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No wonder no one wants to see it. But it must be done.
The day I watched Earthlings was the most bizarre day ever. It was a day full of contradictions, and it just left me feeling befuddled, horrified, and, well, sort of like a train wreck inside.
That day, I was operating on only 30 minutes of sleep, which I'd somehow snatched by falling asleep in studio sometime around 5 in the morning. This is crazy, I know, but I really have a strange way of life right now - and most of it revolves around working. I had worked on an architecture project and studied for a quiz all evening and early morning, and went into class relying on a Starbucks' energy boost, and my own natural capacity to strive happily through the day. Besides, the weather was absolutely stunning, which always puts me in an excellent mood.
Well. That wouldn't last long. Earthlings came along to jar me out of my dream world into a world of real and horrifying cruelty and evil. Honestly, I don't think my reaction to Part 1 of this documentary was a balanced one. It took me a long while to sort through my feelings and intellectually analyze my thoughts: at that point, I was simply responding with gut feeling... and I wasn't even quite certain what my feelings were.
I'd just like to say right now that I. Hate. Blood.
With a passion. It makes me nauseous. When we once had to watch a Red Cross video for Girl Scouts, I kept my eyes covered for the vast majority of the film. When I watch movies like Lord of the RIngs and The Kingdom of Heaven (some of my all time favorites) I have to remind myself that everything is fake... or I just avert my eyes. Its kind of contradictory - action movies are my favorites, but I can't stand too much gore. In Fahrenheit 911, I simply shut my eyes tight as the war scenes were shown.
Earthlings shattered right through my pretense. I couldn't pretend that things were fake. They absolutely weren't. Just like in Fahrenheit 911, I was watching real and immense suffering and pain. And there was no way I could mentally protect myself. But the point is, I couldn't think of myself at all. I wasn't supposed to do that - I was supposed to feel this pain. I was supposed to empathize. And empathize I did. My face kept rapidly shifting between expressions of disgust and winces of pain - this documentary really never gave you a break. It just kept hitting you with scenes of cruelty, over and over, and it never let up.
That's a lot to handle. Especially when you're already kind of delirious. I didn't cry, but I was pervaded with a sense of horror, a sort of tornado of violent emotions that I didn't even understand. HOnestly, I had no idea how to react. I only knew I had no idea what to say. What could be said? What kind of expression would I wear as soon as class ended? I was baffled. Images were racing through my mind, images I didn't want to think about, but forced myself to see and replay. When I got out into the beautiful sunny air... I had no idea what to do. I wanted to be happy... but I couldn't. I wanted to be like the smiling, cheerful, laughing students joking and walking to class... but I couldn't. Something inside of me had changed irrevocably, and the world was still the same outside. WHat happened in that room, with this group of people who had all experienced this film wasn't reflected outside. Why not? How could things be so different? I just felt a huge disconnect between myself and the world at that point.
Numbly, I walked to my next class, and wondered how on earth I would manage to take this quiz I'd studied all early morning for.
When I went to class, I had to put on another face. I had to talk and smile with my friends, discuss the quiz anxiously, do some last minute studying together. But as soon as people's attention was off of me, I lowered my eyes and just felt a heaviness fall over me. Let's not discuss how the quiz went (I actually got an A on it, but it felt like a disaster at the time).
When I turned the quiz in, my TA came to talk to me. He must have noticed something wrong, becuase he asked in a somewhat concerned manner how I was doing - I gave him a slight smile (not at all what he's used to seeing, since I tend to smile hugely all the time), and answered something along the lines of "ehhaaheuu," which isn't really an answer at all. He gave me a sort of pep talk about the quiz, which I appreciated, although his assumption of my concerns were only half right, and I walked back to studio, preparing myself for another day of work.
All this time, it was just images. Images of animals with huge eyes full of pain. Images of scars, of torn flesh and injuries and deformities. Of blood spilling like rivers all over concrete floors. Of dark cramped cages. Of humans screaming at and beating and cursing innocent creatures. All of this played like a film through my head. Now that I write this, two weeks later, its coming back again. This sense of heaviness is back, and I remember how it weighed me down as I walked slowly to studio. When I got there, however, I ran into one of my best friends, who just looked at me - and I knew I couldn't do any work. We sat down, and I let it out. I tried talking about what I'd seen, what I was feeling... but I couldn't really put it into cohesive words. He just listened and understood.
But the images still stayed.
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