The
future is a giant mystery to every living person out there.
We never know what to expect and can only attempt to predict as to what
will happen in the years to come. Because
we are not capable of foretelling the future, society has come to fear it.
And this fear tends to change with the societal concerns of the time.
The fear of the future is seen over and over again in many popular movies
and stories because it’s plot acknowledges society’s fear of what is yet to
come in the future (Lucaites 480).
According to Barry Brummett, these narrative plots that address societal
concerns are known as representative anecdotes.
Brummett uses concepts from Kenneth Burke’s writings which “runs the
ideas that types, components, or structures of literature recur
as appropriate responses to recurring types of situations; that there are ways
of speaking about war, victory, civil
unrest, marital problems, ect., which will reliably equip us to live through
those situations” (Lucaites 479). These
are very commonly used in many of today’s popular films and encompass a wide
range of issues, values, and problems. Not
only does the representative anecdote acknowledge problems of the time, but also
it also suggests, through the plot, ways that the problem can be resolved (Lucaites
480). The anecdote is a part of
discourse because it is able to link itself to the hopes and fears of the
audience. It equips the audience to
be able to live in a particular situation and gives them hope of a resolution if
that fear ever becomes reality (Lucaites 482). The following will analyze three
well-known movies, Terminator 2:Judgment
Day, Planet of the Apes, and Waterworld
and connect their plots to the representative anecdote.
The three movies all share the same representative anecdote of a fear of
the future.
A science fiction movie that was released in 1991 was
Terminator 2: Judgment Day, a continuation of the Terminator,
made in 1984. The movie begins with
a peaceful day in Los Angeles, California and then suddenly moves to 2029, where
machines rule over man. On August
29, 1997 there was a nuclear war known as judgment day. The people that survived were left to fight the battle
against the machines. These
machines were stronger and more powerful than the humans, forcing the remaining
people to live underground for protection.
Skynet, the company responsible for the making of these machines, sends a
T-1000 humanoid back to 1991 to kill the leader of the human resistance, John
Connor. The human resistance is
also able to send a humanoid, a T-800, which was programmed by the future John,
back to 1991 to be the protector of the young John.
In an effort to save humankind, the T-800 devotes its existence to saving
John from the deadly and more advanced T-1000.
Meanwhile, John’s mother, Sarah, has been admitted to a mental
institution because no one believes her tales of the terminator and she is
labeled crazy and delusional. When
she learns that the terminator has returned, she breaks out and joins the T-800
and John in order to exterminate the T-1000.
Her prophetic dreams of the end of the world where a nuclear war burns
the world up drives her even harder to stop the evil humanoid.
Cyberdyne Systems Corporation had saved the chip from the terminator that
had visited in 1984 for research and advancement.
Miles Dyson, the chief inventor, uses the leftover computer chip to
research a new revolutionary model. Once
Sarah learns that this chip exists, she convinces Miles to destroy the evidence
so there would be no future of the artificial intelligence.
There is a final battle between the T-800 and the T-1000 and both are
destroyed in a fiery death. The
future has been saved and there is still hope for humankind (Crawley).
The
Terminator 2 movie was made during a time when people feared of
technology becoming so advanced that it was able to develop a mind of it’s
own. Technology is constantly being
improved and bettered and there is the fear that there will be a technological
takeover. “Leaders and scientists
have abrogated human responsibility in their design of artificial life forms
which eliminate human error in military decision making. This brings an unforeseen calamity: the machines, designed to
protect humankind from itself, become super-intelligent and begin to wage war on
their creators” says Ortiz and Roux in an essay called The Terminator Movies: Hi-Tech Holiness and the Human Condition
(Marsh 143).
There
is also a fear of a judgment day, which burns the earth up in fiery flames.
The prophecy of this day can be found in the Old Testament in Malachi,
“‘Surely the day is coming, it will burn like a furnace.
All the arrogant and every evil-doer will be stubble and that day that is
coming will set them on fire, says the Lord God Almighty.
Not a root or a branch will be left to them’ Malachi 4:1-2”(Marsh
141). The director of the film,
James Cameron, uses very explicit imagery that is also used by the ancient
biblical writers and explores issues found in Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel
(Marsh 142).
