Bobby and Jeff focus on the 1980s dystopian films and ask what we can learn from the moment in cinema history.
Why in the heart of the Reagan era did so many blockbuster films not only entertain the masses with harrowing tales of a miserable future, but also provoke them to question the legitimacy of their own civilization?
At the core of Anglo-Saxon concepts of progress lies the Scientific Revolution. But the Scientific Revolution depended on a deep faith in human beings’ ability to record, observe, predict, project, and plan.
The greatest dystopian films of the 80s all involved plots that threw out such faith. From the gasoline-starved wasteland of the Road Warrior to the robotic hellscape of Blade Runner, Terminator, and Robocop, this genre challenged audiences to confront the possibility that Western civilization can’t foresee the consequences of its technological choices.
Not only do the films cast doubt upon the likely survival of Anglo-Saxon civilization; they also undermine that civilization’s claim to rationality and order, opening viewers to the possibility that the West is not a true civilization at all.
