Cory's Reads #8: Shyamalan and Fauci and Daszak! Oh My!
The beach that makes you Old is definitely gain-of-function research.
No one is doing it like M. Night Shyamalan.
For some reason, that seems to be a hot take nowadays. The director has been unfairly maligned over the course of his career, despite his status as one of the few original filmmakers in Hollywood. Shyamalan’s lone foray into franchise filmmaking — 2010’s The Last Airbender — remains an indefensible disaster, but I’ve quite enjoyed just about everything else Shyamalan has created over the years. His surprising superhero trilogy, which began with 2000’s Unbreakable and then received some unexpected company via 2016’s Split and 2019’s Glass, remains one of the more fascinating entries into the genre in recent memory, a considerable feat in a cinematic landscape soaked up by superhero-themed excess. And 1999’s The Sixth Sense seems to be the one Shyamalan offering whose excellence we can all agree upon. But my love for the Philly-based director extends even further. I am a shameless defender of 2008’s The Happening, despite the widespread hatred for the film, as well as 2015’s wonderfully goofy The Visit. And so I acknowledge my Shyamalan bias when I say that the director’s latest film, Old, is among 2021’s best.
Old is a mostly stupid movie about a group of people who find themselves on a beach that makes you age rapidly. On such a beach, one hour is equivalent to two years of your life. It’s a genuinely terrifying concept from which Shyamalan manages to derive both horror and humor. Everyone involved with Old recognizes both the ridiculous and rich nature of the film’s premise. Gael Garcia Bernal is an unsurprising standout, but Thomasin Harcourt McKenzie also confirms that she is one of the most exciting young actresses working today. Like The Happening and The Visit before it, Old navigates a fine line between B-movie and blockbuster. It seems to me that Shyamalan’s naysayers are either uncomfortable with, or ignorant to, the possibilities embedded in a contemporary B-movie. Criticism of Shyamalan almost always accounts for his stilted dialogue (his screenwriting credits extend past his own filmography, including such diverse films as Stuart Little and She’s All That) but often fails to consider Shyamalan’s intentions as both a director and a writer. After all, he does have a 1999 nomination for “Best Original Screenplay” under his belt. It would be easy to watch an M. Night Shyamalan film and label its script awkward, its characters unrealistic. But I often find a surprising sense of authenticity in Shyamalan’s idiosyncratic scripts, further elevated by his actors’ unnatural delivery. In Shyamalan’s films, weird shit happens. And when weird shit happens, people respond accordingly.
This dynamic is most apparent in The Happening, where the characters respond to an environmental catastrophe of global proportions with an unsettling degree of apathy. Our discomfort with a film like The Happening is justified insofar as we rather not acknowledge our own apathy, our own awkwardness, in the face of such crises. But as the real-world horrors of climate change continue to ramp up, perhaps we need to be confronted with just how stupid and ridiculous we look.
Enter Old, a film not necessarily concerned with climate change, but which maps quite nicely onto a different, albeit related, crisis of our time. If you’re skeptical of a manufactured connection between a contemporary piece of media and the COVID-19 pandemic, you are not alone. In the paragraphs that follow, I put forth an argument that even I would find obnoxious, tenuous, and maybe even pretentious. And yet, I feel it is an important one, obviously not within Shyamalan’s purview in making Old, but certainly within the film’s immediate impact, and perhaps even its legacy.
The parallels between the premise in Old and our ongoing global predicament are evident. The victims of Old‘s mysterious beach are all bound by one thing: they are sick. We as viewers primarily experience the film through the Cappas, a vacationing family of four from Philadelphia. Mother Prisca Cappa (Vicky Krieps) has a stomach tumor. The Cappas soon meet Charles (Rufus Sewell) and Crystal (Abbey Lee), who are traveling with their daughter Kara (Eliza Scanlen, mostly), as well as Charles’ mother Agnes (Kathleen Chalfant). Charles is a doctor with mild schizophrenia, which unsurprisingly worsens over the course of Old. Crystal, too, requires a high calcium intake due to her frail figure (why didn’t Mr. Glass just take a calcium pill or two?). The two families arrive on the beach to find a rapper named Mid-Sized Sedan (Aaron Pierre) who later divulges that he has hemophilia, as did his female companion, whose dead body alarms the group before they’ve even started aging. Rounding out the group are Jarin Carmichael (Ken Leung) and his wife Patricia (Nikki Amuka-Bird), a psychologist who deals with epilepsy.
