite bloggers, Tami of What Tami Said and Renee of Womanist Musings, in this CNN piece about people (generally white people) touching black women's hair.
A note about the attempt at equivalency that Renee mentions:
Of course people are naturally curious, etc. But when an adult white person wants to touch a black woman's hair in the United States or Canada, that speaks to segregation more than curiosity. It wouldn't be a curiosity for an adult in a diverse culture that's properly integrated.
And, of course, it wouldn't be an issue if our culture wasn't rife with privilege, narratives about women's bodies being public property (even to other women), and hostility toward consent.
A note about the attempt at equivalency that Renee mentions:
In 2008, Renee Martin wrote "Can I Touch Your Hair? Black Women and The Petting Zoo" for her blog Womanist Musings and said she continues to get e-mails from women thanking her for her post and relaying their personal experiences about their hair being touched.It would have been nice if the author of the piece, Lisa Respers France, noted that women like Renee and Tami are not tourists in a foreign locale, to really underline how offensive the false equivalency of "My hair got touched by people of color while I was on vacation" really is.
Some white women who responded, Martin said, shared their stories of their own hair being touched in countries populated by people of color. They chalked it up to natural curiosity and accused Martin of being too sensitive, she said.
But she says she doesn't think the crux of the issue has to do with curiosity.
"I think it's the idea that they have the right to possess black women and they will take any excuse they can to jump over the border, whether it's policing our behavior or policing our hair," Martin said. "I think it's about ownership of black bodies more than it has to actually do with hair."
Of course people are naturally curious, etc. But when an adult white person wants to touch a black woman's hair in the United States or Canada, that speaks to segregation more than curiosity. It wouldn't be a curiosity for an adult in a diverse culture that's properly integrated.
And, of course, it wouldn't be an issue if our culture wasn't rife with privilege, narratives about women's bodies being public property (even to other women), and hostility toward consent.
Film Corner!
Below, the trailer for the upcoming box office smash from Steven Soderbergh Contagion, the working title for which my top secret sources (full disclosure: I don't actually have any top secret sources) have informed me was Oh Noes! White People Are Getting Sick, Ya'll!
Dame Gwyneth Paltrow was at a groundbreaking ceremony for a new factory, at which people of Asian descent were present (UH-OH!), according to the voiceover by her movie-husband Matt Damon. He is asked if she mentioned seeing anyone who was sick, and he says nope! Over a scene of Dame Gwyneth Paltrow hugging her movie-child which is supposed to be heartbreaking (but isn't, because, really, everyone's pretty tired of her waxing anecdotal in real life about favorite fishmongers and her didactic preaching about grody fatties, so if there's one person we're prepared to view as a cinematic metaphor for self-indulgent celebrity and thus respond with apathy as her privileged character dies of bird flu, it's Dame Gwyneth Paltrow), Matt Damon says, "She said she was just jetlagged." Whoops!
"ONE TOUCH" ominously looms onscreen, stark text floating against a backdrop of, I dunno, red blood cells and coffee grounds or something. "TRANSMISSION."
It is at this point that I begin to recall, not in a conscious way but a visceral way, in which a memory does not lay itself across the mind but crawls up from the depths of one's gut, dragging behind it a creeping unease, a time in which men (mostly) were dying of a disease the name of which my nation's president would not utter, and there was talk of TRANSMISSION through water fountains and sweat and kisses and maybe all it took was ONE TOUCH. And I'm really grossed out by this movie, because, while the stuff of that memory shouldn't be off-limits, the fact that this trailer doesn't seem to share that memory with me at all, just seems to pretend it never happened and this is just entertainment, makes something well up in my throat, disgust I think, and I remember having this feeling before with other "disease thrillers" that want to deny in the interest of fun and profit what should be a communal memory that gives us all pause, we people of a certain age.
Anyway! I soldier on.
Dr. Kate Winslet exposits to Matt Damon that "the average person touches their face three to five times every waking minute; in between, we're touching doorknobs, water fountains (!), and each other." Scenes of people touching things. Scenes of Dame Gwyneth Paltrow getting sick. Cut to Dr. Laurence Fishburne expositing, "So we have a virus with no treatment protocol, and no vaccine at this time."
