Dystopia
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The word dystopian can be used as a snarl word in many cases, particularly when applied to conservatives or rightist reformers. Anyone who wants to make the world a worse place (except for "them" and "their kind") can be called dystopian, no matter how pragmatic they are in doing so. It is often forgotten by true dystopians that one person's dystopia can be someone else's heaven.
A real life example would be the Third Reich or the results of some of the Communist states. Interestingly, in all literary dystopias, there must be some base level of material wealth - all of the characters should be eating (or drinking), if not well, and there needs to be some kind of technology.[1]
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[edit] Prominent dystopian Works
Dystopian environments are often the setting for numerous fictional works and the study of dystopian worlds has spawned an entire genre. The novels Brave New World, Nineteen Eighty-Four, and We describe dystopian societies; all three of these novels have become icons of the genre and have enjoyed considerable critical success. We is the oldest of these, and considered the innovator of the genre. Most of the conventions of the genre can be traced back to We.[2]
[edit] Books
- Battle Royale -- Kids are forced to fight each other to the death in a program run by an authoritarian Japanese government after they win WWII. The winner receives a permanent retirement package at great cost. This short description does not do it justice.
- Brave New World by Aldous Huxley -- Huxley's portrayal of a world of eugenics run amok.
- Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury -- A world on the brink of war, with books suppressed by a quasi-fascist government because of demands by a populace afraid of dissent.
- The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood -- the aftermath of a Christian dominionist takeover of the United States (with some help from radical feminists). Partly set (no doubt intentionally ironically) in the notoriously liberal city of Cambridge, Massachusetts.
- The Hunger Games -- Kids are forced to compete (read: kill) in outdoor activities by a totalitarian government.[3]
- Kys (The Slynx) by Tatiana Tolstaya -- A satirical take on a post-post-apocalyptic Moscow terrorized by a real-life bogeyman (the Slynx of the title).
- Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell (Eric Arthur Blair) -- Stalinism/fascism transplanted to England. This book has had numerous film and TV adaptations.
- The Postman by David Brin -- A drifter in the collapsed remnants of the United States, brought down by a group of radical survivalists, takes on the uniform of a mail carrier and starts to set in motion the possible restoration of civilization. Kevin Costner trashed his own career by producing a notoriously incoherent movie version.
- V for Vendetta by Alan Moore -- Follows the story of an anti-government terrorist and his young protégé in a fascist post-nuclear Britain. (Author Moore has distanced himself from the 2006 film adaptation.)
- We by Yevgeny Zamyatin -- considered the founding book of modern dystopian literature.
[edit] Games
- Half-Life by Valve — one man's struggle to release humanity from domination by an alien power and its human collaborators. Considered one of the greatest video game franchises ever, and almost never gives the player a truly happy ending.
- Warhammer 40,000 by Games Workshop — a strategy game set in a science fiction galaxy where a sadistic, hyper-repressive "Imperium of Man" (based around the worship of a messianic immortal God-Emperor who has been in a coma for 10,000 years and in whose absence the Imperium has descended into a twisted mockery of everything he worked for) are the "Good Guys"[4] – because everyone else is even worse. Well, arguably the good guys are the Tau, who work towards their socialist utopia by exterminating "lesser" races; yes, the least evil faction are the space-Nazis.
- World of Darkness by White Wolf Game Studio — two series of games based around the same rule set, both of which share the central conceit that humanity is a bit player in a world controlled by competing supernatural conspiracies (albeit to a much lesser extent in the newer version).
[edit] Films
- Alphaville: Une étrange aventure de Lemmy Caution {Alphaville: A Strange Adventure of Lemmy Caution} (1965) Directed by Jean-Luc Godard — A secret agent is on assignment in a city run by Alpha 60, an autocratic, dictatorial supercomputer.
- Brazil (1985) Directed by Terry Gilliam — A minor bureaucratic clerk attempts to correct an administrative error and finds himself becoming an enemy of the state in the process.
- Idiocracy (2006) Directed by Mike Judge — Three people are placed in cryogenic suspension as part of a one year experiment, and are revived 500 years later. Due to the fact that stupid people have out bred smart people, they are the most intelligent humans in a world populated by the profoundly stupid. Unfortunately, this film is already starting to look like a documentary.[5]
- Soylent Green (1973) Directed by Richard Fleischer — Film based on Harry Harrison's novel Make Room, Make Room. In an overpopulated world, a police detective discovers a disturbing secret about a popular artificial foodstuff.
- THX 1138 (1971) Directed by George Lucas — In a sterile, subterranean future, a man and a woman rebel against their structured society by falling in love.
[edit] Footnotes
- ↑ This rules out North Korea.
- ↑ Seriously, go read it. Now.
- ↑ Yes, people have noticed that it is strangely similar to Battle Royale, just with a more teenage approach.
- ↑ Depending on who you ask. Nobody really is truly a good guy no matter how you look at them.
- ↑ 10 Things 'Idiocracy' Predicted Would Happen, and Sadly Already Have