Several
messages are sent by this particular movie.
The first message is the value of human life.
According to Ortiz and Roux, “The warning to us is that we cannot shirk
our responsibilities as active participants in our future” (Marsh 142). We are so dependent on technology in our everyday lives that
we often do not see the damage it might be able to cause us.
Allen and Asimov explore the law of robotics and the fear that it causes
humanity: “There is scarcely an aspect of our lives that has not been
entrusted to the care of robots. In
entrusting our tasks to them, we surrender our fate to them.
So what are humans for? That
is the question, the real question it all comes down to in the end” (Marsh
145). The only way to perhaps save ourselves is to begin to understand the value
of human life (Marsh 142). Another
message that is sent is that humans are able to make choices that affect the
future. The future is not set and
humankind is still able to save themselves from calamity:
“In
the Terminator movies human society has not yet given itself over completely
into the care and control of its robotic systems; but the question facing Sarah
Connor, Kyle Reese and other characters in the movie is how to avert one
possible future – the future witnessed to by the cyborgs and Reese (from
Terminator 1). The strong
message…is that ‘the future is not set’- humankind can make the choices
required to save humanity” (Marsh 143).
At
one point in the movie, John says to the T-800, “We aren’t going to make it
are we?” as he watches some young children play with guns.
Does society feel that humankind is doomed?
Is there no hope? Through
this movie, it is made evident that people are able to alter the future by the
decisions they make. The only
problem is that only in the movies do people get to see what the future might
be.
A
typical representative anecdote component is offering a solution to the problem
through the plot. Terminator
2: Judgment Day does, in fact, offer a solution to the problem of technology
taking over humankind and gives hope back to Sarah and John for the future.
When the remains of the 1984 terminator was found, Cyberdyne Systems kept
the evidence for research, so the solution was simple: destroy the remains so
that there wouldn’t be any trace that the humanoid ever existed.
This took a bit of persuasion by Sarah Connor, but the plan worked and
the whole scientific center was destroyed, Miles Dyson along with it.
By destroying the old terminator and its researcher, no one would ever
know of its existence and the course of the future was then altered.
Another
component of the representative anecdote is to equip the audience to be able to
live in that particular situation and how to thrive.
This movie gives us a good idea of what we are supposed to do if
humanoids ever take over humankind: build up massive arms and start battle.
Of course this is not very realistic, considering that not everyone has
access to machines guns, ammo, and explosives.
But Sarah did and had already prepared for the future by hiding a large
stash of weapons somewhere in the desert enabling her to fight the machines that
were a threat to the human race. A
question that I ask here is “Are we supposed to kill and use violence to save
the human race?” This is
contradictory. To save a race from
death and destruction, use more death and destruction.
(I don’t agree with the solution and if I ever happened to be in these
circumstances, I would refuse to participate in such horrible acts of violence).
Maybe there is a more nonviolent way that people could deal with this
type of technological takeover. They
could boycott the use of all technology, and take up a more simple way of life.
People would almost have to adopt an Amish like lifestyle to avoid the
use of technology but it might be just the thing that needs to be done to get
the message across. I don’t believe that a technological takeover would happen
in the forms of robots taking over, but maybe by huge corporations trying to
takeover society. With the use of
their money and power, they could pretty much run and monitor society through
the use of technology.
The
movie connects all too well to the representative anecdote of society fearing
the future. We are surrounded by
technology every day and would find it very difficult to survive if we cut
ourselves off from it completely. Technology
controls us. It has a power over us
that many people don’t even recognize. And
because many people are unaware of the danger that it might someday pose on us,
it would be easy for them to get sucked deeper and deeper into the system.
Eventually, humans would not have mind of their own and technology would
have succeeded. That is a fear that
society has.
Planet
of the Apes is another movie that depicts humankind being taken over by
another being in the future. Made
in 1968, Planet of the Apes stars
Charlton Heston as Taylor, a man who decides to leave earth, with four others,
to find a better life out there somewhere in the universe.
