After hearing about “Death Panels” all week, with all the hub-bub related to the healthcare reform bill and crazy town hall meetings with people screaming about the government wanting to “pull the plug on grandma”, it got me thinking about that old Charlton Heston epic from the 70s about the ultimate form of healthcare. It’s more like “death care”…
(Spoilerz) Basically, in Soylent Green, from what I remember, there’s a future dystopia where people have to ride stationary bikes in their apartments just to charge up the ceiling light bulb. There’s huge overpopulation, and like one tree left that’s preserved in a glass dome. Some rich dudes hoard actual food like steak, but everyone else is forced to wait for some trucks to show up in the street shooting out rectangular chunks of synthetic food. Eventually, Heston’s aged roommate or dad or whomever is feeling sick and decides to go “Home” which is this big hospital where they make you watch a 360-degree film about nature like at EPCOT center, except instead of being funneled out to the overpriced gift shop at the end, you are euthanized and your body is thrown on a conveyor belt in a factory that processes it into Soylent Green, the food that the trucks spew out to the ignorant masses. Heston tries to reveal this at the end, but I believe he is tragically taken down by the police just as he shouts “Soylent Green is people!!!” Poor Heston – all the troubles of our future worlds rested on his shoulders… too much for one future man to take on.
Funny thing is – I saw this film in my HIGH SCHOOL HEALTH CLASS! I think it was some kind of health class tradition in my school – they had the actual film reel you put in the old-timey projector and played on the pull-down movie screen. I guess it had something to do with learning about social issues like overpopulation and the environment. Okay, so first they made us watch the whole graphic child-birth movie, and then we have to watch this movie about future cannibalism related to overpopulation. Nice. Were they trying to discourage us from procreating??? No wonder people are scared to death of government healthcare – maybe they had the same crazy sci-fi dystopia health class curriculum I was exposed to!
– Nigel Matrix
Stupidfuture: Obscure Sci-Fi Parodies 