Saturday, July 30, 2016

Logan's Run....Fiction---or Future Fact?

I use movies a lot in psychotherapy with my clients.  If someone can't quite understand a point I happen to make...or is somewhat defended against listening to much of anything that represents new data to them---I rely quite a bit on the celluloid closet.....

Logan's Run is one such movie.  When was the last time you watched it?  Have you even  heard of it before? If you were born anytime after 1980...chances are you haven't.  At this point I could insert all sorts of details about the movie and when exactly it came out and who starred in it blah blah blah...but you don't need that information.  What you need is to watch it and think about---what really and truly matters to you most in this life.  Then, what you are going to do about that as the world keeps changing around you...

I know there are lots of science fiction movies.  Back around that same era, "Soylent Green" was another IMHO "classic" film about much more than a science fiction thrill/scare fest.  I mean, when you see one of the Sandmen in Logan's Run look at HIS IPhone screen to read a message----what's up with THAT?!  This movie is (I'm guessing now) 40 or so years old!

Logan's Run tells the story about how humanity functions  in a future where turning 30 is NEVER a very good year.  Just watching the lifestyle of the "Haves" is a trip enough in itself.  There is either tremendous affluence...or group housing.  The middle class, in a word, is g-o-n-e.

I'm not going to spoil the movie for you, but it sure brings up a lot of social, moral, and social justice issues that I know I've seen changing for quite a long time now.  As I said to my husband while watching, in Logan's Run all you have to do is "order" your significant other for the evening as you would a live-and-in-person menu!  Although I wasn't born under a rock, in this movie---all that "stuff" is mainstream society for the under 30 set.  I see it already in our present culture....and with much more heavy duty sexual dysfunction thrown in. I'm just waiting for the time when the DSM (our standard for mental health diagnoses) eliminates all previous mental health diagnoses that has to do with sexual-based behaviors.  Because there won't be any;  you'll be free to do and act on whatever feels good honey!  If you want to marry your cat or your dog....that won't be considered a form of psychosis!  You'll be good!  Get the ring stat!  Pfft!  I tell ya, this world is not so far afield from becoming what Logan's Run presented all those many many decades ago...

Touching on politics, religion, relationships, moral relativism, domestic terrorism, violence...and a whole lot more....this movie isn't just a ride for the strong of stomach.  It's a glimpse into how slippery a slope we reside on in this life of ours without realizing that sooner or later---we reach bottom anyway.

Until next time....