The Horror of a Dystopian Society - Essay Example

The Horror of a Dystopian Society From Brave New World and 1984 to The Handmaid’s Tale, the twentieth century has produced a slew of horrific visions of the future. Dystopian movies or visual arts are meant to turn the optimistic visions of utopian movies on their heads, depicting societies in which the dream of an ideal society becomes a nightmare, often in ways that provide a satirical commentary on the real world society in which the movie was set (Booker, 2010, pg. 113). Dystopian movies have proved far more popular than utopian narratives, this is probably so because they present more opportunities for narrative generating conflicts, especially between the desires of specific individuals and the demands of the oppressive society that surrounds them. The category of dystopian films is closely related to that of post-apocalyptic film and dystopian societies often arise in the awake of natural or manmade disasters that have led to the destruction of the societies that came before them. However, dystopian societies can also arise as a natural consequence of the direct historical extension of certain flaws in the current-day society with no intervening catastrophe. Recent films with dystopia inclinations include Gattaca (1997), 1984, Fahrenheit 451, Equilibrium (2002), Minority Report (2002), Banlieue 13(District 13, 2004), Casshern (2004), V for Vendetta (2005), and Children of Men (2006). These more recent dystopian movies have become particularly clear in the way their dystopian features are not predictions so much as satirical commentaries on the present world of consumer capitalism. This paper examines the genre of dystopia with a view to understanding its common traits, ideological valences and historical specificity. Although the term dystopia predated 1900, dystopia became recognized as a literature genre during the twentieth century and has not lost its hold on the society’s imagination, as evidenced by recent films such as The Island, V for Vendetta and Children of Men. Introduction A utopia is an imaginary society that dreams of a world in which the social, political and economic problems of the real present have been solved or at least in which effective mechanisms for the solutions to these problems are in place. A dystopia on the other hand, is an imagined world in which the dream has become a nightmare. It is also known as anti-utopias. Dystopias are often designed to critique the potential negative implications of certain forms of utopian thought. However, dystopia films have a strong satirical dimension that is designed to warn against the possible consequences of certain tendencies in the real world of the present (Thomas and Booker, 2009, pg. 65). After a flurry of utopian fictions at the end of the nineteenth century, dystopian fiction became particularly prominent in the twentieth century, when suspicions of utopian solutions to political and social problems became increasingly strong as those problems grew more and more complicated and as events such as the rise of fascism in Europe seemed to cast doubt on the whole Western enlightenment. While utopian societies are designed to enable the maximum fulfilment of individual human potential, dystopian societies impose oppressive conditions that interfere with that fulfilment. These oppressive conditions are usually extensions or exaggerations of conditions that already exist in the real world, allowing the dystopian film to critique real world situations by placing them within the DE familiarization context of an extreme fictional society. In a dystopian society, the citizenry are forced to think alike, either by the use of drugs, by force or even if necessary mind control. It is synonymous with oppression, corruption and limited human rights Dystopian fiction films tend to focus on certain key motifs and ideas that in one way or another involve an opposition between social control and individual desire. In the dystopian society or state, however, social control generally has the upper hand. Recognized social institutions such as churches, schools and the police are used to regulate thought, imagination and behavior, providing individuals with a very limited range for the expression of alternative viewpoints or exploration of alternative lifestyles. This is especially so clear in V for Vendetta, Fahrenheit 451, 1984 and Minority Report. Modes of activity that Western societies have traditionally seen as crucial sites for the development of individual identity and fulfillment of individual desire such as art and sexuality tend to be monitored and controlled with a special intensity by dystopian regimes, often through the use of high technology devices for surveillance, mind control and punishment. Many films from the 1990s forwards focus on the possible abuses of growing corporate powers. The Minority Report (2002) presents a vision of a dark, often corporate-dominated future. A particular successful dystopian film is The Matrix (1999), which depicts a nightmare future in which humanity has been enslaved by machines but is kept unaware of its enslavement through mental entrapment in a virtual alternative reality. Kurt Wimmer’s Equilibrium (2002) is another dystopian film, which portrays a strong Matrix influence, it is dystopian in a more classic vein in its depiction of an oppressive future government that insists on the drug-induced repression of all emotions in the general population. V for Vendetta In V for Vendetta, the system has developed into an oppressive totalitarian system devoted primarily to its own preservation rather than to enriching the lives of its citizens. The plot centers on the failed attempts of individuals, but subsequent success of ‘V’ to overcome the suppression of individualism by their dystopian states. The rulers are particularly concerned with exerting control over those aspects of human life that might lead to strong emotions and thus disrupt the rational tranquility of life. Poetry and music are strictly regulated by the official bureaucracy. V for Vendetta is a dystopian thriller which is reflective of an imaginary Britain and a metaphor of present day America, a state where the system is totalitarian, faith-based regime (Blumenthal, 2006, pg. 377). It is uncompromising in on the impact of democracy’s disintegration in the current society. It is not mere entertainment, it raises important questions concerning the shape Britain as taking in the eighties, issues that are no less pertinent to our world. It attempts to unfold the consequences of an extreme right-wing, quasi-fascist government. The regime is propped up by demagogic media, secret police, an enforced curfew, reduced civil rights and torture for dissidents. The film combines religious nationalism with aggressive ultra-conservatism to pass the message. The administration is entirely based on fear. The Quran is forbidden, homosexuals are violently persecuted and torture is the treatment of choice for dissidents in facilities that evoke imagery of Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib (Kellner, 2011). The