by Brandon Engel
One of the great things
about speculative fiction is that it reflects something pertinent about present
day paranoias. It opens up room for a lot of “what if’s.” What if, in 20 years,
abject poverty has demoralized the general public to such an extent that we
watch televised game shows where people fight to the death? Under his pseudonym
“Richard Bachman,” Stephen King toyed with this in The Running Man (which could maybe even be thought of as the
precursor to the Suzanne Collins Hunger Games books). Or what if there
were a strain of weaponized virus so powerful, amplified beyond the scope of
what immunizations can fortify the human body against that, if released either
by accident or through biowarfare, could take out most of the human race? This
was, of course, the basis for King’s The Stand.
There will always be
evangelicals and paranoiacs (if there’s a distinction to be made) who will take
to the streets to decry that the “End is Nigh.” What’s really screwed up, though,
is that they could be right. What if the misapplication of technology, or the
squandering of natural resources, does effectively bring about “the end of the
world.” That’s the sort of cynical musing which precipitates dystopian
function.
But what’s even more
distressing than the notion of the world ending, is the notion of the world, in
the shittiest imaginable state, going on for too long. What bothers you more?
The idea of a plague wiping humanity of existence, or the thought that you, and
all of your children, and all of their children, would be forced to live under
complete totalitarian control, in a world with sparse resources, forced to eat
some mysterious green compound that’s handed out in rations?
It all calls to mind any
vintage science fiction film where Charlton Heston flips out. Like when he finds out that the Planet of the Apes had actually been Earth the entire time. Or when he finds out the truth about Soylent Green. Thankfully for us, it will probably be a while
before humanity is (literally) enslaved by blood-thirsty primates — unless of
course Ann Coulter makes it into the GOP primaries, then all bets are off. But
if we’re talking about the degree to which “real world” political crises echo
our favorite genre pulp tropes, and you take a minute to think about Soylent Green, and all of the “bad press” that
Monsanto has been getting in recent years...it sort of makes you wonder.
Soylent Green was a film adaptation of the novel Make Room!
Make Room!, written by one of King’s predecessors, pulp novelist and former EC comics illustrator Harry Harrison. The book, penned in 1966,
offers a glimpse of a bleak future (“the year 1999”) and the world is
(surprise!) fraught with problems. Pollution has destroyed commercial
agriculture, and over-population has become a major issue in the major cities
(especially in New York City, which is home to 35 million).
In the film, the story
takes place in the year 2022, but it’s still the same basic setup. The only
available food comes from the rations dispersed by the government subsidized
Soylent corporation. Soylent Green is their latest product, and is said to
consist mainly of plankton. Heston stars as NYPD detective Frank Thorn, who is
put on the case of investigating the death of a local business magnate, who
evidently, knew too much. Spoiler alert: Soylent Green is people.
But clearly, it’s not
all doom and gloom in the world at large today. Even though there are many
issues surrounding agribusiness and the government’s toothlessness when it
comes to regulating agriculture, collective apathy is not quite the issue it
once was, as more and more major companies strive to reduce their carbon
footprint and global consumers become increasingly conscientious about the
environment. In North America, Canadians can find superb alternative energy
through the Alberta Energy website, while companies like Sharp Solar gain traction in the Japanese
markets (impressive, as Japan
is one of the biggest polluters in the world) and solar and wind-turbine power
generators are becoming fashionable in cities with climates that allow for such
things.
But, just as these books
and films always reflect something about the mania of their own time, you can’t
help but wonder to what degree dystopian future forecasts might prevent certain
issues from happening. If droves of filmgoers hadn’t seen Heston bellowing at
the end of Soylent Green in 1973, what sort of mysterious compound food ration
might we be eagerly standing in line for right now? Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad
though. I mean, you put enough ketchup on anything…
Brandon Engel is a blogger with who writes about a variety of topics -
everything from vintage exploitation films to energy legislation. Brandon has a
penchant for horror literature, and his favorite authors within the genre
include: H.P. Lovecraft, Edgar Allan Poe, Clive Barker, and, of course, Stephen
King. Follow him on Twitter: @BrandonEngel2
By the way. . . the end is nigh.
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