It begins with a ship flying through space as the passengers lie down in
their “beds” for what we think is a good night’s sleep.
But they wake up 2000 years later, in the year of 3068 on an unknown
planet. Apparently, the “earth people”, as I will call them, have
been sleeping for 2000 years, and all they have to show for it is about a
one-inch long beard. Of course, the
female dies in the journey (as her body lay decaying in her bed) while the men
act like they just woke up from a pleasant nap.
They exit the ship and realize that there is life on this unknown planet
in the form of plants, which leads them to search for a higher being, because if
simple life is able to thrive, then so must higher forms of intelligence.
During their search, they come across a group of humans frantically
eating corn from the field. The
Earth people are confused as to the humans’ barbaric and primitive state.
Soon, a group of apes come riding in with guns, shooting at the humans to
shoo them away from the apes’ crop of corn (comparable to humans shooing
rabbits out of a garden). Two Earth
people are killed while the other two are badly injured.
Taylor, the leader of the space exhibition, is treated and then caged for
observation. His other injured
companion suffers serious head trauma making him incompetent and unable to
remember any of the events that had gotten him there. Taylor suddenly becomes
the only knowledgeable, competent human being on the planet.
Taylor endures a shot in the throat that renders him unable to talk and
to prove to the apes that he can use language.
He tries numerous attempts to prove to the apes that he can talk by using
sign language and mouth movements, and eventually the ape scientists begin
observing him carefully because of his odd behavior.
The apes discover that he is an intelligent being and label Taylor as a
mutant. Taylor recovers his voice and tells his story to them, but
Apekind doesn’t believe that mankind can or ever has been domesticated.
Meanwhile, ape scientists find an excavation site that proves that man
existed in the form of a higher being, but Apekind is unable to believe that man
could ever have been superior to the apes so the site was destroyed along with
all the evidence. Taylor begins to challenge the ape system and is successfully
set free to find a life of his own on the unknown planet. As he walks along the beach reveling in his freedom, with his
newfound female friend, they are startled with what they find.
It is a giant statue that represents freedom to all to know it.
The Statue of Liberty is covered up to it’s waist in sand and it is
then that Taylor realizes that he had been on Earth all along.
Basically,
what happens in this film is “mankind blew the Earth to bits in the much
lauded WW3…and Apes took over – much to the Earth’s relief.
They did a much better job than us, and aside for the occasional gallop
through the grass, Apekind generally didn’t pay the remaining Mankind much
attention” (Zipworld).
When
the movie was made in 1968, the Antiwar Movement was going on.
Between 1960 and 1973, people were protesting the involvement in the many
wars that were taking place. 1960
to 1963 was a time of quiet antiwar protests, but the death of President Kennedy
in 1963 led to more demonstrations and the Vietnam War spurred even more
protests. The Civil Rights Movement
was also in full swing, causing Congress to pass the Civil Rights Act in 1964.
The Antiwar Movement was still in its infancy stage and no one expected
that a small number of protestors would be able to lead the rest of the nation
in a rally against war. Troops were
sent to Vietnam between 1964 and 1967 under the command of President Johnson.
This prompts protests on many college campuses “as many began to wonder
why they United States is involved in this war” (Thinkquest).
Soon Nixon took over the administration and refused to back down in the
war in Vietnam because he couldn’t let the United States be humiliated by a
defeat. The Antiwar Movement
suddenly came to a peak when protestors refused to accept the US’s involvement
in the war and due to heavy pressure from the movement, the American troops were
soon withdrawn from Vietnam. “In a sense, the war in Vietnam could be described as a two
front war – a war in Vietnam with war being waged with tanks, guns and bullets
– and a ‘war at home’, fought on the streets and campuses throughout the
nation” (Thinkquest). Americans
just couldn’t understand why the United States was trying to solve a conflict
that was happening halfway across the world (Thinkquest).
The
correlation between Planet of the Apes and the Antiwar Movement is a
representative anecdote of a deadly world war destroying the Earth.
People were so fearful that there would be another world war that this
time, humankind would not survive it. The
Antiwar Movement’s goal was to stop the world from being blown up in a greatly
feared third world war. Life during this time period was bleak because of all
the war and violence that seemed never to stop.
