Hi friends!  Hope you are having a fabulous day!

As you may know, Cory and I love to watch movies.  We had a streak where we’d stopped going for a while because they were just getting TOO expensive ($10.50 per ticket!) but now one of our local theaters has been doing $5 tickets for ALL of their movies every Sunday.  We feel a lot better spending $10 for the two of us to see a film than a whopping $21.  So now we are back to seeing a new release every other week or so.

We recently saw the movie, “Contagion” with Matt Damon (among a list of other well-known actors).  Wow, if you are even remotely germophobic, you might want to skip this one!  Every time someone coughed or sneezed in public in the days after seeing the movie, my mind shot back to the film and how quickly infectious diseases can spread.  Not to mention I’m already a little freakish about germs when I travel and seeing this movie RIGHT before a trip was probably not my smartest move…! 

It’s a decent movie, a little slow paced, but it definitely makes you think.  I left with an unsettled feeling of how much we take for granted on a daily basis (electricity, running water, functional sewers, fully stocked markets as well as modern technological conveniences) and also feeling quite UNPREPARED for an emergency.   Like maybe I need to be stocking up on some canned food, big jugs of water and a generator.

In the film, when people started getting scared that they could catch this potentially fatal disease, everyone hunkered down and stayed indoors for the most part.  Grocery stores were running low (and were then looted), trash began piling up on the streets because pickup had been suspended, and “regular” life came to a halt.  Then when food supplies began running out, people became desperate and started robbing their neighbors at gunpoint for their stash of food.  Hospitals and pharmacies were overwhelmed with rioters and looters.

You watch this movie, and you may think to yourself, “yeah but it’s just a movie” – I was in that mindset for part of it.  And then you remember what happened after Hurricane Katrina.  People had to rely on the government (and organizations like the Red Cross) for shelter, food, water.  There was a lot of looting going on.

And we’ve certainly seen quite a number of natural disasters around the world lately that could potentially cause similar situations.

I’m certainly grateful that I live in a society that allows so many conveniences for us.  But it also makes me think that it’s put us at a pretty solid disadvantage too.  Most of us haven’t had to “rough it”: live off the land, build our own shelter, find our own sources of food and fresh water.  Yes, there are some that are the exception to that, I know, but in general I’d say the vast majority of us would be ill-equipped to deal with a true survival situation, whether physically or emotionally.

I know this is a bit off the usual FitFeat topics, but I just found it very thought provoking and interesting to mull over.   What are your thoughts?  Have you seen the movie?  Do situations like this (or coverage you see of natural disasters like hurricanes, tsunamis, earthquakes) get you thinking what you’d do or how you’d react?

– Shari B. =)

Tags: Contagion movie, food for thought