How do you read the final scene in Children of Men? Are we witnessing a symbolic re-birth? Why does Cuaron choose Theo and Kee as the “key” figures for potential renewal? How might the story be changed, for example, if the fountainhead of the human race was imagined as a white woman from a Western nation? What does Kee’s pregnancy (and the rest of the movie) tell us about the power and limits of science and technology?
6 thoughts on “Children of Men–Group 3”
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The Wikipedia page for Children of Men quotes Cuarón in an article from 2007 about the final scene: “We wanted the end to be a glimpse of a possibility of hope, for the audience to invest their own sense of hope into that ending. So if you’re a hopeful person you’ll see a lot of hope, and if you’re a bleak person you’ll see a complete hopelessness at the end.” I suppose I fall much closer into the second category then. Throughout the movie, as is so well summarized in the slides, the most powerful emotional impact is derived from the world-building and how this dystopia is so close to the present but applied to the currently “thriving” city of London, which is adored and seen as a power of the Western world. The dropping of this gray and violent destructed veil onto the city of London envokes the powerlessness of the infertile world presented in the story without directly explaining what has happened (which I appreciate that Cuarón does not do). To my cynical mood last night, this futuristic Britain gave no hope of escape. The entire focus of the film is this heroic journey of Theo and Key – Key who must beat the unbeatable odds of being a black woman, a “fugee”, to even exist in this world – and the glimmer of hope that, through a miraculous series of half-planned miracles, delivers a healthy mother and child to the Human Project, a heavily protected haven dedicated to saving the world. I can certainly see how many may see the ending as hopeful, a beautiful passing down of knowledge from a dying father to a new mother, a cure for the world’s ails, a cease-fire for the gunfire in face of new life. However, the abstract nature of this “human project” leaves me much less hopeful than I think Cuarón intended me to be. GIven the fact that the power is in the hands of the same wealthy, White scientists who have selectively taken advantage of minorities in many unethical instances in the past (and present!) leaves me very worried at how the world of this film would treat this new Black, immigrant, miracle mother. Also, the fact that the world has already gone to shit steers me even further in the direction of cautious cynicism. What would the human project do with this child? What would possibly be an ethical plan to save the world from here? How do you keep the “power” of fertility out of the chokehold of the elites – I’m thinking of Theo’s cousin? I guess I am sounding a bit bleak, but I’m excited to be convinced otherwise during class today!
For Theo, I see the final scene as the culmination of his Odyssean Journey, a journey which is the mirror opposite of Odysseus’s (mostly water then land) by mainly being on land then finishing on water with his death. His homecoming is his return to the politically active protestor that Julian loved and Jasper refers to. He is with a family, just not his, which speaks to Cuarno’s stance of humanizing immigrants and making their lives equivalent to ours.
For Kee, her arrival is an affirmation of her motherhood since she was able to trust her instincts and deliver her baby to safety in this decaying world. (In this way, Theo also reaffirms his fatherhood after the loss of his first chil ). Her motherly instincts of knowing how to trust in Julian and Theo and her tremendous willpower to do anything for the future (of her child) makes her the ideal candidate to start a renewed humanity. Having Kee as a black immigrant does connect to Cuarno’s broader stance on immigration and claims for universal treatment of all humans which would not be emphasized if she was a rich, white British citizen. Kee highlights how every immigrant has unforeseen potential and are deserving of fair treatment.
Kee’s pregnancy serves as a humbling of the scientific world. The hubris of man has overstepped it’s abilities, and only a miracle can restore the world. The splitting of the sea of soldiers by Kee and her baby shows the reverence and awe that her pregnancy holds over everyone, a reverence that science can not recreate.
I think the end of the movie shows a chance for society’s success in the future because a baby is finally born, breaking the drought of human births. Everyone stops fighting when they see the baby as people are shocked to see a fertile human and baby. The baby is going to be integrated into society and not outcasted as evidenced by its baptism. Kee learns some important tips on how to take care of the baby in order to ensure its survival. Theo knows he is going to die but still wants to see the human race survive as he teaches Kee how to burp the baby. In addition, if there was a white woman pregnant, I think she would have possibly experienced less obstacles than see in order to survive. I think that by having a non-white fountainhead, it displays that the human race must come together as one instead of just white people from the UK. Finally, the pregnancy shows that technology is still limited even in the future. Technology cannot fix every problem.
I saw the final scene as a passing down of roles from Theo to Kee. Theo has been the main character and protector throughout the film and he has to die for Kee to fully take on that role from him. I was really happy that Theo was the one who was bleeding on the boat instead of Kee. I feel like it’s a troupe of the man taking the baby away from its mother because the mother is dying. I agree that it is a symbolic rebirth of society as the child is taken and raised away from the corrupt society. Also giving Kee and the baby up to the Human project where they will be studied by scientists trying to solve issues with fertility signals that Kee and her child will be the base for the future of humanity. I didn’t make Noah’s ark connection right away, but I agree with Erik that it definitely is reminiscent of that. Although giving Kee up on the human project implies to me that there is still faith that science will resolve their issues.
