Digging Deep: Children of Men (2006)

“Children of Men” warns of the weaponization of fear and the erosion of empathy, yet with a message of hope more urgent than ever.

We are inundated; we are overwhelmed. Many will tell you that this administration’s purpose and focus is to bombard us with so much daily terror that we lose the ability to be horrified. And it’s not an argument that’s difficult to accept.

I read once that horror adapts to the circumstances of the day; after World War II, European horror became more extreme because many of those countries witnessed a new level of brutality on their soil. Godzilla was the direct result of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Vietnam led to The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. The simple reality is that horror is an escape for many of us, and for it to transport us, it must, somehow, be worse than what we have witnessed.

But then again, perhaps the most authentic horror isn’t that which transports us beyond; it’s that which forces us to look into the face of the near future.

I don’t know that Children of Men had any notion of how prescient it was upon its 2006 release. I certainly didn’t when I watched it at the time. But re-watching it now, the movie shook me.

It saw so clearly where we were headed and, perhaps most horrifyingly, the ways that we become inured to the horror. The ways that, when bombarded with new daily nightmares, we become complacent. And how that is precisely what corrupt and vile governments want.

It’s true that we have many, maybe too many, post-apocalyptic films focusing on something nebulous—a virus, a bomb, something ill-defined and general. 

However, Children of Men wisely doesn’t focus on the why/how; it levels its gaze firmly on the result. 

The government puts the blame for pretty much every damn thing on immigrants.

We are shown our hero, the great Clive Owen, walking past open-air pens of refugees, desperate for food, water, and humanity. The movie tells us he is not a bad man for keeping his head down and walking past; he is simply numb.

It is with no small degree of shame that I say that I understand this impulse. When the government hits you with so goddamn much that it is a struggle to maintain yourself, your loved ones, and your sense of equilibrium, gradually but steadily, it becomes harder to grasp onto the parts of you that recoil.

To return to my opening thesis about the way horror evolves as media, does it not also evolve as we are faced with every day?

Do the injustices and cruelties not also need to become more brutal and vivid for us to access our reserve of outrage and anger, both because we are dealing with the insane onslaughts of bullshit we face personally, but also because the more we are immersed in the horrors, the harder it becomes to shock us?

Even before 45, we had to deal with the notion that we were putting families in functional concentration camps. During WWII, there was no question; we didn’t have to see it personally, so we didn’t reckon our own accountability for the camps we put Japanese citizens in; that remove did not exculpate us. But here we are, reconciling with another deeper and colder layer of it.

A family I’ve read about often, a husband-and-wife restaurateur pair, was recently detained by ICE. This couple has been seeking legal citizenship since 2016. They pay taxes. They welcome the unhoused, the disabled, and those who simply lack the funds for meals and offer them free food, no questions asked. 

And yet…

They were detained. They have been arrested and are awaiting litigation. Because the cruelty is the point. And for the first time, many people in their neighborhood are seeing that we are not speaking in abstracts; real human beings are being impacted by billionaires.

While there is some hope in this, how long will it take before we become immune to the idea of our neighbors being punished for the mere crime of being NOT fucking white? We already feel the distance growing because the daily horrors are too much.

Children of Men suggests a world where the government drops a bomb every time the public begins to question the inner workings too much.

Are we any different? Perhaps the bomb isn’t literal, but what else can you call it when 45’s administration is constantly announcing sweeping layoffs, withdrawal from NATO, and an attempt to turn the Gaza strip into a resort? These are bombs. These are designed to keep us off our feet.

Children of Men offers hope, hope that I wish felt was warranted.

A baby, the promise of new life, silences the guns from every side for a moment. I cried, as I imagine many did, during that sequence, both because it was beautiful and because I felt a deep sadness thinking of the schools, hospitals, and the many, many civilian homes of Palestinians that have been bombed in the name of the US getting oil. In the name of apartheid.

This leads neatly to another important and relevant, if somewhat background, theme of Children of Men. The way that propaganda is used to distance us all from the reality of war crimes and inhumanity. The government in the movie consistently reframes the various atrocities they inflict as the fault of immigrants; it fosters paranoia and suspicion, so no one has time to interrogate the motives of this growing white supremacist empire.

I mean, Jesus Christ. If the movie hadn’t been made nearly 20 years ago, I would say, “How on the nose can you be?”

And if it seems I am focusing on the negative, it is only because I—like so many of you—am exhausted from seeing even the leaders I thought offered some hope roll over and show their stomachs. But Children of Men DOES suggest there is reason for hope. That people, as individuals, faced with other people as individuals, find their common humanity.

The sound of a baby crying means hope—it means the future. And that, Children of Men reminds us, is something worth fighting for.

We are tired, but it is only the beginning. We will take strength in each other.

Even the smallest act of kindness matters. Even the smallest act of kindness means hope.