Ep 50 From 1984 to Hunger Games, HOW DID WE GET HERE?! Dystopian Themes in Media and Literature

This week is. The. Week. We’re officially back in mini episode bonus mode with The Hunger Games book 1, by Suzanne Collins dropping this Friday! So today Ashley and Liz are setting us all up for success in our dystopian sci fi series with an episode about the history of dystopias! Not surprisingly, there is a lot of ground to cover, so we do our best to take a whole lot of information and condense it down for you to put all of these stories we love so much into context.

First, we go over the list of media terms and ideas you guys sent in when we asked what YOU think of when someone says dystopia, and why YOU think we’re obsessed with them. Then we get into the history. Where did the idea of dystopias come from? When was the theme first featured in literature? When did the modern dystopian fiction era start? We discuss popular themes, real life events that inspired them, and how we got to where we are today. With many dystopian pieces of media marketed to everyone, including young adults, and how this has led to even more book bans.

And lastly, we’ve got a faves and fails featuring popular dystopian media like World War Z, The Handmaid’s Tale, and The Giver, and a smash or pass involving Hunger Games characters that you wouldn’t expect.

Sources:

The Columbia Journalism Review - Dissecting Dystopia by Merrill Perlman 

Dystopian Fiction A Brief History by Yvonne Shiau on Electric Lit 

The British Library - The Fear of Dystopia by Mike Ashley 

Wikipedia 

Encyclopedia Brittanica.com 

American aristocracy.com 

NY Times

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Chapters

• 0:00 Intro to Dystopian Themes Episode
• 2:48 Dystopian Research Sources
• 4:12 Hunger Games Miniseries Kickoff!
• 9:06 Faves and Fails DYSTOPIA EDITION
• 21:01 What do dystopian books, movies, and books stick out to you?
• 27:50 What is Dystopia VS Utopia?
• 35:00 Dystopian Media
• 47:00 Banned Books in Dystopian Genre
• 1:02:53 Unhinged Smash or Pass

