Title: Popularizing utopia in postmodern science fiction film: Matrix, V for Vendetta, in Time and verbo
Abstract: The most salient feature of the postmodern worldview is the attack
against all kinds of theoretical constructs that explain the world in unifying and
totalizing terms, what postmodern critics have called �metanarratives� (Lyotard,
1984). This distrust of metanarratives includes the criticism of the high
culture/low culture divide, and has been the basis for the increasing critical
interest in popular culture in general and in popular literature in particular. In
this sense, utopian projects are seen by postmodern authors as textbook
examples of all-explaining theories of reality, and consequently the very notion
of utopia seems in conflict with the postmodern stance. Nevertheless, several
critics like Fredric Jameson have realized that these postmodern doubts about
utopias have been appropriated by the dominant capitalist discourse to justify
the lack of alternatives to the economic and social order of late twentieth
century global capitalism. Ironically, the conviction that there is no alternative
to global capitalism has been seen as another example of metanarrative by
postmodern authors, and therefore subjected to criticism in postmodern science
fiction movies like Matrix, V for Vendetta, In Time, and Verbo. The aim of this
paper is to show that these films launch an attack against the dominant capitalist
discourse and offer wide audiences a popular �although perhaps domesticated�
notion of utopia and project for revolution which are coherent with and may
stand in the postmodern worldview.
Publication Year: 2014
Publication Date: 2014-01-01
Language: en
Type: article
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Cited By Count: 2
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