Elysium

Elysium |iˈli zh ēəm; iˈlizēəm| Greek Mythology

1.    The place at the ends of the earth to which certain favored heroes were conveyed by the gods after death.

2.    [as a noun] (an Elysium) A place or state of perfect happiness.

At the end of August, my two close friends from my village Faik (27, teacher) and Lilik (20, university student) invite me to go to Surabaya and watch a movie. Lilik had never been to the movie theatre before! 

Classy girls going to the class mall!

We arrived in Surabaya (an hour and a half away by bus) and immediately I realized the potentially uncomfortable clash of worlds this trip could become. We went to Ciputra mall, 

one of the fanciest malls in Surabaya. Upon arrival, Faik saw the store Hugo Boss and promptly commented, “Waa, Ciputra buat orang kaya. Mereka boss boss, kita bis bis.” Translation (more or less) “Woo, this mall is for rich people. They are bosses, and we are bus people.” It’s safe to assume that most of the people shopping in this Hugo Boss, Versace- laden mall did not arrive on a public bus followed by a broken-down car (affectionately known as an angkot) like we did.

Bus people

Being classy in the fancy bathroom

The first hour of our mall trip was spent wandering around and poking through books at the bookstore. Fairly normal.

Lilik browsing the books. 

Next we headed to lunch at my favorite place in Surabaya, the sesame honey chicken wings place. Many a volunteer have been dragged here multiple times so I could eat these wings! (I reminisced of how excited I was to go to “Beef. O. Brady’s!” for my 20^th birthday…) 

Me in 2009, very excited about chicken wings.
Fast forward to 2013. Still very excited about chicken wings.  

I knew that I wouldn’t order the berry beer (even though I was depraved of it last time since most of East Java doesn’t sell alcohol in the month of Ramadan) because I was with Muslim friends. Sigh. I settled for the delicious strawberry lycee smoothie (Do we have that fruit imported to the USA? Because if we don’t, we should.) I was acutely aware of how much I was spending. Would Faik and Lilik be shocked? Were chicken wings, a smoothie, and other dishes too much? Too expensive? When I am with volunteer friends, Surabaya is a time to splurge and eat like kings. Well, eat like normal US citizens would (portion-wise and price-wise, that is!) But would my friends think that this was too extravagant a meal? The total cost for all three of us was $20 USD. Near our village we can get delicious food for a total cost of $3.50 USD (that’s the total price for all three of us!)

Yum!

Big chair, little person

Note: Faik went to college in Surabaya, so she is used to spending more money. Though I don’t know if she would go to Ciputra mall type places and spend that much money….Lilik on the other hand has no income yet (still a student), and while she is well-travelled throughout East Java as a chess champion (I'm not joking), I don’t know how often she buys expensive meals. I just texted them to ask if they thought that the movie and food in Surabaya were expensive. Lilik said the price was “normal and that’s how it is.” Faik also responded that the price was “just normal.” 

This dining experience in and of itself got me thinking. Why does food that literally uses the same amount of ingredients and spices cost so much more in the mall than in the village? Obviously, the cost of living is higher in Surabaya, but it really creates such a weird dichotomy between people. The rich Indonesians come to the village and can buy a ton of food. Poorer, rural-dwelling Indonesians go to Surabaya (only an hour and a half away) and can’t believe how much food costs. And the food is basically the same! What a scam! This can be said about a lot of things in the US, though, too. Why do celebrities buy shirts that cost $300???

On to the main attraction: the movie! We arrived at the movie theatre with the hope of sitting in The Premiere Theatre. In Madison, WI, the movies cost, what, like $12 now at night? For a normal seat in a rather old, not-so-clean theatre. In Surabaya, I paid $5 for The Premiere Theatre. Aka a lazy boy chair, a blanket, and someone to bring me my waffle (the waffle cost extra).

Julie and Matt enjoying waffles and the live of luxury that one can buy for $5 USD. 

 Unfortunately, The Premiere Theatre seat prices have increased to 100,000 Rp ($10) and that’s just too much, even for me (in this Indonesian context). So we got the normal tickets for the normal theatre, which is still nicer anyways than the East side of Madison’s cinema because we were in the fancy mall. Hugo Boss.

Lilik's first time at the movie theatre...and the unfortunate coincidence that our tickets' numbers were 666. On the other hand, when I told them we had the devil's number, they said that in Islam the devil doesn't have a number. 

We settled in and the movie began. We chose Elysium, an American film.

The following movie analysis is all seen through the eyes of yours truly, a Peace Corps volunteer who has lived in an Indonesian village for a year and a half and works with people who make maybe $2 USD a day.

