Event 3 | Contagion


Image of the zoom call attendance

    I attended the watch party for Contagion on May 19th. While the movie is almost a decade old, it was more relevant than ever due to the current global pandemic caused by Covid-19. The virus in the movie and covid were both novel viruses that caused massive global shutdowns. The movie portrayed how quickly a virus can spread unknowingly, like how the chef gave it to the businesswoman, and subsequently those that interacted with the businesswoman. Once governments discovered the virus, known as MEV-1, they were slow to react to restricting travel, which led to widespread infections across the world. Throughout the middle of the movie, there was a journalist that spread misinformation for his own personal gains. Towards the end of the movie, there started to have vaccines rollout and life slowly returned to normal. This portion hit me the hardest because it is in a similar phase that we are facing in the covid pandemic, where vaccines are becoming more readily available, and mask mandates/shutdowns are starting to be lifted.

Image from itij


    This movie connected to the Week 4 topic of medicine, technology, and art. Social media is a medium that is a blend of arts such as pictures, blogs, etc., and technology, use of computers or phones to view it. In the movie, Alan Krumwiede, a journalist, used social media to influence the types of medicines people would be taking in response to the outbreak. The journalist was saying Forsythia was a miracle drug that could cure MEV-1 even though it was not proven to do anything positive. This is reminded me similarly to covid when Hydroxychloroquine was mentioned often in the news as a cure while also not having established scientific evidence that it could cure covid. Regardless of whether the drugs were proven, both people in the movie and in real life were influenced by social media, a form of technology and art, which resulted in them choosing a certain medicine. 

Image from cochrane


    Even though I've seen the movie before, this was the first time I've watched it since the Covid pandemic began. Originally I thought the movie was farfetched and over-stylized and dramatic. However, watching it during the pandemic felt especially impactful due to how it felt more rooted in reality, and how these responses, while still dramatic, were not impossibilities. I recommend this movie, especially due to the current global situation.
Image from un





Works Cited

Bullock, Clara. “US to Extend Travel Ban to 80 per Cent of All Countries.” ITIJ, 22 Apr. 2021, www.itij.com/latest/news/us-extend-travel-ban-80-cent-all-countries.

Chinazzi, Matteo, et al. “The Effect of Travel Restrictions on the Spread of the 2019 Novel Coronavirus (COVID-19) Outbreak.” Science, American Association for the Advancement of Science, 24 Apr. 2020, science.sciencemag.org/content/368/6489/395.

“Contagion.” United Nations, United Nations, www.un.org/en/ccoi/contagion.

“COVID-19 FAQs for the Community.” VICTR, victr.vumc.org/community-faq/.

Giles, Jack Goodman and Christopher. “Coronavirus and Hydroxychloroquine: What Do We Know?” BBC News, BBC, 27 July 2020, www.bbc.com/news/51980731.

Is Chloroquine or Hydroxychloroquine Useful in Treating People with COVID-19, or in Preventing Infection in People Who Have Been Exposed to the Virus?, 25 Mar. 2021, www.cochrane.org/news/chloroquine-or-hydroxychloroquine-useful-treating-people-covid-19-or-preventing-infection.

Onion, Rebecca. “People Are Taking the Wrong Lessons From Contagion.” Slate Magazine, Slate, 30 Jan. 2020, slate.com/culture/2020/01/contagion-movie-coronavirus-lessons-steven-soderbergh.html.

“Social Media & COVID-19: A Global Study of Digital Crisis Interaction among Gen Z and Millennials.” World Health Organization, World Health Organization, www.who.int/news-room/feature-stories/detail/social-media-covid-19-a-global-study-of-digital-crisis-interaction-among-gen-z-and-millennials.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Week 7 | Neuroscience + Art

Image
My previous experience with neuroscience and psychology was a semester longe psychology course that I took in high school. While I don't remember specifics from the course, I do remember enjoying the class, and the topics that were introduced. This background knowledge helped me understand the topics this week on neuroscience and art. Art and the brain are intertwined. Artwork is able to capture the emotions of feelings of an artist, and in turn, allows us to also feel what the artist is feeling. Image from  artranked What stood out to me the most was Christopher deCharm's TED talk. He explains that the brain can be mapped in real-time through the use of an MRI. This meant that it was possible for people to see where in the brain the signals from their actions were sent to. With this people were able to control their pathways, and subsequently train their brains. Using this method, there was a 44% to 64% reduction in chronic pain patients. I knew that MRIs were able to show sig...
Read more

Event 2 | Gattaca

Image
I attended the watch party on May 7th. I found the movie interesting because it explores what life could be like if society obsessed over ideal genetics. The movie Gattaca is about ideal genetics, and how technology can be used to tweak genes. This ties back into what we are learning in class because of the use of biotechnologies to alter genes. Such as the case of Alba, where fluorescent jellyfish genome was injected into a rabbit, or Joe Davis injecting a mouse with the map of the Milky Way. Gattaca takes this a step further and creates a hierarchical society based on genetics. In the movie Gattaca, the main character Vincent is conceived without any genetic modifications. He is denied opportunities because he is seen as genetically unfit. Vincent ends up meeting Jerome, who has perfect genetics, and Vincent ends up taking Jerome's identity in order to enter the astronaut program. Image from  harrisonpl What stuck out to me is how people were denied an opportunity to even try out...
Read more