Transcript

0:04

hey you guys I'm Ashley and I'm Liz and welcome to the besties in the books podcast mini series kickoff we're back we're back for a spoiler-free episode today yep so uh yeah today's episode's all about just topas so how exciting is that are you excited we're excited actually it's a really interesting topic that I thought I knew a lot about and I don't really like now I know more so that's great I feel like now we know more um but you know it's to kick off our Hunger Games episodes like that's what this is about if you guys have been around for a while and you've maybe gone through some of our other minisode series with us you know um that we kind of have a theme right and so like with Harry Potter we had a satanic Panic theme and with Twilight obviously we just had like a vampire lore theme um and so for Hunger Games specifically we thought that it would be interesting to delve into kind of our obsession with dystopias and where that comes from where the term dystopia comes from um how we Define it how it's influenced by you know things obviously in real life like real life influences fiction for sure um yeah and this is all in anticipation of sunrise on the reaping coming out which we will be reading um with you and then doing a minod about as well yes yes excited yeah so um just in case you guys didn't know so this is our kickoff to the mini episode series but our um first book episode about The Hunger Games book one will be dropping next week on Friday 228 so then you can start going through and actually you know in order finding out all of our thoughts on all of The Hunger Games books this is a reread for me um I read them originally I don't know when they were popular long ago um but this is Ashley's first time reading so I'm getting all of her reactions it's so exciting it's so exciting y um but yeah today we're not going to be talking about specific books we're just going to be getting into um yeah dystopian themes and why they're so important to us and you know we asked you guys on social media to give us your two cents we'll be sharing a lot of your guys ideas too which I think makes this episode super special cuz you guys sent in a lot of them which was great um yeah so that's pretty much what we're going to be diving into today I wanted to give a brief summary of some of the um articles that I used to do all this research um we'll have it in the show notes as well and there were other websites too I'm not going to mention every single one um but if you guys are curious about my sources um I got a lot of information from the Columbia journalism review an article called dissecting dystopia by Merill Pearlman um dystopian fiction a brief history by yvon xia I don't know how to say that on electric lit um I got a lot of info from the British Library the fear of dystopia by Mike Ashley obviously our tried andrue Wikipedia um I do want to say that I did get a fair amount of from the good old encyclopedia brittanica.com love it yeah so you know not quite going over to the old encyclopedias I don't know who still has those but they do have a website my in-laws do a whole shelf a whole row nice that's great yeah go next time you're over at their house you should go look up dystopia and see what that one says cuz I'm sure you know obviously they probably have to update it all the time um and then I did get information from American aristocracy decom and the New York Times among other sources but those were kind of the majors yeah so first off why don't we just give a little update on where we are in our Hunger Games Journey mhm yes how's that going how's that going for you right now where are you at it's going great 10 out of 10 spoiler I love it yeah you know we did Harry Potter we had feelings we did Twilight we had yeah feelings and then we have some feelings for Hunger Games so there you go I'm I'm like I'm doing mocking J which is the third book and I think I'm like 30% in okay yeah so I'm just a little bit past you I'm at I want to say like I think I'm right at the 50% Mark in mocking J yeah if you haven't read Hunger Games yet um like I didn't read it yet until now please do it if you want like a fastpaced like crazy emotional just wow time dude I did not know what to expect and wow wow I'm trying to like reel it in because I want to be able to talk about all of this in each episode but guys like get on it now is your chance even though we have a mini episode coming out this Friday you still have plenty like I read each of them in a couple days because yeah it's so good so good so good and it's so fastpaced each chapter leaves you with like okay one more chapter cuz it the way it it's like each chapter is almost a Cliff Hanger and I just eat it up so and the way she can make me feel for characters that I didn't know I felt anything for wow it's crazy so I'll leave it at that it's going great it's going swimmingly yeah I as a reread uh being halfway through Mocking Jay I felt myself getting real stressed last night we're just ramping it up we're amping it up you know so and just in case you guys are wondering because I have gotten a few people asking this question um we are obviously reading the original trilogy and doing you know episodes technically since this would be episode one it be 2 three and four we are reading a ballot of song birds and snakes as well so we're just calling that book four okay and then um we will be ending with sunrise on the reaping before we get into the movies and our final thoughts so we're cover we're covering it all yeah covering it all we're going to read sunrise on the reaping with you guys which I'm so pumped about um so yeah I feel like we've got the whole um you know we've got templates for you guys to read along with us on Instagram we've got fables over at besti and the book club up for all of the books so you guys can follow along on the journey if you so choose to do that yep yeah Soh before we get into all this really interesting information about where dystopia is coming from we just wanted to say thank you for being here seriously thank you so much for being here you know we have our normal weekly Tuesday Tuesday episodes and thank you for joining us if you join us for our miniseries as well this is so fun and such a good opportunity for us to either read these classic super hyped book series that either we've never read before or we can reread again as adults cuz most of them so far have been like a young adult or even like you know Harry Potter adoles uh type of series that we're looking at it through an adult lens now you know and kind of dissecting that were these books worth the hype because