Techno-Legacies of State Control: Justification Narratives in Futuristic Dystopian Cinema

• In Event: Roundtable: Media and Perceptions of Crime

Abstract

Futuristic dystopian films often depict worlds that inspire criminological discussions on oppression and social control. Many of these stories contain justification narratives in which the governing bodies offer validation for oppressive conditions. These oppressed societies are then portrayed as criminalized populations subject to social controls in place “for their own good.” Taken in conjunction with the oft-visualized “techno-futures” it leaves questions of why audiences root for the dismantling of state apparatuses but leave amazed by the technological and innovative landscapes of the future. By exploring these justification narratives through the masking of the techno-future, we will be able to further add to narrative criminology’s explorations of the role that stories may have through harmful actions from a larger societal framework. Why are the stories we are telling about the future matter? Do stories that include justification of state violence and social control help to reveal harm or to perpetuate it? These are the types of questions with which this explorative paper engages.

Author

• Katarina M. McGuire, University of Tennessee, Knoxville