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Crave for Dystopia in the 21
st
Century
MA-Thesis
The Professional Master Film Studies Faculty of Humanities
Jael Ragowan 10186999 With guidance of: Blandine Joret
Word Count: 22.188 June 24 2016
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Abstract:
Dystopia - spectacle – technology - media ecology – spectatorship – psychoanalysis.
Dystopia in film has derived from literature and has existed for many years. However, there have been certain periods in which dystopia arose, disappeared and reappeared. Dystopia has not precisely been defined in film, though dystopian cinema is considered to include films in a futuristic setting with a moral message or critique on society. Since the 2000s there is a
reappearance of dystopian films, more than before, and this trend is continuing today. There has been a shift in dystopia in film since the beginning of the twenty-first century compared to dystopia in film before. The films have now become dystopian futuristic tales with different moral critiques, such as critiques on technology, ecology, reality-television and the frequent use of female protagonists and more violence are representable for 21st century dystopian films. Moreover, the new target audience of these dystopian films is young-adults. I state that this shift began with Avatar (Cameron, 2004) representing critiques on contemporary society, showing a dystopia in the narrative while portraying a utopia or WALL-E (Stanton, 2008) critiquing a consumer waste culture. The Hunger Games (Lawrence and Ross, 2012-2015) and Divergent (Burger and Schwentke, 2014-2016) franchises are very much representable for the new look 21st century dystopia has gotten. The shift in dystopian cinema is stimulated by the new possibilities of technological effects to create alternative and plausible worlds. This has made 21st century films more spectacle films and altogether, this has made place for an active spectatorship and 21st century dystopias can be marked successfully.
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Index
Abstract 2
Introduction 4
Chapter 1: A Brave New World or Hopeless Futures? 6
§1.1 The Origins of Dystopia 6
1.1.1 Dystopia’s Roots 6
1.1.2 Twenty-First Century Dystopia 8
§1.2 Dirty Realism 10
1.2.1 Dystopia’s Postmodern Perspective 11
1.2.2 Genre Convergence within Dystopian Cinema 13
1.2.3 Towards Dystopian Complexities 14
1.2.4 The Turn towards the Twenty-First Century 15
§1.3 Imaginary Worlds 16
1.3.1 Creating the Deceit of Dystopia 17
1.3.2 Plausible Spectacles 18
§1.4 Fresh Perspectives and De-Familiarization 20
Chapter 2: Dystopian Critiques and Moralistic Messages 25
§2.1 Big Brother Is Watching You 26
2.1.1 The Entertainment of Reality-Television 26
2.1.2 The Surveillance Culture and Panopticon Gaze 28
§2.2 Violent Warriors 30
2.2.1 “Panemet Circenses” 31
2.2.2 “Tonight, Turn Your Weapons to the Capital” 32
2.2.3 Desensitizing to Pleasurable Violence 33
§2.3 Ecology and Consumerism in Dystopia 36
2.3.1 WALL-E’s Garbage 36
2.3.2 Technology, Media and the Environment 37
2.3.3 Avatar Nexus to Ecology 38
2.3.4 Hollywood’s Gaia 40
Chapter 3: The Mesmerized Spectator 42
§3.1 Overpowering the Passive Spectator 43
3.1.1 Towards an Active Spectator 43
3.1.2 Becoming Part of the Imaginary World 45
3.1.3 Character Engagement 45
3.1.4 Generic Pleasure 46
§3.2 Transforming Heroines 47
3.2.1 Female Action Heroines 48
3.2.2 Girls on Fire 49
3.2.3 The Female Spectator 52
§3.3 Identifiable cultural forces 53
3.3.1 Mirroring Reality through Dystopian Cinema 54
3.3.2 The Ego and Reality 55
Conclusion 58
Bibliography 62
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Introduction
Utopian dreams are often just truths before their time.
- Alphonse de Lamartine (1790-1869)
Nowadays there is a shift in contemporary Hollywood cinema, a shift towards the production of more dystopian films. ‘Dystopia’ derives from the utopian theme and it involves a society that is undesirable or frightening. Avatar, for instance, is a combination of the utopian and dystopian theme. James Cameron created a utopian world of nature being destroyed by humans. Not coincidentally, this film falls within the science fiction genre. In the article “Fantasy vs. Science Fiction: James Cameron’s Avatar” (2009), Jon Evans clarifies that “historically, science fiction tends to lean towards dystopia and fantasy towards utopia” (n.pag.). According to Box Office Mojo Avatar had a box-office of over 2.7 billion dollars and, therefore, it is the highest-grossing movie ever made. This proves Avatar was an
extremely popular film as it attracted people to massively go to the theaters. Avatar received the Oscar for Best Visual Effects, Best Art Direction, Best Cinematography and was
nominated for nine categories, testifying the film’s appreciation within film industry. Currently, dystopian film series such as The Hunger Games and Divergent are immensely popular as well. The opening-weekends of the first and second part of The Hunger Games substantiate the popularity of these films. The past decennia the number of dystopian films has only increased. Why is there a crave for more dystopian films, while these films show much anxieties and violence? What makes ‘dystopia’ in contemporary cinema more appealing than before, or has there always been an appeal towards dystopian cinema? Hollywood feeds the appetite of young adult spectators with dystopian films, but what makes these films so successful? This leads me to my main question of this research: ‘In what way is the spectator immersed by dystopian cinema and therefore what makes these films so appealing in the twenty-first century?’
In this research, I will demonstrate dystopian cinema reflecting upon emerging themes in contemporary society. These films are multi-layered and draw attention to real-world issues regarding society, environment, politics, religions and technology. While cinema is known for being an escape for the spectator, especially in line with utopian ideas, dystopia shows a glimpse of reality. Has our socioeconomic structure and modern society made place for the need of alternative societies in cinema? What is the cultural and political meaning of these films in the twenty-first century?
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and then to film. In this research I will define dystopia and contribute to film studies research by explaining the rise of and appeal to dystopian cinema in our twenty-first century. The methodology which will be used in this research is based upon a literature review and is supported by film analyses of Avatar, WALL-E and The Hunger Games- and Divergent series. I will use these analyses and relate this to film theory in order to interpret the meaning of these films through cultural analysis. With a semantic approach, I will show that these films share iconographic elements, such as the use of special effects to represent futuristic and plausible worlds, with desaturated colors and female protagonists. Additionally, I will shortly refer to other disciplines, drawing from political, philosophical, ecological, and cultural and social sciences. I will make a balance between older traditional and more recent sources, which represent the statements made in this research. Dystopia is well-researched in literary studies as the roots of dystopia lie within literature1. Besides this, the rise of dystopia is a recent debate in online newspapers and journals, such as The Wired and The Guardian, deriving from the rise of dystopia within novels. What differentiates this research is the focus on the different layers within dystopian cinema. Thus, I do not discuss dystopia linked to one embedded meaning or genre. In the past, this topic is often linked to other themes, such as critiques on society which are embedded in traditional theories, such as Marxism and social criticism. Similarly, I will discuss the embedded messages of dystopian cinema. However, I will focus on more recent film theory, regarding digital technology, surveillance culture, media ecology. I will highlight dystopia as a cinema of attractions and emphasis its relation to spectatorship. Besides this, I will draw attention to the aspects regarding dystopian cinema of specifically the twenty-first century. This last aspect, connected to spectatorship, is mostly what makes my research innovating and I will add an original contribution to the field on the highly popular, influential representations of contemporary dystopian cinema.