Would the world ever be at peace? First
World War 1, then World War 2, then the Korean War and now the Vietnam War.
To many people, it didn’t seem like the fighting would ever stop and
they feared disaster if the didn’t end soon.
In the movie, Taylor explains to the apes that he left the Earth in hopes
of finding something better out there. He
wanted to discover something better than man in the universe, because man was a
very destructive creature. How
could man be a marvel of the universe if they wage war on their own brothers? Man kills for lust, sport or greed and is deemed evil
according to the Apes’ scroll of scripture.
Love is what drove Taylor and the others to leave.
They were hoping to find human love on their journey because there was no
love to be found in their life on Earth. Taylor
wanted to find a new world, where love could exist.
“Make love, not war” was a popular saying during the Antiwar Movement
because that is what the people wanted. They
wanted to be able to live a life where there was peace, love and happiness, not
war and violence that continues for years and years on end, with no hope in
sight.
Another
thing that was happening when this movie was made in 1968 was the Cold War and
the issue of nuclear weapons. People
were in fear that a nuclear weapon would blow the earth up in the deadly Cold
War. In the end of the movie,
Taylor realizes that he has been on earth all along.
When he finds out he says, “Oh my God, I’m back.
I’m home. All the time!
They finally really did it. You
maniacs! You blew it up! Damn you! God, damn you all to hell.”
He had left a society where there was a huge possibility of being blown
up in a nuclear war and Taylor can’t believe that humankind really engaged in
a nuclear war and blew up the earth. Once
humans lost their chance of ruling the earth in a nuclear war, the apes took
over which is why Taylor can’t believe that he has been on earth the whole
time. The movie plot represents the
fear that people had during the time of the Cold War.
An
interesting phenomenon that is seen in the movie is that humans are treated like
animals. Humans have become the
hunted, and the apes are the hunters. And
since humans have been treated like animals, they have become like animals, not
being able to talk or think for themselves. The
humans are referred to as beasts and are hunted for recreation.
During the raid on the cornfield, the apes capture as many humans as
possible. When they arrive back to
the village, pictures are taken with the large pile of dead humans while the
ape, grinning from ear to ear, holds one of them by the ankles (comparable to
the sport of fishing). Humans are also compared to chimpanzees.
A phrase that is used when Taylor tries to mimic the apes to prove to
them that he is intelligent is “Human see, human do”.
Maybe chimpanzees have more intelligence than we think and they are
mocking us. Alright, probably not, but that perspective sheds a new light
on the situation. Apes also want to
try to see if humans can ever be domesticated and tamed. They are thrown in cages and punished if they do anything
wrong. There is a scene in the movie where Taylor is put on trial in front of
three ape court officials. The
three court officials sat in the front, at the bench, one with his hands over
his eyes, one with his hands over his ears and the other with his hands over his
mouth (see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil).
If humans are the ones who are being made fun of in this movie, then why
is this scene in here? Perhaps a
little humor from the director?
The
movie plays on the American frontierism aspect. People ventured out and wanted
to find new territories to colonize and wanted to begin over.
They wanted to be separated from the current society because they felt
that it was an inadequate way to live. Taylor,
who is supposed to be a lone hero, leaves to find that new place to conquer and
explore. He wants to be able to set
up a new civilization, but he fails because he eventually finds out that he was
still in the same place, the place that he wanted to leave.
He was unable to find new territory, and failed in trying to develop a
new society because he was in a place where humankind had already had their
chance. Taylor’s only chance now
was to try to set up human civilization again on the already inhabited planet.
The only way Taylor can separate himself from this new civilization that
he found it to take his partner and start over somewhere in nature.
So
what is the solution that the movie offers us?
Are we supposed to leave the planet and develop our own society?
I don’t think that is the solution being proposed here, but I do think
that we are to become more aware of the world around us.
To avoid the reality of blowing ourselves up in a third world war, we
should advocate peace and nonviolence. The
possibility of apes someday taking over the planet is slim to none, but the
movie is trying to scare us into awareness that humans aren’t taking care of
the Earth and are in danger of losing it. Is
the solution plausible? Probably
not in the sense of worldwide peace, but it could happen in the sense that
individuals take a personal stance on peace and nonviolence.
