Dystopias reveal suffering and injustice in a world that mirrors our own. The colourful surroundings that we’re familiar with start to grey as we see how close we live to a dystopia. I’ve found connections across four texts that I’ve analysed in three pairs. Minority Report directed by Steven Speilberg, Nineteen Eighty-Four written by George Orwell, Men Against Fire directed by Jakob Verbruggen and The Power written by Naomi Alderman, are all part of the dystopia genre. These texts all discuss the idea of suffering and injustice through the use of their technologies. Manipulation of time, Totalitarian states and the concept of complex truths are connections, that forces us to realise the corruption we face every day unknowingly. Seeing these connections, we begin to question if we can trust what we see, hear, smell and think, or if a higher power is controlling us. We are forced to admit the flaws that society has and question if we have any control at all.

Minority Report shows a future filled with high-level surveillance. The programme “Pre-Crime” has been implemented to stop all murder before the crime is even committed. Arresting people for a crime they only thought about, remove the choice people have to make about their future. Controlling what happens in peoples futures doesn’t allow people to have the power of choice.

Oceania is a futuristic world set in the now past where the government controls peoples thoughts by controlling the knowledge they have. Nineteen Eighty-Four shows how manipulation occurs when those in power alter the past. Oceania was supposed to be a dystopia to warn us of what 1984 could look like, but instead, it is almost parallel to what we see today. Recognising our world in this dystopia alerts us to the warning that comes not knowing our real history.

Dystopias commonly have a theme of government intervention over the people. Nineteen Eighty-Four and Minority Report both show this intervention of an individuals choice by eliminating it. Following the idea of fate, that just because “you prevented it, doesn’t change the fact that it was going to happen”. It enables them to arrest offenders for “Pre-crime”. Intervening in peoples futures by removing their choice, allows the government to maintain power and peace. This same intervention of time is in the past of Oceania through the use of government-employed, record editors. The past is “destroyed or falsified” to manipulate people’s thoughts about the future. Altering the facts of history means people can’t make their own decisions about the future, all the choices they could’ve made have been manipulated to fit with the Party’s ideologies. Manipulation of time secures the power of the government and Party. Details that suggest faults in these systems need to be brushed over and hidden from the people, causing untold suffering as people are left in the dark. They don’t realise that every choice has already been decided. The Party are well aware that “who controls the past controls the future, who controls the present controls the past”. Controlling the present means they can change parts of history that would undermine their power. They can guarantee the success of the Party by removing all of the evidence that is capable of destroying it. Just as the Party need to conceal parts of the past, the government in Minority Report are well aware that “for pre-crime to function there can’t be any suggestion for fallibility”. The truth about pre-crime and the Party need to hidden to maintain the perfect image, that “it works”. Both governments know that nobody “wants a justice system that installs doubt”. Believing it’s in the best interest of the people to maintain this perfect image, results in the manipulation of peoples thoughts. The possibility of an uprise is removed because there is no evidence to suggest that the governments are acting unlawfully, maintaining peace and power. Controlling their knowledge makes people numb. No longer able to make decisions on their own, they become dependant on the information the government feeds them. Susceptible to manipulation by the time that government controls, threaten us, that these dystopian ideas could become a reality. We give up our power to the social media outlets that we choose to join, giving up our control so that they can filter what we see. We have fake news which can change dates and events of what happened. There is no way of us knowing if what we are shown is real. It means that they too can control what we think just as in Minority Report and Nineteen Eighty-Four, with the controlling and manipulating of time to determine what a person thinks. We’re already manipulated making this untold suffering extremely dangerous.

Men Against Fire shows us the future of war. A world where soldiers wear ‘masks’ to conceal the reality of their killings. Humans with DNA mutations cause them to have “higher rates of cancer… Substandard IQ… [and] Sexual deviances” are referred to as “roaches” and need to be wiped out entirely for survival. This Black Mirror episode throws us into a dystopia where the government have embedded technology into their soldiers to guarantee high killing rates. This technology manipulates soldiers’ senses, creating a hidden totalitarian system that is present in a dystopia.

