Pontypool as an Allegory for Cyclical Trauma

thinking about Pontypool as an allegory for PTSD/trauma in general again, but wrt cyclical trauma rather than military trauma like the post I reblogged talked about.

I think it's the concept of not just hearing a word but Understanding it being the vehicle of transmission. like, a person can calmly tell someone who hasn't gone through what they've gone through about their trauma and bc the listener is so separated from it, the most impact it could have on them is eliciting empathy, and even then it wouldn't always do that. but if someone were to see the actual effects, specifically the ones that can hurt others, and understand how exactly it's affected the traumatized person, that's when they're in the position to both hear and understand it, and in this case are actively hurt by it.

and then slowly, this person taken over by the virus- developing the same destructive traits- but they initially don't know what they're doing when they do. "she doesn't know it yet, but she's hunting us." they don't know it yet, but they're becoming what they would never want to be.

even more relevant is the concept of the virus spreading by words in the movie itself. the words the conversationalists are saying- some of them, anyhow- are pathogens passed on to them by someone else who wouldn't have wanted to pass it on, who had them passed on to them by yet another person who wouldn't have wanted it. but they can't stop themselves from saying them. they can't stop themselves from repeating the cycle.

in the same way mindless instinct takes over the conversationalists, when a victim of trauma is triggered in some way, their reason is replaced by instinct, an undue fight-or-flight response. to say someone consciously chooses to pick the fight response and potentially hurt others in the moment is hardly more true than saying that the conversationalists say the infected words on purpose to spread the virus.

what's so crucial about this allegory, however, is that the conversationalists are not doomed. Grant and Sydney don't fight the conversationalists by trying to wipe them out; they fight them by trying to get to the root of the problem and find something to heal it. And they succeed! Grant manages to save an infected Sydney by helping her change her understanding of 'kill', the word she caught the virus from. He de-fangs what's essentially a trigger that gives her the potential to hurt others- specifically him, a loved one in close proximity- by removing the association with what it really means, blood and gore and murder, and replacing it with 'kiss'.

When it no longer makes sense, when the definition you relied on all your life stops being the truth and is replaced with something else, that's when it stops having power. When you work toward recovery, the harmful habits- both outwardly and inwardly destructive- that you relied upon are gradually replaced as well. You just need to try with all you've got to make those changes, and it sure as hell helps when there's someone there to help you, even if it doesn't end with a Big Damn Kiss like it did for Sydney.

And yeah, sure, not everyone does heal in the end, not from the virus or from their trauma. The world is never going to be completely free of the cycle of trauma; likewise, by the time Pontypool ends, the virus has begun to spread from small-town Ontario to the rest of the English-speaking world. But the crucial thing is that all hope is not lost. If you're determined and you have support and love, you can stop hurting people, stop mimicking the words and actions that hurt you first. trauma isn't the end of the world, folks; it's just the end of the day.