If all this information seems rather dizzying, that is by design. The absurdities of Old extend well beyond the film’s Twilight Zone premise. With a character named Mid-Sized Sedan, an epileptic psychologist who insists on everyone just “talking it out,” and an image-obsessed mother who can’t get enough calcium, Old is comfortable in its ridiculousness. On one hand, Old‘s cast of characters are vulnerable because they are physically or mentally ill. But on the other hand, they’re weirdos! Shyamalan’s camera offers a weirdness of its own, pushing characters in and out of the frame when we least expect it. I am not ready to anoint Old as my favorite M. Night Shyamalan film, but it certainly marks the director at the height of his powers.
So what does this have to do with COVID-19? Am I suggesting that those who have contracted the virus are weird as well? Of course not!
(I had COVID-19 myself back in March, and I’m obviously not weir— never mind.)
The strangeness of Shyamalan’s cast of characters is essential in how it otherizes each of them. Not only does the notion of a beach that makes you old seem distant and foreign, but the people on that beach seem similarly unknowable. And yet, they are us! I'm in a family from Philadelphia. My dad has non-Hodgkins lymphoma. Even if theses conditions do not feel familiar to you, they are likely familiar to your neighbor, or a stranger you pass on the street. Appealing to Americans’ sense of empathy has been a losing battle throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, and it is far too late for a film like Old to help us reverse course, but in its off-kilter exploration of eleven peculiar people, the film confronts us with our own willingness to otherize, ignore, or object to others.
Although American individualism remains a barrier to a lot of social and economic change in this country, dwelling on it is time wasted, particularly as it relates to COVID-19. I’m constantly amazed at how easily people can write off anti-vaxxers as stupid or selfish. Indeed, getting vaccinated is the right thing to do. I am vaccinated, and I encourage all others to get their shot(s) if you haven’t already. Still, I am sympathetic to those who are skeptical of the COVID-19 vaccine. The culture war surrounding vaccinations has less to do with the vaccine itself, and more to do with the gradual erosion of trust in our institutions over the years. A population divided on whether or not it should protect itself from a highly contagious virus is a natural extension of a government that lies about WMDs in Iraq, that fails to deliver universal healthcare to its people, that promises $2000 stimulus checks and delivers only a fraction of that amount. As Joe Biden and neoliberals everywhere frantically search for a way to convince millions more Americans to get vaccinated, I have a rather simple solution: do something! Forgive all student debt. Raise the minimum wage. Extend the eviction moratorium. No amount of PSAs or passionate pleas is going to activate the American population. Such tactics also conveniently ignore the troubling yet essential truths surrounding vaccination rates in the U.S., namely that Black and Hispanic Americans are among the least vaccinated demographics in the country. Why might that be the case? If the issue is as partisan as Democrats would have us believe, surely Blacks and Hispanics, both of whom vote overwhelmingly blue, would have gotten their shots by now? Alas, they have every reason to doubt the efficacy of a vaccine touted by the U.S. government. Addressing the crux of the vaccine debate requires us to reflect on the various ways in which we have failed (and lied to) these populations over the years. I believe Biden when he says he wants people to get vaccinated, but I also know that this desire only goes so far. Sure, it’d be great for the U.S. to reach herd immunity, but doing so would require actually effecting real change elsewhere, and we know that is not where the president’s interests lie.
