Line #12 Fridge/Pontypool


1	!'''As a {{Fridge}} page, all spoilers are unmarked [[Administrivia/SpoilersOff as per wiki policy.]] Administrivia/YouHaveBeenWarned!'''
2	!! Refrain from using [[Administrivia/FirstPersonWriting first person pronouns]], please. This is a Fridge page, not a forum.
3
4	----
5
6	!![[AC: FridgeBrilliance]]
7	* Dr. Mendez explains that [[spoiler: the virus takes effect when the listener not only hears the word but takes in its meaning as well. Though Grant states that it's impossible to hear a word and not take in its associated meaning, people do that all the time: often when they tune out when other people are talking. There are a couple of examples of characters being in the same room and hearing the same words from the same source but not everyone is affected.]] When Lawrence and the Arabians do their spot on the radio, [[spoiler: only the girl is affected because she is listening deeply to the words she sings while the other singers and Grant are not really paying attention to the lyrics: the other singers are presumably singing on rote while Grant is just waiting for the segment to be over.]] When Laurel-Ann [[spoiler: puts in the pre-tape that begins with the notice of Honey the missing cat, only Laurel-Ann is paying attention to the words to make sure that the tape is good to air, while Grant and Sydney are both preoccupied by Grant's panic attack.]] When Sydney [[spoiler: is talking to her kids on the phone, all the occupants in the room are panicking and it doesn't register right away to Grant or Mendez what she's saying to her kids, while Sydney herself is too worried about her children's safety that she's automatically saying the words she shouldn't be saying.]]
8	* Grant's opening monologue might give a hint as to his apparent resistance to the disease. [[spoiler: Grant muses on apparent linguistic coincidences in the first sighting of Honey the Cat since its disappearance--seen in the town of Pontypool at a bridge that could be called the 'pont of the pool' by a woman whose name could be taken to mean 'Panty Pool'. As destroying the meaning of the infected word that a person fixates on is apparently the means of stopping an individual's infection, it's quite possible that Grant's mind does this almost naturally for him, taking a word that's caught his interest apart the way he does in his monologue until its original meaning is completely mutilated.]]
9
10	!![[AC:FridgeHorror]]
11	* In Grant's opening monologue, he tells us:
12	-->'''Grant:''' "Mrs. Frenchie's cat is missing. The signs are posted all over town: "Have you seen Honey?" We've all seen the posters...but nobody has seen Honey the cat."
13	** Later, the warnings from the government tell us that terms of endearment, in particular, are to be avoided, and the characters' experiences confirm that these are particularly "infectious" words. It's not hard to imagine that however long the "disease" of language lay dormant, it could easily have been awoken by people all over Pontypool seeing the word "Honey" plastered across multiple surfaces...
14	* Another thing people are warned about is 'rhetorical discourse'. If Grant's opening monologue and comments are anything to go by, he's been doing this a lot on air...
15	* The French Canadian government knows exactly what is going on at the end, but they can't warn English speaking countries.
16	* There is something unsettling about the Francophone response to the Pontypool outbreak in the film--the BBC mentions French-speaking riot police being moved into position to contain the situation shockingly early, long before the severity is clear to the characters, and the later announcement that interrupts the broadcast includes no declarations or clear signs of any connection to the government.
17	* Even though English is the only language affected, it's only a matter of time before the disorder spreads to speakers of non-English languages. Many languages have borrowed English vocabulary, so it's plausible that the disease could jump to other languages using English loan words as intermediaries.
18	** Not to mention, English also borrows vocabulary from other languages too, which does not help matters....
19	* It seems odd that characters speak French as a way to get around the issue with understanding words being a cause of infection. Although it works in theory, it seems like it can only delay the inevitable. An alternative, possibly more viable choice would be to speak Welsh. Not only is it distinct English, it's also very uncommon; Welsh-speaking Communities in Canada are both small and relatively centralized to Ontario (In fact, Pontypool was founded by Welsh settlers and named after Pontypool, their hometown). Finally, a lot of Welsh words fall into the "''Kill=Kiss''" Category when compared to English equivalents. For example, the Welsh word "Ci" (Pronounced "Key") means "Dog"; "Moron" means "Carrot".
20	** Notably, Mendez does prevent - or possibly stall - his infection by speaking Armenian, another less-common language.
21	** Welsh would help people insofar as it's far less common. French is common worldwide and it's a romance language. The virus doesn't pass through language itself, but through understanding the language, and fewer people understand Welsh than French. Viruses evolve, so it's likelt the infection would spread to a more commonly spoken language before it evolved into Welsh. It's less practical compared to French, but would bbe a more viable solution.
