小小乔

It is the Little Joe's, a genetically engineered flower which will not seminate like common flower, nature to eminate intoxic pollen so that people who inhales the pollen will protect the flower because the flower's nature has been altered and cannot reproduce. Therefore, it is the little Joe's natural instinct, that is, the libido in Freudian term, to pollenate and survive in this commercialised and post-industrial world where happiness can be cultivated and altered in a scientifical way.

What is the result of this pollen, which is the result of cultural intervention? How does it affect people around him? The real little Joe, the son of the biologist, changes his innocence and rid his attachment to his mum. Another testant stopped complaining about her husband, which is her usual habit. One common changes affecting those inhalers is that they all seems more sexually excited and seems more suceptible to engage the sexual intimate activities. Therefore, the sexual ability of the flower has been transferred to those people around it as a way to protect the flower itself.

What is the solution to this conflict of nature and culture? The answer the film gives is a compromise, a compromise that people has to accept because, for one thing, they cannot go back to its uncontaminated state and thus regains the natural reproductive ability, which applies to both the flower and the poeple, for another, they have to lose the natural reproductive ability to adjust to the commercialised way of life. The flower will receive an award, the biologist and her team will obtain the fame; but they, both the flower and the man, will pay the price of suffering from the sudden pain of out-of-the-placeness.

This solution is hinted in the film by another prviously successful plant breeder Bella. She said that the only solution to fight against the flower is to pretend everything is normal and those people around the flower then will escape the punishment. This remind one of the key difference mentioned by Lacan between animals and human beings is that people have the ability to pretend that he is lying. This is also the essential feature of the signifier that enalbe people to survive in this unnaturalised world.

to be continued