Of course, I am not so naïve that I think a few progressive bills would suddenly force a surge in vaccination rates (nor do I think such bills would ever pass in the first place!). Like just about everything in American society, the vaccine is far too politicized at this point, and restoring faith in U.S. institutions remains a nearly insurmountable task, especially as one considers just how much the U.S. continues to get wrong. In fact, it is the nation’s problematic role in the origins of the pandemic that most neatly corresponds with the M. Night Shyamalan film you thought you were reading about.
As he is wont to do, Shyamalan appears in Old in a minor role. But whereas the director typically casts himself in a small, inconsequential cameo, his character in Old is actually quite crucial to the plot. Shyamalan appears as a shuttle driver for the film’s resort hotel, driving the guests to the beach that will soon spell their undoing. Shyamalan’s presence in Old offers the film a metatextual quality. Just as Shyamalan is a real-life director, setting his actors up like pawns in a game of narrative chess, his shuttle driver facilitates the very same dynamic within the world of Old. The unnamed driver drops the group off at what is supposedly a private beach, promising to pick them up later. He refuses to help his passengers carry their belongings to the beach, and soon disappears. Shyamalan’s cameo is far from over, however. He appears again late in the film, revealed as the mysterious figure that has been watching the stranded guests from atop the cliffs overlooking the beach. Indeed, like his real-life counterpart, Shyamalan’s shuttle driver has been pulling the puppet strings all along. He dials his supervisor, who is revealed to be conducting a medical experiment using the beach’s mysterious properties. The Warren & Warren research facility hand-selected these guests due to their medical conditions, and used their accelerated aging to search for new medicines and cures.
Diabolical stuff, M. Night.
And yet, it is not dissimilar to that which is happening amongst the highest levels of the U.S. government. By now, you are likely at least somewhat familiar with the lab leak theory, which contends that COVID-19 originated in the Wuhan Institute of Virology. It was an idea that at first seemed xenophobic in its origins (and to be fair, Donald Trump’s vehement support for the lab leak theory was, indeed, rooted in prejudice) but has since gained support from high-ranking WHO officials, as well as several global leaders. The United States, Australia, Japan, and the European Union have all called for an investigation into the origins of SARS-CoV-2 in China. Unsurprisingly, China is fending off such investigations. No doubt, each of these nations are partaking in a game of political chess, but that takes nothing away from the significance of tracing the roots of the COVID-19 pandemic.
There remains evidence both for and against the lab leak theory, and I am far from scientifically literate enough to make any sweeping claims on the matter. With that being said, I am comfortable identifying Dr. Anthony Fauci and the NIAID’s role in the events that transpired in Wuhan. Regardless of whether or not SARS-CoV-2 originated in the Wuhan Institute of Virology, it is safe to say that a degree of malpractice occurred there, and that Fauci is at least partly responsible for its impact. Criticizing Fauci is as unpopular as it gets in the United States, but allow me to explain...
Contrary to popular belief, the story of Anthony Fauci doesn’t begin in 2020. It doesn’t even begin a few years prior. Anthony Fauci has served as director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases since 1984. The early years of Fauci’s career were marred by his work, or lack thereof, on HIV/AIDS. Fauci was publicly villainized by leading AIDS activist Larry Kramer at the time, labeled a “pill-pushing” tool of the medical establishment. Indeed, like Ronald Reagan and most of the American establishment at the time, Fauci was incredulously disinterested in HIV/AIDS for the first several years of his career in Washington D.C. By the late 1980’s, Fauci came around to the seriousness of the disease and worked with the gay community to develop solutions. Opinions on Fauci were understandably split. Was he a hero, or a slow-moving cog in the machine?
The answer, as it so often does, lies somewhere in between. And yet, the Brooklyn native’s role in the COVID-19 pandemic, not to mention his well-publicized rivalry with Donald Trump, positioned Fauci not just as an American hero, but as a gosh darn savior.
American individualism, it’s a hell of a drug.
