Cameron’s The Terminator and Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale as Responses to Neo-conservatism :: Movie Film Essays

From abortion to pornography, the war on drugs to the end of the stone-cold War, the 1980s played host to considerable controversy amidst much(prenominal) policy-making uneasiness, then, it seems that Reagan Era rejuvenated middle-Americas latent conservatism. This return to the traditional Puritan value of the nuclear family also sponsored heightened State intervention and policing of the private sphere, thereby reenforce cultural myths of the dangerous, unknown Other. As such a disquietude of the Other was mixerly perpetuated, it seemed the responsibility of liberal-minded skeptics to note such propaganda as an grand preparation for totalitarianism. Many cultural texts from the period, such as James Camerons 1984 science-fiction film, The Terminator, and Marg bet Atwoods 1986 feminist predictive-text, The Handmaids Tale, utilize this opportunity to illustrate the drastic outcomes of a society founded on such mass ignorance. Following in the tradition of dystopian, or anti-u topian, fiction, two texts use a depiction of a perfect future serviceman in order to isolate, exaggerate and expose certain problematic social trends. While not intended as realistic or arguable predictions, these dystopian texts seek to expose extremist attitudes (such as radical conservatism, religiosity, or technological reliance) as fundamentally threatening to human nature and individualism. Dystopia, then, peck be understood as a locale for the constant baulk of human freedom, maintained by a regimens tyrannical control of engine room, gender and ideology.What makes this fictional society so fascinating, however, is its cunning switching from utopia to dystopia, or from Heaven to Hell each of these corrupt worlds is originally presented as a safer, more stable and efficient alternative to contemporary society. Atwoods tale, for example, presents a portrait of a society, Gilead, which is superficially ideal it is free of (visible) violence, abhorrence or suffering. Y et this apparent perfection comes with sacrifice, for all aspects of the population are controlled social class and intellectual ability are all cautiously regulated, with stability maintained at all costs. Similarly, Camerons Terminator presents members of modern (circa 1984) Los Angeles in a beneficial symbiotic relationship with machinery as technology amends daily life for humans, so too do humans improve technology. Yet this techno-friendly society based on social alliance is tire once the machines begin to overpower and out-wit humans here the oppressive regime that threatens humanity is technology itself.In both texts it seems clear that both technological advancement and control are imperative to the succession of an autocratic state. And as the audience is always kept keenly aware of the dangers that homogeneity poses to the feature of life, these dystopian texts question whether technology necessitates a sacrifice of human individuality.