Hhhhmmm I think some people might be missing the point of this movie a little bit. Although the political/social commentary may seem a bit heavy-handed at times there are some more subtleties that could be entered taken away from this film.
This movie is not about class warfare in the United States, not at all. The creator of the movie is from Africa and (like district 9) it deals with an African perspective (which incidentally, is not the same as a black person?s perspective).
The place Elysium is NOT representative of the wealthy 1%'s lifestyle, it is meant to represent virtually all of us right now. It represents almost everyone who lives in North America, Europe, Australia, some parts of Asia and some parts of the Middle East. It represents everyone who has access to information (Internet), everyone who has been educated (at least grade school), everyone who has the ability to go to a hospital and everyone who is unlikely to die from a curable disease or starvation. I can honestly say that even people living in shitty areas in America or Europe still have it better than someone living in Somalia, or either of the Sudans, or Burma, or much of Eastern Russia, or much of Brazil (or hundreds of other places which is too depressing to list...). The message is that most of the people of Elysium are viscerally unaware of the plight of the people left on Earth, sure they see the news and are educated about it (much like MOST of us living in the first world are aware of the shitty things that happen in the 3rd world but do very little to nothing about it) but they are not concerned because they are looked after. Please note that this does not make us evil, it might mean that we are GENERALLY thoughtless when it comes to the plight of billions of people that we will never meet. This makes the population of Elysium not EVIl but APATHETIC. The point is that the few evil people on the planet are able to take advantage of that apathy and use it to their own benefit (either by creating ludicrous wealth or power).
The magic medical machine is representative of our relative mastery of medicine compared to the 3rd world, people routinely die from an infected cut in the 3rd world. Often simple anti-biotics means life or death to people and in much of the world an anti-biotic may as well be a magical medical all-healing box, as both are equally unattainable. People in the 3rd world routinely die from Dysentery and Influenza. Without even simple medical education and support life is a much less certain prospect. A very good example is Malaria in Africa, According to the latest WHO estimates, there were about 219 million cases of malaria in 2010 and an estimated 660 000 deaths (most deaths are of people under the age of 5). Malaria has a cure, Malaria is preventable, but because of a general apathetic nature of the 1st world Malaria can still kill so many because the cure is unavailable. Not because the 1st world is inherently Evil but because people are not aware of this problem/ don?t care enough to do something about it.
http://www.who.int/malaria/publications/world_malaria_report_2012/wmr2012_factsheet.pdf
Anyway, I digress.
The aim of this movie is not to make us feel shitty about ourselves, not to paint any racial or cultural group as evil but to make all of us (those living in Elysium) to become a little bit more self-aware, to look at one's self and wonder how every action we take makes us connected to other human beings who we will never meet or even see. It is natural to feel defensive when watching this movie, you should, it challenges our self image as good people. However, that does not mean that we should dismiss the message without introspection (not matter how psychologically comforting that is).
Hopefully, Elysium helps us realize that relatively speaking all of us are fantastically rich compared to those without our resources and social support. This is not something to feel guilty about, but it should make us feel compelled to help others who did not have the luck to be born in the 1st world. And perhaps decide that in some small way it is up to all of us to create small changes that can lead to bigger ones over time and try and bring about global equality.