Blog 24: Sleep Dealer and the Coppertop Life Final Essay

Fernando Torres
Dr. Smith
English 101
Final
The Matrix and Sleep Dealer were both outstanding films that I saw for the first time in each class so it was definitely a fresh, mind blowing experience. Both films push the concept of “what if’ and in a way prepares ourselves for the near future in technology which has had the dominate influence in our nation and nations around the world. These films demonstrate how easily controlled and restricted some of us may be.
The director of Sleep Dealer, Alex Rivera, was inspired from The Matrix and used aspects from the films such as the setting is in the near future, the computer programming and controlling of the mind by plugging yourself in, also they carried a story line that involved love. There were three characters that were brought together and risked their lives in order to challenge and break down the barriers of technology. Rivera did add his touch making the setting between Mexico and The United States. He also added present political issues and portrayed them through the film as a militarized world defined by closed borders and virtual labor where they world twelve hour shifts and a global digital network that joined him and his family together also other landscapes and different experiences. The issue today is that so many undocumented people are working off the books and are getting paid the horrible salaries and are working from dawn to dusk. There was a part of the film Sleep Dealer where an employee at Rudy’s job said “This is what America meant as the American dream”. There are so many poor and starving people who are eager to work for anything and go to any level of hours to support themselves and their families and by having the virtual labor, American factories and jobs can abuse and take advantage of the workers because they can’t physically see them and can’t physically touch them or see them. At one point Rudy had fallen asleep and in his dream felt like he had fallen off from overworking double shifts and the computers took off from his salary. These issues exist today as well, minus the technological influence, but many of the issues and workers who are being affected by this are coming from Mexico. Also border crossing and sneaking into the country had been a great issue in the US for years.
The second character was the girl he had met and began to fall in love with, Luz. She would plug herself in to her computer and thought that his stories were sad and that she needed to share them with the world and speak for him. She would sell her memories and she became known online. The stories lead up to meeting the third character Memo, who was a pilot in the military and had killed Rudy’s father due to a militant order. Memo was a fan and figured out that he had killed Rudys father. There was a struggle between him and his loved ones and his father’s death. He wanted to limit the distance and fulfill his father’s wish. Through this all, the man who had killed his father through a military order offered a service that could not be possible without the computer system. He plugged himself in and shot a dam and released water in order to help feed and aid his family and country. The military man was unable to go home after that and nether could the boy. In The Matrix, the red and blue pills each have a different road. The road to the truth which is The Matrix and the other is the fake world. In sleep dealer the computerized world helped him but in the end he chose to stay in the real world where he’d learn to live a normal life.
This story was more “real’ in the sense that he had a reason for all of his moves and that he actually wanted to be better and he chose to live plunged in and work. The Matrix was also a choice but I feel like it was more out of curiosity. I defiantly enjoyed Sleep Dealer more and it had everything that made a great film.