What is a Fugee, anyway?

Foucault refers to biopower as “the right to make live and let die” (Foucault, 241). This power type is displayed in Children of Men both on the individual and societal levels. On the individual level, the various sources of biopower (e.g. the revolutionary group, the police, etc.) allow Kee to live, though she is an illegal immigrant and the society is at war with such persons. The biopolitics facing the group are especially applicable to Kee, as she is dark-skinned and obviously not English. At the same time, her race makes it significant that she is going to birth the baby that will break the cycle of infertility facing the world. Kee is very unimportant as a person; as a vessel for that baby, she is a force against the biopolitical knowledge base as she breaks through the “birth rate, the mortality rate, various biological disabilities, and the effects of the environment” (Foucault, 245).

In Children of Men, illegal immigrants are massed together as a race, Fugees (short for refugees) by the British government, making society an “us” and “them,” with every non-Brit being them. Those outsiders are subjected to the sovereign power of the British government. As Foucault defines it, the sovereign has the “right to take life and let live” (Foucault, 241). In the opening scenes of the movie, the viewer sees this sovereign power, when the camera pans across a cage full of Fugees. Biopolitics put the people in the cage, but the sovereign is using its power and allowing them to live.

The biopolitics in Children of Men creates a messiah out of the essentially non-existent. The child that the viewer never sees is a beacon of hope for civilization, especially in the days following the death of Baby Diego, who had been the youngest known person. Biopower made Baby Diego a celebrity by informing the world of the status linked with his age. The same biopower would make Kee’s baby into something of the next Jesus using the same information. Instead of being the youngest person alive, the baby would be the first born in the age of infertility.

Like Kee’s baby, the contemporary Figure of the Child is a biopolitical weapon of society. The image, even simply the notion of “doing it for the children” is a driving force in our world. While the image of child-as-future is often pitted against an image of death, possibly as a hope for the best, the image of the child soldier is beginning to pervade popular culture (Class notes, 9-14-10).

http://webpages.scu.edu/ftp/mmostamandy/images/invisible-children.jpg

The organization Invisible Children makes documentaries about war-affected children in east Africa (www.invisiblechildren.com). This image is typical of the advertisements for the shows that they have across the country. The image is meant to make the viewer do something. You are supposed to care about the children. They are our future—what are they doing wearing military garb and holding firearms? When looking at this picture, the viewer is supposed to feel sorry for these children; they should feel enraged by the fact that the children are subjected to the terrors of war. Above all, they should be giving money to the Invisible Children initiative.

This is not to say that Invisible Children is doing wrong by displaying these photos. It is important that the world see the situation of children in the refugee militaries of Uganda. At the same time, if the main focus of the poster was the three people filming instead of the child, Invisible Children would have a much less populated theater when they came to town. They know, as well as any other organization for children that in advertising children sell. The positioning of the boy, the darkness, the cloudy sky and the backdrop of impending doom all sell the fact that this young man is in trouble and YOU (yes, you) need to help him. A similar thing happens in Children of Men.

Though the film is not a true story to the extent that the world is suffering an eighteen-year lack of births, it shows a great deal of the governmental situation that we face today. The cinematography speaks to that with its darkened images, and especially the “real-life” feel of the end segments. During the last scenes of warfare, the viewer is meant to feel like they are in the field along with the characters, blood splashing and all.

Another aspect of the biopolitical show in the film centers around costuming. Kee and her baby are likened to Mary and Jesus, with their tattered and plain clothing, and the simple cloth the baby is wrapped in. In this way, the film shows the viewer that the baby is, in fact, the messiah that they’ve made her into. Clothing distinguishes refugee from native, resistance fighter from government army, etc. In the final warfare scene, where Kee separates the battling men in a Moses-like fashion, there is striking contrast between her costuming and that of the people surrounding her. It signifies that she is the center of attention, and the screaming bundle within her arms is something important. In the garb of baby Jesus, that scream is the beacon of hope that civilization has been waiting for. To them, the Figure of the Child will be an end to the madness.

Class Notes. Gendered Bodies in Visual Culture. September 14, 2010.

Foucault, Michel. “17 March 1976.” Society Must Be Defended.

Bertani, Mauro and Alessandro Fontana, Eds. New York:

Picador. 1997. 239-261.

"Invisible Children." http://webpages.scu.edu/ftp/mmostamandy/invischild.htm.

“What We Do.” Invisible Children.

www.invisiblechildren.com/what-we-do