Maggie

And How I Got COVID

It is just incredible to see Arnold Schwarzenegger like this.

While “Maggie” was released in 2015, a year into my sentence, Schwarzenegger filmed it at the age of 67, after a very brief post-gubernatorial period of attempting the last few action films in which he would still be credible. For the longest time, Arnold played who he was – either he was the disproportionately-large behemoth hero, or his physicality and virility would be used for comedic contrasts. Rarely did audiences see him as unremarkable and invisible.

“Maggie” begins with Schwarzenegger in an unusually powerless state. The world is overcome with a zombie virus, and society is delicately trying to maintain a delusional normalcy. Schwarzenegger’s Wade is also being forced out of the equation: daughter Maggie (Abigail Breslin) is trying to leave home, having been bitten by a bloodsucker. Which is a borderline impressive feat, considering all the zombie movies where some jerk gets bitten and tries to hide it to keep spending time with “the group”. Responsible choice, Maggie. 

Of course, her father isn’t having it. She requires actual treatment, but Wade won’t let her become just another number in a bureaucratic system that may dispose of her or even lose her. Old Arnold would have played a character who, in saving his daughter, punches a bunch of bureaucrats who interfere with his mission. But now, this is protective Arnold. Paternal Arnold. If you’re into it, Zaddy Arnold. He takes Maggie home and protects her as long as possible.

Along the way, Wade encounters several people struggling with loved ones becoming zombies, and how the government treats them. Never letting on that his daughter is essentially a captive in his care, he listens to stories of struggle and misfortune. Each tale reminds him that there is no light at the end of the tunnel. Maggie, meanwhile, begins to slowly deteriorate, which is depicted realistically but also in a way that allows for your metaphor of choice. Drug addiction is the most apparent comparison, in the idea of a sick individual coping with her disease. She is allowed moments of grace, but this movie never departs from its mission statement to be as bleak as possible.

It’s easy to forget that, decades ago, Hollywood often made exploitation films like this. They weren’t all action and horror films. Sometimes they were human dramas that pivoted on a single far-fetched high concept, allowing actors to emote under otherwise unusual circumstances. For some reason, I was reminded of “It Lives Again”, the sequel to Larry Cohen’s shock horror masterpiece “It’s Alive”. The movie begins somberly, following the survivor of the first film (Frederick Forrest) who had to murder his own malicious mutant offspring to survive. Now, he’s traveling the country, meeting with parents who have similar children. And he’s politely, calmly, trying to convince them to kill their own children. Yes, you’re waiting for the genre film histrionics (and they are spectacular). But in the moment, you’re with a serious-minded, conscientious man who is finding it in him somehow to convince parents to commit the ultimate sin. I did not expect Arnold to end up in such a role, but here he is, and he’s quite good.

We watch movies like this uncomfortably now, having endured a virus that forced our government to behave oddly and endorse mandates that created division. If you were living next to Wade in this movie and you discovered he was harboring a zombie, what would you do if you felt threatened? Would he necessarily appear as the hero he seems to be from watching this film? Is it selfish to favor those you love over the general public? And what if we weren’t euphemistically talking about COVID but in fact a truly lethal and terminal condition? Sure, better movies have asked this. But living through COVID proves that it remains a relevant inquiry.

All of this also reminded me of what COVID really was like behind bars. Among the F.B.O.P., the prison where I was incarcerated had one of the highest rates of infection. I lived in a bottom unit of about 100 people or so at the time, underneath an upper unit of another 100. In one week, early on, Monday, they tested us all, informing us the results would come in on that Thursday. But on Tuesday, before the results arrived, they moved men from the upper unit into the lower unit. We had five men in a six man cubicle, and suddenly in the midst of a pandemic we welcomed one more inmate. Two days later, they told him he tested positive, and they moved him back out of the room, into the quarantine unit. Weeks later, obviously, we became the quarantine unit. 

Despite an airborne sickness, they flipped us in and out of rooms arbitrarily. At one point, they took my room and the adjacent cubicle for rapid tests, at that time we numbered nine men. We were shoved into a stairwell, elbow to elbow, and tested, then forced to stand together for an hour to wait the results. As we waited, we were served lunch, and we removed our masks to dine. At the end of that, half of us tested positive. And surely, that was where the rest of us contracted it. Was that about safety? Or about the institution avoiding liability?