(Mar. 24, 2023 ● Oslin Pierrette)
It was very interesting to see a small encapsulated model of classism. The callousness, the greed, the incompetency, the bureaucratic aspects posed by Snowpiercer.
Like always, the underbelly of the world is referred to as freeloaders, as no good lazy people. Looked at as a bad batch of humans. When really there’s just applied forces to keep them there. The only difference between the classes is the classes. For the most part, for the general public, the environment makes the person. Especially for the underbelly, the tail end, the bottom, the foot. They are in an extremely marginalized environment, extremely restricted resources. Where poor health related premature death is certain for many, due to deprivation of resources and vitals. Your life is on the line. So your survival mode is turned on, survival of the fittest. You gotta do what you gotta do to live. There’s seemingly is no space for compassion. It’s like the colosseum’s fight to the death. Life is on the line, so you’re gonna see humans go deep into a defensive barbaric survival mode to make it to the next day, it’s a journey to the next hour sometimes. So that’s when you see these groups of people looked at as if they’re barbaric chaotic animals, and blaming that on why their reality is full of madness. When in reality it’s a natural human survival response to the madness they’ve been put through.
It’s all because “they have to play their position…it’s their preordained position.” Everyone plays their part to keep making the world go round. It’s the order the world needs, they claim. But regardless if there are humans or not, the world is still gonna go round. But the train that is their world won’t, without humans. It always feels like keep playing your part in this orchestrated game controlled by a small few. They are told they are in apocalyptic times, all that is left over is this train, so be grateful for your opportunity, even if it’s lived in filth. The train is the world now, owned by Mr. Wilford, so basically Mr. Wilford is the controller of the world. He’s basically and looked at as God.
The people in the tail section have had enough. They don’t want to continuously accept their position in this orchestrated game. You give someone nothing to live for, you put them in this state of nothing to lose. Which means they might as well risk it all, meaning nothing, to actually spark something for themselves. So a rebellion is imminent. They have to go through multiple lines of defenses that are protecting the property of Mr. Wilford.
They haven’t rebelled yet, mainly because they are unarmed, until Curtis called their bluff, and believed they didn’t have bullets. Then once the bluff was called, the authority and control went out the window. They were compliant and stayed in line, not because of any real fear, but the idea of from the illusion of danger, causing fear. Yes they are bigger in numbers, but a gun is still a powerful thing and message. But now the illusion is destroyed, the fear is lifted, and the rebellion has started.
They are now embarking on their rebellion journey, looking for answers and change. What they witness is that they are also on this journey of absurdity during it. In their world, where they are told to ration shit. They are told to play their part. Curtis discovers the actual content of the only shit they’ve been allowed to eat for years.
Then after a long hard strategic battle, where they were predicted to lose, they get the upper hand, and advance to unexpected territory. They actually get to see sunlight, something they are not accustomed to. They then walk into a completely different class of living, a total culture shock. Where people are living over-indulgently. That this train is not apocalyptic as they probably imagined.
The rebellion continues, and they go throughout the train constantly battling people, getting through multiple lines of defenses, with a lot of lives being lost. But might as well risk your life trying to gain the right to live, rather than to live in death and hell. But it’s like why, why are people fighting them? Can’t people understand how it is to be in the underbelly, the tail end, the bottom of the bottom of this train. And that’s probably what classism protects. People know there’s an underbelly in the same universe and world as them. People know that there is suffering happening to large groups of people. That’s why this film and idea was a great depiction of classism, it encapsulated that in a small model of the world. While you’re comfortable in your life, and for many living hedonistically. You’re just ok with the life you get to live while others are dying and suffering just a few cars back on the same train, the absurdity of humanity. The idea of classism probably keeps them in place. They’re attached to the luxury of their comfortability and indulgence. They wouldn’t want to pass that up, to be righteous, and risk losing their comfortability, risk losing their status, and being sent to the underbelly, the tail end. So that keeps people in line and in order. People are in check and they are not going to misstep. They are also gonna protect their position in society and make sure you continue to play your position so they can still hold theirs. And they might be viewed as evil, but they are just instruments of psychopathy and evil. Not confirmed, but my intuition is saying, they are just people too. Most people, specifically the general public are more similar than different, then your average person, most likely their environment is the deciding factor in their differences. They were just convinced to fill that position they have, and due to the luxuries of it, they want to protect it anyway they can. So they always have us fighting each other, when it’s a meaningless battle of human vs human, same teams. People need to focus on the controllers and rulers of the land. Those are the true enemies.
They reach the car where they are in school, teaching the kids. You see the indoctrination of this Wilford belief system. That if they leave the train or if the engine stops, they freeze and die. Which is indoctrinating the importance of Mr. Wilford, and the importance of people’s compliance to the train, basically Mr. Wilford’s world. Which makes you understand more why he’s looked at as a god. Then I remember why they were on the train in the first place. They were trying to combat global warming. They used this artificial means to save the earth, that just later on plagued the Earth, destroyed it, and stripped it of its life. But thank god or Mr. Wilford was able to save the rest of humanity and put them on his train, which is the world, his world. What’s the likelihood that Mr. Wilford was one of the biggest preachers of global warming, and was probably one of the biggest pushers of the artificial substance that froze the world and forced the rest of humanity in his world.
They continue making their journey to Mr. Wilford. And the absurdity of wealth and class they keep passing through is exponentially rising. You would think the whole train would have to ration as well. But they have too much. They have an extreme surplus, but still the tail end, the underbelly has to ration shit, can’t even get a gallon of water. Hedonism and absolute chaotic suffering and poverty is absolutely absurd to have on the same train. How are you gonna tell people that have literally nothing, that there is nothing leftover to give them, when there are people who have way too much to consume. They have enough to die from overconsumption, but the tail end can’t even get a gallon of water. Of course the upper class people have bought into this system. They’re too addicted to their status, to even consider the lower class. They don’t even value them on the same human level, they are looking at lower class people as beneath them, when in reality the only difference between them is their class and environment.