I will begin with defining the origin and progression of dystopia in cinema and focus on how dystopia has developed within film genres. In the second chapter, I will stress the embedded critiques within dystopian cinema which are connected to the twenty-first century, ending this chapter with the frequent use of violence in dystopian cinema. Finally, I will emphasize how the spectator is immersed by these films. All-together this will clarify what makes dystopian cinema in the twenty-first century rise and be desired and successful.
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The main texts explicating the origin of dystopia within literary studies are: Dark Horizons: science fiction and
the dystopian imagination (Baccolini and Moylan 2003), Dystopian Literature: a theory and research guide
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Chapter 1:
A Brave New World or Hopeless Futures?
In order to understand the crave for dystopia in the contemporary film industry, I will first give a brief history of the emergence and the course of dystopia through cinema. Dystopia in cinema derived from literature, as many novels with the theme ‘dystopia’ were chosen for a film adaptation. Arthur and Ludmila Gruszewska-Blaim clarify that “the broad framework of dystopian reality – the construction of the plot, setting and the characters – is relatively easily-transferable into the language of cinema” (72). Blaim explains that film adaptations of
politically engaged utopian or dystopian fictions demonstrate their amplified sensitivity to changing socio-political conditions, but mostly to the radically different demands of the medium cinema itself (12). Blaim elucidates that to make a novel into a film, the film must undergo significant changes to make the film more successful. To grasp these changes, I will firstly explain the origins of dystopia, rooted in dystopian fiction within literary studies, and clarify what dystopia is. Moving on to the second section, I will elaborate on dystopia taking its course within cinema and stress the film genres dystopia belongs to. Next, I will
demonstrate the influence of special effects in our digital age and the iconographic elements of the mise-en-scène within dystopian cinema. All-together, this clarifies what dystopian cinema is and what course it has taken towards the twenty-first century.
§1.1 The Origins of Dystopia
1.1.1 Dystopia’s Roots
Firstly, I will focus on the historical background of dystopia, starting in literary fiction. The term ‘dystopia’ positions itself in direct opposition with utopia, originating in Britain around 1516 (Goodwin 89). The word ‘utopia’ was first applied to a literary genre by the English Renaissance humanist Thomas More (1478–1535). He portrayed his imaginary ideal island in his book Utopia (1516). While ‘eutopia’ was known as a place where all is well, More came with the term ‘utopia’, which means ‘no place’, derived from the Greek. By using the word ‘utopia’ instead of ‘eutopia’ for his book, More wanted to accentuate that a eutopian place is too ideal to be true and so he refers to this ideal place which is ‘nowhere’ (Engeman 131). Both the word and the idea caught on well. Utopian literature often shows an ultimate optimism that people have an idealized past or imaginary future with an ideal functioning
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society (Gerber 5). Utopia had its peak in the nineteenth-century and utopian fiction started with authors such as Herbert George Wells (1866-1946) and William Morris (1834-1896). Morris, for example, wrote The Time Machine in 1895, in which he portrays a utopian future society without class systems or authority, and H.G. Wells started with the idea that scientific advancements would outlaw war and poverty in his novel Men Like Gods (1923).
As the twentieth century continued, authors were less and less convinced of scientific and political improvements, which utopian fiction emphasized. This was caused by the First World War, the Great Depression during the 1930s and the Second World War. The author Aldous Huxley (1894-1963) wrote A Brave New World (1932) in which scientific and social advantages created a grim world with a futuristic setting. With this, Huxley established a more dystopian perspective to the utopian novels. In the same way, the English novelist George Orwell (1903-1950) responded to the utopianism in the novels of Wells. He started to write dystopian novels in 1940, with his distinctive novel Nineteen Eighty-Four published in 1949. After the Second World War, the authors were motivated to build upon the political dystopian genre and a more clearly dystopian turn began to emerge. Claeys (2013) clarifies that “dystopia is usually supposed to be an inverted mirrored or negative version of utopia, the imaginary bad place as opposed to the imaginary good” (155). Thus, the dystopian genre evolved as a political critique genre against fascism and communism in the twentieth century (Couto 169).
In the 1960s and 1970s dystopia faded, as the power of utopianism became more valuable again. Through the 1960s and mid-1970s the counterculture established as a cultural phenomenon. After the Depression-era, the ‘baby boomers’ created a counterculture, who celebrated sexuality, freedom of speech, universal human- and women’s rights and awareness regarding environmental damage caused by industrialization (Kidner, Bucur, Mathisen, McKee and Weeks 831). Sadly, certain developments, mainly the anti-war demonstrations, that were most prominent in 1967 and ending in 1973, led to the continuous turn towards dystopia during the course of the twentieth century. Hereafter, the pessimistic stories emerged, which affected the cyberpunk movement in the eighties. Through this movement, influenced by the scientific and technological changes, cyberpunk became a subgenre of science fiction, in line with dystopia (Baccolini and Moylan 174).
“In the 1980s, the utopian tendency came to an abrupt end. In the face of economic restructuring, right-wing politics, and a cultural milieu informed by an intensifying fundamentalism and commodification, sf writers revived and reformulated the dystopian genre” (Baccolini and Moylan 2).
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By creating visions of better open futures, utopianism developed a critique of the dominant ideology and gave an opportunity for an oppositional perspective as a way to cope with the changing social reality. Keith Booker (1994) states that dystopian literature “provides fresh perspectives on problematic social and political practices that might otherwise be taken for granted or considered natural and inevitable” (The Dystopian Impulse in Modern Literature: Fiction as Social Criticism 19). Dystopia was used as a critical narrative form that worked against the grim of the economic, political and cultural climate. After real-time dystopias caused by regimes and wars in the twentieth century, totalitarian governments arose in dystopian fiction film, for example: 2001: A Space Odyssey (Kubrick, 1968), Planet of the Apes (Schaffner, 1968), A Brave New World (Brinckerhof, 1980) and Nineteen Eighty-Four (Radford, 1984) became extremely popular.
Thus, it is clear that dystopia emerged in the twenty-first century, reacting to utopian fiction and contemporary conditions. Instead of critiquing political systems, such as fascism and communism in the twentieth century, dystopia now critiques consumerism, technology and ecology. Moylan indicates: “the critical dystopia will do more than simply depicts the accommodation with or the flight from that world” (157).
