Subliminal Messages

This weekend I went to go see In Time with Justin Timberlake and Amanda Seyfried. The movie, to me, was great to say the least. In the film, the message was quite clear, “in order for few to be immortal, many must die”. The movie represented a life as if wage was literally paid in time. The the amount of time people were paid was the amount of time they had left to live. The movie shows the realities of people living day to day (paycheck to paycheck) and people literally dying because they didn't have enough time. The poor continued to struggle and die because the upper class continued to raise the standard of living, the rich continued to live forever controlling the system. The movie that transparently showed the separation between classes is speaking subliminally about injustices around the world. The message that was repeated, “for few to be immortal, many must die”, is a phrase that is just like the one sung at Occupy Wall St. “We are the 99%.” The protestors see that the system is constantly setting people up for failure. People can not find jobs, so that means no income; people graduate from college and can not find jobs in their fields, which means no income while interest is building on student loans; there is a lack of universal healthcare; along with the standard of living continuing to rise. This system that we live in has a lot of faulty aspects, but it’s not just us in the United States that is suffering from a system where only a few are thriving. Look at Sao Paulo in Brazil for example. The wealth disparity is clear. There are hundreds of slums literally right next door to multi-million dollar condos with private pools on every deck. Even in India where a husbands family kills the bride because the dowry for the wife’s family raises, and they are unable to pay the increased wage. The grooms family kills her to be able to marry another bride whose family can afford to pay the new dowry. Even the fact that widows can’t remarry in certain parts of India making them result to beggars adds on to the system that does not properly support their citizens. This movie, even if not intentionally, is presenting many problems not just in the United States, but all over. The standard of living is getting extremely expensive and people can not even provide the basic necessities for their families. It is a very sad reality that ‘for few to be in the 1% many must struggle to survive’ living paycheck to paycheck. In the movie, they went to extremes to change the situation they were in. I wonder what it will take to change the world system so that everyone who wants it, will be able to live a prosperous and fruitful life. Lets not let our time run out!!!

Alexis Roe