Monday, February 11, 2019

Cameron’s The Terminator and Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale as Responses to Neo-conservatism :: Movie Film Essays

From abortion to pornography, the war on drugs to the end of the low temperature War, the 1980s played host to considerable controversy amidst such political uneasiness, then, it seems that Reagan Era rejuvenated middle-Americas latent conservatism. This return to the traditional Puritan set of the nuclear family also sponsored heightened State intervention and policing of the private sphere, thereby reenforce cultural myths of the dangerous, unknown Other. As such a vexation of the Other was neighborlyly perpetuated, it seemed the responsibility of liberal-minded skeptics to note such propaganda as an dire preparation for totalitarianism. Many cultural texts from the period, such as James Camerons 1984 science-fiction film, The Terminator, and Marg art Atwoods 1986 feminist predictive-text, The Handmaids Tale, utilize this opportunity to illustrate the drastic outcomes of a society founded on such mass ignorance. Following in the tradition of dystopian, or anti-utopian, fict ion, twain texts use a depiction of a perfect future man in order to isolate, exaggerate and expose certain problematic social trends. While not intended as realistic or slick predictions, these dystopian texts seek to expose extremist attitudes (such as radical conservatism, religiosity, or expert reliance) as fundamentally threatening to human nature and individualism. Dystopia, then, raft be understood as a locale for the constant tick of human freedom, maintained by a administrations despotic control of technology, gender and ideology.What makes this fictional society so fascinating, however, is its cunning rendering from utopia to dystopia, or from Heaven to Hell each of these corrupt worlds is originally presented as a safer, more stable and efficient alternative to contemporary society. Atwoods tale, for example, presents a portrait of a society, Gilead, which is superficially ideal it is free of (visible) violence, abomination or suffering. Yet this apparent perfe ction comes with sacrifice, for all aspects of the population are controlled social class and intellectual ability are all guardedly regulated, with stability maintained at all costs. Similarly, Camerons Terminator presents members of present-day(a) (circa 1984) Los Angeles in a beneficial symbiotic relationship with machinery as technology advances daily life for humans, so too do humans improve technology. Yet this techno-friendly society based on social alliance is devolve once the machines begin to overpower and out-wit humans here the oppressive regime that threatens humanity is technology itself.In both texts it seems clear that both technological advancement and control are imperative to the succession of an autocratic state. And as the audience is always kept keenly aware of the dangers that homogeneity poses to the quality of life, these dystopian texts question whether technology necessitates a sacrifice of human individuality.

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