I didn't with Hunger Game specifically I didn't really know what to expect as somebody who only saw them I think the first two movies when they came out and while I liked them I remembered almost nothing and obviously the books go into the heavy themes and political unjustice so much deeper than the movies ever could so it's really interesting to be able to see these more but what am I trying to say here thank you so much for being here is what I'm trying to say make sure to like follow And subscribe so you don't miss out on not only our Tuesday episodes but our bonus episodes too and we have been dropping a couple here and there recently when we just had too much to say and we needed to throw a bonus episode in there so thank you guys make sure to follow like And subscribe anywhere you like to listen to your favorite podcast including YouTube If you would like to feel like you're hanging out with us a little bit more you know we got Liz's book room and my book fairy wall going on in the back make sure to follow us on Instagram Tik Tok at besties in thee books podcast as well and you can find the Buddy reads over on the fable app at besties inthe book club if you want to join us we have I I have been keeping up with my thoughts and opinions on The Hunger Games there I'm like literally reacting in each chapter and it's great cuz you can remain spoiler free if you're reading it for the first time like I am so I go into chapter 6 have a reaction and I won't anything spoiled you won't for anything after that you know unless you go and click that then that's on you I'm sorry you know you clicked chapter 22 sorry but yeah it's great love it it's so good okay so why don't we just get into a fave and fail of the week but not really of just um like just the dystopian theme fave and fail so like whether it be like movie book TV show whatever like something you really like something you did didn't like or something like that why don't you tell me about about yours one my fave dystopian media I'll say that I'm going to give credit to cuz it's what got me going as a young and that would be the book The Giver which I love I'm so sorry I don't remember the author name now though Louis Lowry is that the name that sounds really right I'm like I have it somewhere in my shelf but it' probably be faster to just like Google it well you Google it while I speak but I'm pretty sure it's that and I've read it three times I ate that right Louis Lowry see it stays in there it's like a good song you know you just remember so you can not read it for 20 years and still remember the author's name so obviously that did a number on me um I remember that's probably one of the first books that I ever read that I it made me have an emotional reaction like crying and like feeling like couldn't stop reading it you know it was one of those one of those books it was a books that made us it made my talk and because we did a books that made us series if you haven't seen that yet we did middle school and high school we still need to get back to college age group there but we haven't gotten there yet and talked about that so that's a fave of mine I didn't read the giver cuz we weren't assigned that at my school so I didn't read the giver until I was an adult yeah yeah I likeed it crazy I think it's a on a band book list for most States now it's heavy so necessary so and then uh a fail of a dystopia media that I consumed was I read World War Z which is like a zombie apocalypse obviously that is very dystopia I would say adjacent but most of zombie apocalypse it's apocalypse is in the name it's a dystopia almost kind of situation so I loved the book and it was so well done I thought I read it on my honeymoon which wasn't a good choice because like I'm reading about zombies and crazy stuff um but so the movie came out very shortly after and they ruined it completely everything was changed like all the heavy themes in there were changed and it was just Brad Pit killing zombies and I'm like this was terrible they I want my money back I didn't I didn't read the book I've heard it's really good though from a lot of people I should read it I did see the movie and kind of thought nothing about it I was just kind of like okay and then just moved on you know terrible yeah I wonder if that I want I don't it's somewhere I have the book somewhere here but like I almost wonder if that ruined that author's career the movie because oh no cuz it was so you know what I mean like it like took the wind out of the sales cuz you get picked up by a studio and they just ruin it like everything so yeah what a bummer but you don't really like zombie movies and books and stuff that much so I don't know if you would love it I don't know if I would recommend it to you specifically but I don't dislike it though I think maybe it's just I have never seen anything I really liked like other than 20 you know the 28 days franchise like I feel like other than that I mean American Rapture is technically that's by CJ lead if you guys haven't read it is technically zombie apocalypse um that's not the main point of the book but that is going on I loved that book I think it's just because I haven't really seen much media that I um with zombies in the traditional sense that like I enjoyed but it's not that I dislike it I'm just waiting for something to change my mind you know yeah for sure for sure maybe if I read it I like it I don't know yeah maybe just don't ever want to watch the movie again yeah yeah okay what about you what is your fave and fail dystopia Edition yeah so um I kind of briefly mentioned to you this before so when I was in college I took a feminist science fiction class um and I had no idea what to expect um I was basically at that point like I could have pretty much gotten a like I did get a minor but I could have gotten a double major in women studies feminist studies um and so I was just taking it to fill some space but our teacher I ended up loving it and our teacher had assigned us Orcs And C by Margaret Atwood so I have it here my original copy um this really got me into the dystopian kind of sci-fi genre and I actually read or and CRA and um so it's a part of a Trilogy it's or Orcs And CRA mad atam and the year of the FL and so it's a dystopian Trilogy by Margaret Atwood I read it before I even read the handmaid's tale which is obviously what most people have read by her so that was my introduction to Margaret Atwood was a completely different thing than like what most people know um in that class I mean that teacher had us read you know some Ursula Kay lewinn she had us read some Octavia Butler like we were reading really