Review and Analysis of Outbreak

Motion pictures have long been a means of exploring the ins and outs of what-if scenarios.  In the 1995 feature film Outbreak, director Wolfgang Petersen explores what happens when “extreme measures are necessary to contain an epidemic of a deadly airborne virus” (Outbreak). Herein will be discussed the various politico-power dynamics (such as the power of the presidency) that occur between the two main sources of control and power within the narrative of this film.

The film opens on a war-torn jungle where soldiers of many different cultures curse and fight and reload their weapons as the sounds and smoke of the heavy artillery shells blast away in the distant trees. This hideous violence is taking place in the Motaba River Valley, Belgian Congo, now known as Zaire in the present day. It is 1960, and soon, we can see a dirty shanty tent, otherwise known as the infirmary for the Camp of Forces Loyal to Moises Tshombe. An Australian mercenary lying in one of the cots is dirty, weak, feverish, and covered with disgusting, painful-looking, pustule-like blisters. The nurse has brought fresh water from the well to replace the now very hot towel on the mercenary’s forehead with a fresh cool one. But to no avail, only moments later does the Australian start to seize, and then he is dead. Luckily the American cavalry has arrived—two fully-suited up inspectors tour the facility and take a sample for testing. On their way out they promise that the medicine is coming and that the sick will recuperate soon so that they can get back home. But the medicine never comes. Instead, the infirmary patients, nurses, and doctors are greeted with enough napalm to burn the camp and surrounding jungles for miles around. The Americans could not let something so dangerous as that disease spread through a host, so they murdered the whole camp. But in the jungle, a Bonobo monkey survives. 

Judging from the title of the film, and from this very dramatic opening series of events, the audience can be assured that this disease is the most terrible thing anyone has ever seen in the whole of the universe and that it is going to get out, seriously ruining a lot of people’s days. We are lead through the necessary character and story development to get to the major point(s) of disaster, but just from this opening sequence, we the audience know exactly where things are headed.

But let us look a little deeper, beyond the fear factor of contracting such a dangerous virus. Political power is displayed in many different ways in this movie. We first run into it in the jungle, where the American flag is displayed prominently on the clean-suit inspectors. They make the call whether an entire camp lives or dies, and they base their decision on the fear that the disease could spread to the United States pretty easily. That sort of “not in my back yard” mentality makes total sense when we are talking about such a deadly virus, but was actually an inappropriate response due to the huge ethical and moral questions raised by such a mass killing, as well as the fact that they chose to burn it instead of tracing the source for a cure. 

In this instance, American military forces acted as in a dictatorial capacity. While one might consider this to be an example of authoritarianism, that is not the case as this form of government as enacted does not demand submission to all things while having power concentrated to an elite few (“authoritarianism”). Instead, this is a perfect example of totalitarianism because all aspects of public and private life are militarized without the public’s consent (“totalitarianism”). One may argue that a CDC quarantine or military intervention may be for the public good, at times done with the consent of the public, but this instance was not approved by the public. This unsanctioned destruction of human life was done without public consent. Of course, this issue is made more complicated by the fact that the film infers that the general who made these decisions was acting on his own (unofficial political power) under the guise of his office (presumed official political power)—and questions of morality and rightness are completely left aside in this argument despite there being inherent importances in scenarios such as this. Whether or not these actions were solicitous of the public is up for debate, but I am of the mind that a humane quarantine could have been easily affected and would issue better control over the situation than the one depicted, thus I do not believe that this action was solicitous of the public.

35 years after the jungle incident, two CDC doctors Sam Daniels (played by Dustin Hoffman) and Robby Keough (played by Rene Russo), are up against this horrid virus which has again reared its ugly head. But this time, there is no warning or quarantine, and the symptoms are subtle at first, so these two doctors have to leverage their slight “political” power in order to gain access into researching suspicious isolated incidents. As the seriousness of the outbreak progresses, these two doctors are assigned to handle it, but when the military steps in and restrict their access, they refuse to heed and break several laws going into the quarantine zone to treat and try to save the infected people. This represents a shedding of the official political power that the doctors had used to insist on tracking the outbreak initially in order to hold fast to their integrity, which put them on a track of unofficial political power. Their renegade actions stripped them of the right to be official, but they assert their unofficial power successfully despite not having permission.

The depiction of the principal public policies pursued by the powerful in this film is quite muddy. Of course, it is in the public’s best interest to contain a dangerous outbreak, but using death, napalm, and  nuclear weapons “for the public’s best interest” is a paradoxical “solution.” There are two forces working to end the Ebola outbreak in this film—one with secrecy and violence, which is decidedly not in the public’s best interest; and one with transparency, quarantine, and every medical tool and advance currently then available, which is the way it should be approached. 

In this film, the characters holding the power are also using subterfuge to secret away a hidden cure, which is an evil action. The justification used is that the military wanted to hold the Ebola virus as a biological weapon, and so did not want to provide antibodies to the sufferers as that would lose the American military their powerful weapon. Juxtaposed against the power-seeking behavior described in the above paragraph, these actions are unforgivable. The other actions could be justified as a knee-jerk reaction of fear, but this is a conniving behavior that is totally against all of humanity. Every policy enacted herein, whether right or wrong, whether legal or not, was substantive. It directly affected the lives of those people who were suffering and of those not infected as well. I do suppose that the attempted choice to keep the Ebola virus as a secret weapon against possible future threats could be viewed as an attempt at a partially symbolic policy, but that is stretching things. 

