Diksha Sundriyal
In Netflix’s ‘Uglies,’ a post-apocalyptic society takes the concept of beauty standards too far by inventing a system where 16-year-olds receive transformative surgery to make them Pretty. Until then, they are called Uglies. Tally Youngblood is waiting for her sixteenth birthday when she, too, can receive the surgery and finally join the world she has been dreaming of for so long. But things turn awry when she befriends Shay, who introduces her to a whole new world. One of the things about this beauty-obsessed world is its reliance on the beautiful white flowers called the White Tiger Orchids. But, as Tally discovers, like many things in her world, the Orchids are not what they seem. SPOILERS AHEAD
The White Tiger Orchids are a Huge Scam
At the beginning of the film, we are given a quick introduction to Tally’s world. She talks about the Rusties, who consumed and destroyed the Earth by exploiting it for their endless need for limited fossil fuels. Eventually, this led to war and chaos, throwing humanity to the brink of extinction. That’s when a group of scientists rose to the occasion and came up with something that would serve as the “world’s truly renewable power source.” This meant that the new world didn’t have to rely on fossil fuels, and they could live in harmony with the Earth. Or so everyone is led to believe.
It is only after leaving the confines of the City, which she so longs to be a part of, that Tally discovers the detrimental impact of the Orchids. Like most other people, she believed the Orchids were a solution to the world power and were entirely harmless. But it turns out that the Orchids are a huge problem because they grow like weeds, taking over as much space as possible. In the process of their own growth, they destroy all flora around them, leaving behind deserts in their wake.
David reveals that he and the other rebels go on regular runs to destroy the Orchids as much as possible to prevent them from going further. It is on one such run that Tally sees an endless desert behind the Orchids and a sea of green in front of it. If the orchards are allowed to grow, they will eat away at all the trees, sucking up all the nutrients from the soil and leaving it incapable of growing everything else. This means that they are no better than the fossil fuels the Rusties used and will eventually mean the end of the world once again. It also means that the people living in a place infested by Orchids will be forced to leave their habitat and go to the City because, with the spoiled soil, they will have no way to grow their own crops and live independently, which is exactly what their oppressors want.
The Orchids Have a Deeper Meaning in Uglies
One of the most prominent themes of ‘Uglies’ is society’s obsession with beauty. Things get so bad in Tally’s world that anything asymmetric or not conforming to beauty standards is considered an outcast (which is not so far-fetched considering the world we, the audience, live in). This same concept has been applied to the Orchids as well. In the intro, Tally reveals that the White Tiger Orchids did not occur naturally but were genetically engineered to be so, which means that even the beauty of the Orchids is based on the imposed beauty standards.
Moreover, the monoculture of the Orchids also compares to the policy of the regime. The Orchids destroy everything around them, refusing to let grow anything that doesn’t look like them. We see the same thing happening in Tally’s world, where the regime has no sympathy for the people who have chosen not to become Pretty and be the way they were born. The regime wants to impose its monoculture on the rebels, forcing them into a position where they have nowhere else to go but the City. BOOK SPOILERS AHEAD
While the movie doesn’t go into the depth of the Orchids, the books on which the Netflix film is based tell a different tale. It turns out that the purpose of the Orchids has nothing to do with being renewable sources of energy. Rather, they release spores that incapacitate a person to the extent that it makes it easier for the authorities to control them. This explains why the Orchids are grown on the outskirts of the area controlled by the regime and closer to the place they believe could be hiding the rebels.
Because the creation of the Orchids is closely related to the inception of the transformation surgery, it is also possible that the Orchids were engineered to create the substance that is then used to create the brain lesions in Pretties and turn them into subdued humans with no thoughts of their own. This theory has not been explored in the movies yet, but considering that the finale opens the door to a new storyline, it is confirmed that we haven’t seen the last of the Orchids yet.
Read More: Uglies Ending, Explained: Why Does Tally Turn Into a Pretty?