Americans seemingly cannot navigate their way through a crisis without evangelizing a couple people along the way, and the COVID-19 pandemic has been just the latest example. Fauci’s leadership was certainly necessary, and even welcome, during the first several months of the pandemic, in which Trump and his administration actively obscured or withheld information from the public. But nobody is above reproach, Fauci included. The evangelization of Fauci has fortified his defenses to any and all criticisms, including those of Senator Rand Paul at a recent Senate Health Committee hearing. I am not proud to align myself with Rand Paul and his Republican colleagues, but they do seem to be asking Fauci necessary questions regarding funding for the Wuhan Institute of Virology, even if those questions are politically motivated. Elevated to a media darling, however, Fauci has evaded such questions with ease, comfortable in the knowledge that CNN and MSNBC will have his back. He hates Trump too, after all!
Nevertheless, it was Fauci who, in 2017, directed approximately $600,000 to the WIV via New-York-based nonprofit EcoHealth Alliance. The grant supported research into the Chinese bat population and its role in the 2002 SARS outbreak. Under the supervision of the Chinese government, the WIV inserted proteins into bats in order to test the coronavirus’ ability to transfer to human cells. Paul’s argument (and he’s not alone) is that this research classifies as “gain-of-function” research, a form of research whose definition has proven exceedingly slippery. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services defines gain-of-function research as research that “improves the ability of a pathogen to cause disease...thereby enabling assessment of pandemic potential of emerging infectious agents, informing public health and preparedness efforts, and furthering medical countermeasure development.” It is also incredibly controversial. In 2014, the National Institute of Health banned gain-of-function research. The ban was lifted only three years later, just in time for Fauci and the NIAID to gift the EcoHealth Alliance $600,000. Was the research at the WIV gain-of-function? Fauci doesn’t think so, clarifying that EcoHealth only used the money to acquire the animal viruses needed for experimentation, not to carry out the experiment itself. Of course, Fauci doesn’t consider any part of the WIV research to be gain-of-function. If gain-of-function research is understood as making a virus more dangerous in order to discover its prevention, the coronavirus research at the WIV couldn’t possibly fall in that category, as it was simply centered around transmission of the virus, not increasing its potency...right?
Fauci seems to be hiding behind a technicality, confident in the foundation that the U.S. media has provided him. I should acknowledge that scientists are generally skeptical as to whether or not SARS-CoV-2 could have been concocted in the lab. These same scientists do, however, view the research at WIV as gain-of-function, as it clearly increased the dangers of a coronavirus transferring to humans. From where I am sitting, with my limited (and I mean limited) medical knowledge, the lab leak theory remains one big question mark, but the research at the WIV remains similarly questionable. If nothing else, the WIV debacle should be a lesson to Fauci and the NIAID to exercise a bit more caution in where it spends its money. And yet, America’s favorite doctor recently collaborated with the World Health Organization to approve yet another grant for gain-of-function research.
Fauci may not be culpable in the creation of COVID-19, but he doesn’t seem all that interested in preventing a future pandemic either. This is the same guy, after all, who has prioritized pharmaceutical companies’ bottom line over public health, advocating against patent waivers and turning a blind eye to the several Moderna executives who conveniently sold their shares in the company as Moderna worked on its COVID-19 vaccine. And now, Fauci is supporting profit above all else once again. And we are still wondering why Americans may doubt the scientific establishment?
So if Fauci is our M. Night Shyamalan — we trusted you guys! — then there must be an equivalent to the resort manager (Gustaf Hammarsten) in Old, who doubles as the head researcher at Warren & Warren. Who is Fauci’s man on the ground? It can be hard to villainize the shuttle driver, whose familiar face provides false comfort, but the resort manager emerges as a potential villain rather early in Old. Surely he has an equivalent in this pandemic-related predicament?
