Elysium Citizens

What Counts or doesnt count as a Violence according to Elysium Citizens

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Institution
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Elysium Citizens

Introduction
This is based on a United States film directed by Neill Blomkamp. It was released on
August 2013 and covers wide range of political issues concerning a common person. It also
covers a supernormal environment when by taking place on a luxurious space, which is known as
Elysium in the same time it takes place on ravaged earth. One of the major political and
sociological areas this film explores includes immigration, exploitation, overpopulation, and
class issues. This paper is more interested on what the citizens of Elysium consider as violence.
This film separates people into different classes, that is, the wealthy people who are now the
major focus in this paper. These wealthy people live on a luxurious space which is famous as
Elysium. The second class are the poor people, who live in a devastated earth, which is highly
populated in such a way that there is no a conducive environment (Frith, 2013, p. 285).
Violence comes in when the two classes seem to live a different kind of life. The citizens of
Elysium consider some things as normal while the earthly people consider them as harassment
and their rights being violated. The residents on Earth are policed by ruthless robots while on the
same time citizens from Elysium are comfortably living lavishly and using the luxurious bedsized medical devices, which is called Med-Bay (McClinton, 2013, p. 18). This strategy is a way
to keep them free of disease and injury. Reviewing on what is really violent, this is one of the
violent movies that exists and is full of bloody scenes features. These scenes results from
stabbings and shootings, for example, we see a tech device that is implanted in a man and the
man opened up a long with the ugly wound and the blood. As far as family view is concerned
this is not the only content issue, it also contains so many F words. Lets consider what the
citizens from the high class the famous Elysium consider as violence or not considered as
violence in the following part (Ghandhi, 2013, p. 101).
What Citizens from Elysium Consider as not being Violence:
The film is set in 2154 and all the hardships that earth undergoes affecting their peace and
their way of living is not considered to be negative by the citizens from Elysium. The planet is
ravaged by pollution, disease, and overcrowded. In reference to this thrilling film, class
difference and stopping many to join this class of wealthier people is not a violent thing in life of
a human being. These citizens from Elysium view it as a positive thing to let the poor have

Elysium Citizens

problems and diseases on their overpopulated earth. Elysium being stationed above the clouds
creates sense superiority to the citizens of Elysium (kyle, 2013, p. 71). The citizens believe it
takes hard work and lot of effort to have such a life and therefore, any people who are below
should not be respected. The violence concept of letting the poor face the hardships is not of any
concern to the citizens of Elysium and this creates a wide gap between those people from the
earth and those from Elysium.
Using force to win liberty for the few people is a positive thing according to the citizens of
Elysium. Majority people on Earth are handled with brutality a scene creating a pity picture on
those living on Earth because they are handled as slaves. Robot police makes arrests
indiscriminately to the under privileged, according to the people from Elysium, this is just
normal. Letting robots and Robocop to control the normal human being is so inhuman but it
seem normal to Elysium peoples view (Eiseberg, 2013, p. 35). In this film the issue concerning
the healthcare and the income gap is a major concern too, this extends the differences with
Earthly and Elysium. The film does not have much cogent to expound on the importance beyond
having a child as a positive thing. Majority of the Earth people are seen to overcrowd in the few
hospitals available making their life unfavourable, while in Elysium life is very simple and
everything is taken care off. We see citizens from Elysium as trying to forgive or foreseen their
numerous logical flaws, and much of what happens doesnt stand up to scrutiny. Exploitation is
one of heinous act one can practise over a human being; in this film people from Elysium
consider exploitation as a normal thing in the lifespan of a human being. In the Elysium there is a
lot life and those citizens are free and get what they need, but coming down on the earth people
are exploited like animals with no one having mercy or concern about them. All these, in a
normal human being view is violence but according to Elysium citizens not counted as violence
(McClinton, 2013, p. 19).
Essentially, the violent content is found in some few scenes that are really scaring. It was
extremely gory in several scenes, for example, surgery scene and the scene when a grenade
explodes and a persons face is half-blown off. Generally, citizens from Elysium have no deep
fear on violence and therefore, it is a gritty, violent, and somewhat simplified place (Flusfeder,
2014, p. 52).