really great who would have thought feminist science fiction authors um and so that really got me into the genre I think um so that's my fave I wanted to give the Orcs And CRA Trilogy a shout out on here because I feel like a lot of people haven't read it or heard of it um and Margaret Atwood I mean has an amazing collection in general but if you like science fiction if you like dystopian stuff post-apocalyptic stuff this would be a really good choice yeah so that's my fave my fail is also Margaret Atwood related um and it is basically trying to watch the handmaid's tail TV show so I watched I want to say maybe season 1 possibly season 1 and two by myself because my husband didn't want to watch it and I so I but I was so intrigued by it obviously being a huge Margaret Atwood fan um and at this point I had read you know the handmaid's tale and the Testaments which is the sequel and um it was just watching it alone was not a good choice yeah I was having nightmares every night I was so stressed out it was like because it's just so um it's like too close to home I feel like for a lot of people yeah um and so that was my fail but then you know we turn it into a fave I guess because then what it ended up happening was I asked you know my sister and our other good friend rinda if they wanted to just start having a girls night to watch it and we would watch the episodes together and I feel like that really helps because then it's like you can talk about the episode and process what happened yeah with other people and not just internalize everything yeah um and you know just experience the horrors with someone else who also who also um you know is equally or similarly affected by the horrors yeah yeah yes yeah that's so relatable cuz I tried watching it too and I probably got just as far like by myself well I don't I don't I think my husband was watching it with me obviously men have a different lens than we do different so yeah that was it was so heavy I had to stop like when I think a few episodes into season 2 I want to say cuz it's one of those things like you want to watch it cuz it's so good but it's also too close to home it's too scary of like we're not that far off I think a lot of people could to that feeling while watching this like oh women haven't had rights for that long guys well they get taken away yeah yeah I think you know it's like and I think what the show did so well I mean aside from the fact that it's like everything about it's like the tone the acting like everything you know there's a reason why like Elizabeth Moss has won so many awards for that show she's like remarkable but it's like I think they did such a great job of showing how things were yeah previously to this you know post-apocalyptic post-apocalyptic or whatever you want to call it situation this dystopian situation where everyone is kind of thinking things like you know how are we letting this happen what can we do our rights are being slowly eroded over time and then it just gets real real real fast um and so I think that that is you know it's the whole you know frog and boiling water kind of metaphor that gets used a lot um and yeah and so I think that it's good that if you're going to watch something like that to have people to talk about it with my question to you is what what the books were those easier to digest than show okay a th% the show is I haven't read the books because you should you should you should yeah um the books are excellent so handmaid tail is excellent it it's just a it's a tiny little bit of of the show tiny of what um like the book is like the tiniest little bit of the show the show goes off on okay way crazy tangents um and the Testaments was also really good and I haven't heard a lot like I even when it was newly out I didn't really hear a whole lot of Buzz about it but that's the sequel to the handmaid's tail that came out I don't know eight years ago or something like that I don't remember how long ago a while ago but yeah so I would suggest reading that too they were definitely way easier to digest um you know the show's extremely graphic and so I think that's a big part of the yeah it's scary it's every woman's worst or a lot of women's worst nightmare I think that's the thing and seeing it on TV in a real way yeah is really scary so yeah anyway that was my fail was trying to watch tail by myself yeah yeah yeah yeah but the content I think is important and yeah I mean if you don't think that you can watch watch it because it's too gory or graphic or explicit or whatever then yeah the books would be a really great option I think yeah for a lot of people mhm for me trying to watch it it was it was the themes that were just obviously like the overall issue like issues with what's wrong with that world and not even like the gore or the graphic like barely remember any of that it was just that feeling it's kind of like for me that doesn't it's not a good comparison but remember when I tried to watch Hunger Games not sorry remember when I tried to watch Game of Thrones and it was just like too much too much that's just like the horrors persist in front of my face so that's kind of like that terrible icky feeling after watching it you know that it's just like I can't continue on this is terrible yeah yeah I feel like it's good to just like process it talk about it get it out and then be able to move on whereas when I was watching it alone I was just like ruminating on all the ideas all day you know yeah and that's not good that's not not good yeah yeah totally okay so honestly Hunger Games could be doing that to me but because we're reading it all together you know it's help different it's a different experience is yeah yeah it is I agree um I think that it's important to read about things like this and we'll find out why here in a second so okay so the first thing that I wanted to kind of go over um was you know we put it out there on social media we just asked you guys what you think of when you think of a dystopia like just anything just like throw out ideas and we'll just list them off and so um you know as far as media goes you guys you know obviously said The Hunger Games The handmaid's Tale the Shatter Me series Divergent um someone actually mentioned Orcs And C which I thought was really cool yeah Maze Runner the Uglies Mad Max Fallout 1984 elisium the movie which I've never heard of so maybe I should look that up I don't know um and then as far as like ideas go I thought this was pretty interesting um so you guys you know just said Teen Angst War climate change the pandemic the Health Care System the US currently yeah uh zombies the collapse of