Another
solution being offered in the movie is to, once again, separate ourselves from
the current society. Taylor had to
leave in order to find peace. Maybe
that is what people should do when this fear arises.
Of course, they will not be able to set up colonies on new planets, but
maybe they could take up an Amish like lifestyle.
By separating themselves from a society that uses war and adopting a
lifestyle that chooses peace, they would be able to leave the society that would
be responsible for a third world war. There
would not be any paying of taxes to the governments to fund the research and
building of such projects. All
responsibility for participation in a tragedy of that sort would be eliminated
by separating one’s self from society.
As
far as equipping the audience for living in that particular situation, the
answer is not so clear. So what do
we do if we are suddenly captured by apes and treated like animals?
According to the movie, we challenge the ape system.
We would have to prove to the apes that humans are in fact intelligent
beings and did once rule the planet. I
don’t know about you, but this is not something that greatly concerns me.
The thought of being thrust into a whole other society in a different
time is very unlikely and I chuckle at the very thought of apes ever ruling over
man.
Although
this is a very unrealistic movie plot, it fits into the representative anecdote
of a fear of the future. Humans are
doing such a bad job of taking care of the planet that something as outlandish
as apes taking over the Earth might happen.
Well, not in the literal sense, but it does show that something drastic
could happen if we don’t start promoting peace and start working to get along
as brothers and sisters in this world. We
fear the future because we know that what we are doing now is wrong, that is
something that needs to be changed.
The
final movie depicting a representative anecdote of future fear is Waterworld.
Due to the melting of the polar ice caps, people are forced to live on
floating cities in a world covered completely by water.
They are haunted by a band of pirates called Smokers that roam the
waterworld. The Mariner, a lone and independent drifter, played by Kevin
Costner, enters a floating city in hopes of obtaining supplies.
But once the people of the city learn that the Mariner is a mutant (he
has webbed feet and gills), they try to kill him.
A woman named Helen (Jeanne Tripplehorn) offer to help him escape in
return for a ride out of the city for her and a young girl named Enola (Tina
Majorino). He agrees and the three
set out into the spacious waterworld. Enola
is a very valuable possession because she has a mysterious tattoo of a map to
dry land on her back and the Smokers will stop at nothing to get to her.
Once they learn that the Mariner has her, they attack his vessel and are
able to obtain the little girl. The
Mariner is determined to get Enola back and follows her to the Exxon Valdez, the
home of the Smokers. He is able to
single handedly destroy and sink the ship while retrieving the little girl.
He joins Helen and her companions and together they are able to read the
tattooed map and find dry land. The
new land is a paradise, untouched by humans, but the Mariner must leave because
he was made for the water. Nevertheless,
the people have been given a second chance and a new beginning (Movieweb).
The
human’s only hope in Waterworld is
to find dry land. They believe that
is exists somewhere out there and desperately search for it.
Due to their physical state, they know that they were not meant to live
in a world covered by water, because they have hands and feet for walking on
land. They only know one fact; the
ancients did something terrible to cause the flooding of the earth.
To them, dirt is as valuable as gold is to us today.
Pure water is called hydro, and even though it is a necessity of life, it
is hard to obtain. Living a life
floating on water is unimaginable.
“Incorporating
thrilling action sequences, revolutionary production design and dynamic visual
effects, Waterworld will take
audiences into a world they have never seen before-an exotic place where
humanity’s greatest hopes and darkest nightmares become reality” (Movieweb).
And that is exactly what Waterworld
does. The melting of the polar ice
caps due to global warming was a large issue during the time this movie was made
in 1995. Society was greatly
concerned with the usage of fossil fuel and how it affected the Earth’s
atmosphere. Humankind is using
fossil fuels so fast that within a hundred years, they will be depleted.
Not only that, but also these fossil fuels emit a greenhouse gas that
causes massive air pollution. This
gas then raises the climate, melts the polar ice caps and floods the earth.
People were in great fear that this could happen one day (Movieweb).