There is absolutely a relationship between the exercise of power and the policies pursued in this film. The CDC doctors mentioned earlier seem to only be fighting for the collective well-being of the public by containing the outbreak and treating it as fast and as best as they could. The government works to contain all types of disease through its policies. But this is the purpose that their positions embody, they have taken the Hippocratic oath. 

It is another story entirely when it comes to the military-industrial complex and the roles of the two generals that represent it in this film—General Billy Ford (played by Morgan Freeman) and General Donald McClintock (played by Donald Sutherland), although there is a redemption subplot thrown in at the end, ultimately are exercisers of power who become anxious about their power and so pursue less than honorable agendas in order to consolidate power and hide past transgressions of offense and weakness. One could argue that the policy as it stood put these generals between a rock and a hard place because of having to choose between the lesser of two evils (several dozen dead or several thousand dead), thus seemingly leaving them no other option besides bombing the sick as opposed to attempting a treatment; but it seems clear that the generals eagerness to eradicate the new outbreak stem more from an attempt to cover their collective butts due to a fearful wrong choice early in their careers than to actually make the right choice that is best for the majority of the public.

As mentioned earlier, one of the generals (General Billy Ford, played by Morgan Freeman) comes down with a severe case of conscience and so, has a change of heart close to the end of this film. Of course, this is dripping with dramatic tension and cathartic moments for the audience to enjoy, but this occurs in the narrative also highlights the strange tug-of-war that takes place within people who hold power and what must be faced in order to win the battle. 

There is the little voice in all of us that still holds an innocent view of the world where something just is not acceptable no matter how you may try to explain them away. Life gets more complicated as you learn more and more through age and experience, and it gets even worse once you start to rise through the echelons of power because when you rise up to powerful positions, that means that more and more things are under your own singular control. As a random example of this, a commissioner of police has to answer for his own actions, but he also has to answer for the actions of every person serving beneath him. This makes sense when it is thought about in terms that are in the abstract or theoretical, but what happens when one single choice in this hypothetical police commissioner’s life has 74 separate and distinct consequences with varying results along the greater good/greater evil scale? It seems a life of constant waffling or two-facades would be required for the job—which, anecdotally, may be why people hate politicians so much.

But back to the generals and their harmful decisions, they were making those decisions on behalf of the entire United States of America. To them, it was better to keep the disease away from American soil while also preserving a superweapon should some enemy force need drastic measures to be stopped. This is an entirely sound argument—so long as one discounts how horrific an idea it is to consider unleashing such a gruesome disease intentionally on a population. But once they intentionally withheld the antibodies from American citizens to protect their secrets and their future powerful weapons, they went against the main policies they had been trying to enforce in the first place. Ironically, through their actions, they became the unthinkable force that they had been so terrified would attack America.

So while policy priorities do have an effect on how power is exercised; it is also true that power (most especially concentrated or higher-level power) has an effect on how policy priorities are interpreted and enacted. 

The circumstances of this film are indeed credible. Through various news sources, I have heard rumors of waning availability of smallpox vaccinations, of swine flu and bird flu outbreaks, of drug and antibiotic-resistant strains of disease and virus, and there is even the poisoning of our natural foods by mass-market agriculture that poisons spinach, tomato, onions, and beef with toxicity beyond human capacity to survive. 

It is also true that in this age of frequent travel and massive populations residing within cities, the risk of infection and contagion are now, more than ever, the highest they have ever been. Luckily, there are scientists and researchers working to circumvent these future problems of impending doom. One researcher found that if you put a microscopic pattern on flat surfaces that mirrors the physical shape of sharkskin, that flat surface is less likely to become contaminated through touch. A doctor elsewhere in the world is currently working on starting the first hospital-wide trials that would ban antibiotics and instead replace them with probiotic solutions—his theory is that while antibiotics eradicate harmful bacteria, they leave open space for harmful bacteria to proliferate; whereas probiotics actively fight harmful bacteria as well as coat the surface or body part that they were applied to so that there is no space for the harmful things to land and grow.

Scientific innovation and discovery are constantly on the move. Just like the doctors in this film, Outbreak, they will be dedicatedly searching for answers and cures in order to secure the general population. While their motives may not be quite as heroic-seeming as the lovely portrayals that Rene Russo and Dustin Hoffman graced us with—at least not all the time—there seems to be a burning desire for innovation and experimentation as if those two things alone drove the entire field. There are always purer motives or less pure and more materialistic motives.

This seems to be true on a much more macro level that goes way beyond scientific or medical innovation. Just like the generals in the film had a push-pull with power and their inner voice, it feels sometimes like there is a massive national, or even global, push-pull between positive creation and negative domination or suppression. Perhaps this is just fanciful thinking, but the constant push for innovation, collaboration, and freedom, when juxtaposed against the constant threat of eradication from toxic corporate policies and legal loopholes and dictatorial, self-serving governments; well, these things when viewed alongside each other seem a bit like a dramatic fight between the darkness and the light. 

The movie is a wonderful, fun narrative ride that takes you on emotional ups and downs and really makes you feel the heartache and triumph of overcoming a truly evil worst-case scenario in an already no-win situation. The political power dynamics taking place within the narrative of this film are much and varied. The aspect of the crowd-power dynamic was not even explored by me in this essay, and I’m not exactly sure what I could, but it would be an interesting exercise.

Work Cited

Outbreak. Directed by Wolfgang Peterson, performances by Dustin Hoffman, Rene Russo, and Morgan Freeman, Warner Bros, 1995.