government resulting in martial law oppression a broken Society on the verge of a rebirth or revolution um broken systems and then I threw this one in here cuz I thought was hilarious it just said Theo James I don't what's that he's the guy from Divergent he's the hot guy from Divergent well they have a lovely picture of what dystopia is yeah Theo J you show up he's there great yeah yeah I just I thought it was funny I was like well cool I'm glad I'm glad yeah so you know those were just kind of like a like a just Spitfire list of like things that you guys you know just you know when dystopia comes in your mind that's the first thing that comes to your mind mhm so then we decided to ask why you think you know just it's a little question box on Instagram so you can't really put too much in there why you think that as a society or as a people we're so obsessed with dystopia as a theme yeah and I think that your guys' answers were really really telling and really interesting so I'm just going to go down the list and kind of share what you guys you know you a lot of you guys participated so I actually had to narrow it down a little bit but this is the idea thank you seriously thank you guys for participating in those polls and those question boxes when we put them up it makes it feel like more of a conversation between us and you as opposed to just us together us talking at you guys yeah yeah um okay so in response to why you think we're obsessed with dystopias and those themes this is what you said um and these are direct quotes so it's fascinating and terrifying to see what lengths humans will go to to control others and these days dot dot dot to prepare just in case yeah ooo chills yep um it kind of gives hope that life might be okay that you can recover and be happy in very dark depressing times H yeah mhm um so we can attempt to ward off the future or feel better that it's not that bad yet yeah because we're headed that way because it's close enough to real life to feel believable with the hope that we won't reach that level but what if because it seems really really possible um it gives us hope that our actions can force change which I think is a really important takeaway from specifically dystopian fiction yeah um aspects of the settings events and characters connect with issues in our lives even though the dystopian aspect may seem extreme totally yeah um in part because it gives us hope that the quote unquote little guy can overcome the ruling class yeah which I think is a huge theme and most of the dystopia just you know dystopic books that I've read anyway yeah because it's something that reads as out of this world but could truly happen at any point mhm and then the last two were really interesting cuz they're really similar they give us hope that we can have a better future and I think it gives us hope that things can change in real life MH and I really appreciated all that Insight that you guys had because I feel like it just shows how important these stories are yeah 100% it almost they can almost be like a a blue print of like hey something like this happens feels like a bit of a guide and uh something else sparked my what I was going to say about that I don't know you go ahead if you have anything to say yeah no I mean you know cuz I was just thinking of it for myself you know because it's like we're posing these questions to you guys but it's like what do I think and I think that's what it is it's like it's not just like a cautionary tale because you know there's like that popular quote or whatever like little factoid about you know the handmaid's tale that people like to talk about so frequently about how you know everything that Margaret Atwood put in that book has happened somewhere in the world truly for real in reality so you know her inspiration wasn't just coming from some abstract place in her own mind you know from nowhere and so I think like yeah we can look at it as like a cautionary Tale on what not to do but I think it also can show exactly what you guys were saying about how it's important to remember that nothing's permanent everything changes and it does give us hope for the future whether that comes like in whatever form that comes in whether that's you know a revolution or an individual who can make significant changes Etc yeah for sure and I think also with dystopia media it's part of human nature to almost be fascinated by the possibility of the demise of the human race Poss you know or alternatively how to overcome it you know and the hero story and everything else you guys said is SP on yeah yeah yeah I think it's a lot of it is morbid curiosity too it's the same reason why we like to read horror right yeah it's I think it's very like adjacent to that it's like dystopia is not necessarily the same thing as post-apocalyptic stories but it's very you know adjacent and then you could even say that within that horror is very adjacent to that so it's like our brains are curious about worst case scario about disaster like all that kind of stuff you know totally so I think that explains a big part of it too yeah so okay so I feel like in order to lay the groundwork for this like Hunger Games Journey we're about to go on um you know in any I don't know part you know maybe dystopian books or series that we read in the future um is to understand where the term dystopia came from in general and what it actually means like definition wise so so I just wanted to share the definitions first um like the major ones so the oxer dictionary definition is an imaginary place or condition in which everything is as bad as possible so I thought that was interesting that they actually included the word imaginary because obviously a dystopia can't be 100% true because that would mean everything's terrible which is never the case just as a Utopia is not real either right but I thought that was interesting um the Miriam Webster definition is of relating to or being an imagined world or society in which people lead dehumanized fearful lives mhm no and then the Wikipedia definition is a community or society that is extremely bad or frightening it is often treated as an antonym of Utopia a term that was coined by Thomas Moore in 1516 which created a blueprint for an ideal Society with minimal crime violence and poverty the relationship between Utopia and dystopia is in actuality not one of simple opposition as many dystopia claimed to be Utopia and vice versa dystopias are often characterized by fear or distress tyrannical government environmental disaster or other characteristics associated with a cataclysmic decline in society yeah so I feel like that covered