Dystopia

We explain what a dystopia is in fiction, with various examples from cinema and literature. Also, what is the relationship between utopia and dystopia.

What is a dystopia?

When we talk about dystopia (or also anti-utopias or cacotopias) we are referring to a fictional view of human society in which, simply put, things go very wrong. It is a term commonly used in cinema, literature and philosophy, made up of Greek voices dys- (“bad” or “difficult”) and moles (“place”). It is used as an antonym for utopia and was used for the first time in 1868 by the British philosopher John Stuart Mill.

Dystopias offer bleak, unattractive panoramas in which human beings have ruined their existence or are unable to stabilize society enough to lead a peaceful life. In general, they are terrible portraits of a future society, in which people are dehumanized and an undesirable situation is experienced, whether it is a perfect dictatorship, an endless war or a post-apocalyptic world.

In the last decades of the 20th century and the first of the 21st, the dystopian story became a genre in itself, cultivated extensively in the literary and audiovisual narrative arts.

In general, dystopias describe very well the way of thinking of the time and the society in which they were written, since embody the prevailing social and political fears. In some cases, these fears have to do with politics, in others with technology, ecological disaster and other similar cases.

This means that a dystopia can present a society completely detached from the current one, or project the current society but with specific and terrible changes. For this reason, dystopia It is often considered a genre of science fiction narrative.

Examples of dystopias

Examples in literature:

1. 1984 by George Orwell. In this novel by the British author, published in 1949, a future England is governed by the “Engsoc” (of English Socialism), a regime of continuous surveillance and political and social repression, governed by “Big Brother.” This novel inspires the term “orwellian”, which is used to call this type of totalitarian and crushing systems.
2. A happy world by Aldous Huxley. It is the most famous novel by this British author, published in 1932, which describes a future world in which technology has ended up controlling every aspect of human life. In this new world, reproduction is done in synthetic wombs, and human society is strongly stratified into immovable groups (alphas, betas, gammas) that are kept in control with the effect of hypnopedia and a drug called “soma”, that induces a state of happiness and tranquility. The protagonist, a “savage” born in the outside world, will arrive in this society.
3. Space merchants by Frederick Pohl and Cyril M. Kornbluth. Published in 1953, this science fiction novel presents a futuristic world that constitutes a kind of satire of current capitalism. In this possible world, companies have devoured political power and their CEOs exercise control in the manner of the feudal lords of yesteryear. The hope for change lies in an anti-consumerist terrorist group.
4. The submerged world by J.G. Ballard. Written in 1962, this novel is today considered a precursor to the “climate fiction” genre, that is, dystopias that warn about the impact of industrialization on the atmosphere. It is set in a future world in which the planet's polar caps have melted and the sea has devoured everything. In this context, a group of scientists seeks access to ancient human cities.
5. The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood. The most famous work of this Canadian novelist, brought to television at the beginning of the 21st century, is a key work for understanding gender dystopias. In this fictional world, humanity's pregnancy rates plummet, due to pollution, and a nation emerges in the heart of a new American civil war: the republic of Gilead, with ultra-conservative Christian values. There, the few remaining fertile women are forced to copulate and become pregnant to reproduce the ruling elite in a kind of “public service” known as “the maids.”

Examples in cinema:

1. Metropolis by Fritz Lang. This is a legendary film, both in world cinema and in German expressionism, which appeared in 1927. It tells the story of a great megalopolis (called Metropolis) of the 21st century, in which workers live in underground ghettos and are prohibited from the outside world, until they are incited by a human-like robot to revolt and start the revolution.
2. Soylent Green by Richard Fleischer. This 1973 film is a classic American B movie, and is based on the novel Make room! Make room! written by Harry Harrison in 1966. In this case, human society lives in the 21st century in conditions of overcrowding, pollution and global warming, and hunger is rife. The solution is a type of edible product produced by the company Soylent, from the remains of people who, at a certain age, are compulsorily led to medical euthanasia.
3. Brazil by Terry Gilliam. This 1985 British science fiction film is largely inspired by the novel 1984to create their own dystopian world controlled by a ruthless, inefficient and oppressive bureaucratic machine, which keeps people in line thanks to the threats of a terrorist faction. An insignificant error in the system will lead the protagonist, Sam Lowry, to become a threat to the system.
4. The Matrix of the Wachowski sisters. This 2001 film is considered by many to be a high point in the science fiction genre. cyberpunkcharacterized by its gloomy panoramas in which body and technology end up merging into one thing. The story tells of the awakening of Mr. Anderson, a programmer by day and hacker by night, which occurs when he discovers that the world he knows is an illusion created by machines to keep humanity asleep, while they extract the necessary electricity from our bodies. to survive in a world ruined by war between humans and their robotic creations.
5. The road by John Hillcoat. Inspired by the novel of the same name by the American Cormac McCarthy, this 2009 film narrates a post-apocalyptic world converted into a winter wasteland, in which a father and his son seek to survive the dangers of hunger, cold and the ambition of the other survivors, many of whom have become cannibalistic murderers.

Dystopia and utopia

The term dystopia is proposed as an antonym of utopia, that is, as the opposite of an ideal and perfect society, although in reality the opposite of utopia would be reality. While Utopia offers an encouraging outlook or a benevolent future, that is, the best possible scenario dystopia presents the worst possible scenario.

Broadly speaking, utopia is considered optimistic and dystopia is considered pessimistic. The etymology of both words is similar, since utopia comes from Greek eu-“good”, and moles“place”.

References

• “Dystopia” on Wikipedia.
• “Dystopia” in the Language Dictionary of the Royal Spanish Academy.
• “Dystopia” in New World Encyclopedia.
• “Utopias and dystopias” in The Encyclopaedia Britannica.