James Madison University JMU Scholarly Commons Masters Theses The Graduate School Spring 2015 Occupy the future: A rhetorical analysis of dystopian film and the Occupy movement Justin J. Grandinetti James Madison University Follow this and additional works at: https://commons.lib.jmu.edu/master201019 Part of the American Film Studies Commons, American Popular Culture Commons, Digital Humanities Commons, Other Film and Media Studies Commons, Other Languages, Societies, and Cultures Commons, Rhetoric Commons, and the Visual Studies Commons Recommended Citation Grandinetti, Justin J., "Occupy the future: A rhetorical analysis of dystopian film and the Occupy movement" (2015). Masters Theses. 43. https://commons.lib.jmu.edu/master201019/43 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the The Graduate School at JMU Scholarly Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Masters Theses by an authorized administrator of JMU Scholarly Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Occupy the Future: A Rhetorical Analysis of Dystopian Film and the Occupy Movement Justin Grandinetti A thesis submitted to the Graduate Faculty of JAMES MADISON UNIVERSITY In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the degree of Master of Arts Writing, Rhetoric, and Technical Communication May 2015 Dedication Page This thesis is dedicated to the world’s revolutionaries and all the individuals working to make the planet a better place for future generations. ii Acknowledgements I’d like to thank a number of people for their assistance and support with this thesis project. First, a heartfelt thank you to my thesis chair, Dr. Jim Zimmerman, for always being there to make suggestions about my drafts, talk about ideas, and keep me on schedule. I’d also like to thank Dr. Michael Klein and Dr. Scott Lunsford for taking part of this project as committee members. I know that this is a massive time expenditure, and I am extremely lucky to have such excellent support from knowledgeable faculty members. Finally, I am always grateful to my partner, Marie Eszenyi, for her ongoing support. She is always there to talk about ideas and keep me going. I could not have done this without all of you. iii Table of Contents Chapter One: Occupy the Future ..................................................................................................... 1 Justification .................................................................................................................................. 4 Literature Review......................................................................................................................... 5 The Occupy Movement ............................................................................................................ 6 The Genre of Science Fiction .................................................................................................. 8 The Genre of Speculative Fiction .......................................................................................... 10 The Dystopia .......................................................................................................................... 12 Science Fiction, Speculative Fiction, and Critical Literature ................................................ 15 Popularity of Speculative Fiction Film .................................................................................. 17 Methods ..................................................................................................................................... 18 Chapter Two: Capitalism, Revolution, and Power in The Hunger Games .................................... 21 The Hunger Games Background ................................................................................................ 23 Literature Review....................................................................................................................... 25 The Hunger Games in Popular Media .................................................................................... 26 The Hunger Games in Academic Literature .......................................................................... 28 Methods ..................................................................................................................................... 30 The games as a critique of capitalism ........................................................................................ 31 The depicted divide between classes ......................................................................................... 34 Actor-network theory and revolution ......................................................................................... 37 Conclusion ................................................................................................................................. 43 Chapter Three: Democracy, Limitations, and The Dark Knight Rises .......................................... 46 The Dark Knight Rises Background .......................................................................................... 50 Literature Review....................................................................................................................... 52 The Dark Knight Rises and Occupy ...................................................................................... 52 Batman and Critical Literature ............................................................................................... 54 The Dark Knight Rises and Democracy ................................................................................ 54 Methods ..................................................................................................................................... 56 Batman as idealized democratic rhetoric ................................................................................... 56 Systematic failures of corrupted democracy .............................................................................. 60 The false hope of revolution and Occupy .................................................................................. 63 iv Conclusion ................................................................................................................................. 68 Chapter Four: The Dystopian Medical Gaze and a Foucauldian Analysis of Elysium .................. 70 Elysium Background .................................................................................................................. 72 Literature Review....................................................................................................................... 74 The Birth of the Clinic ........................................................................................................... 74 The Occupy Movement and Healthcare ................................................................................. 75 Social Context and Elysium ................................................................................................... 76 Methods ..................................................................................................................................... 78 Controlling the body .................................................................................................................. 79 The Earth and Elysium as the body ........................................................................................... 83 Risk society and the body .......................................................................................................... 86 Conclusion ................................................................................................................................. 91 Chapter Five: The Dystopian Future Awaits ................................................................................. 93 Works Cited ............................................................................................................................. 103 v Abstract The anarchic Occupy Wall Street protests, which began in 2011, had an immediate impact on politics and the global lexicon. By introducing the terms “the one percent” and “the 99%” into the public sphere, Occupy was able to draw attention to growing global income inequality. This revolutionary spirit was not lost on popular culture, as a number of films that followed the protests were linked to Occupy. The Hunger Games (2012), The Dark Knight Rises (2012), and Elysium (2013) represent films that were not only extremely successful in the box office, but were also connected to the Occupy Movement because of their themes of dystopian power relationships between small groups of super- rich oppressing the remainder of the population. In the following thesis, I apply rhetorical analysis and theory to these films in order to better understand the way each was influenced by the Occupy Movement. Furthermore, I analyze the message of each film to better illuminate their rhetorical goals and methodology. Ultimately, the application of rhetoric to these films allows for an analysis of the way that contemporary fears about increasing unequal global financial relationships manifest in popular culture via dystopian speculative fiction film. Keywords: Occupy Movement, Occupy Wall Street, Dystopia, Film, Movies, Speculative Fiction, Science Fiction, The Hunger Games, The Dark Knight Rises, Elysium, Ralph Cintron, Bruno Latour, Michel Foucault vi Chapter One: Occupy the Future 2 Does art reflect life? In movies, yes. Because more than any other art form, films have been