The beginning of Steven Soderbergh’s now iconic film, Contagion, wastes no time in making a point about how bad girls who do bad things (and even good girls who do bad things) without remorse will end up being chastened by some cosmic force–hey, that rhymed. Consider repurposing it as a children’s poem. Any who, not only will they be punished, but everyone in their web–and even those outside of it serving as collateral damage–will be, too.
It doesn’t take long to get that very distinct impression as Beth Emhoff (Gwyneth Paltrow), complete with very visible forehead perspiration, sits at the airport in Chicago. Coughing with gusto, the ominous title card, “Day 2,” shows up on the screen. Before we can think too much about what was happening on “Day 1”–when the novel virus was first unleashed–she gets a phone call on her cell. A man named John Neal (voiced by Soderbergh himself) flirtatiously greets, “John Neal here, you just had sex with me in a hotel and left without saying goodbye.” Yes, Beth has brought artful literalness to the term “layover.” To compound her “trashay-ness,” the camera pans out to reveal she’s been “boozing it up” at the airport bar while waiting for her flight to be called.
Damn Soderbergh, you’re gonna imbue the catalyst for a worldwide pandemic with such patent Looking For Mr. Goodbar qualities? But Theresa Dunn would never bother with the props of a husband and children. Alex Forrest (Glenn Close) in Fatal Attraction, on the other hand, she’d be happy to. But it’s not as though Beth is evocative of Alex in a precise way, so much as the fact that the message both women represent is one that infers infidelity is inextricably linked to punishment. For if Beth had just gone straight home to Minneapolis instead of banging, at least the virus’ effects would have been contained to her own home, rather than spreading like wildfire through her paramour in another major U.S. city.
In the 1980s, with the Reagan administration’s conservative politics bleeding into every facet of existence, including pop culture, this cautionary tale about a high-powered lawyer named Dan Gallagher (Michael Douglas), who thinks he can have a “casual dalliance” while his wife’s away, was to be expected. The fact that Mrs. Beth Gallagher (Anne Archer) is a “pure,” “uncomplicated” woman further drives home the point that Alex is a “crazy whore” in contrast. With Contagion’s timing, however, the “underhandedness” of portraying a woman who has an affair as someone who launches a novel virus into cities far and wide is more insidious.
Released during the tranquil “peace years” of the Obama presidency, making accusations about some conservative conspiracy to smear women by branding them as cautionary tales for having sex outside of marriage wouldn’t have been as “sellable” as it was from a filmically-inclined academic perspective on the 80s. No, by every account, the Obama era was nothin’ but LGBTQ+ rainbows and women’s rights along with them. And yet, because so many were wont to let their guard down about long-standing garden variety misogyny that still ran rampant in a universe where Harvey Weinstein hadn’t yet been “unmasked” (despite his predatory behavior being an open secret–and one that Paltrow herself had fallen victim to), this very overt trope regarding Beth was allowed to go unchecked in the Contagion screenplay.
Were it Beth’s husband, Mitch (Matt Damon), going on business trips and having “quickies” in a convenient airport city on the way back to his suburban milieu, it’s entirely possible Contagion might not have happened at all. For men do not get karmically punished for such behavior (even Dan was forgiven in Fatal Attraction). And in fact, they seem still to have the monopoly on business trip-based affairs. While some might try to argue that “the progressive thing” about the movie is the presentation of Beth as the breadwinner of the family, it only speaks to the ever-lingering chauvinism of how women are regarded. As though it should be some “big deal” that they’re ambitious and powerful in their chosen career. Beth shows no signs of any compunction for her actions–indeed, meticulously plans some hotel hoedom from her perch in Hong Kong to ensure she’s not going out on a limb to create an unnecessary layover for dick that won’t be waiting and eager for her on the other side.
She and John also allude to future rendezvous when he iterates for her to use the specific “private” email he gave her for tryst-scheduling. She smiles and promises she will, all with a coquettish–even if sick-tinged–smile. And with that, she hands her diseased credit card to the bartender to perpetuate the consequences of her “sin.” Never to engage in an extramarital affair again. Because dead bodies can’t (willingly) commit adultery.
