Queering Reproductive Futurism in ‘What Happened to Monday’ (2017)

(February 2021)

---

Queer theory offers a hypercritical perspective to notions of normality (or ‘heteronormative’) values in culture. It challenges capitalist, heterosexual, patriarchal and political symbolic laws within society and asks why these premises are the ‘normal’ (Doughty & Etherington-Wright, 2011, p. 210). Within film culture it questions the ideological and sexually normative standards and offers opposing perspective to ‘why’ genre or narrative does/does not challenge the ideological state apparatus. Queer anti-futurism, an extremist theoretical position coined by Lee Edelman, explicitly challenges reproductive futurism, the ideological need to continue and protect the human species, and analyses ‘queer’ as the non-invested (Doughty & Etherington-Wright, 2011, p. 220), and as the motion that disrupts the reproductive social order.

Netflix’s ‘What Happened to Monday’ is an environmental dystopian text, in which a ‘One Child Policy’ has been invoked due to overpopulation. Using queer theoretical ideas, including Edelman’s queer anti-futurism, the text can be scrutinised as a challenge to capitalist, hegemonic ideas of self-service and political gain. The dystopian narrative links to the dangers of distorting the symbolic order, the environmental disaster acts as metaphor for the destruction of ‘natural’ reproductive values.

The text theorises children as both problem and solution to the destruction of the human species. Too many children born at one time will consequent to global stresses on resources, but no children born risks both the annihilation of the species and traditional values of reproduction. The stress of multiple children creates the problem for the sustainable continuation of humans, overpopulation as a prominent scientific theory for the death of the human species being the unconscious narrative of the text.

The unfolding of Glenn Close’s Caymans’ murder of the siblings suggests her dedication to the cult of reproductive futurism is endless, no matter how unethical the method.

Whilst Caymans motives may be ethically questionable, we can understand Dafoe’s (Terrence) Settman as her foil. At first glance, Settman seems the obvious sinthomosexual, Edelman’s description of those who are “not personally invested in the future…”(Doughty & Etherington-Wright, 2011, p. 220), the man who resists to participate in the ideology to discard children to save children, preferring to struggle in order for his grandchildren’s’ liberty. Settman’s illegal upbringing of his grandchildren, however, threatens the mystical future due to the world now having “seven extra mouths to feed”. By keeping his grandchildren alive, he is sacrificing the (potential) protection of future children and overall, the Earth’s future. His actions are narcissistic, due to his actions being selfish, arrogant and lacking in empathy for the rest of the world. The text questions the notion of normality as the person who is most invested in the protection of human life, The Child’s life, is treated as criminal and perverse.

To compare, Cayman in utopian narrative is the irrational sinthomosexual, purposely destroying life, seemingly “disidentifying from the promise of futurity” (Edelman, 2004, p. 27). Cayman by destroying siblings, instead of genuinely putting them into cryosleep, potentially endangers the planet by “saving” a lack of children for the continuation of the species long after she’s gone/the overpopulation becomes underpopulation.

Cayman’s “processing” of children was ideologically sound for the survival of the current human race, however, was heavily unethical and affected the sanctity of her very political values. For Fontenot, buying into reproductive futurism demands “untold brutality and sacrifice, no matter how violently antilife,” (Fontenot, 2006, p. 254) suggesting that Cayman’s actions, though perverse, are for the greater good and an example of consequentialist ethics. Her narrative further suggests the hold that ‘The Child’ has on society’s vision of the future, through Edelman’s extreme queer anti-futurist perspective, we demystify the imaginary child as the desire to control and continue the human species.

Cayman introduces her ‘One Child Policy’ by exclaiming that “those who can provide deserve a child”, perpetuating familial norms, by means of patriarchal and capitalist reasoning, and relying on financial stability over love and compassion as the means of adequate parenting. This rhetoric is regularly reason for the criticising of lower income/single parent homes and ideological rationalising for the removal of children from said homes, for reference. Caymans belief that those who can afford to have a child, deserve to have one is incredibly reminiscent of Conservative political values. Placing responsibility of the financial structures of family, rather than of love, ironically misplaces the heteropatriarchal values of family as the core of society and places financial wealth over familial/relational wealth, ergo under capitalism the income of a household holds more importance than the ‘natural’, reproductive values.

