MovieChat Forums > Downsizing (2017) Discussion > The poor peoples' colony

The poor peoples' colony


Why did the owners of Leisureland allow the poor peoples' colony to exist outside the wall? There is no way it could be there without them knowing it, but the hole in the wall was surely a major risk to Leisureland because all sorts of critters could get through it and cause havoc in the dome. If the owners did know about it - maybe they even built it themselves so that cheap labour would have somewhere to live - why wasn't there a border control at the hole to stop insects, rats etc getting down it?

I realise the 'Hollywood Agenda' is obliged to make some sort of oblique references to illegal immigration, the Mexican wall etc but it just doesn't make sense in this context.

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There seems to be a lot in this film that is left for the viewer to figure out (like the colonic enema scene) but my take on this is that the owners of Leisureland know all about the slums, but don't acknowledge it. The bus travels there after all, and the area seemed to have some kind of net over it that looked impossible for the residents to have constructed. It also seems to be constructed at the rear where no-one else will see it. In the ten years or so that Leisureland had been operating, it's safe to assume there were several cases of downsized people who ran out of money or had nowhere to go, and they wouldn't want homeless people disrupting their "zero crime" squeaky clean image.

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