Men Against Fire mirrors the Totalitarian system that Nineteen Eighty-Four presents. Governments are controlling people’s senses to reach their desired outcome of maintaining power. Oceania uses the Party’s figurehead, Big Brother, as someone who is always “watching”. Signs are postered everywhere with the face of Big Brother, as a reminder of who’s in charge. It slowly manipulates people never to question the Party because that’s all they’ve ever seen. It allows the Party to stay in totalitarian power. Men Against Fire displays this same manipulation through the uses of the “ultimate military weapon”, masks. The masks are controlled by the government to remove and alter a soldiers sense of smell, hearing and sight. It changes the appearance of “roaches” to appear as a monstrous “animal”. Masks were implemented to increase killing rates, because “it’s a lot easier to pull the trigger when you’re aiming at the boogie man”. Soldiers know no different than seeing “roaches” as “animals”, so they believe it. They never question the government because that’s all they’ve ever been told. This totalitarian power is evident when the government eliminates any chance of doubt. In the rare case that someone does question what they’ve been told and shown their whole life, both governments have a punishment of torture. In Nineteen Eighty-Four, nobody ever reveals what the Party shows them in Room 101, but they all agree that it’s the “worst thing in the world”. A person’s worst fear, locked in a cell with them until they surrender and admit “love for Big Brother”. Men Against Fire shows the same kind of torture when someone questions the ‘truth’. All of a soldier’s killings are replayed without the mask if they refuse to continue their duties. “Roaches” are seen as people, roars of an animal are now painful screams, and they can now smell the blood. “Incarceration” for not going back to work is the memory of their killings played on “loop” for what it was. That’s all they’ll see in a tiny cell. This torture to force people back into the Totalitarian government is present in these dystopias. It’s a threat that we may face. If we don’t follow trends on social media, Room 101 becomes social media. Masks of perfection are turned off, and we see war, suffering and the reality behind the screen that social media shows. We then know the world for how it is – corrupt.

For centuries, men have been physically dominant in the world. Naomi Alderman shows a world, five thousand years from now, where we wee this idea flipped. Teenage girls begin developing a “skein” that enables them to release electricity from their hands. This electricity awakens the “skein” in older generations, and it’s not long before women have totalitarian power.

Genetic mutation is not new, but using mutations the build on power is something that The Power and Men Against Fire both display in their dystopias. Centred around genetic mutations, is the result and aftermath of war. The Power shows young girls awakening an electric power within them that results from a mutation only found in females. This power in young girls awakens the same power in their mothers and grandmothers, creating a war against men. Men create the belief that all woman are uncontrollable and need to be detained, for them to regain power. They create a truth to sell, but the “truth has always been a more complex commodity than the market can easily package and sell”. Most women aren’t uncontrollable and can restrain their power even under the highest pressure. Regardless, men still try to sell a truth that is bigger and more complex than the package given. Men Against Fire shows a similar selling of truth to fight genetic mutations. Soldiers are handed a packaged truth that has been manipulated to fit, they’re forced to believe it given no alternative option. Their mind is shaped to accept this packaged truth. The government “can’t just embed [the idea that roaches are animals] and feed [soldiers] a dream, [their] mind would reject it, [they] must accept it willingly”. Giving no other options, they accept what’s right in front of them. Both dystopias show the complexity of a truth manipulated to fight a war against genetics. Being told a particular truth guarantees the act of violence for the men and government. Being fed the ‘truth’ that women are uncontrollable, and death is the only way to stop them, men created a strong desire to “shoot those girls. Just shoot them. In the head. Bam.” They can’t explain what’s wrong with the girls and why they have a genetic mutation, so a truth needs to be twisted to make sense of what’s going on. It shows the drastic outcomes that a complex truth can give. The same complex truth in Men Against Fire resulted in the creation of masks to guarantee killing rates. “Roaches… look just like us… which is why they’re so dangerous,” begins to feed the ‘truth’ that this genetic mutation is catastrophic to the human race. “Humans… don’t actually want to kill each other, which is a good thing until your future depends on you wiping out the enemy”, but when your enemy looks just like you, a complex truth needs to be sold. A reason needs to be given to kill someone who looks just the same as everyone else, their increased probability of sickness needs to be on the outside. Masks show “roaches” for what they are perceived to be rather than what they are. The truth becomes complex. Inaccurate statistics can relate to complex truths. Bias statistics to show the desired outcome are often used to spread false conclusions, becoming complex truths. Genetic mutations and alterations are a reoccurring thing. the idea that it can cause war with a fake statistic is a threat. These dystopias show how biased information about genetics can result in war. We see the injustice that people face as it becomes a possibility that we may experience a war-like time with fake statistics on other medical topics.

Elements of our society are brought to the forefront in a much darker light through a dystopia. They confront us with the darkness of today by waning us what it could be like tomorrow. Minority Report, Nineteen Eighty-Four, Men Against Fire and The Power use different technologies to relate to a dystopia. The three connections analysed over pairs of texts, reflect elements of societies corruption. Manipulation of time, Totalitarian states and the idea of complex truths can all be seen through social media, fake news and inaccurate statistics. These issues surround us, but we don’t pay attention to them until we see them exaggerated in a dystopia. It’s not until we see how bad things could be that we think, is this possible? But it’s too late. We’re already staring in our dystopia, reality. Recognising these connections in the texts have made me think twice about what social media shows me, I question if what I’m told is real and if I do get to make my own choices. I’ve realised that these dystopias are closer to reality than we think.