Contagion is not the first or last virus movie. But it does raise questions of morality, evolution, and—what else?—the end of humanity.
Spoiler-free review
Contagion seemed like a very believable telling of what could happen with a deadly virus outbreak. There’s no “hero” of the story, and even the big-name cast don’t seem like “main” characters. Contagion is not gory (although we do see one person’s scalp removed for an atopsy), but only has some “disturbing images” of people (all ages) being sick, having seizures, and dying. For entertainment, Contagion was rather boring. However, it did make us realize how easily we spread germs. The rest of the recorded episode and these shownotes contain spoilers.
Unfaithful marriages
Right from the start, we see Beth Emhoff (Gwyneth Paltrow) take a phone call in the airport. The caller identifies himself as “the guy you just had sex with in a hotel room.” With the setting of being in an airport, it could seem like this is Beth’s husband calling, but it isn’t. He is a former affair, which Beth saught out in her travel home from China. As Contagionprogresses, we’re led to believe that Beth may have contracted this deadly virus from her adulterous relationship. But this ends up not being the case. Yet another movie where adultery and fornication has no consequences. Beth isn’t the only unfaithful spouse. Her husband Mitch (Matt Damon) also has a divorce in his history and his ex-wife is living with a new guy.
Physical and moral health
Mitch is so concerned with the health of his own family, that he refuses to let his daughter be with a boy she likes … until the boy is vaccinated. Mitch’s only concern is his daughter’s safety form the virus—not her moral purity. A village holds a doctor hostage in order to receive their vaccination early. But their behavior is rewarded with more deception. Contagion well portrays how many people may reject the truth, or twist it in order to profit. When man rejects God’s authority, it’s no wonder that there’s so much greed.
Evolution in a virus
A common theme in any movie with any biology is that species, bacteria, and especially anything deadly tends to “evolve” with greater powers. While it’s undeniable that we see change in biology around us, this is never an upward change like evolution would require. It was also said that our immune system is “still in development.” But the truth is that we’re in digression as our perfect systems that God designed are breaking down after a 6,000-year-old curse because of sin. Read more about mutations in bacteria and evolution from Answers in Genesis.
Revelation and the end of the world
The truth of _Contagion_ is that such circumstances could happen. Actually, the Bible foretells in Revelation many times of mass populations dying from the different judgments of the tribulation. A major deadly virus is not out of the question. But how this happens is the least of our worries when we consider what life is like separated from God. Many people ask how a loving God could allow such deadly things. But the better question is how merciful is God to have allowed us to live this long as disobedient as we are to Him. Mutations happen because we live in a sin-cursed world with some very deadly things. Oh for the day with God will sustain everything at 100%!
Best line from Contagion
When popular blogger Alan Krumwiede (Jude Law) tries to get the inside scoop from a doctor, he’s told, “Blogging is not writing, it’s graffiti with punctuation.”
Share your feedback!
What did you think of Contagion? Even if just your reactions to the trailer or the topics I shared in this episode. Or what general critical-thinking and entertainment thoughts or questions do you have? Would you like to suggest a movie or TV show for us to give a Christian movie review with critical thinking?
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You’re insane. The immune system is breaking down after 600o years? Are you daft? Seriously. Get real. What kind of mumbo jumbo voodoo crap do you read in that bible of yours. Our immune systems aren’t breaking down you dimwit. Viruses evolve, [profanity removed] !! You’re going to find the breaking down of immune systems in your bible but not one word of dinosaurs or meteors or the higgs boson. [profanity removed], I’m so angry I wasted my time reading your page and then to find out you’re [profanity removed]. I wish I could get my time back. [profanity removed].
Hi, Becca.
You’re showing some unfortunate ignorance and lack of critical thinking. The word “dinosaur” wasn’t even invented until 1741, so there’s no reason to expect we would find that word in the Bible. However, there are several creatures described in the Bible that perfectly fit descriptions of dinosaurs. For example, Behemoth in Job 40 perfectly resembles a description for a brachiosaur or similar sauropod.
