So I’ve noticed that in an attempt to make a social commentary, a lot of dystopian sci-fi creates their future society based on some “rule”. The rule can seem arbitrary or contrived, but usually has the result of creating brutal class distinctions. Some examples through the ages:
Logan’s Run (1976) - Everyone gets euthanized upon turning 30. Probably some commentary on hedonism or youth culture.
In Time (2011) - No currency besides each person’s “life clock”. Income inequality.
The Hunger Games (2012) - Every year we have a battle royale to the death. Perhaps some commentary about Federalism plus some YA angst stuff.
Snowpiercer (2014) - Back of the train, losers. Income inequality and social classes.
The Lobster (2015) - Either “couple up” or get turned into an animal of your choosing. Um…yeah.
The Platform (2019) - Top floors eat first. Income inequality and trickle down economics.
The main distinction with these films is that the plot isn’t being directly driven by some actual event or natural phenomenon. Like an alien invasion or economic collapse or anything. It usually seems to be just some sort of weird rule that is just accepted as “the way things are done”.
The first thing that came to mind was Equilibrium (2002), in which a post WW3 City state bans emotion and artistic expression (via chemicals and violent purges) which is currently being used as an excuse to maintain the existing power structure. Although there may be a stretched point to be made there, and other than a very few (or one) at the top of the structure they all comply, not just the ‘lower class’.
I do disagree with your point here though -
Most of the movies (or the books they are based on) are based on in-world events or phenomenon. Logan’s Run (novel) mentions the issue grew out of ‘the Little War’ after youth movements gained stress, or Snowpiercer where the world has been devastated due to a human-created new Ice Age.
No, I don’t think the results would have come from the sources mentioned, but they do have a fig-leaf of reason for the specific rule. Same as the ‘emotion causes war’ of Equilibrium.
There’s one terrible YA series where apparently the Second American Civil War starts over abortion rights, and so as a compromise when theres a ceasefire is abortion is illegal except after birth until they’re 18 their parents can legally kill them and harvest their organs to sell.
In the novel Logan’s Run, the euthanasia was for population control. The world was full of rutting teenagers who couldn’t be bothered with contraception. And robots did all of the menial labor, so said teenagers had too much time on their hands. In the movie, it was a bit more organized: at Carousel, X people die, and over at the Nursery, the artificial womb cranks out X babies.
In the book The Giver (no idea about the movie), society is based on everyone being the same, which apparently also involves everyone being literally colorblind and tonedeaf, all sexuality being suppressed, and (I don’t think the author thought this part through) a controlled reproduction rate far below replacement levels. It’s beautifully written, but the worldbuilding leaves something to be desired.
Battle Royale (2000) is somewhat like this. Teens shanghai-d and forced to kill each other off until only one is left alive. There’s some YA angst in there, but the hook was more “adults need to get societal control back from the disrespectful teens ruining polite society.”
Similarly in Wool, the reproductive rate is lower than replacement level (there is a little bit of wiggle room there (I can think of two ways to justify the replacement rate issue, but there’s no textual indication that either is the case)).
The dystopia of the Hunger Games is about a lot more than the annual battle royale. The society is a extremely hierarchical plan economy with artificial scarcity of varying levels imposed on the districts outside the Capitol. The Hunger Games are an annual reminder of the Capitol District’s power and the risks of attempting to change the system, they are not what causes the class distinctions.
Yep, forgot about that one. Read the book and saw the film. Although that was less of a formal “rule” as it was just how the existing class structures played out. Suppose the same could be said for Snowpiercer.
In Jasper Fforde’s novel Shades of Grey, set in a dystopian future version of Great Britain, most people are only able to see one or two colors; thus, social class is based entirely on which color one can see. “Ultra-Violets” are the highest social rank, while “Reds” are the second-lowest, above only the “Greys,” who are completely color-blind.
And “Flatland” has a rigid social structure based on how many sides the (male) person has - A. Square is middle class, not like those low class triangles (especially the non-equilateral ones)
I recall a couple coworkers discussing the TV series Harrison Bergeron, which was based on an old SciFi short story by Kurt Vonnegut. This was set in a dystopian USA where Constitutional Ammendments had finally achieved the “All Men are created equal” ideal and forced everyone to display their talents at lowest-common-denominator levels. The short story depicts TV newscasters stuttering and misreading instead of being eloquent; fat ugly ballet performers stumbling and faltering rather than moving fluidly and looking beautiful.
It seemed like a straw man argument, to me: The author was depicting the dystopian enforcement of equality as requiring artistic (and, by extension, mental and physical and athletic and culinary, and…) achievement and performance to be restricted to pathetic levels in order to protect the fragile egos of people with disabilities and make people of average ability feel good. I could see why my right-wing colleagues bought into the charicature; they hate the idea of a non-heirarchical society and if everything must be equal, then everyone loses out on the excellence that great artists achieve and provide to audiences.
But, aside from the fact that “All men are created equal” was in the Declaration of Independence and not in the U.S. Constitution, the point was that the British government was treating the colonists like crap and those colonists wanted to be treated as equals – and if the Crown and Parliament weren’t going to do that then the colonists wanted to break away and run their own affairs. Equality in this context is about political, social, legal, and economic treatment (e.g. Don’t arrest me for Driving While Black; don’t give the rich guys a slap on the wrist for murder while sending the poor girl to the guillotine for shoplifting), not about displays of skill or talent.
The entire dystopic state of the Dune universe - the all-encompassing reliance on spice, the resulting importance of Arrakis to the galactic economy, the monopoly of the Spacing Guild, and the consolidation of power in noble houses and the Bene Gesserit - all pretty much results from the consequences of the commandment that “Thou shalt not make a machine in the likeness of a human mind”.
“The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas” is probably the ultimate example, except, in my reading at least, it’s clearly meta-fiction: the reader’s readiness to accept a random, contrived rule that turns the society into a dystopia (and to think that this somehow makes the society more “believable” than a straight-up utopia would be, and start happily hunting for real-world parallels!) is what the story is about.