recording 3

The film "Contagion" portrays a pandemic caused by a deadly virus, leading to chaos and crime in society. Resource management and the distribution of a vaccine are key factors in the film. Trust in the government and the CDC is lost early on. The movie reflects functionalism and conflict theory, with the working class paying taxes for government resources and the government being seen as the owners of production. Misinformation spreads, leading to protests. Two articles analyze the accuracy of the film and its portrayal of societal problems. Overall, the film focuses on understanding and solving the virus problem. I have decided to pick the film Contagion for my final project. In this film, a major phenomenon the public has to face is a pandemic by a deadly virus. This leads to chaos in society and causes a lot of issues, with a major issue being crime in the movie. The reason for crime comes from a multitude of reasons, with resource management being a key factor. In the film, the theme of resources is used throughout the pandemic. First, we see a lack of military resources and government funds used to control the disease and help create a cure. Because of this, there is no law and order. There is a scene where Mitch is trying to get food, and all you see is stores getting looted. There is also a scene where his neighbors get shot, and since there is a lack of police officers, nobody could help. The second would be the vaccine itself. It's arguable with how they distribute the vaccine, because there is not enough to produce the vaccine to everybody all at once, so they must pick birthdays by random to distribute the vaccine. The film toys with the most valuable resource the government has, which is trust. That runs out very early in the movie, with how the CDC handles a virus in the public eye. Functionalism is very visible in the movie. In the film, the CDC is a tax-funded government organization. Therefore, we the people have paid for its services through tax dollars. We also see this as a micro-sociological perspective. A strong theory that I feel fits in this movie best would be conflict theory. The theory itself is very similar to what we see happen in the movie. First goes very well when paired with functionalism. The working class in the film would be the taxpayers. They must pay for the CDC and their resources to help provide a vaccine. That would make us the proletariat. Second would be the borghese, or people who own the production, which would be the government. This also leads to a major key part of the theory, which is crisis. This could be a rebellion or even a protest. Jude Law's character, Allen, spreads misinformation, which creates hate and protest towards the government. The first of the two articles I have picked for my final project is Fact-Checking Contagion in the Wake of the Coronavirus. In this article, they did a great job of explaining the film and compares it and contrasts it to what we face in real life with COVID-19. In the article, they explain the accuracy of the film and review parts and aspects shown. There is a specific part in the movie that the article refers to, but we see how the disease is spread. The article also explains how that scene is presented by a college professor by the name of Rebecca Katz, who uses it to show how environmental factors interact with humans and animals. This is a clear example of how social learning theory is used in this article. The second article I picked is called The Medical Advisors for the Movie Contagion. Saw a pandemic coming, but got one big thing wrong. The article suggests that the film depicts more of a critical theory perspective on the film because of its use of finding a solution to a major critical problem in society. Now, in the film, there are much more problems than just the virus, with looting and petty crimes being an example to extreme things like murder. However, this all derives from one problem, which is the virus. The theory not only explains that there is a problem, but also explains what the problem is. The film's entirety can be devoted to understanding the problem, which is the virus, and explaining how we get a cure for it. The film also explains similar structures for different characters, which follows this procedure. This could be how Mitch deals with being a single parent and losing half his family, to Jude Law's Alan being a symbol of a solution and going to jail for his crimes, which correspond with the conflict theory which we talked about earlier.