it pretty well yeah so okay so the way that I kind of decided to go through and like pick this apart was for us to be able to understand dystopia that came after the idea of a Utopia obviously because it's as you know the definition said it's an antonym for it it's opposite so I basically looked that up and found out that Sir Thomas Moore wrote Utopia in 1516 and coined the term fully understanding that they likely could not exist in real life so the word itself is derived from the Greek word utopus which literally means no place so it's like we're defining something that we know doesn't exist it's something that is the Fantastical idea mhm so Sir Thomas Moore's book is a satire in which there is total religious toleration and where people work according to their abilities and consume according to their needs there's no poverty or want no private property education is free and there are hardly any laws because people are self-governing um there is no capital punishment but there are which I thought this was really interesting I haven't read Utopia there are enslaved individuals who are criminals H so that seems a bit cont ictory to me but that would be a different topic picking that apart how are they criminals if there's no law because they self-govern but yeah okay this is why you get into a very deep philosophical discussion about all these ideas okay so Utopia and Moore are criticized as precursors to commun communist Theory and he was actually executed by Henry VI e for refusing to acknowledge his marriage to an Bolin so that's how he went out that's crazy huh yeah who's Ann Bolan and why was it bad techn marriage to her well I mean I've read a lot of books about her cuz you know he beheaded her too so yeah I mean we could find out more about that I'm sure you could Google it but I just thought that was interesting to find out that's where Utopia came from basic human rights being a utopian concept just everyone having access to their basic needs um but yeah I mean obviously like any Theory you could pick apart and there's definitely things wrong with it as well okay so the first time dystopia was used publicly in recorded was by John Stewart Mill who was an English philosopher and Economist in 1868 during a public public speech to criticize the government's Irish land policy okay so this is the first time dystopia was just like verbally used he believed that people should have more power than the government that a government's complete control over its population would reduce that population's happiness and at the best way to increase aggregate happiness was for the government to not have any control over its subjects lives so he was heavily inspired by Sir Thomas Moore who we just talked about who wrote Utopia and dismissed utopian thinkers because their ideas were too flawed to be practical so basically he's saying he's coming up with like you know the kind of the opposite or counter idea to the utopian idea yeah so that's where the ideas originated from yeah yeah oh that's crazy so what I could gather this was like a little bit confusing but I'm pretty sure I figured this out so cuz my question when was was when was the term first featured in literature yeah so we know you know that all these philosophers are basically going back and forth going back and forth using Utopia and dystopia as a way to essentially break down different economic theories or like government structure theories I guess you could say um so what I could find is that leis Henry young who is like this random guy over in Ireland published like actually published Utopia in Dublin in 1747 so that's what I could gather from that is he just took that work and actually published it so you can go and you can like buy it and stuff on Amazon now it's like um from everything I read it's basically there's all these disclaimers that it's like this was very old and peace to together kind of crappily so good luck but you can definitely like buy copies of it um so that was published officially for people to be able to buy and read in 1747 by this other guy did you like know any of that stuff before I didn't know any of that stuff like I knew Utopia was a thing but that's all I knew yeah for sure yeah I didn't know cool the more you know I know it's crazy it's crazy so okay so when did so my next question I came up with was when did the modern quote unquote dystopian fiction Era start so like when did we start like going on down to Hunger Games Town yeah yeah totally like how how did we get here from 1747 publishing these like you know Dusty philosophical like uh debates right to to where we are today okay so from what I could get in my research uh this pretty much started happening at the turn of the 20th century so most agree that the genre really became solidified with the publication of and I have no idea how to say this person's name guys sorry yev Jenny zamen sorry I have no idea how to say this but he wrote or say that but he wrote a book called we we in the year 1921 mm so it is said to truly have set up many of the tropes we consider dystopian like unresolved endings and a totalitarian government gone mad so we is set in an authoritarian one state where citizens are identified by numbers instead of names Society is governed by technological efficiency and the suppress suppression of individuality the protagonist d503 that's his name or their name is the lead engineer of the spaceship integral which is designed to rescue unfamiliar beings on other planets who may still live in Freedom so it sounds very like sci-fi yeah so that's kind of like the first time they're saying in 1921 where like this is like where the modern dystopian like fiction started and then his book greatly influenced George Orwell's book 1984 and Alis hug huxley's 1939 novel Brave New World which I feel like most of us are pretty familiar with yeah yep yeah so I included a quote that I had actually already read years ago um it's just this random critic named Neil Postman but he talks about kind of the difference between these two books because George Orwell had his take on what a dystopian meant and Aldis Huxley had his idea of what a dystopian meant um they're very different but both dangerous in really interesting ways and so I included this quote because I thought if you guys hadn't heard it before that it would be a good thing to kind of think about so mhm this is a quote what Orwell feared were those that would ban books what Huxley feared was that there would be no reason to ban a book for there would be no one who wanted to read one or well fear yeah or well feared those who would deprive us of information Huxley feared