In today's episode of The Film Podcast, Matthew and Kierston jump into the complex and fascinating world of Utopian and Dystopian fiction. What is the genre exactly? Why does it exist and what purpose does it offer for society and it's consumption of art and culture? Is it possible to have a story be 100% Utopian? What do Utopian and Dystopian worlds do for the audience? In this episode, Matthew and Kiersston talk about these concepts and their implications- using well known examples from the media, and some little known examples you may not have heard from that run through the WILDsound Festival. 

Show Notes

• DEFINITIONS:
  • Dystopian worlds: are worlds where everything is awful. Something has gone wrong be is technology, ecology, or who knows what- but the world is a horrible place that we don’t want to live in. 
  • Utopian Worlds: Are the opposite, everything is great, the world is perfect or at least seems so- more often than not, it’s only perfect on the surface. 
  • Post-Apocalyptic worlds: Are worlds where total disaster has come and gone and the humanity is hanging on by a thread.  
    
    GENERAL EXAMPLE: In modern media- Dystopia:  think 1984. Utopia: Gattaca (I mean that’s totally debatable) and post-apocalyptic: Think Mad Max
    
    Why it is used: these are three types of narrative structures that all serve to do one of two things - 1) Warn humanity about the danger of the path it’s on 2) give hope to humanity of what the future could hold- both for good and bad. But these three subgenera are all under sci-fi and spec-fi film, which is a whole other topic in itself.