1.1.2 Twenty-First Century Dystopia
After the troubles of the late twentieth century, different matters arose in the twenty-first century. In the twentieth-century essential inventions arose, such as airplanes, automobiles, the radio, television, the computer, cellphones and in 1991 The World Wide Web was a fact. In the twenty-first century, Skype (2003), Google’s driverless car (2012), Apple’s iPod
(2001), IPhone (2007) and IPad (2010) appeared. Even an AbioCor Artifical heart was used to replace the human heart at the start of this century in 2001. In 2001 the first widely released feature film to use motion capture to create characters emerged2 and in 2004 the first movie with all CGI background and live actors was created3. Furthermore, social media arose, such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and search engines such as Wikipedia, Google and even Google Street view influenced society. Manuel Castells (2004) states that the rise of the individual-centered culture, the desire for co-experiencing and sharing through social
interaction, has resulted in networked individualism (223). Eugenia Siapera responds to this in her book Understanding New Media (2012) and clarifies this “as the development of sociality
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Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within (Sakaguchi, 2001)
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takes this form we can see its compatibility with other changes within informational capitalism: for instance labour becomes on the one hand more autonomous (individuated) while it relies more and more on ad hoc networks” (200). Next, a global economic downturn and the Financial Crisis of the late 2000s took place. The largest terrorist attack ever occurs in New York on 9/11, taking the lives of more than three thousand citizens. This raised questions concerning terrorism and in the twenty-first century more terrorist attacks occurred, for
example the bombings in Madrid in 2004, in Paris 2015 and in Brussels this 2016. Terrorism emerged as a massive concern in our western world and ongoing wars in Afghanistan started after the 9/11 attacks, continuing until 2014. Besides this, the awareness around global warming grew and large environmental disasters increased. The Asian tsunami of 2004 and the earthquake in Haiti in 2010 have had a big impact on the earth, and according to Justin Gillis in the New York Times (2016) the year 2015 has been proven to be the hottest year ever. An Inconvenient Truth (Guggenheim, 2006) tried to create international public awareness of global warming and climate change.
I argue that these happenings have influenced our twenty-first century and I would like to state dystopia does not necessarily represent the future, but rather critiques the past and present. The future that people fear is seen through the anxieties within dystopian cinema (156) and this creates a level of reflexivity. The Towering Inferno (Guillermin and Allen, 1974) portrays a severe fire in a skyscraper which was considered nonflammable, responding to people’s fears of the newly build skyscrapers. Besides this, a remarkable example is one of the episodes of the television series The Lone Gunmen (Carter, Gilligan, Shiban and Spotnitz, 2001). This is a thriller-drama series in which the creators draw attention to American
conspiracy, such as government-sponsored terrorism or a surveillance society. In the first episode of this television series the members of the government conspire together to take over an airline, after which they fly the airplane into the World Trade Center and blame it on the terrorists in order to start a war. Six months later, the events of 9/11 were a realistic dystopia shown on television screens everywhere in the world.
The twenty-first century dystopia is not so much concerning an extreme order or a society that is restrictive, but more a society broken down and one of disorder (Baccolini and Moylan 2). In dystopian tales of order, a totalitarian government or dictatorship has taken over and has imposed certain rules and restrictions on society. This was mostly after the Second World War. Dystopias concerning disorder, I argue, involve a society that has been broken down caused by specific environmental, human or political events. For example, the society in The Hunger Games and Divergent has been broken down and all that is left are the
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twelve districts in The Hunger Games, or the factions in Chicago in Divergent. Also, WALL-E and Avatar take place on another planet, as humans had depleted Earth’s natural recourses and Earth became unlivable. Dystopian stories were influenced by technological changes and made it even more concerned with politics and power (Scholes 34). Subsequently, the loss of hope, shown in utopianism in the twentieth century, exacerbated and people wanted to abandon the misbeliefs and return to a pessimistic mood (Walsh 78). This worsened as wars and economic crises intensified and a different kind of atmosphere arose, in which fiction became gloomier and more rebellious. Dystopian films of the twenty-first century end with a gleam of hope, while this hope is not necessarily an optimistic end. The protagonist often loses one or more of his or her loved ones or needs to give up a part of his or her life (Spisak 58-9). Dystopian cinema did not have an optimistic ending before, whereas the 21st century dystopian cinema does end with hope (Cadden 307).
Overall, in the twenty-first century there have been periods in which utopian and dystopian fiction alternated. I can now argue that there is a pattern of dystopia arising after rough times and war. Utopia was first applied by More and utopianism in literature became customary in the late nineteenth and beginning of the twentieth century. After the First and Second World War there was a rise of dystopia, while in the sixties and seventies a longing for peace and desire for utopian fiction rose. In the eighties dystopia came back, deriving from a response to the Vietnam War and punk as a counterculture of the hippies. In the 1990s there was a decline of dystopian films as there was an economic growth and increasing trust in the government in 1993, going on until the end of the twentieth century (Pittman 4). The
philosopher Paul Virilio (2000) speculates that towards the end of the twentieth century the age of globalization began; people increasingly refuse to understand the physical and political text of the contemporary world (8). He mentions that war and technology drive history and he is deeply against the influence of technology (143). Dystopia noticeably emerged again in the twenty-first century, with dystopias of disorder (Baccolini and Moylan 2) instead of extreme order recognizable for the dystopias of the twentieth century. In dystopian fiction there is a desire for a better place and this desire concerns the critical politics in the film itself. This makes dystopian fiction, in literature and in film, a self-consuming text.
§1.2 Dirty Realism
In this section, I will explore the course of dystopia towards contemporary cinema. The roots of dystopian cinema lie within literature and there is an added value of cinema that makes
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dystopian literature interesting for adaptations. As I already mentioned, according to Blaim (2015) the structure of the plot, setting and characters is relatively easy to adapt into cinema (72). The demand of the medium film changed towards more adaptations of politically engaged utopian and dystopian fictions. The Hunger Games and Divergent series are good examples of adaptations onto the screen. These franchises have been successful dystopian films in the twenty-first century, targeting a young adult audience. The Hunger Games created a new attraction to dystopian cinema for young adults, with the Divergent series yet to be made. The Hunger Games was quickly followed by the second film of the series: Catching Fire (2013), Mockingjay: Part One (2014) and finally Mockingjay: Part Two (2015). Similarly, the first Divergent film in 2014 was succeeded by Insurgent (2015) and Allegiant (2016). After understanding the course of dystopia deriving from literature, I will now specify what is considered ‘dystopian cinema’ today. From a postmodern perspective, I will look at the multiple genres which belong to dystopia in order to grasp the course of dystopia in cinema nowadays.
Dystopia in cinema is mostly known as a theme within the adventure and science-fiction film genre. It generally constitutes a critique of existing social or political systems and reveals their flaws and contradictions (Booker, Dystopian Literature: A Theory and Research Guide 3). I state that dystopian cinema belongs to a hodgepodge of multiple genres:
adventure, film noir, science-fiction and the mind-game genre all at once. It even shows aspects of horror and the western film genre. Dystopian cinema is considered an overarching theme associated with a dramatic decline in society. In the book Dark Horizons (2003) Thomas Patrick Moylan, academic and cultural critic within utopian and science fiction studies, clarifies that dystopian cinema gives the spectator the ability to register the impact of an ‘undetected’ social system on everyday lives (13). Ruth Levitas, well-known for her book The Concept of Utopia (1990), adds the conception that the role of utopia and dystopia is the education of desire (196), with a clear desire for a better place with a social transformation (181).