A
biblical connection can be made with this movie.
Right before the people find dry land, a white bird lands on the flying
vessel and leads them to the untouched paradise.
This is analogous to Noah’s Ark, where the dove brings back the olive
branch to prove that there was dry land. Also,
Enola holds the image of a savior. The
tattoo of the map to dry land on her back was hope for everyone, like Jesus was
hope to everyone who knew him. She
was responsible for leading them to the new paradise, like Jesus leads us to the
paradise of Heaven. It is almost
like Enola is sent from above to lead the good people to dry land.
Waterworld’s
solution is a rather complex one. There
is no mention throughout the movie of the melting of the polar ice caps, but it
is rather easy to figure out what message is being sent across.
The solution that I got out of it is that humankind needs to work on the
global warming problem. How are we
to do this? One way is to find
alternate sources of energy. According
to Martin Hoffert, professor at New York University, this is an absolute must,
“If humankind is going to have a future on this planet, at least a
high-technology future, with a significant population of several billions of
humans continuing to inhabit the Earth, it is absolutely inevitable that we’ll
have to find another energy source” (PBS Online).
This solution is not easily done and takes many years of research. The only other solution that I could find is that we should
all simply be aware of the global warming issue and try to support its research
and development.
After
watching Waterworld, I did not feel at all equipped to be able to live in that
situation. Are we to become as
ruthless as the people in the floating cities?
Ready to steal, lie and deceive in order to survive?
Is the depiction in the movie realistic?
I find it hard to believe that if the earth were flooded, anyone would
even survive, so trying to equip the audience for a situation where no one would
survive anyway would be a tricky task.
Unlike
the other two movies analyzed, this is a fear that is most realistic. I’m not saying that this will happen, but simply that there
is a better chance of water flooding the Earth than there is robots or apes
taking over humankind. The
representative anecdote of future fear is very strong in Waterworld
because people are very fearful of this happening. The environment is a big issue during these times and people
are becoming aware of what can be done to save the planet.
I’m
sure that there are many more movies that use the representative anecdote of
future fear in their plots. But
through the three that were chosen, it is obvious that this has been a fear that
society has held throughout time. There
are movies that use the diseases to wipe out an entire nation, asteroids
barreling towards the earth, or natural disasters that destroy anything in its
path. There have been so many
things that have happened throughout history that causes people to worry about
their futures and their lives. People
will always fear the future because it is not something that they are able to
know or see. They are not able to
see the consequences of their actions and are not able to foresee that pollution
will deplete the ozone, or that the development of technology will overcome
their lives. The job of the media
is to then create possible consequences so audiences will be able to judge for
themselves what needs to be done. “Because
the audience expects the world to be
mediated to them dramatically, and because the media do so by calling up
standard, recurrent, culturally ingrained types
of dramas, the anecdotal form of the media fits well with Burke’s notion of
form as the arousing and satisfying of expectations” (Lucaites 483).
Brummett says that the media uses dramatic forms to display these
representative anecdotes to satisfy the audiences need to get a glimpse of what
the future could possibly hold (Lucaites 483).
The media has had to adjust to the needs of the audience because the
fears are constantly changing. But
the societal fears of the time always seem to pass, people learn that the world
won’t end and life goes on.
Works
Cited
Crawley,
Mark. Movieprop.com’s
Terminator Pages. 21 Nov.
2000 www.movieprop.com/tvandmovie/terminator/story.htm.
Lucaites,
John Louis. Contemporary
Rhetorical Theory: A Reader. New
York: The Guilford Press, 1999.
Marsh,
Clive, ed. Explorations in
Theology and Film. Oxford:
Blackwell Publishers, 1997.
Movieweb. Movieweb: Waterworld.
21 Nov. 2000 http://movieweb.com/movie/waterworld/.
PBS
Online. Beyond Fossil Fuels.
25 Nov. 2000 http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/warming/beyond.
Thinkquest.
The Antiwar Movement. 21 Nov. 2000 http://library.thinkquest.org/27942/timeline/timeline.htm.
Zipworld.
That Website About Tim Burton. 21
Nov. 2000