Image what will a American dystopia looks like?
In the recent past, there has been a proliferation of futuristic works resulting in wholesale transformation of such genre material into serious novels and movies. American bookstores or multiplex are increasingly stocking publication on the new literary novel on the so-called dystopian or apocalyptic themes while Hollywood is releasing at least one dystopian-themed movie every month (Hacksaw, 2012). As a result, more ordinary citizens in the United States are taking their direst
imaginings increasingly to heart than ever before. The popularization of the dystopian images has thus resulted in a new cultural obsession with disaster among the American population similar to imagining in such dystopian movies as Mad (1979), RoboCop (1987), 28 Days Later (2002), District Nine (2009), as Children of Men (2006), and The Purge (2013). The increased obsession with dystopia in the United States has had negative far reaching effects on the landscape and cityscape, the population, the economy as well as the quality of life. This has led to the emergence a distinct American society in the present historical moment typified as a culture and social order which has lost its moral bearings (Hacksaw, 2012). Also, the American society’s increased production of a level of real and symbolic violence whose existence and visibility has set a new standard for mechanizations of a war machines, cruelty and humiliation. All these serve the selfish interests of corporate and political walking dead, which are the new symbols of cruelty and death that screw the social order. The American society has become rooted in savage politics where extreme violence is a spectacle and a modus operandi by which Americans govern and entertain themselves (Hacksaw, 2012). Daily acts of violence and cruelty have become commonplace in the American landscape such as the murder of children and young people at elementary schools, high school and university and mass shootings in such areas as Fort Hood and the Washington Navy Yard.
Reference:
Hacksaw, S. (2012). Dystopia. Indiana: AuthorHouse.