those who would give us so much that we would be reduced to passivity and egotism Orwell feared that the truth would be concealed from us Huxley feared the truth would be drowned in a sea of irrelevance Orwell feared we we would become a captive culture Huxley feared we would become a trival culture I just feel like that was like a good way to sum up like how it was almost like kind of like two schools of thought on dystopia was kind of created with like those two books um because they both had similar themes but also very different like takes on it yeah that's interesting broken down that way cuz I we both obviously read Brave New World I still have my library copy from my high school um and and I had never read 1984 that's actually on my Pango list right now of some dystopian books that I'm going to be buying to make sure that I can get them in a physical form have you ever read 1984 I obviously know the themes but yeah I've never read 1984 I have it already it's been sitting on my shelf forever it's not very long like I we should just read it at some point but no I did read Brave New World I want to read 1984 at some point soon um yeah it just I want to reread Brave New World as well that's definitely on my list too yeah when it comes to Modern the fiction era it does not surprise me of the timing of when it seemed to have really taken off and became hype when we did the Vampire series obviously we got to see way back thousands of years you know centuries and centuries ago where we saw it depiction and art and everything with dystopia themes Utopia is probably probably be found sooner than what we were able to find because the idea of that Almost Heaven on Earth has been around forever but yeah when it comes to dystopia think about what was happening at the turn of the N 20th century I think it's called right 19th that always confuses me the 1900s the turn of the 1900s we're seeing technology have a major Boom the Industrial Revolution we're seeing computers for the first time the introduction of cars and Automobiles like and obviously the population explodes because of modern medicine as well so it's not a surprise to me that that might be truly when things really took off and such a different way because there's so many different ways your brain can go of the fears and the dangers of all of these different things happening coupled with different governmental societies I'm sure there was dystopia stuff back before then too but the way it took was propelled by all these advances not only in Technologies but just everything so yeah for sure no that's so true like I decided to look up events that inspired modern dystopic works so I mean that's perfect segue to like take us into you know what most you know people who like research this topic or whatever would think um actually yeah inspired this like huge kind of like yeah this dystopian like theme to become super super popular in literature so the things that they list were major Wars mhm so obviously as you say like we'd be coming off of some major Wars crossover into post-apocalyptic fiction totalitarian regimes technological advancements um what I thought was interesting was there was actually one website that I was looking at that was talking about specifically uh the invention of the touring test which I didn't know about I'm sure I've heard about it sometime but it was a test for intelligence in computers um uh the creation of Sputnik the invention of the first personal computer so yeah the technological advancements like what you're saying yep um which this caused a or yeah caused a lot of the crossover into science fiction genre yeah um political oppression economic inequality and corporate power environmental disasters um with key real life examples being World War II and the Holocaust yep uh the Cold War nuclear threats and specifically the rise of surveillance Technologies which I thought was really interesting too mhm which is a heavy theme I know in 1984 that book yeah yeah yeah um so you end up with books like Fahrenheit 451 and A Clockwork Orange those are really obviously well-known um and then I one of the websites I was looking at was talking about how then in the 70s and 80s things shifted more from like that whole like it was almost like everything seemed to be or a lot of the books with dystopian and theme seemed to be really influenced by War the threat of War Etc and technology and then it kind of in the 70s and 80s shifted a lot to environmental crisis yeah um and there was a note that I put in here that the Clean Air Act was passed in 1980 so like it's kind of this idea that um you know then you end up with books like a handmade like the handmaid's tail yeah and the giver you know where you do have those um environmental concerns as well or you know things that move the plot along so I thought that was really kind of interesting to look at that a lot of these things obviously like we know right come from Life inspir yeah yeah um but to actually sit down and like read about it and be like oh yeah a lot of people were really freaking freaked out after World War II yeah makes sense yeah makes sense and it just reminds me of the weird strange movement that's trying to force its way into the book community of people saying books are not political keep them out what like did you see what we just listed they're literally political but and like you said I mean that's again that's a whole different conversation cuz reading in and of itself is political but like we're we're couldn't make it clear in this case well yeah okay so just to piggy back off that I made a short list of popular dystopian themes iCal capital is the first one that comes up y the meaning of Free Will fear of the state unchecked government power these are extremely political topics yeah um and they're some of the most popular dystopian themes not just in the olden days not just during World War II but literally we see it in things like The Hunger Games yeah yep so very very modern yeah yeah so my next question was how did we get here to our favorites like the hunger game so it's like you know we've got all these books that you know are coming out um that you know were everything's just inspiring the next thing right it's like evolving moving forward so we've got you know Fahrenheit 451 Brave New World 1984 we've got all those books how Animal Farm I know people talk about Animal Farm a lot another one I haven't read yet that's on my list yeah I have not read that either I'm hoping to read it soon all of those for us we both either read it or not because we're all in the same assigned classes that usually for some reason our