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One thing that I find interesting is how none of the great dystopian works of the 20th century featured celebrities as the ruling class. The antagonists are lik

One thing that I find interesting is how none of the great dystopian works of the 20th century featured celebrities as the ruling class. The antagonists are like Bond villains, smart, sophisticated, rational, cruel. A worthy adversary you could respect and feel good about struggling against. Our reality is that we've made our lives so advanced and comfortable, that our fantasies can try to become our reality. I guess Farenheight 451 and Brave New World come close with their focus on people immersing themselves in media, but even they had this smart, rational cunning clique running the show. Even in Idiocracy was based on the quaint idea that the ruling class was aware of its shortcomings and wanted to use rational methods to achieve objective goals.

voidhorse 8y ago
The Frankfurt school tackled the negative societal side effects of mass media and celebrity directly. Unfortunately, their work is rigorous, complex continental philosophy and so is relatively unknown in the states and does not have the popular appeal of a critique packaged as something more accessible like dystopian fiction. They're worth checking out though if this sort of "pleasure"/entertainment/late capitalist dystopia theme interests you. Marcuses's One Dimensional Man is probably the work that relates most directly to this sort of thing. Horkheimer and Adorno's work also relates, but less directly, and it's less accessible. A sufficient background in the history of philosophy is prerequisite. The Faint is also a great synth pop-punk band that quite frequently explores these issues in their music. Coincidentally, they just released an album this past Friday aptly titled Egowerk. Their older album Fascination is also great. Century of the Self is another resource you can check out. It's a documentary by Adam Curtis about Edward Bernays and the radical shifts in advertising that he helped instate.
- coldtea 8y ago
  Well, for something US-made and more appealing to the less-continental reading tastes, Christopher Lasch is perhaps mandatory on this subject: The Culture of Narcissism The Revolt of the Elites Haven in a Heartless World The Minimal Self and so on.
miloshadzic 8y ago
Don't forget Idiocracy https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sGUNPMPrxvA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sGUNPMPrxvA
- delish 8y ago
  Idiocracy would count if it were released in the 20th century. It was released in 2006.
- martythemaniak 8y ago
  Well, the US does currently have a president who got (at least partly) famous in the Pro Wrestling circuit, so big points there. But it's only a superficial resemblance. President Comacho saw a real problem (lack of food), realized he needed help tacking the issue, sought out literally the smartest person in the world, followed his advice and solved the issue. President Trump makes up problems, staffs his cabinet with some of the lowest quality members those offices have ever had, discards virtually all expert advice (In his own words, he only consults himself because he has a "very good brain") and generally seems to exist solely to troll people. So even though Idiocracy seems to have hit it right on, it didn't. Mike Judge still could not make the mental leap required to make Comacho different from what he already knew (and I don't blame him).
  - geezerjay 8y ago
    Spot on. I would add that Idiocracy's theme was the dumbing down of society, but in spite of society's failings the democratic government continued functioning well in working on the citizen's best interests. Unfortunatly Trump's government appears to be doing the exact opposite, to the point of looking as a government ran by anarchists trying to undermine it from within. That's arguably far worse than Idiocracy's central theme.
  - witcherchaos 8y ago
    The current administration, the one you called Idiocracy, stood up against dictatorship China and exposed the bubble mirage that was the Chinese economy. The Chinese economy is now crashing hard. This current administration did what many said was impossible: wage increases in the age of automation and globalization. This administration has US economy growing at 3%, when most other global economies are going into recession. This administration gave jobs and money back to the main street people, when corporations were eager to give those to the prison labors in China. You might be reading/watching the mainstream media too much.
prepend 8y ago
I sometimes think that the reason we don’t have these bond villains is because we were on the lookout and stopped them. And that caused us to miss the boiling frog situation of a ruling class of celebrity attention spinners.
mirkules 8y ago
There was a PBS documentary almost two decades ago called Merchants of Cool, which discusses exactly the issue of celebrity status and how it is used to buy and sell “cool” to teenagers in order to influence their buyin decisions. What is scary is that this documentary was shot long before smartphones and social media - I imagine the effects are amplified by orders of magnitude since the proliferation of social media. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ctC56owCBJg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ctC56owCBJg
- ithkuil 8y ago
  I wonder if the present is more determined by the fact that the generation that used to be teenagers two decades ago are now in their prime years, rather than the latest greatest technology based social distruption.
haolez 8y ago
I’ve noticed that he villains are almost always corporations, or backed by corporations in a way or another.
- ModernMech 8y ago
  But they are always obviously evil corporations. They never have a hip logo with cute aesthetics, and a sneaker clad hoodie wearing slacker founder. The movie Next Gen on Netflix is a good example of this though. The evil corp in that movie is basically Apple.
dkarl 8y ago
It's hard to see celebrities as anything other than an especially visible subset of people clawing their way into the ranks of the wealthy. Hereditary celebrity is possible, but wealthy celebrities mostly don't try to make their children celebrities. The ones who seem (subjectively) like the smartest choose to gift their children the traditional advantages of wealth, education, and connections.
- deathhand 8y ago
  To add a current day example: Jay-Z and Beyonce's child has their Instagram professionally done: https://www.instagram.com/blueivy.carter/?hl=en https://www.instagram.com/blueivy.carter/?hl=en
  - coldtea 8y ago
    Almost all rich celebrities have that. Even Instagram only, average wealth, influencers, making like $1M a year or so, have whole teams of people working for their Instagram.
tsunamifury 8y ago
Have you considered that the rational bond villains use celebrities as a visibility and accountability shield to accomplish goals that would otherwise be shut down if proposed directly?
- Redoubts 8y ago
  Sounds like the Hitchhikers Guide.
- pavlov 8y ago
  Rupert Murdoch was overtly portrayed as a Bond villain in one of the late ‘90s films...
  - skosch 8y ago
    Interesting, that's how I remembered it too! However, Wikipedia says: "While many reviewers compared Elliot Carver to Rupert Murdoch, Feirstein based the character on Robert Maxwell." (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tomorrow_Never_Dies https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tomorrow_Never_Dies)
    - tsunamifury 8y ago
      Either were just Edward Burnays archetypes.
- vanderZwan 8y ago
  "Celebrity isn’t just harmless fun – it’s the smiling face of the corporate machine" - George Monbiot https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/dec/20/celebrity-corporate-machine-fame-big-business-donald-trump-kim-kardashian https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/dec/20/celebr...
  - tsunamifury 8y ago
    Yes if you were to apply the Mcleod Corp pyramid they would be he clueless layer, happily indoctrinating the loser layer at the behest of the sociopath top.
0x445442 8y ago
How about The Running Man? I never read the book but I believe the villain was a game show celebrity, same as in the movie.
sehugg 8y ago
"A Face in the Crowd" comes close, with Andy Griffith playing a populist hero who gets involved in politics. Near the movie's climax, the front-runner offers him the position of "Secretary for National Morale".
robocat 8y ago
1984 has zero celebrities - they don't and can't exist in that world. The only figure with a face is big brother, and he didn't exist. I think Goldstein had no face? If the proles (85% of the population) had celebrities, they would not be actual people : https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prolefeed https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prolefeed "Below that come the dumb masses whom we habitually refer to as 'the proles', numbering perhaps 85 per cent of the population." "What opinions the masses hold, or do not hold, is looked on as a matter of indifference. They can be granted intellectual liberty because they have no intellect." "There was a whole chain of separate departments dealing with proletarian literature, music, drama, and entertainment generally. Here were produced rubbishy newspapers containing almost nothing except sport, crime and astrology, sensational five-cent novelettes, films oozing with sex, and sentimental songs which were composed entirely by mechanical means"
cdiddy2 8y ago
Hunger Games was sort of painting celebrities as the ruling class