"ONE INSTANT" ominously looms onscreen. "INFECTION."
Dame Gwyneth Paltrow is in the hospital. Matt Damon is panicked. She does not have a history of seizures! She makes some kind of contorted face. (ACTING!) Cut to Dr. Fishburne telling Dr. Winslet, "As of last night, there are 32 cases."
"ONE CONTACT" ominously looms onscreen. "CONTAGION."
"Unfortunately, she did die," Dr. Someone-Who-Looks-Like-Hank-Azaria-with-a-Beard tells Matt Damon, who doesn't get it. The doctor has to repeat himself. Matt Damon is shocked! "What are you talking about?!" he shouts. "What happened to her? WHAT HAPPENED TO HER?!"
It is at this point that I start to think about the privilege of being a (relatively or objectively) rich, white, straight, Western person, where your partner/spouse dying of a virus for which there is no medicine (either at all, or available to you) is such a rarity that you cannot conceive of its ever happening to your family, and I Google statistics on malaria deaths worldwide, and I read about how malaria killed between 708,000 and 1,003,000 people in 2008 alone, 89% of which occurred in Africa, and about how "Malaria is the 2nd leading cause of death from infectious diseases in Africa, after HIV/AIDS," and suddenly I am just HATING this fucking trailer, and I don't even care if the movie has some awesome message (spoiler alert: it doesn't!) about rich, white, straight, Western persons taking for granted that we PROBABLY WON'T DIE OF A CURABLE AND PREVENTABLE DISEASE, because it's being marketed as: "An action-thriller centered on the threat posed by a deadly disease and an international team of doctors contracted by the CDC to deal with the outbreak." Barrrrrrf!
In fact, DOUBLE BARF because also I already saw this movie when it was called Outbreak.
Anyway! I soldier on.
Because white people are getting sick, there are helicopters and government types looking concerned and concerns about someone having "weaponized the bird flu." Dr. Fishburne says, "Someone doesn't HAVE to weaponize the bird flu. The birds are doing that."
LOL WHUT. What is this movie?!
Enter Jude Law, who's playing a Professor of Counting from Cockney University: "On day one, there were two people, and then four, and then sixteen. In two months, it's a billion. That's where we're headed!" In case you are a visual learner, images of two, four, sixteen, and one billion people are helpfully provided.
National Guard. The president is going "underground." (LULZ.) Panic. Suspicious media. Destroying samples in a lab. Monkeys in cages. Empty airport. Trash piled up on a city street.
UH-OH! Dr. Winslet is sick. Dr. Fishburne promises to get her "out." There are lots of people whose lives are affected—lots and lots of WHITE PEOPLE. Gwyneth Paltrow, Matt Damon, Kate Winslet, Jude Law, John Hawkes, Marion Cotillard… GOOD THING DR. FISHBURNE IS SO INTERESTED IN SAVING THEM! Except for Dame Gwyneth Paltrow, of course. Who already died. RIP GOOP.
"NO ONE IS IMMUNE" ominously looms onscreen. "TO FEAR."
Montage of more "action thriller about a deadly disease" stuff. "It's mutating!" someone says. Of course it is.
Dame Gwyneth Paltrow was at a groundbreaking ceremony for a new factory, at which people of Asian descent were present (UH-OH!), according to the voiceover by her movie-husband Matt Damon. He is asked if she mentioned seeing anyone who was sick, and he says nope! Over a scene of Dame Gwyneth Paltrow hugging her movie-child which is supposed to be heartbreaking (but isn't, because, really, everyone's pretty tired of her waxing anecdotal in real life about favorite fishmongers and her didactic preaching about grody fatties, so if there's one person we're prepared to view as a cinematic metaphor for self-indulgent celebrity and thus respond with apathy as her privileged character dies of bird flu, it's Dame Gwyneth Paltrow), Matt Damon says, "She said she was just jetlagged." Whoops!
"ONE TOUCH" ominously looms onscreen, stark text floating against a backdrop of, I dunno, red blood cells and coffee grounds or something. "TRANSMISSION."
