Metaphorical Imagery:Utopian and Dystopian frames of the
everyday.
Two case studies:-
Blade Runner (as dystopian),
and The Truman Show (as utopian).
The context for these PowerPoint slides is provided
by a webpage accompanying this presentation – both
are attached to the module outline. The webpage
gives an introductory account of the process of
representation and also introduces a simple theory of
how metaphor works.
Although Richards’ interactionist theory, as it is called,
was developed in relation to text, its simplicity allows
some initial conclusions about imagery to be drawn
from the two films that are identified for viewing
today.
The films selected for this week’s viewing provide
strikingly different kinds of imagery, but they also
present ambiguous narratives. Within each you gain an
insight into their opposites – but couched in terms of
their own dominant forms of representation, i.e., their
framing rules.
To start with Utopia - the label ‘utopian’ is usually taken to imply
that an idea is unrealistic, but is so because a particular principle
or set of principles are followed through with extreme rigour, i.e.,
the representation is ‘idealistic’. So the utopian principles create a
frame, and everything represented within it becomes symptomatic
of the principle (or principles) in action. And, to be both specific
and general about Utopia, this is a world in which everything
happens for the best in the best of all possible worlds, as Voltaire’s
Dr. Pangloss was in the habit of saying.
One of the problems with depicting Utopia is that even if
its representation is detailed and imaginative, its
appearance soon becomes boring. Indeed, few writers
manage to sustain the monotony of beneficent outcomes
for long. Sir Thomas More, inventor of the genre, seems
to have intended the whole of the second half of his
book, Utopia, as a witty cover for the critical analysis of
Tudor England he featured in the first half.
Similarly, Voltaire, in his Candide, used wit and irony to
undercut Dr. Pangloss’ utopian perception of the way the
world worked to poke fun at the authority behind Catholic
orthodoxy. Although the Church repeatedly seized and
burnt copies of the book, this only made it even more
attractive to its intended upper-class audience – one
hungry for intelligent entertainment.
These examples suggest that utopian representations
gain significance by making contact with a version of
the ‘everyday’, the same holding true for dystopias.
The works of H. G. Wells provide accessible test
cases. His scientific fantasies always start prosaically,
e.g., The First Men on the Moon, The War in the Air, and
devote about a quarter of their length to the everyday
lives of their protagonists before any adventure
begins. But this is an everyday contained within the
total representation; or if you prefer, the narrative
works to suggest that the everyday is part of a larger
scheme of things that has previously not been
recognised.
A few films made in the last thirty years sketch in the
everyday through initial context shots, such as Sphere,
Contact, The Abyss, and Close Encounters, but more
typically our everyday is apparently ignored
completely, e.g. Blade Runner, GATACCA, The Day
after Tomorrow, A. I., and Avatar. But the need for
contrast within the frame remains, and so these
utopian or dystopian representations gain their
apparent points of reference by offering explicit
‘internal’ glimpses of a relative normality, i.e., an
everyday.
In this respect, the narrative of The Truman Show is
interesting. It progressively subverts the integrity of its
own utopian imagery – lights fall from the sky, adverts
become the focus for inexplicable actions, actors make
mistakes or try to insert alternative narratives into the
Director’s idealised world, and Truman, of course,
finally rebels.
As Truman moves from the fixed certainties of his utopian life to
the uncertainties of the film’s depiction of its own everyday – the
world of the show’s spectators and its director – Truman does so
via the experience of his familiar world becoming dytopian. The
show’s director, Christos, worried by the financial implications of
lost corporate sponsorship if Truman’s behaviour becomes
‘aberrant’, turns into a violent deus ex machina, even risking
Truman’s death so his original design for a ‘point-of-sale’ world
can survive.
As you look at the evidence of The Truman Show, ask
yourself if the awfulness of its dystopian imagery gains
its point of reference from Truman’s own utopian
conception of what reality might be, or from some other
source of reference – and then, just who or what is he
escaping from?
