Watching this film reinforced ideas I
already had about worldwide greed. On an individual level it is
difficult to comprehend how anyone could choose profit over the lives
of millions of people. The drug companies in the film are portrayed
as evil, but I believe everyone is both good and evil. Weren't there
any individuals within the drug companies who said what they were
doing was wrong? There are endless research studies that show that as
a whole, as a group, people tend to be more on the evil side. When
films villafy individuals like the lady with the bushy black hair and
the black older woman who I believe was the minister of health, it
makes me think, why not just remove those people – send them to
prison, isolate them from society. I feel the answer must be that
there would just be another 'evil' person to take their place. How
can greed trump feelings of humanity? The main character with AIDS is
an exception because he actually chooses the good of most over his
own individual health, as he had access to the drugs. His individual choice clearly affected many people because, as the article states, there are now many more people with access to the drug, and even a new cheaper single pill available. Many humans
have done evil, greedy things in the name of their own
self-perseverance. I am curious as to how having power can turn
people towards evil and greed, or make them more evil and more
greedy, due to ideas that power corrupts.
As a film, unfortunately, I can't say
that I enjoyed it. I felt it was repetitive and a little boring,
though nonetheless important. Also, I couldn't stop thinking about
the two parts of the film that talked about the main characters
experiences in casual sex as a child. I was wondering how that was
relevant to the story, and why the director choose to include it. I
would love to hear why those parts were choosen, because in my
opinion, it sort of gave the film a bad taste because there are
stereotypes about AIDS/HIV being a 'gay' disease. Obviously this is
not true, but the film sort of made it look like the main character
got the disease from being promiscuous a child. It would have been
different for me as a viewer if they had described his promiscuity as
an adult, but thinking about adult men with young boys, even if it
was the boy's idea disturbs me. I can understand that maybe young
Zackie was just more attracted to older men, but I don't like the
idea of older men being attracted to young Zackie. Of course, there
are cultural implications to consider, gay culture being just a part
of it.This idea of sexuality and young children is a sensitive
subject for me and again makes think about ideas of good and evil and
the gray line between the two.
Greed never crossed my mind but I can see how it would influence aspects of this film. The people in higher government positions think that they are entitled to more and should make a large profit. The fact is they do not directly suffer so they have no reason to be lenient towards this problem that many other do face. It is wrong that they cannot handle their position in a proper way and make people's lives better by making certain things available for anyone. A country is only as good as its people. But yes, evil people will continue to come and go when it comes to politics and economy. As for the second part of your post I also was surprised and shocked by his flashbacks. It does make it seem that he got HIV from an older man while still very young himself. I was somewhat disgusted and appalled that children are used in this way. He was too young to be making a decision like that. If anything at all, it made the film uncomfortable since there were no explanations.
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