A popular fiction theme repeated many times in film and on television is an apocalyptic vision of the future. And in the last decade or so, a political view of a fascist state, where the trains always run on time, there are flying cars and aircraft, militarized police and armored vehicles patrolling the territories.
Why an occupying force? Because the people are enslaved. (Think of the Hunger Games, Divergent, Judge Dredd, The Maze Runner, Resident Evil franchises.) Political movies of an intrusive State (Enemy of the State), or a anti-nationalist, Obama-like Administration, (White House Down), contain various plots about internal rogues in spy agencies, computer hackers, and terrorists. When it is not due to a plague or a nuclear war, the facilitator of the collapse of democracy is often an “inside man”. Even the Jason Bourne series has this theme. Once upon a time these themes were Soviet sleeper agents and North Korean/ Chinese intelligence agents bent on corrupting America, but now it seems Americans are the enemy.
From my perspective, given that the worldview of the filmmakers, writers, actors, and sponsors has been consistently dominated by those who make speeches and preen themselves as “inclusive”, pro-islamist, ” climate change”-rs, “borderless” and anti-nationalist, the bleak future depicted of masters and an enslaved people – even the Planet of the Apes franchise comes to mind- the apocalypse has come about by capitalist, nationalistic, bigoted, whites who use any means necessary to keep control.
Yet what I find troubling to this thinking are the rebels. The rebels hunt game, illegally, trade or barter goods and services with each other, are fairly well-educated, are open to new ideas, demonstrate good interpersonal relationships, and have a good judge of character. This seems to be the qualities that the current crop of news media, “Never Trump”-ers, environmentalists, campus anarchists, and disgruntled billionaires despise in the population! The oppressors, on the other hand, value forests, parks, mass transit, extravagant homes, prevent the general ownership of weapons, control weather, make flowery speeches, and keep among their “own kind”. This certainly seems to depict the “Liberal” or erstwhile “Democrat” world view of the 21st Century?
Fascinating? Troubling? Or ambivalent? My two cents for today.
Truths, Half-truths, and Sea Stories 