1.2.1 Dystopia’s Postmodernism Perspective
As social issues changed, the science fiction genre shifted from a Cold War generation to a postmodern generation. Modernism suggests that social, political and cultural progress is inevitable for society, while postmodernism exploits contradiction, fragmentation and instabilities of society (Hopkins 14-19). The American cultural theorist Frederik Jameson
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(1991) defines postmodernism in conjunction with the notion of late capitalism. According to Jameson, postmodernism represents a fundamental change in the course of economic
development and the need to understand the ways in which global capitalism has created new conceptions of architecture, and the construction of culture itself (50). Postmodernism
developed in a time of in which media culture established, focusing on the destruction of hierarchies and in fractures of world and time (53). Fractured time is what Jameson designates as ‘schizophrenia’, which can be defined as a loss of reality through the loss of historicity, leading to the past, present and future blending together (28). This can be applied to dystopian cinema as dystopian films belong to several genres, portraying a dystopian future with certain realities of the present or past.
After representing totalitarian governments in the twentieth-century, the popularity of the science-fiction genre and further development of technology influenced dystopian cinema. In the mid-1980s cyberpunk, a newly emerged subgenre of science-fiction, was influenced by postmodernism and created more dystopian settings. The Blade Runner (Scott, 1982) is an example of this as it shows futuristic and dark aesthetics, and deals with themes of living beyond the means of technology or what it means to be human. Jameson describes the postmodern ‘dirty realism’ of cyberpunk as an ultimate historicist breakdown in which there is no longer a future to imagine. This is how a former futurological science fiction turns into realism and a representation of our present-day (286). Films that appeared after The Blade Runner were considered as a part of the neo-noir wave in the eighties (Doll and Faller 89-100). The dark and downbeat neo-noir cinema started in the eighties, as a revived form of the French film noir genre: “the neo-noir films evidence a blurring of the two trends, the social dimension seeping into the policier genre films, while violent crime invades the social films” (Bould, Giltre and Tuck 105). These films reunite filmic visions of the future with everyday realities of metropolitan-life. Film scholar Christopher Sharrett states in his book Crisis Cinema (1993): “the disconnected temporality, the replicates and the pastiche city are all an effect of postmodern, postindustrial condition: wearing out, waste” (239).
Postmodern film is open to blending different genres in the same film, using pastiche and being self-reflexive for the spectator. It undermines mainstream conventions of narrative structure and characterization, while testing the audience’s suspension of disbelief. By blending different genre conventions into a multi-generic film, exploiting fragmentation and testing the self-reflexive spectator, dystopian cinema can be placed in a postmodern
13 1.2.2 Genre Convergence within Dystopian Cinema
Dystopia is an ideal site for generic blends (Baccolini and Moylan 29) as it creates a different reality in which elements of different genres are bound together. Avatar is a great example; “a love story and shoot-em-up, scifi epic and western sage, hero’s quest and anti-war film, tech-noir” (Grabiner 5). Dystopian cinema collides with the science-fiction genre as it matches the generic aspects of science-fiction films. Dystopian films are set in futuristic settings, use many special effects and “create an imaginatively realized world which is always removed from the world we know or know of” (Neale 101). Science fiction and dystopia let us capture the present as history (Jameson 151). David Desser (1997) highlights that science fiction films are a “particularly valuable tool for cultural analysis – the themes and techniques of such films in any given era may be held as an index of the dominant political and ideological concerns of the culture” (110).
In the article “The Glorious Incoherence of Divergent” (2014) Noah Berlatsky draws upon a connection between the Divergent series and science-fiction author Phlip K. Dick, as Dick was able to force the audience to fill in the gaps by creating discontinuous and self-aware universes.After a mature science fiction, ‘science fantasy’ emerged and relies on earlier writings from the 1920s and 1930s that re-emerged in the 1950s.
“The standard practice of these writers was to take an already established adventure story – a crime story, a western, a naval drama about clashing empires, a lost world story – and place it in space or on an alien world. The narrative was already known and readers would recognize it immediately, but it was decorated with trappings of the ‘fantastic’”
(Davidson 12).
Avatar shows a convention of genres as Davidson (2010) states this film is a typical western, representing the cowboys and Indians, but also showing the science fantasy (12). The mind-game genre and science fantasy are good examples of films that contain genre convergences and this contributed to the course of dystopian cinema.
I am convinced that the convergence of different genre conventions has created more innovative films with many layers, such as The Matrix and Avatar, in which the hero is caught between reality and an imaginary universe. In Hollywood Hybrids (2008) Ira Jaffe discusses how genre, style and generic references have begun to converge in recent films. Jaffe argues that this influences the evolution of narrative film and Richard Allen (1995) states: “any given genre film draws on themes and images from other texts that blur the boundaries of the
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the spectator in order to understand a film and this enhances the ability of the spectator to be immersed by the film’s narrative world (115).
Thus, dystopian cinema mostly fits within the body of the science fiction genre. Just as dystopian cinema, science fiction tends to fantasize about a future and putting the society into question. At the same time, dystopias are often a fantasy- or adventure film, and even fit within the emerged mind-game genre. By using different genre conventions and blending this together, dystopian cinema became multi-generic and more enriched.
“Ensured by the speedy development of computer-supported filmmaking technology, the blockbuster movie still maintains its dominance in today’s market. The action cinema, increasingly incorporated with science-fiction and fantasy elements, has achieved remarkable popularity in this new millennium” (Chengting n.pag.).
Dystopian cinema became a mixture, creating a different world by special effects, emphasizing many themes and underlying messages, while portraying a dystopian tale. Through the different genre conventions within dystopian cinema, the audience waits for an ‘upgrade from the conventional’ and a visualized spectacle (Chengting n.pag.). The ability to create visualized spectacles contributed to the appeal to the twenty-first century dystopian cinema, which I will demonstrate in the following section.
1.2.3 Towards Dystopian Complexities
Mixed genres became more attentive to human multiplicity and complex realities (Altman 7). In the twenty-first century, themes influenced by terrorism, technology, global connectedness and disasters contributed to the rise of dystopia. The Matrix trilogy is considered a science-fiction film and I conclude this is a film with the mind-game genre which appeared more and more during the course of the twentieth-century4. Genre blending combined with more complex films arose in the twenty-first century (Poulaki 35) In addition, Thomas Elsaesser writes about the mind-game genre in his book Mind the Screen (2008). He highlights this genre as films including disorders, surveillance societies, memory, scientific experiments, virtual reality, cyborgs and supernatural phenomena (96). Elsaesser believes these films are the result of a problematized fascination in contemporary Western culture with worries about
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My Bachelor thesis “I Have to Believe in a World Outside My Own Mind” discusses director Christopher Nolan as a film auteur and answers the question how Nolan keeps his spectator maintained during his films, while at the same time there is a lack of emotional involvement. In Chapter 2, I discuss the mind-game genre used in Nolan’s films, this genre contributes to the active role of the spectator continuous thinking what is real or imaginary (25).
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money and amnesia as result of our digital culture (104). More complex films arose and more importantly, genres started to blend together and this worked in favor of the course of
dystopian cinema. According to Edward Branigan (2002) these mind-game films do not have a clear beginning or end and continually work towards an open end (108). This is where dystopian cinema takes its own twist as the films contain certain mind-game-like themes which Elsaesser mentions, but still hold on to a clear beginning and closed end. Altogether, the 21st century dystopian film combines several aspects of different genres, which has contributed to a renewed film-experience of dystopia for the modern spectator.