Cayman as the advocate for one child families in order to stabilise the global overpopulation relies heavily on politicising ‘The Child’ as her campaigning strategy. Cayman relies on the promise of saving, by means of sacrificing (killing), siblings to allow the Earth to regain environmental order and for the population to mediate itself.

The politicisation of the child is a direct analysis of hetero-reproductive society basing any and all decisions on the child as the future of society, Edelman added to this by seeing ‘political visions of the future are invested in the “Imaginary form of the Child”’ (Edelman, 2004, p. 14). Furthermore, the face of capitalistic/financial stability is based on the thesis that the child equals the need for independent financial stability and self-sufficiency, ergo fundamental capitalistic economic values. Moreover, the evident need for financial stability as a means of deserving a child equals to the heteronormative rhetoric of money being the necessary symptom to surviving under a capitalist ideology and to provide for the economy allows for the sufficient providing of a family, both ideas which fit the Western hegemonic values of family.

The Child is the ‘social fantasy of a reproductive future’ (Fontenot, 2006, p. 253) but, the lack of need for procreation destroys the heteronormative function of patriarchal society. The lesser need for children results in the questioning of the need for monogamy as central to the heteronormative perspective on love and relationships, the relationships in a near-apocalyptic world are as ‘futile’ as queer sexuality. The need for heterosexual relationships, including values of marriage and monogamy, is essential to the heterosexual hegemonic structures of Western society, to disturb the reproductive nature of heterosexual relationships therefore deem them, as according to Freud, perverse relationships.

The disruption to the procreative nature of humankind suggests that the film subverts the nature of queer anti-futurism, as it encourages the need to slow procreation but as necessity, not nihilistically. The calculated methods of extermination of ‘siblings’, also, disrupts the religious values of the ‘sanctity of life’, but furthermore creates a chain of attack on heteronormativity. Religious annotation of the text further presents the film’s distorted perspective on childbearing and survival of the human race. The multiple pregnancies in the film should represent positive procreative values but due to the environmental disaster to “be fruitful multiply” (Genesis 1:28) would end up possibly eradicating the population, perverting the very essence the foundations of Anglo-Christian (Western) society were built upon.

To summarise, due to analysis of the film’s social and political values, it could be argued that through a queer lens ‘What Happened to Monday’ is a subconscious exploration of the extreme pressure of traditional procreative Western values, as well as an environmental dystopian text. Murder of siblings is presented as a necessary evil within the text and Cayman as the ‘hero’ of the tale is almost believable if one was seduced by the brutal struggle to continue forcing reproductive futurism in a heteronormative patriarchy.

The environmental disaster represents the larger metaphor for the disruption of human life and natural order, the lack of protection for children is symbolic for the lack of protection of life on Earth and Earth itself. Edelman’s queer anti-futuristic theory offers a perspective that goes against procreation and encourages queer as the destruction of the human species. Within this film text the illegality of having multiple children breaks the heteronormative values of Western society, offering a practical example of Edelman’s nihilistic, antilife theory and allows for the freed perspective to approach fantasies about the end of humanity. Edelman’s approach to sinthomosexual suggests the ultimate end goal for queer identity is the annihilation of human life and we see two varieties of this theory, in Cayman’s murder of siblings and Settman’s saving of his grandchildren, have potentially dangerous effects for the future of humanity.

Regardless, ‘The Child’ as forefront to both the protagonist and antagonists’ motives further supports the politicisation of children as the means for the future of humanity. As child possesses nothing but innocence, it acts solely as the symbolic and reinforces the deep-rooted heteronormative values held in patriarchal societies in order for the continuation of humanity to prevail. As the power of these values are queered, it becomes obvious that an attack on the child, is an attack on reproductivity, which results in an attack on heterosexuality and therefore, heteronormativity and the future of humanity is thusly challenged.

Bibliography

o Doughty, R. & Etherington-Wright, C., 2011. Understanding Film Theory. 2nd Edition ed. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.

o Edelman, L., 2004. No Future: Queer Theory and the Death Drive. 1st Edition ed. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.

o Fontenot, A., 2006. No Future: Queer Theory and the Death Drive (review). MFS Modern Fiction Studies, 52(1), pp. 252-56.