Det. Thorn: Hatcher, get to the Exchange. You gotta tell them they’re right.
Hatcher: But let’s take care of you first.
Det. Thorn: You don’t understand. I’ve got proof. They need proof, I’ve seen it. I’ve seen it happening. They’ve gotta tell people.
Hatcher: Tell them what?
Det. Thorn: The ocean’s dying. Plankton’s dying. It’s people. Soylent Green is made out of people. They’re making our food out of people. Next thing, they’ll be breeding us like cattle for food. You’ve gotta tell them. You’ve gotta tell them!
Hatcher: I promise. Tiger. I promise. I’ll tell the Exchange.
Det. Thorn: You tell everybody. Listen to me Hatcher! You’ve gotta tell ’em! SOYLENT GREEN IS PEOPLE! We gotta stop them! Somehow!
Screenplay, Soylent Green (1973)
Hattip to Dale Price. A product of Sixties hysteria over the growth in population and angst about the environment, Soylent Green reflected the concerns of the chattering classes of the early Seventies, the film coming out in 1973, the same year as the infamous Roe v. Wade. The film was a poor predictor of the future. Instead of a dystopia on a dying Earth due to overpoulation, we have a birth dearth, our main problem with food is obesity and the environment in the West has never been cleaner since the dawn of the Industrial Age. Still, a pretty good film:
Something to keep in mind– we don’t actually know how bad the “birth dearth” is, because the number of women that they use to calculate it is estimated.
If you look at raw births reported, last year was about the same as 1983, which is about the same as 1969, and 1950.
You’ll have to jump around a lot to FIND those numbers, though– the CDC’s list only went to 1995, if I remember correctly, and I ended up pulling together three or so other websites to get a simi-complete listing back to the 1950s. (And yes, it has been lower some years between then and now. For most of the 70s, for example.)
Here’s one spot with a lot of stuff:
https://www.infoplease.com/us/population/live-births-and-birth-rates-year
You’ll notice that a lot of the 70s was in the “lower than now” group.
Wonder if that’s a cause, or an effect, of the media. Or both.
The “funny thing” (to me) about the Book that the movie was based on, the Book was set in Dec 1999!
Of course, Dec 1999 was nothing like the Harry Harrison book (Make Room! Make Room!) showed. [Very Big Grin]
The story was pretty good. The late Harry Harrison was usually Leftist in his politics, but he was a talented science fiction author.
I saw the film and could never imagine that the elitists of today would, if they could, turn the massess into soylent green. As humans continue to hate humanity itself, we dare not be surprised by anything the real life demons do.