Reggie English 8004319
LIBS1770
Brandi May
 Modern Disney
(simplistic representation of fear and manipulation)
 The Giver and 1984
 Maus and Persepolis
(Dystopian literature with totalitarian government)
(non-fiction accounts of war survivors in graphic
novel format)
 Iraq-Iran war and the Holocaust
 Even in kids’ movies like Disney, there is a theme where villains will harm innocent
people as a way to maintain or achieve power, their greed and pride is more
important than loves of others.
 Dictators and ‘leaders’ will always try to push other people down for their own gain
regardless of how it affects the people they are supposed to be leading.
 Hitler managed his ‘success’ by putting fear into those who were beneath him and
convincing them the only way to stay safe was to kill Jewish people.
‘The Party” is a totalitarian
government set on controlling every
aspect of it’s citizens, including the
way they think, in order to maintain
control over them.
 In movie such as the Giver, the leader of the communities doesn’t want Jonah to
leave in order to keep his memories to himself, it is a way to keep the communities
ignorant of history and allows her to have the ultimate control over them.
 In 1984, the government is able to control every aspect of people because they limit
access to outside information, keeping the population ignorant of what their lives
can really be like, it also forces them to live in fear of The Party and feel they are
dependant on it.
 Ignorance on such a grand scale allows a government to persuade a population to do
whatever it wants because the people will not know any better.
 Warning for following content
 It’s not hard to see through these examples that fear and ignorance are the ground
work to evil. They keep people quiet and unaware of what is going on around them
or they are in fear of the consequences if they speak up.
 All 5 examples of fictional work have some element of fear mongering, manipulation
or forced ignorance. They show, in the most simplistic of ways, how these factors
can affect the lives of other people.
 Both non-fictional books show how terrible these 3 qualities can be when applied to
real people. They show that they are not harmless factors, they can lead to
devastating results. They aren’t just used in fictional stories.
 Genocides don’t start overnight, they happen slowly, over time and with all 3 of
these elements as precursors.
 Movies and books reflect evils of todays society through fear, manipulation and
ignorance.
 Many times, in the real world, these events happen much more gradually which
means it’s harder to catch on and it is harder to get out because you’re further in to
the situation than you’d like
 There will always be a minority who will do their part to do well despite these
criminal behaviours but with such control over the majority, the masterminds of
these kinds of acts are essentially unstoppable until a greater force decides enough
is enough.
Thank You