Crave for Dystopia in the 21 Century
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Crave for Dystopia in the 21st 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 1 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. 2 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 Media List 69 3 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? Dystopia can refer to many things and it evolved from Greek mythology into literature 4 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. 1 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 (Booker 1994) and Mediated Utopias: from literature to cinema (Blaim and Gruszewska-Blaim 2015). 5 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).