In Children of Men, there are many examples of Foucault's notion of biopower. Biopower according to Foucault is considered the power to make live and let die (241). There were obvious accounts of this with the state and their attempt to track fertility. The enforced the law that every single person must take a fertility test otherwise they were severely punished. There were obvious groups of resistance throughout the film, which as Foucault says will always occur in the presence of any power. Also in Children of Men there were immigration tactics with trying to keep immigrants out of Britain in my opinion to preserve the people of Britain especially because there was no reproduction occurrences. This could be viewed as biopower because the government was forcing the majority race to live and locking the immigrants in cages and essentially leaving them to die. This could also be seen as sovereign power because this is the "power to kill/make die (241) and with locking up the immigrants and being violent towards them, this is the government exercising their sovereign power. There is an obvious gender discrepancy which links sexuality to the biopower shown in Children of Men. I see this when all of the blame and pressure is placed on women to reproduce. When these women do not get tested for fertility then they are severely punished. The men do not give birth and therefor did not have to undergo all of the same pressures that women in the film did.
Despite the fact that the have different objectives and are ruled by different political systems, sovereign and biopower are complimentary of one another in many instances. Biopower and sovereign power work together many times throughout the film, I especially see this with the infertility of an individual being a state crisis. The government took individual problems and because they affected the population on a large scale, they mandated fertility tests. This touches on biopower and sexuality as discussed in class. Foucault said, "sexuality exists at the point where body and population meet. And so it is a matter for discipline, but also a matter for regularization (251-2). With this example, its obvious that private and individual things like sexuality can affect entire populations both negatively and positively. The goals of sovereign power is the optimization of capacity and maximization of forces and with a diminishing population that could not reproduce, an issue that biopolitics would address that is centered on the social body like "birth" is now an overlapping issue for both in the film.
Lastly, Children of Men did a great job with visuality and depicting the plot and how you should feel about certain things that carried a lot of meaning. For example, the opening was very powerful because it was gray, drab, dark and violent- beginning the scene with the teenager (the child) who symbolized the future dying. It was very powerful just because of the contrast of the child as "future" in combination with a scary and violent war. I really thought the barn scene when the pregnant woman showed her naked body and her stomach was illuminated. This really gave the visual of the baby being heavenly and obviously important. I liked the character that played the pregnant woman mainly because she was so indifferent about the fact that she was carrying the future of the country inside of her. The was a great contrast to the resistance force and all the people of the country who were obsessed with the child that symbolized the future. I liked the idea that the camera shook as the movie played, it made me feel closer to the characters and the events that were occurring, for example the war- when the camera shook you could imagine that the ground was shaking from a bomb or some sort of explosion.
the child in this photo as a homeless child- symbolizes biopower because of homelessness being a problem that affects the population and therefore needs to be regulated. Also the child represents the future and therefore affects people emotionally to where they feel obligated to help out in effort to save the future of the population.
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Your argument was well thought out, and I especially find your point about the “blame” and “pressure” placed on women for not being able to produce, fascinating. The more I think about it now, I also realize the unjust nature of just testing women for fertility. This example of gender suppression is a fine point, and I think also ties in well with your critique on biopower and sexuality, in association with saying that the infertility of an individual is a state crisis. Going along the same thread, the visual media you used of the homeless child works perfect with your argument of child as a population representation that affects a state level.
ReplyDeleteJust like the last commenter, my interest was piqued by the statement you made about the blame being placed on women in the film. I understand why fertility testing for women would be important in an age when no babies are being born. But shouldn’t the male bodies have to go through some sort of examination, too? It’s pretty presumptuous to think that it’s just the women that have the problem. There needs to be two to tango.
ReplyDeleteYour analysis of the ways that biopower targets gendered and racialized bodies is fantastic--your critique of the ways that women's bodies and immigrant bodies/bodies of color bear the burden of surveillance and force in this instance is very well-articulated and quite compelling. And this feeds nicely into your arguments towards the end of your post regarding the centrality of sexuality to the exercise of biopower. I'd like to hear more about the context for the image you chose--who took the photograph? When? Where? What was/is it used for? Historically and culturally situating this image (as you did very well with the images from Children of Men) would help strengthen your argument about the visual Figure of the Child in political practice. Overall, great job.
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