The One About I Am Sam Bell!

[Toriach]

(The following article originally appeared at The One About...)


A few weeks ago I saw the indy sci fi flick Moon. Directed and co-written by Duncan Jones (who I was surprised to discover is David Bowie's kid) it stars Sam Rockwell, in a very plausible near future. In this future we have discovered a new super clean energy source, from the moon. Rockwell's character of Sam Bell is the lone human on the moon, making sure the automated mining processes run properly and shipping the filled canisters back to earth. His only companion is the computer that runs things named GERTY (voiced by Kevin Spacey). Because of a satellite glitch Bell is unable to have any real time contact with earth. Each "miner's" contract is three years. At the beginning of the movie Bell is a man not only at the end of his contract, but at the end of his tether as well. He is grouchy, irritable, and hallucinating. And then he has a crash in one of the rovers that should kill him. But we see Sam Bell wake up in the infirmary, with no knowledge of how he got there, and GERTY being very, very evasive. I shan't even try to do justice to the brilliant and almost luxurious unfolding of the story within Moon. Suffice it to say that it is brilliant and if you like, good acting, good story telling, and good sci-fi, you need to make every effort to see it. And if you really really really hate spoilers, you should stop reading this now, and go and watch it first, then come back to me.

Now for those who have seen it, or who don't mind so much the spoilers, let me remind/tell you something key to understanding the point I'm going to be making. Sam Bell is a clone. There was a Sam Bell, in fact the Bell in the movie almost meets him via video phone. But the Bell at the beginning of the movie, and all the Bells that come along later are all clones. With a three year life span. Working for a corporation, that even while they pay lip service to how important he is to them, secretly know that they will never really have to worry about paying him a pension, or for his medical care beyond the basics, nor even a living wage. Sam Bell is, in a word, disposable. Sound familiar? Well if it doesn't then you probably have the luxury of doing some of the few jobs left where it is harder to find and train new people than it is to either fire them or just let them get frustrated and quit. I envy you, but frankly while you are welcome to read on, this article may seem very foreign to you and your life experience.

It seems to me that we live in an ironic universe. I know that this may seem like a digression at best, or a non sequiter at worst. But trust me it's not. The very night that I saw Moon with The Love Of My Life, we afterwards went to get a few groceries, and while we were driving and shopping we discussed as we so often do, the

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banalities of our lives. Such and such happened to me at work the other day, or I read this or that online, you know the kind of idle chit chat that long term couples engage in. At one point she said to me that a co-worker of mine (formerly of hers) had revealed via Facebook that she had gotten a new job that was in a field she is actually interested in, rather than the near minimum wage hell to which she had formerly been consigned. In the course of the conversation, it was revealed that the person who is the supervisor for the area in which both I and my love work told her in so many words that she (and by extension all of us) was easily replaced. This is the attitude with which most all of our corporate masters and their middle management toadies view us. As I like to say only half jokingly, our official designation where I work is "Bio cogs".
In Moon the metaphorical is made super real. Sam Bell being a clone, is more than replaceable, he is truly disposable. So much so that there are banks of thousands (millions?) of hibernating clones waiting to be decanted. If one Sam Bell gets too sick, or starts to act up, or gets killed, then they simply thaw another one. While replacing most of the workers and managers at a fast food restaurant, or a mass retailer might be slightly more difficult, current minimum wage culture has done nothing to make it any more challenging than it absolutely has to be. This has ensured that in a world where truly good paying jobs, doing any kind of truly meaningful work are scarcer than hens' teeth, workers are trained to keep their expectations low, and to be grateful for the least little amenity or bit of human treatment. It is only because of the few labor laws still standing strong after decades of attempts to kill or neuter them by both Republican and Democratic Presidents and Congresses that we cannot just be summarily dismissed on a whim, but that does little to keep employers from engaging in subtle campaigns to make work sufficiently unpleasant as to encourage unwanted elements to quit, or to put up with myriad forms of abuse and harassment.

But in Moon, we see the darkest aspirations of the corporate hegemony given stark, sickening life. Workers who, so far as they are concerned, have no rights what so ever. Workers that they need only pay the barest lip service to respecting as human beings. Workers who are truly disposable.

Moon is a brilliant film, with sufficient depth that there is a great deal of philosophical and metaphorical meat to be legitimately found within. Take for example 'Moon': New Sci-Fi Movie Indicts Our Culture of Exploitation by Michael Dudley. It is an extremely well written article, delving into much of the Marx inspired themes of Moon. But in reading it, it became clear to me that it is written by an outsider, albeit a well meaning one.

By immediately establishing the optimistic future and "universal good" created by helium-3 fusion, the film creates a balance sheet onto which we must project the costs of this future. What price would we place on global peace, an end to hunger and universal access to clean energy? Would any of us living in such a future care to know what burdens our comfort and security were imposing on a single human being a quarter-million miles away? Even now, how many of us ask the same questions of our own material existence -- when many millions of lives are affected? In the backs of our minds we may know our clothes come from sweatshops, our oil from killing fields, our chocolate and coffee via slaves. Yet, feeling powerless on our own to rearrange globalized capitalism, we continue consuming. As Marx foresaw, capitalism has indeed alienated us from our fellow human beings.

This is an important question. And the author's concern and sympathy for the real life Sam Bells of the world does him credit. But for many of us this is not concern for an abstract someone out there. This is a real, burning concern, about our lives right now. Lives that every year seem to get a little bit grimmer, a little bit darker, a little bit more meaningless.
The welfare of Sam Bell may be a cause for concern to some. But for others, for me, it is the only concern, and until it is addressed in a real and meaningful way, nothing else will be quite as important. Because I am Sam Bell, and while I may be replaceable, I Am Not Disposable GOD DAMMIT!

Keep The Faith My Brothers And Sisters!