A virulent virus is a classic science fiction trope. Turns out the reality is not what television predicted.
Fear, the great equaliser
Humanity has a deep fear of illness. In modern times, that fear seems amplified. Science empowers us—until we get sick. Most people exist in a frenzy of healthy practices that are almost religious, attempting to stave off any and every ailment.
I started watching The Rain, a scripted drama series from Denmark, while the world was relatively normal. When the show first dropped on Netflix, online criticism pointed out the less than smart choices of our two leads in the opening episodes.
Some felt being locked in a bunker from a young age, only to discover the world has gone to hell in a hand basket was no excuse for their poor choices. Looking back, I could laugh in despair at the idea cracking under the pressure of a global pandemic is unrealistic.
In a world under siege from a virus, the occasionally short-sighted decisions of these kids are nothing compared to the ludicrous acts we’ve seen from people in 2020.
When Civilisation jumped the shark
By the time the third season dropped, I was watching a TV show about a pandemic while experiencing a pandemic. What became clear: people’s reactions sit on a much wider spectrum than anyone imagined.
In The Rain death is immediate, and the show offers visual manifestations of the virus. Nobody has the option of refusing to believe in what is happening: the after-effect is too immediate. Self-preservation goes without saying.
Anything else would be unbelievable. Wouldn’t it? Turns out, in some countries, yes. In others, not so much. The visual element, introduced for television, proved a much-needed component lacking in real life.
Outside the scriptwriting rules of the small screen, people decided not to believe in a virus.
Where television and reality failed to collide
Science fiction isn’t big on people trying to rationalise and deny away a pandemic. It makes for bad entertainment. Usually at the sight of the first corpse, people get the grim picture. We’re in reaper territory now.
Somehow, the real-world pandemic took a weird AF plot twist. From day one, people denied what was happening even while TV screens were filled with footage of mass graves. As the pandemic spread, people clung to misinformation.
Denialists turned on realists. 2020 has shown that a sense of self-preservation, humanities gritty survival instinct appears to be lacking. Popular tropes of sci-fi pandemic storytelling are set to fall by the wayside.
Understanding the power of affection
TV series The Rain, at its core, is as much about Simone protecting her brother Rasmus as it is about saving the world. The sister-brother bond is everything. In the first two seasons her obsessiveness was a bit annoying. Watching season three proved a different story.
From inside a pandemic, Simone’s obsession with her brother and her (eventual) boyfriend Martin doesn’t seem so crazy. Her reckless desire to do anything to protect and save them is no longer abstract, but relatable.
Likewise, the need to find her father, no matter how dangerous the journey, makes sense. In a pandemic you’re not so much afraid for yourself, as deeply afraid for the people you love, especially those far away.
The constant gut-wrenching anxiousness that drives Simone feels more than an abstract idea. Now, it’s global reality. And when your loved ones are in pandemic hotspots, worrying is a consuming part of your daily life.
How the personal interferes with entertainment
When the pandemic hit, personal experiences began to alter how I reacted to certain aspects of The Rain.
The character of Simone, who is a responsible person working to save others, breaches the wall to seek help, a choice the plot moves past quickly. As she approaches a house to ask for help, I felt a wave of unexpected anger.
How could she be sure she wasn’t spreading the virus? Her casual attitude disgusted me so much I almost turned off the series. Why? Because I live in a place where a closed border and strict quarantine staved off any coronavirus.
Simone’s reckless but easily dismissed onscreen act is my society’s real-world ultimate fear. I’m one of the nameless characters in the nearby prop houses, living an infection-free life who knows quarantine border breaches can kill.
The real world vs the fictional world
Through the filter of a global pandemic, season 3 of The Rain felt more fictional, and less relatable. Bizarre because in theory it should have more closely aligned with reality. Turned out, the implausible pandemic was the non-scripted one.
Privilege has taken a different, unexpected form: the option of ignoring what you cannot control. People choose not believe in a pandemic. As far-fetched as that sounds, many cling to this belief as the bodies pile up.
Humanity has apparently lost its will to live, if living takes effort. The obvious step of stopping the spread of a virus, is too much trouble for some. Basic science is dismissed and ignored in favour of misinformation that supports inaction.
A plot that makes no sense, in any world.
Simone’s version seems like it should be reality, and our world the implausible fiction. The Rain is a place where people scramble to avoid infection, flee from the virus, fight to keep living, and work to find a cure that will allow them to restore society.
Shouldn’t that be our truth?
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