It is at this point that I begin to recall, not in a conscious way but a visceral way, in which a memory does not lay itself across the mind but crawls up from the depths of one's gut, dragging behind it a creeping unease, a time in which men (mostly) were dying of a disease the name of which my nation's president would not utter, and there was talk of TRANSMISSION through water fountains and sweat and kisses and maybe all it took was ONE TOUCH. And I'm really grossed out by this movie, because, while the stuff of that memory shouldn't be off-limits, the fact that this trailer doesn't seem to share that memory with me at all, just seems to pretend it never happened and this is just entertainment, makes something well up in my throat, disgust I think, and I remember having this feeling before with other "disease thrillers" that want to deny in the interest of fun and profit what should be a communal memory that gives us all pause, we people of a certain age.
Anyway! I soldier on.
Dr. Kate Winslet exposits to Matt Damon that "the average person touches their face three to five times every waking minute; in between, we're touching doorknobs, water fountains (!), and each other." Scenes of people touching things. Scenes of Dame Gwyneth Paltrow getting sick. Cut to Dr. Laurence Fishburne expositing, "So we have a virus with no treatment protocol, and no vaccine at this time."
"ONE INSTANT" ominously looms onscreen. "INFECTION."
Dame Gwyneth Paltrow is in the hospital. Matt Damon is panicked. She does not have a history of seizures! She makes some kind of contorted face. (ACTING!) Cut to Dr. Fishburne telling Dr. Winslet, "As of last night, there are 32 cases."
"ONE CONTACT" ominously looms onscreen. "CONTAGION."
"Unfortunately, she did die," Dr. Someone-Who-Looks-Like-Hank-Azaria-with-a-Beard tells Matt Damon, who doesn't get it. The doctor has to repeat himself. Matt Damon is shocked! "What are you talking about?!" he shouts. "What happened to her? WHAT HAPPENED TO HER?!"
It is at this point that I start to think about the privilege of being a (relatively or objectively) rich, white, straight, Western person, where your partner/spouse dying of a virus for which there is no medicine (either at all, or available to you) is such a rarity that you cannot conceive of its ever happening to your family, and I Google statistics on malaria deaths worldwide, and I read about how malaria killed between 708,000 and 1,003,000 people in 2008 alone, 89% of which occurred in Africa, and about how "Malaria is the 2nd leading cause of death from infectious diseases in Africa, after HIV/AIDS," and suddenly I am just HATING this fucking trailer, and I don't even care if the movie has some awesome message (spoiler alert: it doesn't!) about rich, white, straight, Western persons taking for granted that we PROBABLY WON'T DIE OF A CURABLE AND PREVENTABLE DISEASE, because it's being marketed as: "An action-thriller centered on the threat posed by a deadly disease and an international team of doctors contracted by the CDC to deal with the outbreak." Barrrrrrf!
In fact, DOUBLE BARF because also I already saw this movie when it was called Outbreak.
Anyway! I soldier on.
Because white people are getting sick, there are helicopters and government types looking concerned and concerns about someone having "weaponized the bird flu." Dr. Fishburne says, "Someone doesn't HAVE to weaponize the bird flu. The birds are doing that."
LOL WHUT. What is this movie?!
Enter Jude Law, who's playing a Professor of Counting from Cockney University: "On day one, there were two people, and then four, and then sixteen. In two months, it's a billion. That's where we're headed!" In case you are a visual learner, images of two, four, sixteen, and one billion people are helpfully provided.
National Guard. The president is going "underground." (LULZ.) Panic. Suspicious media. Destroying samples in a lab. Monkeys in cages. Empty airport. Trash piled up on a city street.
UH-OH! Dr. Winslet is sick. Dr. Fishburne promises to get her "out." There are lots of people whose lives are affected—lots and lots of WHITE PEOPLE. Gwyneth Paltrow, Matt Damon, Kate Winslet, Jude Law, John Hawkes, Marion Cotillard… GOOD THING DR. FISHBURNE IS SO INTERESTED IN SAVING THEM! Except for Dame Gwyneth Paltrow, of course. Who already died. RIP GOOP.
"NO ONE IS IMMUNE" ominously looms onscreen. "TO FEAR."
Montage of more "action thriller about a deadly disease" stuff. "It's mutating!" someone says. Of course it is.