I’m looking for a story I barely remember where every person in society is restrained with devices to make them become average. Beautiful people are forced to wear ugly clothes etc. The end of the story involves two dancers who cast off all their shackles on live TV.
Any suggestions?
Harrison Bergeron
Thanks!
De nada!
I love that story!
Of all the great short stories I read as a kid, this one stands out as one of the very best…
It’s been film-adapted at least once, and I seem to recall they kinda missed the point.
True. In a few short pages, Kurt Vonnegut far more effectively conveyed his message about forced mediocrity than Ayn Rand did in several rambling novels. Vonnegut was also a lot funnier than Rand.
Diana Moon Glompers, Handicapper General, has to be one of the best characters Vonnegut ever created. Especially since her physical description was eerily close to that of Janet Reno.
It was also a segment in the TV movie Between Time and Timbuktu which was also turned into a picture-novel (which I have).
In what way? I liked the film. I saw it before I realised there even was a short story.
I was thinking that too. It was a short story so they fleshed it out quite a bit. They also changed the main character. In the story not only was he very smart, he was also strong and tall and handsome. In the movie he was Sean Astin. For some reason they concentrated on his intelligence.
Vonnegut was writing satire. Rand was…lecturing. I’d have much rather had a drink with Vonnegut than Rand.
Stranger
I just read the story from IvoryTowerDenizen’s link. It contains no physical description of Diana Moon Glampers. I think you’re only signaling what you think of Janet Reno ;).
“It was then that Diana Moon Glampers, the Handicapper General, came into the studio with a double-barreled ten-gauge shotgun. She fired twice, and the Emperor and Empress were dead before they hit the floor.” I always imagined Glampers being played by Linda Hunt, but I can see Janet Reno here, too.
Stranger
You take that back! Ayn Rand was a comic genius! Hard to believe that some people miss the humor of such a hilarious, over-the-top satire of egotism and selfishness. I would have thought the comic persona she adopted to “sell” the satire would have been obvious enough. It’s like thinking Andy Kaufman was a serious wrestler.
There was a film like this made in the 1990s, a tv movie I think. Someone like Brendan Fraser was in it too. Was it a remake or something else?
There is another remake coming out called 2081. From the write up it looks like it will be a short.
They made a whole film out of that? It’s good, but it seems more like a satirical sketch than an actual story.
If only. If only. :rolleyes:
I think you are talking about the same one we were upthread. It was made for cable channel Showtime in 1995 and starred Sean Astin.