You can also look at what happens when there is the luckily rare chance of social mobility. It’s like that movie or TV show premise, when a group of two or more people are in a dire situation or condition. One person of the group gains access to escape that environment, but in hopes to find resources to come back and help the others get out of the dire situations and/or conditions. The premise is basically the test of the person, see if they will escape and just accept their comfort, and don’t look back to help out the others. Or if they will go back and maybe risk their newfound comfort, test to see how trustworthy that person is. On their journey, the social mobility traveler is introduced into a new way of life. What happens a lot of the time, they can get indoctrinated into the luxuries that were rewarded in this new class. Their suffering has been quieted, their pain tranquilized, felt pleasure that they never experienced or even can dream of. So it becomes a real test of the man to see if they really want to leave that behind, to risk all that, to go back for his people that are still in a dire situation and conditions. In those negotiations with self, a lot of people turn their back on where they came from, choose self preservation. They get indoctrinated into their new class. Become what people call a sell out.
“But why would crabs be in a barrel? Crabs shouldn’t be in a barrel. So how you going to tell me how crabs should act if they in a barrel? Of course they pull, they in a barrel.”
They sometimes adopt the aspect of looking down on the people in the dire situations and conditions, the place they came from. Also have the audacity to accuse them of crabs in a barrel mentality. When really the people that created their demise, created your luxurious comfort, it’s all under the same mechanism. So it’s wild to change up and adopt that way of life from those people, when those people caused your dire situations and conditions in the past, where you were once struggling to survive on the other side. Promised to come back and help the community, but changed up and acted in self preservation turned greed. That’s what happens a lot, people just forget about community building, everybody always abandons the communities in dire conditions. So it’s not that it’s “crabs in a barrel mentality” when people “hold you back” when you made it out the struggle. It’s just that you making it out of the struggle and adopting the new way of life isn’t a sign of progress at all, you’re not giving back or helping, your success alone, that chip can’t feed their stomachs. It’s just enforcing the same idea that keeps the people in their demise, continually in their demise. It feels like a smack in the face when your own people turn into the demise you face. But it’s not like those people are inherently evil. It’s humanistically and understandably hard to be presented with that luxury and pass it up. But it goes to show, the difference between the classes isn’t really about people’s character traits, it’s more about the environment and the structure of the classes. The difference between the classes is the classes.
Right when the crew gets to Mr. Wilfords door, Nam introduces his plan to bomb his way out of there. Where he’s looked at as crazy, but Nam believes he can survive in what they say is unlivable, without the train. You’re dead outside of Mr. Wilford’s train so they say. But that plan is timely interrupted by Claude. And it’s asked for Curtis to have dinner with Mr. Wilford.
He finally gets to meet the maker of his hellscape existence, Mr. Wilford. He gives a breakdown of the way of life on the train. Why it operates in such a classist elitist way. And he explains it’s for order and balance. The train isn’t survivable with no class system, claims Wilford. Also the train wouldn’t be survivable without population control. That everyone just has to play their part, their “preordained particular position”BS.
And it’s the audacity, because he further explains to maintain order that he must create fear, chaos, and anxiety. The audacity to refer to everyone in the train as prisoners, including himself, when he gets to live a luxury the tail end couldn’t even fathom. Especially in a prison he created, where everything coincidentally fell in his lap to be able to create a prison.
Wilford introduces Curtis to the “eternal engine” this eternal world, created by him, ordaining him the god of this world. And he wants to give his position to Curtis. Trying to make Curtis adopt his lonely way of life. Super controlling the “perfect number of people”, and enforcing that the people remain in their proper places, especially the tail bottom people. Basically give Curtis his cold empty callous existence of humanity. Trying to convince Curtis of Psychopathy. Telling Curtis the people will cease to exist without his leadership. They are chaotic animals that’ll end up dead without order and leadership, Wilford claims. When in reality, humans are more considerate than they are greedy. The typical psychopathic analysis to look at humans as pathetic destructive creatures, especially when they create restrictive environments, and apply psychopathic forces, that led to humans to respond that way. Look at humans as creatures that need saving, when really they just need people like Mr. Wilford to not be able to dictate any of their lives.
With these psychopaths, their currency and livelihood is predicated on money, power, and control. With also some sadistic aspects sometimes. So they will create constructs that will feed them power, wealth, and control. Plaguing humans with sentiments, where the people are manipulated and deceived into handing that right over to people like Mr. Wilford. They were deceived into believing in global warming. They were deceived into believing in artificial cooling, then they were deceived into believing in Mr. Wilford’s train. Or not deceived for some, but it was going to happen whether they liked it or not. This lifeless hell was going to be forced on them regardless of what they wanted.
Curtis just couldn’t swallow taking that position. He couldn’t accept the fact that children weren’t even excused in this game. Children fell under the cruelty of the class system as well. While some children got to go to school, and have all the tools. Other kids were trafficked into working as slaves for the train. Which leads to Curtis just blowing up the train, especially if this is how it operates. Once they blow up the train, and the two survivors get outside. They see that it’s survivable. People could actually be outside the whole time. There was no real danger to fear, that fear was forcefully indoctrinated onto them, and they would be crazy to think otherwise. What kept them inside was simply an idea. The whole world has been imprisoned by ideas that they were manipulated to believe in, by nefarious forces. Once you get outside of that idea, you realize that these controllers were never needed. That they themselves are the hellscape people should escape. They are evil and destruction. The world would have high chances to be prosperous without them.
Great film. Amazing depiction of this whole world on this small model of a train. Great depiction of imprisonment by an idea.