If the story had a white woman as the pregnant woman, I feel like it would make the movie be anti-immigration and almost pro colonialism. A huge part of the setting of the film is the mistreatment of immigrants and the conditions they live in. The fishes even attempt to use Kee’s baby as a political message, which to me signals them using the baby of proof of usefulness and humanity of the immigrant population to the British citizen. If it was a white woman who was pregnant the film would not be about the struggles of immigrants rather it would be highlight the fact the country wouldn’t need immigrants as a new labor force could be birthed out of the white elite.
I think it’s interesting that the movie places the blame of infertility on women while the book places the blame on men and having a low sperm count. It could be Cuaruno is pointing out how society blames women for infertility or anything to do with babies regardless of the cause. But the movie does show that technology and science are not going to be the solution to our social problems. As the real issue is not infertility rather the treatment of people as shown by the soldiers and immigrants’ continuous fighting after Kee and the baby are revealed. The movie also says that science does not have all the answers and that nature will find a way even if we humans ruin the world.
The final scene in Children of Men represents hope, in a similar fashion to Parable of the Sower. I agree with Adam, we are seeing a symbolic re-birth. In this film it is difficult to escape religious meaning. To begin with some of the characters we follow have names with reference to God or spirituality. Theo coming for the Greek word theos or God and Dylan meaning son of the sea are the most interesting for this reason. The end is hopeful because we see Theo die to preserve life and establish a new beginning–very reminiscent to Noah’s ark. I do not think that there is a special importance in the race/ethnicity of Kee and her child. This is because the emphasis of this film was on children and women’s bodies. We come to understand the dystopia, one that is run down and hopeless, with respect to the failure of women not being able to reproduce. I question how Cuaron posits female agency because in this film it is suggested that women have no agency. The film is also titled Children of Men, but as we all know women bear the responsibility of raising children in a heternormative (cis-gendered heterosexual) relationship. The most important scene is not the last. Yes Theo dies a martyr, but the scene where both sides are fighting and stop after hearing a baby crying is significant in that it is an inherent realization of extreme politicization. If children crying is what it takes for some fight to stop, then Cuaron is inherently suggesting that are problems are silly and that we need to place our disputes over the future of children. This then suggests that we need to focus on subjects that we look at bleakly and, well figure out how to solve them for the sake of our children.
I think that the lack of science surrounding the infertility problem is hilarious. Science positions itself as an entity that provides solutions to problems, and even if Cuarno did not intentionally do this, failing to solve an infertility problem with women just shows the biases of science. That is science as illustrated in sci-fi has been strictly male oriented and this just blatantly comes from our own reality, take a look at this Vox article: https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2019/4/17/18308466/invisible-women-pain-gender-data-gap-caroline-criado-perez
My point is science in this world, just like ours, fails women. Why is the infertility problem not related to that of men, I mean it could be a simple matter a male gamete mutation, maybe Kee ran into a person who did not have a mutated male gamete mutation. I don’t know, but it seems like the film posits women as the problem, when it seems like a man’s problem–I mean if we are to believe these are Children of Men and not Women.
The final scene definitely signifies and shows a “symbolic” re-birth of human society. When Theo and Kee start leaving the building, everything seemed to be moving in slow motion and it seemed blissful, which was totally different in contrast to the previous scenes with the British military moving into the building and rockets and grenades flying everywhere. There was a lot of “religious singing” and “religious rituals” that were also occuring when Theo and Kee started to walk down from the building stairs, both with the fugees and soldiers praying when they saw the baby. One thing that was interesting though was that the shooting continued after Theo, Kee and her baby were out of the vicinity of the building – I was assuming that once everyone saw the baby, it would have been an “aha moment”, and everyone would have helped Kee get to Human Project’s ship off the coast since all the fighting and unrest was because of the infertility. The very last scene, with Theo dying from his wound, and only Kee in the middle of the ocean before the ship arrived was surreal, as it almost seemed like the whole world was depending on Kee and her kid to survive so that humanity could continue.
As the slides for this week mention, Julian, a white British citizen, not Kee was the one that got pregnant in the book. With Cuaron using a refugee women as the main “madonna” of the film and Theo as the accompanying man, we can see the obvious and clear divide between the wealthy and the poor in this globalized system. For example, when Theo goes to his cousin Nigel, we see Theo riding in a Rolls Royce through a perfect-setting with clean roads, people relaxing in the park, and even a person walking a zebra. This is in contrast to Kee (a refugee) and the Bexhill refugee camp where we see chaos and what seemed like as the slides for this week say, “… moral failings, cruelties, dead ends and a decay of late capitalism in wealthy Western nations.”
Limits of science and technology are apparent, and no matter how well the British government does and how well the wealthy and privileged are protected, nothing can stop the human race from becoming distinct. I think that is also what is so symbolic with the new birth of a child being from Kee, a refugee, in the worst part of Britain – the Bexhill refugee camp.