Quite telling is the film’s premise, which deems it inconceivable that this black woman could miraculously defy nature, so to speak, as evidence of hope and savior for humanity. But hope for humanity from any source regardless the packaging, is just that, the gift of hope. Hope can fuel hearts to revolution, so it seems we must let go of preconceptions of what or who should inspire hope and accept the gift, no matter the sender. In a world riddled with ruthless competition, we struggle to ascertain the balance of self-preservation and the preservation of humanity. In the case of the War in Iraq (referenced by the movie through a poster), or the murder of Baby Diego there was a terrible breakdown in this balance and we have tragic results. Suddenly we arrive to a world where the “top,” evidenced by wealth, is devoid of “real politics,” forgetting their need. In time they learn to just not think about the atrocities that create the need for “real politics.”
Just as Theo will eventually be desensitized to the frequency which caused the ringing in his ears during the explosion, people desensitize themselves to others and “real politics” dissolve. The progression of this human extinction is displayed through art; as we first see The Statue of David, classic sculpture meant to convey man at his absolute best, followed by, Picasso’s Guernica, a cubist painting meant to convey the chaos and destruction of war, man at his worst. This art is in the home of a man who is “at the top” despite the state of the world, because he doesn’t think about the atrocities occurring around his glass bubble of self perseveration…but the top of what? A society failing morally as well as politically.
Instead of the voices of children, the world is filled with the sounds of animals; they are the new children of men. Animals are present in so many scenes of this film drawing such attention to the abnormality of that continual presence. The children of men become animals because that’s all that man has left to latch on to as smaller images of themselves, as animal behavior is all that man seems able to reproduce. The society is not reproducing but destroying humanity. Thus, the natural, in this case Kee, who is able to reproduce naturally, begin to feel like the “freaks.” She is in turn forced to suffer through the pain of the most natural process in silence. Kee goes through labor during her terrified flight for the Human Project, struggling to conceal the pain of childbirth; the weight of the hope for humanity, alone.
Suddenly, it becomes understandable that home becomes a battleground riddled with destruction and violence, because isn’t war a more targeted, purposed destruction of man? For me, the lack of willingness to accept the packaging of Kee’s gift to humanity is reminiscent of the source of many citizens’ refusal to accept Obama as the packaging of a viable president of the United States. Is it presumptuous to say Obama has the power to save humanity? Quite possibly, but mankind’s destruction begins with small actions of torpidity in which people give up on “real politics”, turning a moral and political eye of myopia to the injustices of the world. Hope in the eventual emergence from such a state begins that process. Though Kee fears the public’s reaction, faith in humanity is grounded in something real. Theo’s death, which allows for Kee’s life and the actual existence of the Human Project evidence the validity of that faith; validity in the belief that there exists for some the natural inclination to understand what is best for the human race and give that truth the higher precedence. That same glimmer of hope that is the only thing left on which to stand and push for better, begins with the faith in what can be from the glimpse of what already is…more or less that “yes we can.” In spite of talk of cliché, Obama’s often scorned “rhetoric” seems the true beginning of changing direction and inspiring true revolution of man’s sensibility toward one another. Only then can the results truly change for the better - the balance of self as well as humanitarian preservation.