1.2.4 The Turn towards the Critical Twenty-First Century
In the twentieth-century, developments regarding globalization and technology had a big impact on film. John Hill and Pamela Gibson (1998) clarify: “genres can be studies both in terms of an internal history of forms, themes, and iconography, and in terms of their
relationship to broader cultural and social shifts” (329). Technology became both a supporting role to make the film as well as a theme within the film. After The Matrix, V for Vendetta (McTeigue, 2006), set in an autocratic-totalitarian British empire, became a great social commentary of the twenty-first century. WALL-E is seen as a critique on larger societal issues such as consumerism, individualism, waste management and the impact of technology on humans and of humans on the environment (Robin and Heumann 2012). This aims towards the emergence of media ecological critiques within cinema. Ecocriticism seeks to evaluate texts and their meaning in relation to the environmental crisis (Garrard 3), and in the twenty-first century this is increasingly reflected in film. Avatar appeared one year after WALL-E and is revolutionary in terms of its use of digital technology, such as 3-D technology and
performance capture. With this, dystopian cinema emerged with renewed aesthetic,
technological and philosophical depth. This depth is caused by creating a possible world in which the imaginary is linked to realism (Elsaesser and Buckland 31). Indeed, the special effects create an immersion that the spectator is in the film, instead of looking at the film, all the while maintaining the connection with reality through its explicit social critique.
The films further discussed in this research, entertain the spectator and have an aim to identify contemporary worries that affect the spectator. Each film involves an examination of the social, political and ecological problems found at heart of everyday life in contemporary society. Peter Fitting, specialist in Utopian studies, clarifies the term ‘critical dystopia’ in his chapter “Unmasking the real? Critique and Utopia in Recent SF Films” in Dark Horizons. Not
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all dystopias are critical dystopias and Fitting states a critical dystopia should be understood as works that combine utopia and dystopia, but mostly “referring to a concept that offers engaged critics” (155). He believes the emergence of the ‘critical’ dystopia is connected to the decline of utopian writings. In each film I will further analyze in this research, there is a longing for a transformed and better place, which was not necessarily the aim in dystopian cinema before the twenty-first century. Besides this, a common aspect is the use of contrast and complications in dystopian films, the more frequent use of violence and female
protagonists. Moreover, each of these films were very successful dystopian films in the twenty-first century, according to the box-office numbers. Avatar uses aspects of utopia, while being a critical dystopia. WALL-E is an animation film that comments on our
consumeristic culture and similarly to Avatar, it is part of media ecology influenced by the rise of awareness of global warming. The Hunger Games- and Divergent series focus on the contemporary reality-television and surveillance culture. The surveillance culture is a
phenomenon of our contemporary world, as inhabitants are constantly monitored through our online information and security cameras in order to fight issues as terrorism, child porn or national security. I will further discuss this in the second chapter: Big Brother Is Watching You. Furthermore, these films are cinematic and visually very enigmatic; as true spectacle films, they are in line with the cinema of attractions. I believe these films are critical dystopias which set the tone for dystopian cinema in the twenty-first century.
§1.3 Imaginary Worlds
Thinking back of this decade, it will be remembered as the era of the digital revolution. Digital technology has transformed the film industry and I state that this has reinforced genre convergence and creating believable worlds, in order for dystopian films to recur in a more immersive way. The visualization of dystopian films is stimulated by the use of special effects and the dystopian films in this research depend on these digital technology effects. Only through this technology, the imaginary worlds can be created. Warren Buckland (2004) sees this possibility as an extension of the actual world, where special effects tend to go beyond spectacle (24). Today’s digital technology has the ability to create an image that makes unrealistic worlds as realistic as possible. Hence, this technology transforms the imaginary world on the screen into a plausible reality for the spectator (Elsaesser and Buckland 21).
17 1.3.1 Creating the Deceit of Dystopia
Avatar is groundbreaking in creating a new world with visual effects and an immersive 3-D film experience. After the arrival of photography in 1827, stereoscopy emerged as a
forerunner of 3-D cinema (Hayes 2). William Friese Greene developed a camera with two lenses, creating an illusion of depth and he became the founder of stereoscopic 3-D film (Zone 61). Ray Zone clarifies that there was a growing desire for an endless band that “prefigured the invention of a continuously moving strip of film, the technological standard that would make possible the establishment of the motion picture industry itself” (33). Stereographic moving images became a visual entertainment and slowly influenced the film industry.
With The Great Train Robbery (Porter, 1903) narrative was adopted in cinema and the use of editing took place at the beginning of the twentieth-century (Zone 96). In the summer of 1952, Hollywood started to use 3-D technology in cinema (Hayes 20). Before this,
Hollywood was frightened that 3-D technology would distract the spectator of the content of the story, mostly because the spectator needed to wear 3-D glasses. Besides this, the high costs of the use of this technology were a setback for Hollywood. Therefore, the interest for theatres and so stereoscopic 3-D cinema was put on hold until 1952. In 1952 the first three-dimensional feature film, Bwana Devil (Oboler, 1952), was shown in ordinary theatres. After this, more 3D-films followed, such as It Came from Outer Space (Arnold, 1953) and Dial M for Murder (Hitchcock, 1954). IMAX theatres were developed to enhance the immersion of the spectator’s experience while watching films in the theatre in the mid-1980s. Since then, a rebirth of 3-D cinema took place in 1985, until it became ordinary in 2002, when digital projection was realized in theaters with 3-D cinema in IMAX theatres (Griffiths 96).
Noticeable, science-fiction films became more popular and dystopias started to appear, such as A Brave New World and Nineteen Eighty-Four. From that point on, more digital
technology progressed in order to enhance storytelling and filmmaking. The development of CGI (Computer Generated Imaginary) in the 1990s created greater opportunities for special effects. Motion capture, CGI, performance capture and virtual reality in cinema increased and this has now become customary in film.
The new technologies changed cinema in a way of creating any kind of world and making this a believable spectacle to the spectator. That being said, no matter how heavily films rely on digitally generated special effects, the conventional techniques remain essential in making the film. According to Elsaesser and Buckland the need for new technologies in cinema was meant to compete with the emergence of new media (96). Special effects
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“simulate events in the actual world that are too expensive or inconvenient to produce” and visual effects “simulate events that are impossible in the actual world” (Elsaesser and
Buckland 210). These visible special and visual effects are still disguised as invisible effects. The futuristic and unrealistic worlds in dystopian cinema are made plausible through these effects as the spectator is immersed by the spectacle on the screen. The French film theorist Christian Metz (1977) describes this is as ‘deceit’ and he explains this as the spectator being manipulated with visual elements; unreality becomes convincing to the audience partaking these plausible images and the special effects become invisible to the spectator (657-675).
1.3.2 Plausible Spectacles
The setting of dystopian films motivates the spectacle-experience for the spectator. Buckland (2004) argues that films such as Jurrasic Park (Spielberg, 1993) go “beyond
spectacle by employing special effects to articulate a possible world” (24). Buckland mentions there is a possible world presented by “drawing out extreme consequences from a
non-fictional state of affairs in the actual world” (26). He states the imaginary world stands side by side to our own world and the imaginary worlds in dystopian cinema depend on our own imaginary. Combining this perception of Buckland with Metz’s notion of ‘deceit’, the spectator is manipulated in believing the plausible dystopian worlds created by special effect and I agree this goes beyond a spectacle-experience.