voidhorse 8y ago

The Frankfurt school tackled the negative societal side effects of mass media and celebrity directly. Unfortunately, their work is rigorous, complex continental philosophy and so is relatively unknown in the states and does not have the popular appeal of a critique packaged as something more accessible like dystopian fiction. They're worth checking out though if this sort of "pleasure"/entertainment/late capitalist dystopia theme interests you. Marcuses's One Dimensional Man is probably the work that relates most directly to this sort of thing. Horkheimer and Adorno's work also relates, but less directly, and it's less accessible. A sufficient background in the history of philosophy is prerequisite. The Faint is also a great synth pop-punk band that quite frequently explores these issues in their music. Coincidentally, they just released an album this past Friday aptly titled Egowerk. Their older album Fascination is also great. Century of the Self is another resource you can check out. It's a documentary by Adam Curtis about Edward Bernays and the radical shifts in advertising that he helped instate.

coldtea 8y ago
Well, for something US-made and more appealing to the less-continental reading tastes, Christopher Lasch is perhaps mandatory on this subject: The Culture of Narcissism The Revolt of the Elites Haven in a Heartless World The Minimal Self and so on.

miloshadzic 8y ago

Don't forget Idiocracy https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sGUNPMPrxvA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sGUNPMPrxvA

delish 8y ago
Idiocracy would count if it were released in the 20th century. It was released in 2006.
martythemaniak 8y ago
Well, the US does currently have a president who got (at least partly) famous in the Pro Wrestling circuit, so big points there. But it's only a superficial resemblance. President Comacho saw a real problem (lack of food), realized he needed help tacking the issue, sought out literally the smartest person in the world, followed his advice and solved the issue. President Trump makes up problems, staffs his cabinet with some of the lowest quality members those offices have ever had, discards virtually all expert advice (In his own words, he only consults himself because he has a "very good brain") and generally seems to exist solely to troll people. So even though Idiocracy seems to have hit it right on, it didn't. Mike Judge still could not make the mental leap required to make Comacho different from what he already knew (and I don't blame him).
- geezerjay 8y ago
  Spot on. I would add that Idiocracy's theme was the dumbing down of society, but in spite of society's failings the democratic government continued functioning well in working on the citizen's best interests. Unfortunatly Trump's government appears to be doing the exact opposite, to the point of looking as a government ran by anarchists trying to undermine it from within. That's arguably far worse than Idiocracy's central theme.
- witcherchaos 8y ago
  The current administration, the one you called Idiocracy, stood up against dictatorship China and exposed the bubble mirage that was the Chinese economy. The Chinese economy is now crashing hard. This current administration did what many said was impossible: wage increases in the age of automation and globalization. This administration has US economy growing at 3%, when most other global economies are going into recession. This administration gave jobs and money back to the main street people, when corporations were eager to give those to the prison labors in China. You might be reading/watching the mainstream media too much.

