2nd Quarter: Journal 1- Contact

Let's actually do these right this quarter. So in my Theory of Knowledge class, we watched the movie Contact. This movie is about genius scientist Ellie Arroway, who makes contact with Aliens, hence the title. In this film, Arroway fights many injustices in her path to actually meet the aliens. Predominantly ones of love, greed, fear and religion. The conflict arises in that only one person can go on the spaceship that will go to the Alien star, Vega, and that is where these injustices arise. The people who are funding their mission want someone who best represents the United States. Ellie's love interest is another possible candidate for the mission, and not only does he want to go (greed), he also wants to protect her (love and fear.) In order to attain both of these, he brings up the point that she is not religious, and most of the United States is. This completely ruins any chance she has of going. To make matters worse, right before the spaceship is about to leave, a kamikazi takes place on the ship, shattering all of her hopes and dreams. Luckily for her, Japan was building the same exact thing, and they called her, as they saw her best fit to go on the mission. She then reconciles her problems with her love interest, and the movie has a happy ending. Yay. I did want to discuss the four conflicts that arise in the movie: love, greed, fear and religion. These things are constantly problematic factors in our society today. People constantly operate off of fear, and let it control them. People kill each other over religion; take a look at the middle east. Greed is what drives society. We are a capitalist nation, after all. Finally, struggles with different kind of love are constantly brought up in our society and in politics. Gays, for instance, are not allowed to marry in most states. The movie Contact combines four very prevalent issues in society today, and centers them about a battle between religion and technology.