Compared: Dystopian Society and Entertainment

This essay was to some extent more difficult to write because it requires sufficient background knowledge on dystopian novels and the way they use entertainment as a mean of pacification.

Prompt: In a three-paged, double-spaced paper, synthesize evidence/ideas from four dystopian stories (at least one must be a novel, but the others can be a movie or short story) to defend, challenge, or qualify the assertion that entertainment as pacification is a recurrent motif in dystopian fiction.

Oh geez. Well, here's my go at it.

 

Dystopian Societies: Entertainment as Pacification 

By Katy Zou 

With the increasingly accurate predictions of dystopian novel writers, the dystopian society genre is ever-gaining popularity. It depicts the possibility of a future society oppressed by the government, a society where everyone is conformed and controlled. The citizens are generally fed propaganda to convince and distract them from the truth of their lives. They are made to believe the government is fair and a utopia exists. The ever-recurrent motif of entertainment as a means of pacification repeats itself in dystopian fiction.

In the Running Man, originally written by Stephen King (Richard Bachman) then made into a 1987 science-fiction action film, describes the future in a fallen global economy. America has turned into a totalitarian police-state. All cultural activity is monitored. The government uses a violent game show to pacify Americas as a form of entertainment. The game show appeals to the viewers as a way to remove themselves from their lives of increasing poverty. The Running Man relates to a time period in the future where entertainment is the only mean of escape from one’s poverty-stricken life.

A Brave New World by Aldous Huxley is about a futuristic society where all emotions except happiness are stamped out. John the Savage states “I want to know what passion is. I want to feel something strongly”. The citizens of the World State no longer feel real emotions or innate desires of family and relationship structures. People are administered a type of drug called soma that puts them into a dream-like coma state where they are able to relieve of all troubles and truths. They are encouraged to participate in recreational sex from early childhood and never spend time alone. Citizens are constantly engaged in recreational activities when not assigned to work.  Recreational entertainment is constantly fed to the people in order to distract them from the empty discontentment in their lives. The dystopian society government in A Brave New World relies on entertainment and drugs to appease innate emotions and desires in order to better control the people.

“Harrison Bergeron” a short story written by Kurt Vonnegut tells about a society where everyone is equal in intelligence and physical attributes. No one is more graceful or more beautiful. The government mandates that the intelligent and strong wear physical restrainers. The characters in “Harrison Bergeron” are fed constant, meaningless television. The television set in the short story played the role of spreading the idea of equality to the people. When families gathered around to watch TV and realized that everyone of TV was as equal in intelligence and physical features as themselves, it propagandized the idea of forced equality and controlled the people. 

In Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury, books were banned and burned off by firefighters. In each of the homes, a television screen listens and watches to every sound and movement, monitoring the habitant. The television screens are mounted on each wall and take up the entire area. The sounds coming out from the screen are immensely loud and occupy most of housewives’ time. By taking up all the time, people no longer had the desire to think deeper or more meaningful topics than to discuss what was on TV the other night. The entertainment the screen provides and the ban on books are means of pacifying the people from any forms of thought.

Entertainment as pacification is a recurrent motif in dystopian fiction. Overdose of entertainment envelopes the people in the novels, making them oblivious to the actual circumstances they live in. With large use of entertainment, the government is placed in a positive, almost utopian light. The role of entertainment in dystopian novels is becoming increasingly accurate to our society, almost eerily so.