Elysium Citizens

What Elysium Consider as a Violence

Violence is not that is the main word people of Elysium can preferably use to mean evil
part or an evil thing because they are violent in nature, whatsoever, they consider disturbance
from the poor people from the Earth as violence. They want to live their free and simplified life
in their secluded place and anything that may try to distort this is counted as violence. This film
portray difficult situations that the poor class people pass through, while the same time the rich
consider them as curse or an inborn to those poor people (Miner, 2013, p. 45). The Earth is so
overcrowded and people from Elysium count this a social problem to those who dont work hard
in life. Citizens from Elysium undermine the capability of the citizens from the Earth. The
following part will elaborate reasons for citizens of Elysium to counts several issues as violence
or not.
Why some issues are counted as Violence or not as Violence by Elysium Citizens
In this film, we can see that there is a way out to reach Elysium from the Earth. When
Max returns to Spider to collect his reward, Spider decipher Carlyles program and realizes it can
be used to make all of Earths residents legal citizens of Elysium, but in the same time, the
airspace lockdown prevents Spider from launching a ship for Max. This film shows that the
reasons why Elysium citizens believe and consider violence as not really violence is because
they are favoured or they get advantage at an expense of the unfortunates. They have taken
science as their way of controlling their lives and in the only way to separate them from the poor
people from the Earth. Politically, leaders protect their people at the expense of others. In this
film, citizens from Elysium live lavishly without any disturbance from overcrowding or
insufficient resources unlike the Erath where people are suffering from all problems attached or
associated with overpopulation (Kapuscinski, 2013, p. 51). The poor try their best to get
themselves to better places such as Elysium but in vain. Citizens use scientific methods to heal
themselves without any difficulty while those from the Earth are overcrowded with few
hospitals.
There is a class struggle especially the poor trying to get themselves to Elysium. According
to this film, we observe that Spider and Max get into Elysiums main data centre where Spider
realizes that in case they activate the program Max will die. He then speaks with Frey one last

Elysium Citizens

time over a radio call, and then activates the program himself. To the end of his life, the
computer core is rebooted, registering almost all the citizens from the Earth and they become
now the citizens of Elysium after this registration (Atwood, 2013, p. 45). This shows that no
matter how political leaders uses their power over the poor, one day the poor will get empowered
and equality will come to prevail and the violence will cease. We witness the President Patel,
who broke in to the computer core with his security team in order to arrest Spider, but this turned
to be in vain since the Spider was already registered as a citizen from Elysium and nothing could
have been done to him since robotic guards recognised Spider as a citizen. At the end of this film
we see violence between the classes coming to an end. Some medical machines and computers
are taken to Earth since they now recognizes citizens from the earth the same way like those
from Elysium. The disparity and violence ended finally (Alexander, 1013, p. 89).
Conclusion
Violence exists especially when there are scarce resources to serve all. This was the case
between Elysium and Earth citizens. Anytime there is violence there must be those superior and
inferior, and the superior will always undermine the inferior ones. In this thriller scientific film
the Elysium citizens were considered to be superior and got superior services such as medical
and health services, since they worked digitally and computers could recognise them unlike those
people from the Earth suffered all through since they were overcrowded and they had no one to
fight for them.
People struggle to their best despite their inferiority, with hopes that finally things will get
to an equal level. People from the earth faced a lot violence and hardships from Elysium citizens
since they were considered as less and inferior. However, they end up achieving their dream
goals and achieve Elysium registration hence getting equal services and chance to live freely
without violence. Therefore, political struggle will always exist until things are fare and equally
distributed.

Elysium Citizens

References
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Flusfeder, D. (2014). "Yearning for transcendence",. The Daily Telegraph, 50-60.
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Kapuscinski, K. (2013). Ways of Sentencing: Female Violence and Narrative Justice in Margaret
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