Intro:

Dystopia is a genre of that shares many different themes throughout its novels, movies and even songs. These include Fake Paper Trees, a Black-mirror episode called nosedive, the movie Divergnt as well as the novel Nineteen Eighty Four. Many these texts have common dystopian features to them such as being set in the future, having a totalatarian type government, the idea of surveillance and control are just some of the themes found in these pieces of litreture. The main two themes I have found though in all of these pieces is that they are warnings for how the creators believe the future may look like as well as confoming to fit society.

Radiohead, the rock band that produced ‘Fake Plastic Trees’ uses their song to write about their song to help paint a picture of what they believe society make look like in the near future. The way they describe the world as ‘plastic’, meaning that everything is fake and this perfect life that we live in is not real, can be seen through how we live our lives through social media. Social media users only like to portray what makes them look the best. They don’t post about the hardship and the tears they spill. Instead they post photos of them smiling and looking like they are having a great time when deep down they are hurting. This is a perfect example of the ‘fake plastic earth’ that radiohead sings about in fake plastic trees.

‘Fake plastic earth’ may also look at the effects that the human race are creating on the planet earth. With the recent forest fires in the amazon as well as the ever rising sea levels from the result of global warming are just some of the results the human footprint has impacted on our world. I believe that Radiohead uses their song ‘Fake Plastic Trees’ to create a warning that we as humans may create such damage this earth that we live in that it will become inhabitable. We may need to create a ‘fake plastic earth’ for us to live on if we carry on the path that we are on. Many of the residents of places such as Bangladesh already have been uprooted from their homes and have had to move somewhere else due to the rising sea levels. These are the people waiting for that ‘fake plastic earth’ to be created to replace the earth we live on at the moment.

Nosedive is a Netflix episode part of the series ‘Black Mirror.’ Black Mirror is a scifi type series on netflix directed by Charlie Booker. In the episode Nosedive, it is placed in a futurist world where everyone is obsessed with ratings. The public rate each other daily and those with higher ratings are looked highly upon in society and also gain multiple benefits from having a high rating. The main character Lacie, is trying to increase her ratings so she can purchase a new house at a cheaper rate. Her ratings start slowly decreasing and she dives further into insanity until the point where she is arrested and removed from society. Charlie Brooker the director says in one of the interviews that he uses black mirror as a way to worry society, not to warn them. We see this everyday before us with the way we rate each other social medias, as well we can rate anything we want these days from resteraunts to hotels, everyone can be a critic. There is one priticluar scene in this episode when Lacie who is currently at a 3.4, hitches a ride with someone of the public who is currently a 1.8, which would be looked upon as a peasent. When lacie starts explaining to the other lady how her rating is so impornant the lady thinks that she is crazy. This can be seen in the real world as trying to explain to someone without social media how important it is to have a large following and multiple likes aswell. “Don’t come. I don’t want you here. I don’t know what is up with you, but I cannot have a 2.6 at my wedding.” This qoute is said to from Naimoie, Lacies aperrent ‘best friend’ once she finds out the sort of ranking Lacie has. With someones ranking as low as 2.6, there is no way Naimoie can have her around her high ranked friends. This is a perfect example of high society private school kids. Unless you walk down the hallways with the latest gucci bag slung over your shoulder, a new phone eleven in your pocket and airpods playing the most popular song in your ears, you have no right to be in that school.

Happiness in our world is being with the people we love, doing something that we enjoy, or it can even be brought by watching someone else in happiness. However none of these are true in this episode. We see this multiple times throughout the movie Lacie conforms to society and pretends to be happy. An examples of this is when she purchases her coffee. She is surrounded by high ranked people so is constantly smiling and ranking everyone around her five stars in hopes that she will recieve the same ranking. She goes to take a bite out of her biscut, only to spit it out in disgust. She has the same reaction for when she takes a sip of her. She then places the cookie next to her coffee, snaps a photo and quickly uploads it. This shows us as the viewers that she is not purchasing this biscut and coffee for her own enjoyment of the sweet biscut or the caffine of the coffee. She is doing it to satisfy her desire to impress her followers as well as a way to gain attention from others so she can hopefully increase her rating. Happiness in the higher society in our world comes a lot from wealth. Many people believe that having the most physical items such as a fancy car or a new phone is going to bring them happiness. I have always been a strong believer in the “money doesn’t buy you happiness” concept.

This desire to conform can be linked to the dystopian movie ‘Divergent’ Neil Burger. In the beginning of the movie, the main character Beatrice learns that she is not like the rest of society, she is a ‘Divergent’. However, she must pretend to be something she is not so that she can survive initiation in the faction. “Becoming fearless isn’t the point. That’s impossible. It’s learning how to control your fear, and how to be free from it.” This quote is said to Beatrice when she is learning of the dangers she is by being Divergent. She can’t go out and tell the world and fight everyone to try survive. She must learn to control the fear that she has inside of her from being Divergent and use it to conform to an image that is not her in order to survive. This example is a bit more extreme as Beatrice is conforming to be something to survive where as Lacie is doing it for her own social status. This can also be linked to Fake Plastic Trees song as Radiohead sings about creating a illusion of who you really are that is not true. All three of these texts speak about people creating a fake image of themselves. Nosedive doing it through technology and rating people in society, Divergent by creating an image of herself thats not truly her to help her survive, and Fake Plastic Trees talking about the loss of uniqueness through a song.

We can also see characters creating a fake image of themselves in the Dystopian Novel ‘Nineteen Eighty Four’ written by George Orwell. Orwell wrote this novel in the year 1984. He uses his novel to help create a warning of what he fears the world will look like with a totalitarian government in control. The novel is based in the city of London, where the citizens of this city live in fear of government named the inner party and ‘big brother.’ Any free thinking thoughts or actions will result in immediate vaporisation so the people of London must be very careful of their actions. The main character Winston slowly begins to become more free thinking as the novel goes on, how ever he must maintain an image of him being a stiff ordinary citizen as he knows the consequences of what would happen if he were to be discovered. “Don’t you see that the whole aim of Newspeak is too narrow the range of thought? In the end we shall make thought crime literally impossible, because there will be no words in which to express it.” This quote shows two themes of a dystopian genre. First is the control of the totalitarian government. In Nineteen Eighty Four, the government has taken away all freedom of speech. This is a reflection of the utter control that they have over their citizens. The second theme is the conformity. The people of London are unable to express who they are due to this new language, achieving the governments goal of everyone being the exact same. This can be linked directly to Beatrice in Divergent, as she must act just like her peers do as to not to be discovered of who she truely is. Winston must keep all of his thoughts and free thinking actions