Murdering Plants for Fun and Profit
I have an idea for a short film, but the making of the movie is problematized by the subject matter itself. The idea: explore whether people care about violence committed against plants. Determine if that’s even a meaningful phrase.
On its face, the idea seems absurd, but so would be the movie: I would creep around in a mask, miming sadistic glee while slicing blades of grass in half, just to watch them slowly die; I would disfigure young flowering trees, leaving them to a gradual death from the irreparable harm, etc.
Billy had the best idea: buy a venus fly trap; staple it shut; time-lapse its slow starvation. It’s horrible to contemplate, but is it only because this plant ‘moves’ and is therefore easier to anthropomorphize? And shouldn’t I feel better about killing such a murderous plant than about, say, trimming the hedges of my hedge maze?
The goal here is to explore two themes:
(1) Whether we censure an act has a lot to do with the intent of the actor, although that has little meaning to the victim (this is a foundation of criminal law, of course). If you saw your neighbor tearing up plants he calls ‘weeds’ and tossing them into a heap to wither and die in the sun, you’d think nothing of it, but you probably think stapling a venus fly trap shut is horrifying (I did).
But the ‘purpose’ that justifies the weed-pulling is an aesthetic one! It’s okay to mow a lawn, rip up flowers by the root for a lover, or chop down tall, encroaching species that threaten your view, but to make manifestly senseless the murder of a fly trap (itself a murdering machine!) is too much!
(2) To see how people will reconcile feeling bothered (if they are) by the violence of the film but not being bothered by trudging over lawns (stomping tiny blades of grass to death, to say nothing of the bugs and worms), eating salads, or parking on grass.
It’s ludicrous and it’s silly, but it interested me because, for some reason, I am saddened by the thought of, say, mutilating flowers or leaving bushes to starve and die, but this is totally morally incoherent of me.
Would you think less of me for stapling a venus fly trap? My hat is off to Billy; it’s a brilliant idea because it makes me miserable to contemplate it even though I am utterly behaviorally indifferent to the lives of plants.
I don’t think I will ever get around to doing this, not least because I would feel weird stapling the venus fly trap, so I’ll just offer this post instead.
I will simply add plant porn………..
4 months ago
