Searching for the Sanity in Humanity

Are we really that bad? 2010/01/11

I just got finished watching a movie titled Carriers that really screwed me up. For those of you not familiar with the film or who never cared to see it, heres a brief synopsis:

4 teens are on the run from the inevitable, an airborne pathogen thats wiping out all of mankind. During the film they encounter other people, some infected, some not, but the apparent breakdown of social decency and downright cruelty displayed by these “people” can literally break your spirits at time. They fight, they steal, they betray and they kill for what seems like nothing in the end.

Now, being a father and a former military man, watching certain scenes in this movie really screwed me up. If you plan on seeing the film, skip to the end of this paragraph so you’re not spoiled as it deals with a major scene, to me anyway, in the film.  The beginning of the film starts with them on the open road when they come across an SUV sprawled across the road needing gas. A father and his young daughter, maybe 5 years only, are in need of help. The girl is infected. They ditch them at first but as fate would have it, they end up going back as they need the SUV to go on. The pair were trying to make it to a CDC help center and the teens reluctantly agree to take them with, sealed off in the back of the SUV. They get there to find emptiness and no cure. Getting ready to leave, the little girl has to use the bathroom, but the father fears that the teens will leave them there with no supplies and no hope, so the father tells his young daughter to go to the bathroom alone. Weak and broken the poor girl tries to go, but only manages to get 5 steps or so until she collapses. Dispairingly, the father tells the girl its okay and walks with his dying child to the bathroom as the 4 “teens” dump their belongings and leave them before she even makes it to the Port-a-John.

This one scene completely ruined the rest of the film for me cause if man can be so heartless and uncaring to a child, then they don’t deserve to live. I found myself not caring for the teens and hoping they would fall. Too often in everyday real life we see the atrocities and the evils that man is capable of. When I escape this world into a film, I do not want to see a mirror of man at his very worst. I want the hero to be just that, a hero. What good is survival if you lose that which you are trying to keep alive?

If you haven’t seen the film, I’d recommend you do. It’s on DVD and you can rent it at Redbox for free with multiple Redbox Codes. And I know what you’re thinking, why would I recommend it after just bashing it. The reason I say watch it is so you can realize the evil man is capable of, the selfish, uncaring that takes over in the face of adversity and ask yourself this? If you were faced with the same decision, what would you do?

As Jerry McGuire said, we live in a cynical world. A cynical world that is that way because we make it as such. A cynical world because too many people stand on the sidelines waiting for the next guy to do something. Don’t wait for someone else to take your glory. Stand up and fight. Be brave for your fellow-man, for all we know, you are their last hope.

Blog again soon.