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Pick up that can. (Half Life 2) |
A camera zooms in on a teen with a can
of spray paint. The poster, now a caricature of its former icon, is
something the state cannot abide. A van rolls up, boots hit the
pavement, and a can of spray paint rolls into the gutter. Before the
sun rises, the mural is replaced, and all is as it should be.
The police state is an oft used trope
in media and games. The conflict almost always exists as rebels
fighting a large ominous entity that seems to have no conscience.
Sometimes, it isn't a government, but a conglomerate or massive
corporation that has bought control of a region. Other times, it is
the slow seizure of rights that leads to a totalitarian takeover.
Though the trope itself is defined in
the name, lets take a look at why it is effective. In America, we
often look toward anything that limits freedom as being totalitarian
and evil (even if we vote otherwise). In the police state, people
become bound and confined to a life of servitude to a government or
entity whose goal is only protecting itself.
Surviving the police state becomes a
personal battle between the self and the whole. Many people, as
history can attest to, do what is necessary to protect themselves,
even if the acts are atrocious. When a certain threshold of tyranny
is passed, resistance is birthed. In this resistance, we build the
conflict for the story.
Movies like V for Vendetta or
Equilibrium aren't exactly subtle in this. They have a clear and evil
antagonist, who has many levels of cronies. There is a clear
progression to the top, and the people can be set free when the power
structure itself is decimated.
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A scene from 2081, based on Vonnegut's short, Harrison Bergeron |
Perhaps my favorite example of the
police state comes form a Vonnegut short story called Harrison
Bergeron. In the story, we are shown a world of “equality” where
the strong are bound, the intelligent are made unable to think, and
the handicapper's are free to roam without limitation. Even beauty is
snuffed out with masks and so on. When Harrison, a mountainous man by
any standard, breaks free of his bonds during a televised ballet
performance, he, and a willing woman show the world what freedom and
beauty looks like. They defy the state, and dance as free people.
Then, they are promptly gunned down. By the end of the broadcast,
people of intelligence are blasted with loud noises to make them
forget what they have seen, and the cycle continues, forgotten in a
few fleeting moments. (Check out the movie 2081, it is a masterpiece,
and truly haunting).
The police state is a staple of
fiction, and as our own government makes choices that look starkly
totalitarian, expect the genre to become even more saturated. I'm
personally a huge fan of the genre, so hit up the comments if you
have any suggestions on books, movies, games, etc that cover this
topic.
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