Spectacle film is drawn from the ‘cinema of attractions’, as conceptualized by film scholar Tom Gunning (1999). Gunning uses the word ‘attraction’ to point out the aspect that makes cinema visually attractive for the spectator by creating a visual spectacle. This term was first used for early cinema, but it made its comeback in Hollywood cinema in the 1970s (116). At this time the consumption culture took place and had its success in the 1980s. According to Wanda Strauven (2009) this came along with a new generation filmmakers carrying out visual aggressiveness (311). These newfangled Hollywood filmmakers rediscovered the taste of the spectacular and used visual spectacle as an apparatus. Jaws (Spielberg, 1975) and the first Star Wars (Lucas,1977) launched the return of great narration, together with the desire to visually shock the spectator with new developments. During that time, a connection was made between amusement parks and Hollywood. The 3-D movement was used to recall the excitement of rides of amusement parks (312). Besides this, video gaming revived and in the 1970s and 1980s video gaming became extremely popular to entertain the general public (208). In 1978-1982 the ‘golden age of arcade video games’ took
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place and this reinforced the drive to create ‘spectacle cinema’. The cinema of attractions attracts the spectator to the spectacle of its technology, while also aiming to convert the attraction of the technology towards the diegesis (315). As Strauven poses, the attraction becomes the subject and suspense of cinema and the spectacular becomes a compound of emotion (314).
Filmmakers have the availability of many digital effects, through which they can create an entire new world and so the cinema of attractions is reinforced. ‘Method Studios’ is the visual effects house of Divergent and created complex environments set in a futurist Chicago. The dystopian films of the twenty-first century use much of the new effects,
particularly computer-generated graphics (CGI), green screens, performance capture and 3-D technology. Avatar was groundbreaking in this aspect. Postproduction has become essential in creating the visualization of the movie, making the combination between live-action and CGI a seamless blend. Looking at the top ten highest-grossing films of all time, it is determined that computer-generated special effects seem to be an essential aspect of blockbusters. The visual effects of these dystopian films require a seamless effects work:
“The teenage audience becomes more gradually the main target of an entertainment which wants to dazzle the gaze, with an audiovisual inflation as working principle. The audience wants to get his money’s worth. The art of screenwriting loses its right to the advantage of the creation of stunning images” (Strauven 312).
Now the cinema of attraction is a golden rule of blockbusters, which concerns the gaze and the body (312): spectacle and immersion. This shows the focus of blockbuster films relied progressively on the spectacle-experience for the spectator. The cinema of attractions started in early cinema and made its comeback in the 1970s and 1980s to compete with trends of the consumption culture, such as theme parks and videogames. The digital revolution of the twenty-first century enhanced the ability for filmmakers to create any kind of world in order to dazzle the spectator with a visual spectacle. Consequently, dystopian cinema is remarkable in creating an immersion for the spectator. With the deception of what is real or imaginary dystopian cinema of the twenty-first century creates plausible worlds that critique the real world, thereby going beyond the spectacle-experience.
20 §1.4 Fresh perspectives and de-familiarization
Evidently, a powerful aspect of dystopian cinema is the creation of plausible worlds and so the mise-en-scène and atmosphere become essential. I am convinced the development of special effects has paved the way for the 21st century dystopian cinema to recur more
appealing than ever before. The setting within destroyed and futuristic cityscapes is attractive to create an intriguing and crumbling drama in film. A fascinating aspect of dystopia, which is consistent with the usage of visual effects, is de-familiarization by focusing on the critiques of society in imaginatively distant settings. Dystopian films provide us with fresh perspectives on problematic social and political practices (Baccolini and Moylan 5). The mise-en-scene is essential in dystopian cinema as it encourages the credibility of the story in order to create a different world. Blaim (2015) clarifies that generally a monochrome color palette creates the film’s haunting atmosphere (89). The desaturated colors, greyish tones and the futuristic geometric spaces give dystopian cinema an intriguing twist. The sifted films I discuss, demonstrate an unseen world to the spectator and therefore the setting creates a spectacle. The Divergent and The Hunger Games series show many resemblances as both film series are placed in parallel societies in a cityscape, hosting different classes in society. This is made clear by the setting, clothing, colors and make-up. The Hunger Games is set in a post-apocalyptic world in which most of America has been destroyed and the remaining land has been separated into twelve districts and the Capital. Together this is ‘Panem’. The Capital is the part of the society where wealth is provided and this is highlighted by the people’s colorful clothing, excessive make-up and exaggerated hairdo’s. Thus, their extravagant lifestyle is reflected through their high fashion, make-up, food and colors (Figure 1ab).
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High and futuristic buildings and modern cars and trains are shown in the Capital (Figure 2a). On the other side, most of the other districts wear greyish clothes, suggesting a degree of poorness and a monochromatic district. The protagonist is from district Twelve and is dressed in flat shades of blue and grey and everyone surrounding her is wearing equal outfits. The games take place in the ‘Arena’, where there are hues of green and brown (Figure 2b). Fast editing stimulates the feel of chaos.
Figure 2a.
Figure 2b. The Divergent series similarly use clear differences in clothing and colors to distinguish the five different factions: Amity, Candor, Erudite, Abnegation and Dauntless (Figure 3a). The behavior of the various factions represents the morals and values of each faction. Amity stands for kindness and harmony, the people who belong to this faction wear warm colors, mostly yellow and orange clothing. Members of Amity act kind, happy and friendly. Candor stands for honesty and purity: people wear black and white, which symbolizes cleanliness and their ‘black and white’ judgement of the truth. Erudite represents intelligence and
continuously wears blue clothing as blue stimulates the brain according to their leader Jeanine Mattews. Dauntless members signify courage and bravery, wear more dark tones, mostly black and have tattoos and experimental hairstyles. Dauntless is shown loud, energetic and rebellious. Contrastingly, Abnegation is selfless: the inhabitants speak softly, wear limited
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make-up and grey tones and is not allowed to look in the mirror. The final film of the
Divergent series takes a more post-apocalyptic turn as the characters go beyond the wall and find themselves in a deserted place where there is red, bloodlike rain falling from the sky (Figure 3b.)
Figure 3a.
Figure 3b. WALL-E, which stands for Waste Allocation Load Lifter Earth-class, is a clear urban
dystopia. In dystopia, influenced by the subgenre cyberpunk, there are often post-industrial urban cores (Figure 4a), filled with abandoned buildings (Figure 4b), decaying factories and waste products of populations of twentieth-century capitalist culture (Baccolini and Moylan 174). This last part concerning waste products is made clear in WALL-E and I will further explain this in the second chapter regarding WALL-E’s commentary on ecology.