prepend 8y ago

I sometimes think that the reason we don’t have these bond villains is because we were on the lookout and stopped them. And that caused us to miss the boiling frog situation of a ruling class of celebrity attention spinners.

mirkules 8y ago

There was a PBS documentary almost two decades ago called Merchants of Cool, which discusses exactly the issue of celebrity status and how it is used to buy and sell “cool” to teenagers in order to influence their buyin decisions. What is scary is that this documentary was shot long before smartphones and social media - I imagine the effects are amplified by orders of magnitude since the proliferation of social media. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ctC56owCBJg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ctC56owCBJg

ithkuil 8y ago
I wonder if the present is more determined by the fact that the generation that used to be teenagers two decades ago are now in their prime years, rather than the latest greatest technology based social distruption.

haolez 8y ago

I’ve noticed that he villains are almost always corporations, or backed by corporations in a way or another.

ModernMech 8y ago
But they are always obviously evil corporations. They never have a hip logo with cute aesthetics, and a sneaker clad hoodie wearing slacker founder. The movie Next Gen on Netflix is a good example of this though. The evil corp in that movie is basically Apple.

dkarl 8y ago

It's hard to see celebrities as anything other than an especially visible subset of people clawing their way into the ranks of the wealthy. Hereditary celebrity is possible, but wealthy celebrities mostly don't try to make their children celebrities. The ones who seem (subjectively) like the smartest choose to gift their children the traditional advantages of wealth, education, and connections.

deathhand 8y ago
To add a current day example: Jay-Z and Beyonce's child has their Instagram professionally done: https://www.instagram.com/blueivy.carter/?hl=en https://www.instagram.com/blueivy.carter/?hl=en
- coldtea 8y ago
  Almost all rich celebrities have that. Even Instagram only, average wealth, influencers, making like $1M a year or so, have whole teams of people working for their Instagram.

tsunamifury 8y ago

Have you considered that the rational bond villains use celebrities as a visibility and accountability shield to accomplish goals that would otherwise be shut down if proposed directly?

Redoubts 8y ago
Sounds like the Hitchhikers Guide.
pavlov 8y ago
Rupert Murdoch was overtly portrayed as a Bond villain in one of the late ‘90s films...
- skosch 8y ago
  Interesting, that's how I remembered it too! However, Wikipedia says: "While many reviewers compared Elliot Carver to Rupert Murdoch, Feirstein based the character on Robert Maxwell." (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tomorrow_Never_Dies https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tomorrow_Never_Dies)
  - tsunamifury 8y ago
    Either were just Edward Burnays archetypes.
vanderZwan 8y ago
"Celebrity isn’t just harmless fun – it’s the smiling face of the corporate machine" - George Monbiot https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/dec/20/celebrity-corporate-machine-fame-big-business-donald-trump-kim-kardashian https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/dec/20/celebr...
- tsunamifury 8y ago
  Yes if you were to apply the Mcleod Corp pyramid they would be he clueless layer, happily indoctrinating the loser layer at the behest of the sociopath top.

0x445442 8y ago

How about The Running Man? I never read the book but I believe the villain was a game show celebrity, same as in the movie.

sehugg 8y ago

"A Face in the Crowd" comes close, with Andy Griffith playing a populist hero who gets involved in politics. Near the movie's climax, the front-runner offers him the position of "Secretary for National Morale".

robocat 8y ago

1984 has zero celebrities - they don't and can't exist in that world. The only figure with a face is big brother, and he didn't exist. I think Goldstein had no face? If the proles (85% of the population) had celebrities, they would not be actual people : https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prolefeed https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prolefeed "Below that come the dumb masses whom we habitually refer to as 'the proles', numbering perhaps 85 per cent of the population." "What opinions the masses hold, or do not hold, is looked on as a matter of indifference. They can be granted intellectual liberty because they have no intellect." "There was a whole chain of separate departments dealing with proletarian literature, music, drama, and entertainment generally. Here were produced rubbishy newspapers containing almost nothing except sport, crime and astrology, sensational five-cent novelettes, films oozing with sex, and sentimental songs which were composed entirely by mechanical means"

cdiddy2 8y ago

Hunger Games was sort of painting celebrities as the ruling class