Event 3


For event 3, I attended the Contagion watch party. The plot concerns the spread of an infectious virus that affects the respiratory system and central nervous system and follows medical researchers and public health officials that try to identify and contain the disease. Citizens around the world live in fear, families attempt to cross borders to enter another city, and social order is lost as people fight (and even kill) for resources and food. A vaccine is introduced at the end of the movie to stop the spread of the disease. 


The movie had striking similarities to the current coronavirus pandemic, and it was extremely unsettling to follow the story of a plausible outbreak, as it describes the reality of the world that we currently live in. To illustrate how realistically the movie reflects the pandemic panic we experienced in 2020, I’ve included some pictures below of movie scenes (left) and compared them to pictures I took myself (right). 




The movie highlighted many challenges of battling the virus, such as understanding how the virus might spread (the incubation period and susceptibility to virus), the effects of the virus on genetics and the immune system, as well as the development of a workable vaccine (going through human trials, clearance, and approval, needing to manufacture mass quantities to distribute it efficiently). Many scenes showed the scientists attempting to understand the virus at the nano-scale. For instance, Ally Hextall sequenced the virus, understood the structure of the viral attachment protein and receptors in the human cell, and the discovered development of new strains. Hextall studied these assemblies of atoms and changed their physical and chemical properties to vaccinate against the virus, further demonstrating how nanotechnology encompasses biology, technology, neuroscience, and medicine (Gimzewski). 

Scene from Contagion

Another visible challenge was the constant disputes between the different departments. A scene showed the CDC representatives and government officials arguing about what to prioritize. Although the health officials noted that they could not vaccinate against the virus because the cell cannot be grown, the government continued to push the CDC and WHO throughout the movie and even suggested putting certain molecules into the water to “vaccinate” everyone quickly. This demonstrates the gap between the two cultures and the differences in the languages (Vesna) and priorities of the disciplines that hinder collaboration, despite the fact that both groups are working towards resolving the same exact issue. 




References


Cho, Sarah. 2020. Trader Joe’s in March of 2020. Photograph. 


Cho, Sarah. 2020. LAX in August of 2020. Photograph. 


Cho, Sarah. 2020. Going Home after Quarantine in September of 2020. Photograph. 


Digital Images. “Contagion.” Directed by Steven Soderbergh. 2011.


Fear, David. “How ‘Contagion’ Suddenly Became the Most Urgent Movie of 2020.” RollingStone. 13 March. 2020. Web.


Gimzewski, James. “Nanotech pt1.” CoLE DESMA 9. 22 May. 2012. Lecture.


Kritz, Fran. “Fact-Checking 'Contagion' — In Wake Of Coronavirus, The 2011 Movie Is Trending.” NPR. 16 February. 2020. Web.


Rogers, Kristen. “'Contagion' vs. coronavirus: The film's connections to a real life pandemic.” CNN. 2 April. 2020. Web.


Vesna, Victoria. “Toward a Third Culture: Being in Between.” Leonardo 34.2 (2001): 121-25. Web.

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