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Figure 4b. Avatar has been a euphoric tale created by performance capture, whereas WALL-E is an animation film, while still showing the grey, depressing cityscapes. The Hunger Games and Divergent series have more obvious common aspects. Interestingly, Avatar has a more exceptional setting compared to the other films I analyze, as it does not involve urban cityscapes. It does not take place in a grey and gloomy city, but a green and natural
environment which is called ‘Pandora’. Pandora’s habitants live in harmony with nature and their goddess ‘Eywa’. The habitants are blue-skinned ‘hominids’, called ‘Na’vi’. The
atmosphere is poisonous to humans and to explore the biosphere on Pandora, scientists use a ‘Na’vi-human hybrid’ called ‘Avatar’. Avatar has a more utopian than dystopian setting, while being critical upon contemporary society in its narrative, posing a strong critical dystopian film. It shows a combination of utopia and dystopia. With the emergence of performance capture and groundbreaking 3-D technology Cameron created an entire new world and Avatar became a spectacle in which Pandora came to life (Goodyear n.pag.). Cameron comments about Pandora in the article “James Cameron: I want to compete with ‘Star Wars’ and Tolkien” (Boucher 2010): “People want a persistent alternate reality to invest themselves in and they want the detail that makes it rich and worth their time. They want to live somewhere else. Like Pandora” (6). The floating islands and rocks (Figure 5a), and the visualization of blue-skinned ‘aliens’ (Figure 5b) and dinosaur-like creatures are what make Avatar an enjoyment to watch. The film was a revelatory development in Hollywood as the movie does not look like anything the spectator has ever seen before in filmmaking. The visual effects become an attraction in their own right: “not of the human body’s ability to navigate or even overcome the overwhelming urban spaces of postmodernism, but of modern technology’s ability to create such astonishing images” (Hassler-Forest Capitalist
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Figure 5a. Figure 5b.
Each dystopian film discussed here, is set in an extraordinary world, which has never been seen before. Through the special effects believable, but very unknown and characteristic worlds are created and through the visualization, these films are eye-catching and cinematic attractions.
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Chapter 2:
Dystopian Critiques and Moralistic Messages
“Political and emotional events, anchoring its vision of a nightmarish future in contemporary fears of totalitarian ideology and uncontrolled advances in technology and science” (Baker 22).
After understanding the development of dystopian cinema in contemporary Hollywood, I will now specify the underlying themes and critiques within the twenty-first century dystopian cinema. Dystopian cinema depicts oppositions and moral ambiguities. Recurring oppositions are: control and order versus freedom and chaos, and selflessness versus egocentricity. Other frequent themes in dystopian cinema are: oppression, individuality, propaganda, power and mastery over nature. These themes run parallel to each other: where there is power and oppression, there is resistance. Each of these themes, focus on an underlying moralistic message, which forms a critique on our society and is recognizable for the critical dystopia. It is striking, as Moylan argues, that many people seem to be more aware of the idea that they are living in an increasingly threatened world (Baccolini and Moylan 156).
In the first section of this chapter, I would like to delimit the themes used in dystopian cinema and focus on the most significant underlying messages of dystopian cinema of the twenty-first century. Firstly, the focus will be on the critique on technology and the influence of the shift towards reality-television. Besides this, I will draw attention to a remarkable and renewed element of dystopian cinema in the twenty-first century which also appears as an underlying message in the films. This is the frequent use of violence in these films, which are also ‘teen films’. I argue this is also a critique on contemporary society, in particular the increase of violence in media and games. Lastly, the ecological aspect in dystopian cinema has become more essential since the rising awareness of global warming and climate change. Raffaella Baccolini clarifies in “Dystopia Matters: On the Use of Dystopia and Utopia” (2006) that people feel the need to imagine better or worse worlds in order to think more critically about the world they are currently living in and in order to change this world (4). Therefore there is a desire for utopia and dystopia.
26 §2.1 Big Brother Is Watching You
“They want a good show that’s all they want”. - Peeta in The Hunger Games
In this following section, I will establish the critiques on the contemporary reality-television and surveillance culture through a cultural analysis of The Hunger Games- and Divergent series.
2.1.1 The Entertainment of Reality-Television
The Hunger Games series have a significant reference to reality-television. Suzanne Collins, the author of the original book series of The Hunger Games, was inspired by reality-television talent contests and footage of the Iraq War (Bartlett 9). Reality-television began with
Endemol’s idea of Big Brother. This show started in 1997 and several contestants were monitored while living in one house together. After Big Brother, around fifty other international versions were produced and countless other reality shows emerged. Reality-television arose to as a strategy to reduce costs and still entertain the audience (Murray and Ouellette 145). According to media scholar Mark Andrejevic (2002) reality-television outlines a form of subjectivity which is in line with the arrival of the online economy: “one which equates submission to comprehensive surveillance with self-expression and self-knowledge” (253). Figure 6 shows that there is a high percentage of youth who watch reality-television shows. Sequentially, subgenres of reality-television arose, for example reality shows concomitant with the music, fashion or cooking industry.
There are many resemblances between reality-television and The Hunger Games. The Hunger Games is set in a dystopian ruin, divided into twelve districts and the Capital;
together this is called Panem. Every year there is one chosen child forced to take part in the annual games, in which eventually twelve children or young adults are killed until one victor is left. The entire Hunger Games are televised and shown in the districts and the Capital. Both The Hunger Games and the reality-television concept follow the contestants or tributes from the beginning until the end. The creators of the Hunger Games and a reality-television show guide and control what is happening with the contestants. The contestants are monitored during the Hunger Games and the spectator can see the tribute eat, sleep, suffer and conquer. Also, the contestants need the viewers to like them in order to gain more sponsors to extend their chance of survival in the Hunger Games. There is a focus on what attracts the audience in the Capital, for example the young love between the main characters: Katniss Everdeen and
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Peeta Mellark. The audience has a favorite, which is discussed in the broadcasted show hosted by the character Caesar Flickerman. Eventually the victor gets to go by every district as a celebrity and live a long life in wealth.
According to Annette Hill (2005), as a result of reality-television and its subgenre programs, the distinction between fact and fiction become blurry (41). In the final film of The Hunger Games series Peeta cannot appoint what is fact or fiction, after he was captivated and indoctrinated by the Capital. The Capital tried to turn Peeta against Katniss and make him believe that Katniss is the reason the society is dysfunctional and unequal. The scene in which Peeta keeps asking Katniss ‘real or not real?’ is an essential scene illustrating this social commentary. Peeta mentions that the Capital showed him pictures and he could not tell the difference as the pictures looked real, but were slightly different: “shiny, as if they were glossed over”. This references to the burring line of fiction and reality, and the manipulation of images in general. Dystopian films can be understood as a critique on contemporary reality culture, in which the constant surveillance, through reality-television and surveillance
cameras is increasing (Baccolini and Moylan 158). Modern technologies have complicated the distinction between the real and the copied image, which bring us back to Jean
Beaudrillard’s ideas on simulacra, or even Walter Benjamin’s seminal essay on the loss of aura in an age of technological reproduction. As Moylan and Baccolini (2003) state: “this loss of aura can be seen in the ever-increasing demand for images of the ‘real’ that can be
somehow verified as authentic, because it is ‘live’” (158).
This manipulation of images is also demonstrated by the reference to propaganda wars in The Hunger Games and Divergent series. The leaders of Divergent give messages to the people through a projection on buildings. In Mockingjay: Part One and Part Two Katniss is used as a mascot to gather the rebellions and oppose them to the Capital. A camera crew joins Katniss in her journey and films her in a specific way to position her as a leader of the
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Figure 6. Percentage of youth who watched these reality-television shows – from “The Appeal of Reality-television For Teen and Pre-Teen Audiences” (Patino, Kaltcheva and Smith 2011).