Meteors are mentioned in the Bible. But I have a feeling you’re referring to the mythical meteor from the mythical 70 million years ago. Scientists have no proof of that. It’s only something they infer about the past based on their interpretations of present data. All of those interpretations are based on unverifiable assumptions.
If you can’t accept that sin is rebellion against God and comes with consequences in a sin-cursed world, then you really have much bigger issues than what you think of our podcast.
Daniel,
Allow me to rephrase my initial comment, the bible has no information that has propelled any scientific field in the history of its existence. The book is an ancient relic that should finally be put to bed as nothing more than smut and lore. That’s it. Your podcast said “critical thinking,” and there is nothing critical about your review, however I can’t access what you wrote because you pulled the plug on the web page. I wonder why… What expert opinion do you have about the immune system “breaking down”? What information do you have that the rest of the world doesn’t? I know what it is, you dare not mention the big bad “E” word, dare I say it, Evolution. Viruses evolve like every other organism, but instead of saying that, you chose to say the human immune system is obviously breaking down because we’re damned! That’s critical thinking to you? How do you explain acquired immunity of smallpox if you survive? How do you explain malaria (parasite) shaping genetic landscapes in west africa? You can’t! By your standard, we should all be getting sicker. The fact is, even since biblical times, there has been a larger amount of people living into old age because of modern medicine.
You’re mistaking novel viruses for a weaker immune system. You can’t back that up with scientific evidence, one example to refute that is 1918 H1N1 pandemic. Spanish influenza (H1N1) caused a ‘cytokine storm’ which killed people with healthy robust immune systems, young adults predominantly! And it’s not just a characteristic of Orthomyxoviruses, but found to be elicited by many types of viruses as well. You don’t have enough understanding of immunology to make that analysis…it just doesn’t make sense, even if you don’t accept evolution. If you start going on about cancer, then you still can’t win, cancer precursors are in all humans. We can see this because there are oncogenic genes that are present in every person on earth, despite how little you know about science, particularly microbiology and immunology, you should know that gene frequency supports a long successful existence, and all humans have oncogenes, therefore (even in biblical times) people got cancer. So even a cancer argument is invalid, and if you claim we’re getting caner more than ever, well duh, humans have never lived this long in our history. There is no evidence that any human like Enoch in the bible lived to 365 years of age, so that argument is invalid as well. Your review demonstrated one thing, you’re ill equipped to handle any scientific debate thoroughly or effectively.
I can make up stories too Daniel, but being a great storyteller doesn’t make me an authority or a critical thinker. You should probably go back to the drawing board on what you consider critical, because you’re review just isn’t cutting it. You didn’t even reference peer reviewed scientific papers that support your hypothesis…you just said it and we’re supposed to accept it. Yeah, not going to happen. I can picture you now thumping the bible as you tell me how many words for meteor and dinosaur there are in the bible! Just so you know, there are no nobel prize winning scientists who opened the bible for their discovery, not one! I’m not going to argue radiometric dating to someone who could probably find an analogy for D = D0 + N(t) (e?t? 1) from biblical text. It’s a waste of time. I will say this though, creationists today are possibly the most hypocritical group of people around, you deny basic fundamental principles of science and yet at the same time enjoy all the luxuries of modern life that are built upon those theories and principles. It’s just ridiculous. You want to see a podcast with some great valid information on viruses, google TWIV, Dr. Vincent Racaniello’s podcast on Virology. I would love to know what he would say in response to the immune system breaking down (caused by fiery damnation) versus viral mutation! And Daniel, your threats about damnation don’t scare me. They never will. What does scare me is the thought that some student or impressionable mind out there would read your web page and receive it as verified fact.
You should study history and science more. The Bible has been responsible for more scientific advancement and study than any other document.
Again, you’re terribly misinformed. There are recognized Bible-believing scientists in every field of science.
I have not removed any links or resources.
Clearly, you’re not here to have a level-headed discussion, or to clearly read and listen to what I’m saying (you have already misrepresented several times). So let’s not waste each other’s time any further.
The hostility in those posts (yes, that was hostile. For Daniel it was anyways) made me think of one word. SAVAGE.