22	** Either way, this is still FridgeHorror in that every language borrowed loan words from another language. So eventually, the disease could jump to every language.
23	** Though it's also possible the infection has risen and fallen across history and had only lain dormant until this point. How many violent incidents across history involving infected people could be chalked up to the infected speaking a different language from those they attacked, and being wiped out by an "immune" population that never shared the infected tongue?
24	* The disorder could eventually infect non-human species. For example, dogs understand basic verbal commands. Higher order primates and large parrots such as African greys can understand dozens of human words. Earth isn't just looking at a human holocaust, but a ''multi-species holocaust.''
25	* The translated French announcement says to avoid terms of endearment such as "honey" and "sweetie." What does Sydney reflexively say often when she finally gets through to her kids? Note also that there's some indication her child on the other end of the phone call isn't completely talking sense.
26	* As the infected son lay dying, he mimics a child's cry and "mommy" with eerie perfection. It's clear that the infected parrot the last sounds they hear, and also attack the source of that sound. So either he murdered that baby, or was near whoever did. Furthermore, it's fair to say that every infant and toddler in Pontypool is dead, since they generally don't keep quiet unless physically restrained.
27	* It's a small town, so everybody probably knows everybody else in some capacity. The obits that Grant reads are probably hard enough for Syd and Laurel-Ann to hear, but then Grant gets to a few Drummonds. Laurel-Ann doesn't seem to react to the fact that (likely) some of her close relatives are among the confirmed dead. [[spoiler: Although, this is just before she starts to succumb to the infection herself, so it's likely she's already losing her grasp on sanity.]]
28	* TheStinger during the credits - [[spoiler: the BBC announcer gets stuck on the word "Pontypool", immediately after saying that it had been contained. In other words, the virus ''is'' spreading world-wide in the end of the movie.]]
29	* Humans don't start with an immune response to a virus, and repeating a single word is more of a response to curtail the spread of the virus or counteract the infection than anything. Since meaning is critical, repeating a word until it's meaningless would prevent it from affecting you. How do we already have an immune response to a "new" virus? This most likely isn't the first outbreak, it most likely have happened before. We already know it can hop languages and lay dormant for thousands of years, and has overcome our own natural defense system against it.
30	* The sheer ''speed'' of the "memetic virus" turns terrifying in hindsight, as it basically only took it less than 24 hours from its first sighting to infect and wipe out the majority of Pontypool's population. This was only a small town. Imagine how fast it would spread through a major metropolis such as ''New York'' for example.
31	** The word virus spreading in any major English-speaking city would instantly turn that city into a hellzone.
32	*** One can infer from the credits' talking points that what happened in Pontypool could be a test run, and whoever or whatever started the virus is planning for something much bigger.
33	* In the alternate continuity of [[https://archive.org/details/pontypool-by-tony-burgess the BBC radio play]] (which features the same actors), [[spoiler: ''Pontypool'' veers into a downer ending, where Grant convinces Sydney that Kill=Kiss but her response is "Kiss Me" - i.e., she wants him to mercy kill her because she's already too far gone]]. Likewise, Grant ends the story [[spoiler: by broadcasting his infection, live, to Pontypool at large, describing the way that saying his infected word out loud - "Paper" - feels like scratching at an itch]]. Apart from the experimental exploration of an alternate narrative from the movie, this also presents an alternative take on the idea that [[spoiler: the "virus" is able to spread metafictionally into the stories told about it]]. Where the movie ends on [[spoiler: a surreal coda with barely-understandable dialogue]], the radio play [[spoiler: makes sense all the way to the end - possibly indicating that in sacrificing themselves to the infection in this world, the characters have immunised the radio script from being infected itself]]. Notably, [[spoiler: the BBC announcer mentioned above does not appear in the radio version.]]
34	** However, Mazzy does ambiguously end the radio version by [[spoiler: briefly diverting from the word "Paper" to say the word "Trap"]], possibly indicating that [[spoiler: the radio play being immune is just what the virus ''wants'' you to think...]]
35
36
37	!![[AC: FridgeLogic]]
38	* At what point in the narrative does Grant's opening monologue occur? It references Honey the missing cat and suggests that "something's about to happen. Something big," but it's not referenced by anyone else at the radio station, especially in that it would be a remarkably strange thing to broadcast over a small town radio even for a mercurial person such as Grant Mazzy. Is it Mazzy's InnerMonologue? Or is it [[spoiler: the earliest sign that [[TheCallsAreComingFromInsideTheHouse the movie's script itself is "infected"]], and that the entity within English has already begun to interfere with the plot and stop it from making sense?]]

Context Fridge / Pontypool