regime reflects a society where the people in power can do anything just to remain in or get power. In V for Vendetta, the regime in place gained power after using biological weapons to create plague. It then exploited fear and panic to win the elections and produced a cure for the plague from a corporation that enriched top government officials. The film does not emphasize on terrorist violence but awakening people to the oppression of the system in order to bring about change through direct action. Farenheit 451 This film is a social criticism which warns against the dangers of suppressing thought through censorship. It uses the conventions of science fiction to convey the message that oppressive governments left unchecked, does irreparable damage to its citizens by curtailing the creativity and freedom of its people. The film portrays how technocratic and totalitarian societies demands order at the price of individual rights. Fahrenheit 451 depicts a future dystopia in which books have been banned in favor of television as a means of helping to prevent independent thought (Booker, 2010, pg. 115). That is, it is a future society in which knowledge is being acknowledged as dangerous and individual though and individuality is discouraged. The citizens are kept contented with a continuous stream of useless entertainment. The world in this society consists of people who are non-readers and non-thinkers, people having no sense of their history, where the totalitarian government has banned the written word. Fahrenheit 451 is a story that draws parallels between entertainment and addiction, between individual avoidance of thinking and governmental means of thought. In this society books have been banned because they contain ideas which might influence people to question the status quo. This has necessitated the services of firemen whose jobs ironically is not to put out fire, but to burn books so as to prevent and avoid the spread of dissension and independent thought. 1984 In the film 1984, there is a lot of emphasis on the use of power to control every aspect of the masses. The power is situated with a particular small group of elite who uses it to control people’s lives. Using techniques that involve bringing the mind into a rigid control that corrupts and removes individuality. The society is made into a caste like system, where each caste member has specified responsibilities he must adhere to. Any signs of nonconformity is immediately punished and the societies are set up in a way which the citizenry cannot question the morality or humaneness of their actions. Such rights have been removed from the people in order to stay in power. Religions together with philosophical thought have been destroyed. The regime in place is controlling everything, even the history and language. It has also invented a new language, which has eliminated all words related to political rebellion in an attempt to prevent actual political rebellion. Even thinking rebellious is illegal. Thought crime has in fact been termed the worst of crimes. The party prohibits free thought, sex and any expression of individuality. The party inducts children into the junior spies, brainwashing them and encouraging them to spy on their parents and report any incident of disloyalty to the party. The sexual desires of the people are suppressed, treating sex as a procreative duty useful for the creation of new party members. Anyone who does manage to defy the party is punished and “re-educated” through systematic torture. 1984 portrays how freedom of opinion is a threat to totalitarian systems. Dictatorships of both the left and right are frightened by the idea of their citizens thinking too much, or having too much fun. Emotion was regarded as the source of everything that was considered wrong in the society and everyone was made to be devoid of emotions by constantly under surveillance. Other movie which have reflected dystopias are The Minority Report (2002) and Scanner Darkly (2006). Minority Report provides a prescient anticipation of issues such as domestic wire-tapping program and detention camps and government infamy to protect the system. It presents a government that pre-emptively arrests crime suspects and holds them without trial, much as present administrations do with terrorist suspects, completely denying them their basic rights. Like present day regimes, the society in Minority Report is under police surveillance, there is violation of civil liberties and the end of privacy, an all seeing surveillance apparatus makes resistance futile and an all-engrossing consumer society offers a dazzling array of commodities. Similar to V for Vendetta, Minority Report portrays a government willing to engage in lies and murder to maintain its totalitarian order (Kellner, 2011). Scanner Darkly (2006), by Richard Linklater also is another film providing the full force of a critical vision of a fascist future. The film projects an image of the future in which a corporation linked to the government produces and sells drugs to keep the population under control and to legitimate a police state and war on drugs. Conclusion Cautionary tales, social criticism and thought experiments, these films about terrifying futures generally tell more about the conditions in which they are made than about any anticipated future. While hopefully not prophetic, they deserve the society’s’ attention as registers of social fears and anxieties. The horrors reflected in these films mirror real world situations. Poverty, distinctly clear marked social stratifications, society full of fear and corruption and the actions of dictatorship are all markers of dystopian societies. These films bring to light the dangers of totalitarianism. That is, if totalitarianism is left to flourish unchecked it is bound to result to such a society. The films have showed the effects of psychological and physical manipulation to the society, that is, all the regimes barraged their citizens with psychological stimuli which were designed to overwhelm their capacity for independent thought. There was always a constant stream of propaganda designed to recast the failures and shortcomings of the regime as triumphant successes. The regimes also controlled history and language, rewrote newspapers and histories and manipulated the information, and in the process justified the present. That is, claiming the past was a time of misery and slavery and that the system has liberated the human race. The use of slogans and symbols are also common tools of promoting their agenda. These symbols are meant to show the omnipresence of the system. In all the films fear and intimidation was used as tools to further the agenda of the regime. Surveillance and brainwashing the masses used to rob them off their individuality, their main aim being to make them think alike, either by the use of drugs, by force or even if necessary mind control. Oppression, corruption and limited human rights are the other tools which all the regimes in the films made use of in order to hold on to power. 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