People do speak out against them. There are organizations. People break the laws to fight the government on these "atrocities." Even in Nazi Germany, there were people like Schindler. The point is, in THAT world, no one cares if these "children" get killed for their "purposes." No outcry. No advocacy groups. Doctors just leave them there to die and then toss the bodies away like used condoms. No where for them to turn to. No sympathizers. No underground groups. No activists. They're like chicken and pigs, raised to be slaughtered and not one person gives a fuck.
That's an interesting point, but I have three things to point out about it.
1. Hailsham itself was an example of speaking out, of resisting, albeit lawfully, of asking a question most people preferred not to ask.
2. We don't actually know that there aren't some kind of resistance groups or whatnot. It's just that they're not mentioned. They're not part of the story. That's not to say that they don't exist at all, in Ishiguro's alternate world.
3. I think maybe it functions similarly to the way the holocaust functioned in Nazi germany. The average german had a sense of what was going on, but didn't ask, because he didn't want to know.
Mostly though, I'm really curious as to why you buy this set-up in Ishiguro's novel and not the movie? I am reading the novel over again actually, and I agree, he's a great writer... But, to me at least, it seems that if you have a problem with this aspect of the movie, you should also have a problem with the book.
Stem-cell embryos are very different than living, talking, feeling, thinking children and adults, who actually have names, finger prints, etc. I understand the allegory, but to me, it's stretching it, only to pose such philosophical question like "Do they have souls?"
I'm not trying to argue with you, just want to show you something. A scenario, if you will.
Let's say Bob is a christian. (his actual religion makes little difference.)
Bob has been diagnosed with Alzheimers. He can be treated, but only via stem cells.
Being a christian, Bob believes in the soul, believes all human beings have souls.
But Bob desperately wants to be treated. He feels people like him, deserve to be treated, if there exists a means of treatment.
Now, the embryo that will be destroyed to treat Bob is a human life in its very earliest stages. This is incontrovertible. It is not rational. Not sentient, not able to exist on its own, etc etc etc. All that, I grant you. But it is still a human life. Otherwise, you are in a position where you have to draw a rather arbitrary line that seperates the embryo's/fetus's non-human existence from its human existence, which is just kind of silly.
So Bob admits that the embryo is a human life. Yet, he believes this human life should be expended to save himself.
As a christian then, Bob must believe that the embryo does not, in fact, have a soul. And because the embryo, like lesser animals, does not have a soul, the life of a human being with a soul takes precedence over it.
Bob is now in a position where he denies that a particular human life has a soul.
Two questions, then.
1. At what point, then, does the embryo "get" or "develop" a soul? Is it really such a stretch to move from "the embryo does not have a soul" to "and it will never have a soul, because you can't just "get" a soul, you either have it, or you don't.."
2. Bob denies the embryo a soul, I think (and again, many will disagree, but I would be fascinated to hear Ishiguro's take) because he wants to live. He does not want to get Alzheimers. He is selfishly motivated (understandably so, we're all afraid of death + illness, but still). If he is selfishly motivated to deny the embryo a soul, why can't he overlook a child's soul? Another human being's soul? A child he will never see? A human being he will never know.
Obviously, this is not to say that everyone would overlook the soul, which goes back to what we said above.
We don't get to know what really happened, except for a short prologue about how these clones came to be. We didn't get the reasons behind the dystopia and dispassion. So the movie just feels cold, dispassionate, detached, and dull. No one cares. No one does anything. And the only sympathetic character got sacked -- and that's supposed to be reason why no one speaks out, I suppose? But as a movie, it just didn't work for me. I try to root for these characters, but at the end they just lie there and take it.
I see what you're saying (obviously, I don't agree about the dull part, lol)but I don't see how it's different from the book. I didn't have a problem with the book doing very little worldbuilding. So I don't have a problem with the lack of world building in the movie.
Your comments keep making me think of the holocaust. A lot of jews are very ashamed of the holocaust, because of this conception of the Jewish people, unresistingly marching to their deaths, children and lovers in hand. Of course, some people did resist violently. But not every story is one of violent resistance, and as a whole, there was relatiely little violent resistance at all (again, a source of shame.) However, I do not think this is a peculiarity of the Jewish people. I think there is something truthful about humanity to be found in 11 million people marching to their deaths, largely without resisting.
If the whole point is to prove that they do have souls and can love, it's like "duh" to me.
What I take away from the movie is the same as the book, in that there's no one "point."
That's my opinion of course. That's why these things are subjective. You're very welcome to disagree.
Yes, it just goes to show you how this whole business is so damned subjective. I hope you don't feel I was trying to argue with you, just wanted to have a conversation, is all. It seems like so few people have seen this movie, I have nobody to talk to. lol