In the case Blade Runner, the same swing takes place – only in
reverse. Out of the environmental disaster and ‘terminations’ of
late 21st. Century Los Angeles there emerges a recognisable love
affair – even though this takes place between two ‘replicants’, only
one of which recognises its own ontology. And now ask yourself if
the film’s version of a happy ending gains its meaning by tacit
reference to what humanity might become – given by the dying
replicant leader’s last speech – or does the ‘real’ source of ultimate
meaning remain with this world’s controlling humans – the police
agents?
The represented ‘environment’ of dystopias are often
populated by a variety of ‘entities’, united in being
inimical to human life, but they may also be the source
of partially truthful mini-narratives which shift the
representation’s location, form, and expected outcome,
i.e., they are a reaction to the same problem of
predictability. In the case of the dystopic, the problem
is how to avoid a general awfulness from becoming too
predictable, e.g. The Road.
Bearing these remarks in mind, what follows are brief
commentaries on some of the analytical headings
presented in greater detail in Krishnan Kumar’s Open
University text on this subject.
Kumar, K. (1999) Utopianism Milton Keynes: OUP.
Note, Kumar does not directly tackle dystopias,
and so an important aspect of your own work this
week will be to draw conclusions about what
should be the anti-commentaries to those
summarised here. A close study of Blade Runner
will help, but of course there are other media texts
to choose from.
Secondly, use Richards’ theory. For each
figuration that particularly impresses you, try to
work out the ‘tenor’ and ‘vehicle’ that seem to
influence its specific form(s) of representation –
just how do these two terms relate to what we have
been calling the frame and its rules?
The Elements of Utopia:Dream & Reality – note the important reversal provided by Plato’s
notion of reality;
The Golden Age, Arcadia, Paradise – the challenge is to work out
the implied opposite which gives meaning;
The Land of Cockaygne – the reversal of normality in carnival – a
‘working class’ notion of paradise on earth;
The Millennium – the coming of the new age, the founding of the
New Jerusalem, Mr. Mandelson’s Millennium Dome and the many
Olympic stadia and international trade fairs;
The Ideal City – favoured by many Eighteenth and Nineteenth
Century social experimenters, particularly in the United States.
The Boundaries of Utopia:Imaginary Worlds – imagination ‘knows no bounds’ – except
that it usually does through the incorporation of aspects of the
author’s contemporary world view;
Utopian Theory – although the representation may be partial,
there is usually a principle which dictates the nature of
representation – and excluding is often more important than
including;
Utopia in Time and Space – reflecting when the text was
written: initially it was an island, then it was some hidden and
still to be discovered part of a continent, and finally only space
and the future could provided a necessary refuge;
Classical accounts – Plato’s Republic – but then what?
The History of Utopia:The utopian tradition – this is extensive – see the resource
list attached to the module outline;
Utopia and Modernity – can Modernity itself be described in
terms of the application/quest/outpouring/etc. of utopian
principles?
Science, history, progress – to what extent can these aaspects
of society (prospective and retrospective) be described as
being caused or driven by utopian impulses?
Socialist utopias – a particular feature of the first half of the
Nineteenth Century – but then they continued, e.g. H. G.
Wells’ A Modern Utopia.
The Practice of Utopia:Nowhere as Somewhere – the making real of an idea, the filling
in of a gap, the substitution of the negative by the positive;
Thought and practice – here utopia becomes both a promise and
a test-bed – can the utopian be made real, and can aspects of
everyday, current practice be purified?
Utopian communities – again, Eighteenth and Nineteenth
Century America provides many examples that in some cases
survived for years;
Utopian societies – here the interest is in the persistence of vision
– just how far into detail can utopian principles penetrate, just
how well can the diverse consequences of a particular utopian
impulse be integrated?
The location of utopia:An ‘unseemly and subversive’ genre – that is to say, how do you
relate the forms of representation associated with utopia to other
genres and other forms of representation?
Against utopia – there is a respectable body of critical writing
that is very hostile to the consequences of utopian thinking, e.g.,
were Germany’s National Socialists utopian?
The uses of utopia – is there merit in studying this form of
representation – are there aspects of it that have any greater
significance than mere distraction?
The future of utopia – how will the genre develop – is the future
necessarily utopian (or dystopian)?