Enter Peter Daszak, president of the EcoHealth Alliance, who inexplicably served as the lone American on the WHO’s panel of investigators into the origins of COVID-19. Now I’ve never met Peter Daszak, but I personally wouldn’t put a guy directly involved in the Wuhan coronavirus research on the team of people tasked with investigating that very research! Alas, it came as no surprise when Daszak spoke for the WHO team in concluding that the Wuhan lab played no role in the outbreak of COVID-19. The WHO’s conclusion may be correct, but there is no way it reached such a conclusion objectively, so long as Daszak — Fauci’s favorite funding recipient — was around. A lack of transparency has been a rather consistent theme throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, and it seems just about every institution is complicit in some capacity. As the CDC continues to botch messaging surrounding mask-wearing and the status of the Delta variant of COVID-19, trust in these institutions has never been less stable. It can be difficult to look past Daszak’s placement on the WHO panel, or his subsequent dismissal of the lab leak theory, as our faith in the political and scientific establishments continues to erode. The uncertainty raised by both Daszak and Fauci’s behavior over the last year-and-a-half may or may not indicate a smoking gun, but it clearly deserves our time and consideration. I fear we in the United States are chillingly comfortable with emerging from the rubble of this pandemic with very few lessons learned, and even fewer behaviors changed.
At the very least, the American people deserve transparency. They deserve to hear the saga of Anthony Fauci and Peter Daszak, to draw their own conclusions surrounding the validity of the scientific establishment on both a national and global scale. I was admittedly a bit hesitant to write this week’s newsletter, aware of the associations these lines of thinking tend to have. I recently discussed this very topic at a party (taking “I’m fun at parties” to a whole new level) and was bizarrely asked if I was a member of the NRA as a result. I don’t see the connection, but I digress.
Part of what makes this conversation so difficult is that I do not believe men like Fauci and Daszak are evil. I just don’t believe them to be heroes either. Most villains throughout history (barring psychopaths and megalomaniacs) are people who mean well, guided by their own skewed set of cultural values or moral principles. In the case of the United States, our leaders are most often thinking in terms of profit, which is certainly evil-adjacent, but is unfortunately justified within the parameters of American culture. Old demonstrates a similar “progress at all costs” mentality via the Warren & Warren team, who are willing to sacrifice their subjects in hopes that they achieve a scientific breakthrough. And as a matter of fact, they do! Patricia’s struggles with epilepsy miraculously subside on the beach for several hours, the equivalent of nearly two decades. Her death will not be in vain, as Warren & Warren will now be able to help millions of other epileptics. But at what cost? Patricia’s life obviously, and that of several others. The research conducted at this supernatural beach is certainly gain-of-function, presenting an ever-increasing danger to those involved. Unlike research into coronaviruses, the research in Old seems to affect the wealthy and privileged first and foremost (I’m tempted to explore the film’s relationship with HBO’s excellent miniseries The White Lotus in a future piece), although I also can’t help but wonder if the beach had ever affected any natives to the island. Shyamalan establishes a unique moral dilemma for his viewers: how much danger will we tolerate in the name of medical advancement? And to make matters worse, Shyamalan establishes himself as the man responsible for such an ethical quandary, playing off of his real-life persona as a humble, family-oriented filmmaker. Frankly, I doubt Shyamalan had COVID-19 on his mind in crafting such a mischievous final twist, but it nevertheless conjures the current moment.
Partway through Old, Trent and Kara — now in their teens — discuss how much of their lives they have missed as a result of their time on the beach. They’ll never get to go to prom, or to graduate from high school or college. The film’s resonance with the COVID-19 pandemic peaks in this moment, echoing the concerns of many. I missed out on my own college graduation as a result of the pandemic. My grandmother passed away last summer, and we watched her funeral via Zoom. Others have encountered loss far greater than anything I could even imagine. What could possibly make all this loss — human, economic, cultural, and otherwise — worth it? Perhaps nothing. But we need to remain curious. We need to hold those responsible for all this loss accountable, no matter how much we may respect or admire them. Shyamalan’s twist-heavy approach to storytelling has been ridiculed into oblivion, but it remains worthwhile for its ability to encourage our curiosity and our skepticism. No matter how you slice it, Old is a pretty dumb movie. But that’s exactly what makes it such a bold and brilliant movie.