"Poop Cruise" is a scathing critique of capitalism
Capitalism promises the easy life; it delivers, sometimes literally, a flood of shit.
In the classic 1980 horror film “The Shining,” a little boy with mystical powers has a vision of a flood of blood. The avalanche pours toward him as a pair of elevator doors slide open, director Stanley Kubrick’s camera rapidly cutting between the mighty gush of red and the child’s horrified face.
Forty-five years later, the Netflix documentary “Trainwreck: Poop Cruise” offers a similar filmgoing pleasure, only this time the ocean of body fluids isn’t blood; it’s urine and feces.
Yet do not mistake this semi-comical juxtaposition for frivolity. Sure, “Poop Cruise” is trending on Netflix and social media because people find excrement humorous, and “Poop Cruise” supplies buckets of it. Coiling and gurgling in the bowels of this nausea-inducing story, however, “Poop Cruise” is a scathing critique of capitalism. As far as social commentary is concerned, “Poop Cruise” easily goes toe-to-toe with the genius in “The Shining.”
This is evident in three primary ways.
First, “Poop Cruise” is a tale as old as time — companies scamming consumers.
I doubt I’m spoiling anything surprising when I reveal that Carnival, the cruise ship line behind the infamous 2013 Poop Cruise incident, tried to avoid accountability.
As the documentary’s title indicates, the Poop Cruise occurred because a group of passengers on a four-day cruise unexpectedly found their trip’s length doubled after a fire disabled their vessel. Thankfully, no one died or was seriously injured, either by the fire or the fetid conditions that followed: No air conditioning, no running water, minimal edible food and, most notoriously, no working toilets.
Humans being creatures of comfort and hygiene, it hardly counts as hyperbole to describe that last detail as literally hellish. By the journey’s end, as tugboats dragged the hapless vessel to shore, the tipping ship splashed so much sewage around that it dripped down the walls, leaked from the ceiling and flowed all over the rooms and hallways.
In an ideal world, a corporation which subjected innocent customers to such treatment would immediately be expected to pay millions. The twist is that Carnival’s executives, who had previously been aware of mechanical functions with their fleet, apparently had a loophole in place to prevent exactly that outcome.
"[Carnival] makes absolutely no guarantee for safe passage, a seaworthy vessel, adequate and wholesome food, and sanitary and safe living conditions,” the company said on the contract associated with their ticket. As the attorney who represented some of the passengers tells the filmmakers, "It's amazing. I think if most people actually knew that existed at the time, they probably would never buy a ticket. I certainly wouldn't."
The good news is that, because of the superstorm of negative publicity surrounding the Poop Cruise incident, Carnival ultimately settled with their victims rather than be further raked through the publicity coals. The bad news is that this constant media coverage was likely the only reason Carnival had to pay out.
It is not difficult to imagine Carnival sticking by its guns and refusing to pay a dime to anyone if there had been little or media scrutiny. More importantly, it is naive to assume that companies engage in this kind of chicanery against their customers all the time.
Capitalism, an economic system that incentivizes profit over all else, is the reason why.
Second, “Poop Cruise” reminds us of our First World privilege.
As a Soviet emigre serving on the crew observes, many of the experiences endured by the Poop Cruise’s passengers are not that unusual in poorer nations.
Hoarding food? Check. Forming ad hoc tribes to protect one’s meager possessions against potential marauders? Check. An arbitrary governing system led by the untrustworthy and staffed at lower levels by ordinary individuals who often mean well? Check.
Even the disgusting sanitary conditions on the Poop Cruise are far too common for the three-fifths of the world’s population that lacks access to safe sanitation — 4.5 billion human beings, including half a million American households.
While the capitalists may counter this observation by pointing out that the Soviet Union itself was a communist empire, I’d respond by noting that democratic socialists are not communists. We oppose all concentrations of economic and political power, both in the private and public sectors. The Poop Cruise reminded a Soviet emigre of what happens when the public sector acquires too much power because it occurred thanks to the private sector acquiring too much power.
Third, many not on the Poop Cruise thinks they’re above the Poop Cruise.
In my mind, the most memorable moment of “Poop Cruise” occurs when Carnival Triumph/Sunrise (the past/future names of the ship that, let’s be honest, we’re all just going to call the Poop Cruise) passes another Carnival cruise ship. As crew from the latter vehicle pass along supplies to the people on the former, the Poop Cruise passengers get gawked at.
Like animals in a zoo or disabled patients in an exploitative “freak show,” the Poop Cruise customers see the other cruise passengers point, laugh, party and all around have a great time at their expense.
On the one hand, this is understandable as schadenfreude, even as a cynical middle finger at this most grotesque manifestation of corporate cost-cutting. At the same time, the fates of the partying passengers and fates of the poop-covered passengers were separated only by chance. The former weren’t smarter, more virtuous, more skilled or in any way “better” than the latter. They were just luckier.
I urge all readers to keep this in mind as a metaphor for capitalist logic. To justify a system that produces massive inequality, capitalists insist that the “winners” emerged where they are because they deserved it. Implicit (and sometimes explicit) in that argument is the notion that the “losers,” too, deserve to be where they are.
Don’t believe it for a moment. The billionaires and lesser affluent are on a different ship than the Poop Cruise passengers for only reason. They are luckier.
That, more than anything else, is the main message of “Poop Cruise.”
Back Seat Socialism
Column by Matthew Rozsa who is a professional journalist for more than 13 years. Currently he is writing a book for Beacon Press, "Neurosocialism," which argues that autistic people like the author struggle under capitalism, and explains how neurosocialism - the distinct anticapitalist perspective one develops by living as a neurodiverse individual - can be an important organizing principle for the left.