The film, Equals (2015), presents a fictional
story in which people in “the collective” are deemed healthy by the health and
safety “police-state” as long as emotions are not detected. Being healthy is
predicated on the assumption that emotion just gets in the way, not only of
work, but in life more generally. To be sure, they can indeed be difficult for
people who have suffered severe psychological and/or physical abuse, or have
lost a loved one whether by a death or outright rejection. In the film, Silas
voluntarily submits to a cure to the illness of having emotions coming through
consciousness because he has been told that Nia, the woman whom he has fallen
in love with, has just died. In a modification of Shakespeare’s play, Romeo
and Juliet, Silas does not commit suicide; instead, he gets the injection because
the emotional pain of having lost his loved one is simply too much. Anyone who
has fallen in love only to be rejected would be tempted to have emotion itself blocked
rather than to go on feeling. As a testament to just how deep love is as an emotion,
Silas still feels something for Nia even after the injection as the couple
travel on a train to escape from the totalitarian collective. He reaches out to
put one of his hands on one of hers. Deep inside, he is fighting the “cure.” In
actuality, the cure is the disease, foisted by an authoritarian collective on individuals.
The full essay is at "Equals."