Waking up this morning, I was not greeted by the usual cold
sweat that accompanies my night-terrors; instead, I found myself struck-down
with the terrible affliction known worldwide as ‘man-flu’. Nothing says ‘Winter
is coming’ more profoundly than a case of the dreaded sniffles – except,
maybe, Sean Bean – so I knew it was time to wrap myself up in my duvet and
nestle down for the next eight months in front of my computer screen. As I am
not a bear, despite what many overly friendly men have told me, I elect to
spend my hibernation period not sleeping, but in much the same way as I have spent the summer – on my
own, absorbing vast amounts of pop culture and cursing the rest of the humanity
for enjoying things like ‘going outside’ and ‘social interaction’. In
summation: I watched Rollerball today.
Whilst I won’t bore you with things like ‘plot’ and
‘characterisation’, I do heartily recommend this film to anyone with two hours
to spare (and a bloodlust that just won’t be satiated). It’s brutal, it’s
dystopian and it’s also very thought provoking. Now, three things occurred to
me whilst watching Rollerball: firstly, James Caan doesn’t get nearly
enough work anymore; secondly, the distant future looks eerily similar to the
1970s; and thirdly, a dystopian future as seen in Rollerball and
countless other movies, TV shows and books will probably never happen.
It is almost impossible to name a film set in the future
where human civilisation hasn't collapsed, or isn't systematically
oppressed by evil men who wear suits (often, to reinforce their evil-ness, their
faces will be obscured by a strategically-placed shadow). In fact, the only one
that springs to this author’s mind is Back to the Future Part II, and
that was retconned in Part III when Doc told Marty that ‘The future
is what we make of it’ - so that future isn’t even definitely going to happen!
For
all we know, Marty and his family could have been wiped out in the Hoverboard
Wars.
But how realistic is it that humanity is going to slip into
an authoritarian dystopia? Whilst certain places *cough* North Korea *cough*,
do live in such conditions, the rest of the world isn't exactly lining up to join them. Last time I checked, the Libertarian, Gun-waving USA won
the Cold War so that the rest of the world wouldn’t be condemned to die on
Carousel when they reached the age of 30 - as they were in the USSR. If you’re
interested, there’s a very informative documentary called Logan’s Run that
I highly recommend.
But what I believe will stop humanity from ever slipping
into dystopia are the dystopian stories themselves. Hell, the council can’t
even put up a stop sign without someone complaining that Britain is turning
into 1984. These stories have heightened people’s awareness of just how
involved the government should be in their day-to-day lives, and have given them an
idea of the dangers of too much government intervention. Just as Jurassic
Park warned of the dangers of genetic engineering (and dinosaurs!), and The
Fly warned us of the dangers of scientific experimentation (and Jeff
Goldblum! A lesson that had to be reiterated in Jurassic Park),
dystopian settings have provided countless cautionary tales for us mere mortals
who don’t have the attention spans to read long-winded political treatises
and—hey look! A blue car!
So will the future be a grim, dark place where our every
movement is watched, documented and analysed? Probably not. We’ve all seen to
many movies to let it happen. As soon as the government tries to implement
retinal scanners on buses, the public will flock to Trafalgar Square and don
their V for Vendetta masks to let the evil politicians know that we all
saw a movie where something similar to this happened – and we don’t agree with
it. In fact, the only way a dystopian society could conceivably happen is if the
government destroys a vast amount of culture in order to stop the spread of
such inflammatory ideas. Hey, wasn’t that the plot of Fahrenheit 451?
Whoah...