First off, my experience watching the movie was different from Faik and Lilik because the movie was in English, though I found myself reading along with the Indonesian subtitles. The Indonesian language lacks the complexity of English. So when Matt Damon was dramatically explaining something, the Indonesian subtitles may have lacked some drama. Also, the subtitles were conveniently censored from all the F-bombs, sh*ts, etc that Matt was dropping.

Anyways, the plot of the story is this. The Earth of the future has been destroyed by humans to the point of where it is super polluted and people are living with disease and poverty. Los Angeles is portrayed as a desert of dirtiness; despair; sickness; hot and sticky weather; people working long, hot hours in factories; etc. On the flip side, the rich people built a space station and moved up there. They have green lawns, mansions, and a machine in every house that instantly cures every disease, ailment, sickness, cancer, broken bone, you name it.

What an injustice.

I immediately sink lower in my seat. Why did I choose this movie? Here I am, an American living in a place like Elysium (the space station) and my friends are living in a village, lacking so many of the opportunities that we take for granted in the USA. What did I do to deserve Elysium? Why can't everyone live there? Why can't the resources be distributed more equally so everyone wins?

It’s not even ten minutes into the movie when Jodie Foster, border control leader of Elysium, blows up 2 spaceships full of the Earth-dwellers trying desperately to illegally immigrate to Elysium. One spaceship makes it to Elysium, and the people are promptly hunted down and sent to a deportation site. The deportation site is sickeningly dark, very scary-looking, and on the outskirts of Elysium. I can’t imagine that a holding center in the US is much better. Now my mind is thinking about US immigration and the horrific experience some people may face, risking their lives to arrive safely only to face the government’s rath.

This movie is more than I bargained for.

The rest of the movie was not nearly as striking as the inequalities of the first fifteen minutes. It could be that my brain shut down from critically thinking lest I begin to weep of the unfairness of it all right then and there in my comfy $5 movie theatre chair.

Notably, there were multiple scenes about people dying of/suffering from curable ailments. But the cure was in Elysium, and the poor Earth people were not allowed there. Again, this reminded me of the people around the world suffering from malaria, children dying of hunger, women dying during childbirth, untreated people living with HIV-AIDS. All these are things that the US has effectively quashed or found ways to live with.

While the movie plot was great, I have to admit that when the movie ended, I had a headache. My headache could have been from the non-stop action (literally, non-stop, never seen a movie so full of action!), the bright lights, or the loud sound surround sound (as bad as the Javanese tower of speakers are for any and all events, let’s hope they never get around to using surround sound to play dangdut in the desa).

Faik and Lilik didn’t comment on the plot and the inequality, but I admit that I didn’t ask them. I wasn’t mentally, linguistically, or emotionally prepared for that.

The movie left me contemplating the social and economic inequalities that are faced by our world today. With increasing globalization, more and more people are watching American movies. While the plots of these movies may not accurately portray the typical American (who is a typical American, anyway?), the American setting in which the movies occur more or less accurately portray various places in the USA.

What do people abroad think of when they see Americans’ clean, manicured lawns in the movies? People’s state of the art medical care? Are they jealous? Do they wish they had that? Do they even notice the vast difference between their wood fire stoves/gas burners and our 2-decker ovens? Or is it such a given that “Americans are all rich” that people don’t blink an eye when they see these things in the movies? That’s “just how it is there, Miss.” 

On the flip side, when people abroad watch our movies and see gang violence, broken down cars, and corruption, do they shrug it off as the movies and not real-life America? 

Lauren, Miss Super Cogitans, watch and analyze this movie please!

Allie, CAMS major, please throw in your two cents!

SPOILER ALERT! If you want to see this movie, skip past this italicized section:

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Spoiler alert: And just because I tend to recognize Jesus all over the place in movies, I’ll add that this movie also has the Matt Damon Jesus. At the end of the movie, he knowingly sacrifices himself for the good of all the people on Earth so that everyone can live and be healed on Elysium. While I’m at it, Harry Potter, anyone? Sacrifices himself for all of humanity AND is resurrected after his “death.” Jesus certainly is a trendsetter.

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Anyways, the point is that living in Indonesia for this long allows me to see the world through different eyes.  Perhaps a year and a half ago I may have also been bombarded with the theme of inequality when watching this movie.

But this year is different.

Because this year, I’ve seen hundreds of new Indonesian faces.

Because this year, I know hundreds of Indonesians by name.

Because this year, I love hundreds of Indonesians who may see this movie and perceive the themes I did.

And what do they feel, when they see the American “Land of Plenty” and then look around at their humble homes and their thin wallets?