2.1.2 The Surveillance Culture and Panopticon Gaze
Nowadays society is dependent on information- and communication technologies. Ironically, dystopian cinema of the twenty-first century critiques technologies of our contemporary world, while these films could not be made plausible without the digital effects of today. As I pointed out earlier, modern technology and the surveillance society is a recurring theme in dystopian cinema of the twenty-first century. The term ‘surveillance culture’ is first used by sociologist Gart T. Marx and as David Lyon interprets, Marx concern “was that new
technologies were helping to create situations in which ‘one of the final barriers’ to total social control is now crumbling” (5). Surveillance contributes to governmentality and is a by-product of the present ‘information society’ (5) and flows of data increased with the usage of digital technologies. After the 9/11 attacks and the attacks in Madrid (2003), London (2005), Paris (2015) and Brussels (2016), the surveillance culture only progressed and questions related to privacy were raised. Kerry Mallan (2014) specifies that surveillance is not simply directed at adults, but “young people are also the object of the electronic gaze and their everyday online activities are recorded and stored by new information technologies” (2). There is a surveillance based economy linked to the Internet which has allowed a need for customization based on consumer data and using this as marketing in the online economy (Andrejevic 256). The Internet is now a tracking device that can track the information of online-users to target online people as consumers.
As a result of the shift towards reality-television in media culture and the surveillance society, there is a Panopticon Gaze. The concept of Panopticism is defined by Michel
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Prison (1975) that: “the panopticon is a machine for dissociating the see/being seen dyad: in the peripheral ring, one is totally seen, without ever seeing; in the central tower, one sees everything without ever being seen” (362). The gaze of the spectator of the 21st
century dystopian films creates an imagery panopticon. For example, in The Hunger Games there is a feeling of the tributes being trapped in the annual Hunger Games in the arena. Foucault mentions “the gaze is alert everywhere” (195). The panopticon is a prisoner’s model created by philosopher Jeremy Betham (1748-1832) and the prisoner may be observed at any time by possible viewers. Similarly, the spectator may observe the participants in reality-television and in dystopian cinema. In both The Hunger Games and Divergent series there is a
panopticon gaze. The participants on the annual Hunger Games are trapped in the arena, but their every move is observed by the citizens in the Capital and the districts, and the actual spectator in front of the screen. According to Peter Dew (1984) there is a panoptic power which isolates and idealizes and this ensures “structuring of relations in modern societies” (85). This is what happens in The Hunger Games and Divergent series: there is less sense of harmony as society is divided into different districts against the Capital in The Hunger Games or different factions against the leaders in Divergent. The people are isolated from each other through the divided society and, as Foucault argues, this shaped into individual segmentation (198). In Space and Place in The Hunger Games: New Readings of the Novels (2014) one of the authors; Deidre Anne Evans Garriott, stresses that Foucault’s theory suggests that “the threat of punishment modifies behavior” (168). The participants are constantly watched by hidden cameras. In Allegiant one of the characters is summoned to monitor what is happening in Chicago, so he observes the events in Chicago and reports back to his superior. Above all, in both film series, screens are a recurring motif which creates a feel of ‘being watched’ and ‘looking at’ (Figure 7). In The Hunger Games, the Gamemakers have screens in front of their faces, controlling everything what happens in the arena. In Divergent the final fear-simulation test to become a Dauntless-member is shown on many screens, for everyone to see how the contestants are overcoming their fears. The person being tested is observed by the fellow contestants and the people higher up (Figure 8).
Surely, throughout the twenty-first century there have been shifts within safety, privacy and the entertainment world, which have led to the contemporary surveillance and reality-televised media culture. In addition, this collides with the mind-game genre, including disorders, a surveillance society and a concern about media, producing individuality and agency. The blurring line between what is reality and what is imaginary is a fact in today’s culture, which is resembled in the 21st century dystopian cinema. Also in this sense, with
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Jameson’s idea, dystopia is schizophrenic. In these dystopian films there is always a leader or a person higher up in control. There is a constant feel of being looked at or looking at, which reinforces the trapped feeling of the spectator with its panoptican gaze. The established panoptican gaze, control and surveillance enforce the themes of power and resistance.
Altogether, this replicates features of contemporary society and the young adult audience can recognize this as critiques, and therefor feels attracted to the dystopias shown on the screen. Together with this vital critique in the 21st century dystopian cinema, the frequent use of violence is portrayed in today’s dystopias and in the following section I will grasp why today’s filmmakers have chosen to do so.
Figure 7.
Figure 8.
§2.2 Violent Warriors
“May the odds be ever in your favor”.
- The Hunger Games
As made clear in the above section, there have been shifts in contemporary media and besides that, society has changed into a surveillance culture. Through the news on different media streams and television crime series, I believe society has become more aware of violence. Indeed, another characteristic of the twenty-first century is the use of violence in video- and
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computer games and there have been speculations that this has influenced children and teenagers. Just as the critique on reality-television and the surveillance culture, it is ironic in how dystopian films critique the use of violence, while representing much violence. Instead of representing a euphoric story with no violence, it seems more effective to demonstrate
violence in order to critique it. In order to delve deeper into this specific representation of violence in dystopian films, I will use the Divergent and especially The Hunger Games series. Through cultural analysis, I will demonstrate how the use of violence is derived from Ancient Roman mythologies and war, followed by the examples of violence portrayed in the films and finally, the reason why this is shown in contemporary dystopian films.
2.2.1 “Panemet Circenses”
As mentioned before, the author of “The Hunger Games” book series Suzanne Collins was inspired by reality-television talent contests and footage of the Iraq War. Besides this, Collin’s memories of her father as a soldier in the jungle during the Vietnam War were also noted as inspiration (“Suzanne Collins on the Vietnam War Stories behind the Hunger Games and Year of the Jungle”, YouTube Bibliostar TV, 8 October 2012). Some features of The Hunger Games are clearly motivated by Ancient Rome and Roman mythologies. The Roman satirist Juvenal used the Latin phrase: “panemet circenses” or in English “bread and circuses”, which means “the way the ruling class pacified the commoners by diverting them from
contemplating their subjugation” (Cunningham n.pag.). In Ancient Rome the gladiators fought each other to death for the entertainment of the citizens in the Colosseum. By threatening and using violence in particular cases, the games between the gladiators were needed to keep the peace. In this sense, the Hunger Games represent a form of control. Katniss says in the first scene of The Hunger Games: “Taking the kids from our districts, forcing them to kill one another while we watch – this is the Capitol’s way of reminding us how we are at their mercy”. Even in times of peace, there is a need to stimulate an atmosphere of violence. In Rome, the unemployed received free bread and entertainment. It was a way for the leaders to keep them satisfied and on their guard. Similarly, the annual Hunger Games was designed to remind the citizens of Panem of the traumatic event caused by the rebellions which resulted into twelve districts remaining. One of the Gamemakers mentions the Hunger Games have grown from something traditional into something that ‘brings us all together’. At the same time, the Hunger Games entertain the citizens of the Capital and a punishment of society. The tributes fight against each other till one victor survives. These ‘pawns’ of society
