Modern Times

Last week, I watched “Modern Times” by Charlie Chaplin with my cinema class and a particular scene stood out to me. Charlie was put in jail by mistake, but he was a good inmate and even helped the police when another inmate tried to trick them. As a reward, a police officer told Charlie to leave jail earlier but he did not want to. The reason being that Charlie had a better life in jail than he did in the outside world. He had a ceiling over his head, a toilet, bed and food, whereas outside he worked like crazy to the point where he had a nervous breakdown before resulting in being sent to the hospital and losing his job. Later in the movie a new character is introduced, a woman who is homeless and we follow her as she lives her life trying to provide for her littles sisters by stealing food. My point being that it is fascinating to me that, inmates, who were put in jail for commiting crimes and being corrupt members of society, have better life than those who are poor and many being born into poverty and having no choice but to live in that situation. Of course, life conditions in prison are not the best: The food is bad, the beds are not of great comfort, etc. However, they all have their basic needs fulfilled. They have food, they take showers, they have a bed to sleep in, etc. In the contrary, those in poverty have to fight to survive no matter how great their souls might be. This part of society makes no sense to me whatsoever. It is wrong to me for those in poverty to be looked down upon worse than inmates. Those in jail have supposedly lost their “freedom” when they put themselves in that situation, but looking at it from this perspective is freedom really worth dying of hunger or cold anymore?

I think the fuck not