All willing disbelief suspended, all fond memories of the original shelved and all expenses paid for an average seat at the Odeon – yup, time for Jurassic World. And my Gobisaurus, there was not a lot that film didn’t do – a blazing example of anti-capitalist, Marxist, feminist critique. Here are a few of the highlights.
Consumerism Will Destroy Us: So, the two young white male protagonists arrive at Jurassic World, twenty-two years after lots of people got killed at Jurassic Park, and it’s basically a giant zoo. Screaming kids are riding baby Triceratops, screaming crowds are watching great white sharks being fed to Mosasaurus and profits are screaming (in delight) as the park rolls out its latest asset – a genetically engineered new dinosaur, the Indominus Rex. The film paints a pretty grim picture of humans as greedy, selfish consumers. Meanwhile, it swiftly becomes apparent that the money behind the park is corporate, so much so that the companies want their brands to form part of the dinosaurs’ names – the Nokiasaurus, iRex etc. The dinosaurs are also referred to as ‘assets’ and seen as profit-making objects rather than real living creatures. Put this alongside the film’s own product placement, what with Mercedes, Coca-Cola and Samsung all getting an appearance, and there’s a pretty strong anti-consumer capitalism message going on here. Not to mention that the entire park actually forms part of an elaborate military project to breed dinosaurs as weapons – so it’s not just the greedy business types pulling the strings it’s also the war generals, quite the military-industrial complex going on here.
Of course, this would not be part of the Jurassic Park franchise if the dinosaurs did not escape and kill lots of people – which they do. We see one woman get chomped by the Mosasaurus, multiple people get flayed by Pterodactyls and the Indominus Rex goes on a feeding frenzy. The moral of this story: consumerism will destroy us – in a wonderful irony, befitting of even the most esoteric of French philosophers, the very products of consumerism (namely, genetically modified dinos) will turn on those that consume them by…consuming them. Ouch.
Nature Does Not Exist: First there was the earth – a barren lump of rock, then there was nature – trees, rivers, animals etc, then there were humans. We labour under the belief that humans are not part of nature, hence our endless quest to reveal nature’s secrets and dominate it. Simultaneously, we idolise the time of pre-human nature and in Jurassic World they try to recreate it by breeding extinct dinosaurs. However, as one of the chief scientists in the film reminds us, “nothing in this park is natural” because the humans have been tinkering with the dino DNA right from the start. But that still begs the question “what is natural?”
That’s an incredibly difficult question to answer if we still believe in the binary of pristine, nonhuman nature versus dirty, human artifice. We can never win if humans are the ones that render everything unnatural simply by existing. So, I suggest we give up this confused notion of nature and accept that that sort of nature never existed. Instead we can place humans alongside animals, rivers, plants etc, in a broader understanding of the natural world. This can also include all the mechanical and technological contraptions that humans like to create. Thus, rather than having degrees of ‘natural’ we could have degrees of ‘engineered-by-humans’ – i.e. a rock-as-hammer being a less engineered human technology than, say, a car. Of course, this says nothing for how humans treat the world they form part of, pretty badly basically.
White Men And Families Will Save Us: Jurassic World is a 12A, it’s a film for all the family. Thus, it’s only right that Bryce Dallas Howard’s character, Claire Dearing – the park’s white, single, overly organised, female stereotype operations manager, ends up with Owen Grady (played by Chris Pratt), the white, rugged, dino fighting, sexist, male stereotype Indiana Jones knock off. Meanwhile, Zach and Gray (yes, he is called a colour) the two white, siblings who start the film squabbling end up fulfilling male and fraternal stereotypes thanks to numerous near death experiences with dinosaurs. Also, the implication at the end of the film is that their possibly-divorcing parents will stay together now the dinosauar attacks have put everything in perspective.
Indeed, the majority of characters that do positive things in this film are white, whilst the evil scientist is of Chinese descent and the dubious billionaire that owns the park is Indian. However, there is one white baddy – a gun-toting military man who wants to use the dinosaurs as weapons, he ends up getting eaten by a Velociraptor. At least the film passes the Bechdel test as Claire talks with her sister, Karen (the mum of Zach and Gray), about something other than men…how to raise children.
In brief, the moral of this story is that it helps to be white, male, heterosexual and part of an atomic family, or planning to start one. That’s how to survive the dinosaur apocalypse.
Redemption: Just when we thought all was lost and the Indominus Rex was about to eat everyone the T-Rex, Velociraptor and Mosasaurus all come to the rescue and render the Indominus Rex very much dead. So, there is a happy ending of sorts as the friendly dinosaurs help the white, heteronormative humans restore some form of order. It’s a confused message perhaps but it does imply globalised consumer capitalism does not have to spell the end of humankind. There may well be hope for us yet, thank you dinosaurs.
humanconditioned 