There are a couple themes that I noticed throughout these readings, podcasts, and videos. For one, they all in some way shape or form had to do with a bigger aspect of a controlling government or authority - something that many people fear will happen to our society we live in today. And this is not a new fear. There are traces of many books and movies in the past that have been relevant to the whole dystopian society concept. The web-image that displayed all the literature is a prime example that people have had this in their mind, and even feared it. Many of the books on the list were classics: 1984, Brave New World, Fahrenheit 451, and V for Vendetta. These books are still read in today's literature classes in high school. Now kids are reading them for fun. The Hunger Games and The Divergent Series are some of the newest fads in Young Adult Literature today. Why is this? Is it because we are fascinated by this type of lifestyle (not living it just reading about it)? Or is it because we feel that it is so far fetched that maybe our society really isn't that far off from it?
These questions go hand in hand with our obsession with zombies. The Walking Dead is one of the most popular zombie productions ever made. Maybe we like them (just like the books) because they scare us a little bit - it is out of the norm to think this way. People are always trying to break out of their everyday lives - we need that escape. What I found interesting was the fact that the narrator in the PBS short film " Why Do We Love Zombies?" was that he brought up the fact that maybe the reason people like zombies is because we like to associate them with scary things in today's world. Like technology. Now whether or not that is true the deeper issue here is that these zombies overtaking society, in a sick way, represents issues such as terrorism, communism, and the economic collapse. Therefore, reverting back to an overruling government.
One thing that I wish people would understand is that even though we read about these controlling governments or things that could potentially symbolize them is the fact that this is a potential problem for us. And we are not in any way shape or form the first people to discover or think this. The proof is in the literature and the films that have been produced in the past. A new idea that I have never heard before was the story of Harrison Bergeron and how he was taken away from his parents because he showed too much potential of being smart and possibly out smarting the system. His poor father can't even get a thought strung together before a sharp noise goes off in his ear every 20 seconds because he was titled "handicap" (which is the exact opposite of our definition of a handicap). What if that is us in "x" amount of years? I fear that soon our newscasts will reflect that of the "Night of Vale". The whole podcast was basically warnings to the public - stay away from the dog park, don't talk to the hooded figures in the dog park, warnings about angel spottings, and even ghost cars on the freeway. I hope that we will not live in a society where all we have to report are warnings. What was interesting was the fact that everyone was skeptical of Carlos the scientist and he was the only one who was trying to solve the problem instead of being fearful 24/7.
We have seen controlling governments throughout history - they usually favor some particular group of people over the others. Hitler, for example, hated Jews. In the Hunger Games, the Capitol favored the rich people and pitied the poor. I think that the short clip from the classic horror film portrays just this. In the very last scene the officials are trying to overcome the zombies and they shoot without hesitation. Meaning that they shot an innocent black man (who was not yet turned into a zombie). I know this was during the time where segregation was still an issue - so does this mean that this was the filmmakers was of showing who needs to be killed off? Are they trying to portray the black man and the zombie as the same kind of "evil"? Just some things to think about and things that popped into my mind while thinking about these units.
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