Although I'm desperately fond of Alanis Morissette, ever since she released Ironic in 1995 the whole concept of irony has gotten a bit fuzzy, so I'm going to need some help from the studio audience with this one.
Elysium, the long-awaited second film from District 9 director/writer Neill Blomkamp, is set in a dystopian 2154 where Earth has become a sort of global slum occupied by the poor and disadvantaged. The rich and elite inhabit an orbital paradise named Elysium, after the heaven of the Greeks.
With that in mind, I'm not certain if it counts as ironic for the Elysium street team to wallpaper large portions of the Main and Hastings neighbourhood here in Vancouver with posters, given that Main and Hastings represents the most visible group of the poor and disadvantaged here in Canada. (It may push it over into irony if you add in the fact that it's unlikely that most of the street people in East Van have enough disposable income for movies anyway.)
And if it is ironic, would it be more or less so if they'd done the same thing with Oblivion posters?
- Sid
It is ironic, especially since the disadvantaged of the downtown east side probably would never think as Matt Damon as their saviour....
ReplyDeleteChris
of*
ReplyDeleteHmmm, I'll add a proper comment after I've seen the movie. Surely there must be SOME part of future Earth that is untainted, so that the rich elite wouldn't have to leave the planet. Somewhere like Easter Island perhaps?
ReplyDeleteAfter having seen the movie Elysium, it is possible to make a more informed comment. The postering of the DTES was likely done without any thought to the local demographic, rather than an attempt at irony. Note that places like SW Marine Drive, Shaughnessy and upper West Vancouver did not get postered. But beyond the backdrop of steep socioeconomic disparity is a message of hope: a sarcastic, blue collar worker with a checkered past (Damon) is the only movie character who assumes a role of saving the downtrodden masses. None of the elite are shown to possess any such humanitarian inclinations. Other expressions of compassionate behaviour come from a nurse/mother desperate to save her dying daughter and perhaps the unselfish loyalty of Damon's pigtailed buddy-in-misdemeanor, but it is slim pickings for the milk of human kindness. What's more ironic than the posters at Main and Hastings is that the movie reveals how being rich and beautiful on the outside is a sharp contrast to the inner level of evolution of the privileged few.
ReplyDelete