Contagion : How Disaster Movies “Educate” the Masses
By vIGILanT cITIzen
Hollywood movies are usually presented as a form of entertainment, but their plots often conceal a
specific agenda. “Disaster movies,” films about the end of the world through various mass crises, are particularly interesting as they all follow the same basic formula and glorify the same entities. In this
article, we’ll look at the disaster movie Contagion and how it “teaches” its viewers who to trust and who not to trust during a crisis.
Most people watch movies to be entertained. Well, I for one can say that there was absolutely nothing entertain-ing about Contagion. In fact, the only difference between this movie and state-sponsored educational movies shown in schools is that with Contagion you actu-ally have to pay to be indoctrinated… and to see Matt Damon. During the Cold War, students were shown videos instructing them to “Duck and Cover” in case of a nuclear attack. Contagion conditions the masses to expect martial law and to throw themselves at the first available vaccine in case of a crisis.
Featuring Hollywood mega-stars like Matt Damon, Laurence Fishburne, Jude Law and Gwyneth Paltrow, Contagion is a big-ticket Hollywood movie, but also an infomercial promoting specific national and international agencies while encouraging specific behaviours from the public. The plot of the movie appears to follow the big H1N1 scare of 2009 that left many citizens uncertain about the actual risk of the virus. Indeed, after months of terrifying news crowned by a massive vaccination campaign, an important portion of the population concluded that the H1N1 scare was grossly exag-gerated and thought that a vaccine was unnecessary.
A poll taken in November 2009 shows that 53% of Canadians believed that the risks associated with the H1N1 virus were exaggerated. In the wake of this “crisis,” the UN’s World Health Organisation (known as the WHO) was harshly criticised and even accused of colluding with Big Pharma to sell vaccines. The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (the CDC) also had its credibility tarnished as investigations revealed that the agency misled the public regarding the number of actual cases of H1N1. As a result, these two agencies needed a good PR stunt to restore their credibility and to scare the hell out of the public. This is where Contagion comes in.
Directed by Steven Soderbergh, Contagion was pro-duced with the active cooperation of the CDC, the WHO and other governmental organisations and its function is clear: To present a hyper-realistic disaster scenario to jus-tify the vaccination campaigns promot-ed by these agencies while discrediting
those who criticise them.
Nothing in the movie hints that it is a work of fiction. Quite to the contrary, everything in Contagion is made to be as realistic as possible, using actual locations and governmental agencies, to make the story as plausible – and as frightening to the masses – as possible. As the slogan of the movie says: “Noth-ing spreads like fear” and, boy, does it try to spread fear. This movie’s message is: “Nothing was exaggerated, and next time there’s a virus outbreak, listen to us… or you’ll die.”
Hollywood movies are usually presented as a form of entertainment, but their plots often conceal a
specific agenda. “Disaster movies,” films about the end of the world through various mass crises, are particularly interesting as they all follow the same basic formula and glorify the same entities. In this
article, we’ll look at the disaster movie Contagion and how it “teaches” its viewers who to trust and who not to trust during a crisis.
Most people watch movies to be entertained. Well, I for one can say that there was absolutely nothing entertain-ing about Contagion. In fact, the only difference between this movie and state-sponsored educational movies shown in schools is that with Contagion you actu-ally have to pay to be indoctrinated… and to see Matt Damon. During the Cold War, students were shown videos instructing them to “Duck and Cover” in case of a nuclear attack. Contagion conditions the masses to expect martial law and to throw themselves at the first available vaccine in case of a crisis.
Featuring Hollywood mega-stars like Matt Damon, Laurence Fishburne, Jude Law and Gwyneth Paltrow, Contagion is a big-ticket Hollywood movie, but also an infomercial promoting specific national and international agencies while encouraging specific behaviours from the public. The plot of the movie appears to follow the big H1N1 scare of 2009 that left many citizens uncertain about the actual risk of the virus. Indeed, after months of terrifying news crowned by a massive vaccination campaign, an important portion of the population concluded that the H1N1 scare was grossly exag-gerated and thought that a vaccine was unnecessary.
A poll taken in November 2009 shows that 53% of Canadians believed that the risks associated with the H1N1 virus were exaggerated. In the wake of this “crisis,” the UN’s World Health Organisation (known as the WHO) was harshly criticised and even accused of colluding with Big Pharma to sell vaccines. The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (the CDC) also had its credibility tarnished as investigations revealed that the agency misled the public regarding the number of actual cases of H1N1. As a result, these two agencies needed a good PR stunt to restore their credibility and to scare the hell out of the public. This is where Contagion comes in.
Directed by Steven Soderbergh, Contagion was pro-duced with the active cooperation of the CDC, the WHO and other governmental organisations and its function is clear: To present a hyper-realistic disaster scenario to jus-tify the vaccination campaigns promot-ed by these agencies while discrediting
those who criticise them.
Nothing in the movie hints that it is a work of fiction. Quite to the contrary, everything in Contagion is made to be as realistic as possible, using actual locations and governmental agencies, to make the story as plausible – and as frightening to the masses – as possible. As the slogan of the movie says: “Noth-ing spreads like fear” and, boy, does it try to spread fear. This movie’s message is: “Nothing was exaggerated, and next time there’s a virus outbreak, listen to us… or you’ll die.”
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