AP classes didn't do those ones they did like we were the one of the only ones you know in that school to read Brave New World so some of those basic high school ones they didn't have us doing for some reason but they did alternative ones that were still dystopian what a yeah we continue but it's crazy how much dystopia books we were reading in our school years which I love oh totally yeah me too it is really important so okay so yeah how did we get get here so a lot of people actually credit which I thought this was interesting The Giver MH um as kind of helping to kind of propel this genre into like being a more popular specifically among younger people genre yeah um the The Giver made way more like kind of made the way for ya dystopia novels I guess you say like young adult um where themes like self-discovery and like the one young person against the world you know are popular because young people can kind of see themselves in that situation yeah um also I thought this was an interesting like little side note that I never really thought about that like many also think that a lot of this hype in like the modern dystopia kind of like ya fiction you know like Maze Runner Hunger Games um diver like all those kind of stemmed from post 911 anxiety yeah and I'm like well that tracks too because it's like how old were we during 911 like 8th grade I think yeah yeah so that would make perfect sense too mhm um so according to a few articles I read which I thought this was also really interesting The Hunger Games actually completely changed the genre by creating a shift from the individual wanting to break free and Escape their oppression to a safer community mhm so that's what a lot of the dystopian like novels would kind of focus on right like how can we be safe how can we escape this particular government and get somewhere safe so that's not enough anymore now our protagonists have to fight back and enact violence to bring down the tyrannical government entirely yeah so you know both of them are a form of rebellion it's just different yeah interesting I I dare say it's become a bit more radical yeah a little bit more radicalized yeah um but yeah so I thought that that was a pretty good just like little overview backstory on like how the dystopian genre came to be obviously it's much more complicated than that but I don't know do you have anything else that you kind of like no think thought while I was kind of going through that no that's a nice like brief history backstory bringing us up to modern times and how we got here MH so I decided to look at um are many of our favorite isopan novel's band ah yes this is the questions that I want to know the answers to so I just wrote yeah basically everyone mentioned which is a problem in and of itself okay yeah um so I just put the top five and as we know it's like these bands you know if you were around for our satanic panic you know people anyone can request a book to be banned it just kind of depends on who's doing it how much poll they have how much money and influence they have Etc um the top five dystopian books that are most frequently requested to be banned okay that's what this is the handmaid's tail is number one Fahrenheit 451 is number two Brave New World number three The Giver number four in 1985 or 1984 is is number five yeah yeah so no surprise there I don't think I don't think the irony is lost on anyone who knows what forign forit I can't say it right Fahrenheit 451 to ban that book that's a book there a book about book Banning and catching books on fire like getting rid of all guys hello don't ban it read it it begs a question that I want everybody to like sit and Ponder when it comes to Banning especially books such as these dystopia novels why are they wanting to ban it why are they scared of it are they worried that we're going to find out that themes that are happening within these books are currently happening or on a train track of happening like is that warning signs that we need to be cautious of because otherwise if it's supposed to be Fantastical and and uh wildly outrageous there would be no need to ban it in the first place okay you can say sure there's some bad language or some explicit material which a few of these I know for sure do have it but then you just would change the age like you wouldn't need to ban it flat out and I know some of them are different some of them are being banned in certain libraries and this is this is happening right now you guys there are book bands happening across the United States right now in different states in different libraries in different schools so I want you guys to sit back and think about why does that need to happen or why is it happening why is it being forced to happen why are they so scared if books aren't political why would it matter why would it need to be banned that's crazy I can understand reassessing a book and trying to figure out cuz we've talked about books that traumatized us we did a whole episode on that books that we felt funnily enough are not banned but were crazy traumatic because they were real life stories you know but yet these distopian out of this world context must warrant a ban yeah is problematic yeah extremely I agree yeah I was proud of myself I was like okay well you know at least I've got all five of these in my library already so I need hit check out at Pango because I need to make sure I get these in my hands yeah yep so okay why don't we talk about some dystopia I put talk about dystopias in your own lives what I me more so was when was your first recollection of the theme and popular culture like what were some things like growing up you know that you appreciated in this kind of like genre yeah moving past the giver because I think that for all of us reading that cuz that was a sign back in the day that was like a big topic of discussion um I want to want I kind of want to know before we move on what I wonder what dystopian books kids are still being assigned if any within any of those age groups you know I'm be curious to know my kids are not old enough yet my oldest is in fourth grade they are reading Island of the Blue Dolphin so MH there's so that's still getting and we am in California so we are more um what's it called Progressive typically with our schools but not that you know it's not that you know whatever Extreme as the media likes to paint so I just wonder what in these high schools are they being assigned in junior high I would love to know if you guys have any high schoolers or junior highers or whatever I would love to know if any of them are reading Fahrenheit 451 or is that like a nationwide maybe it's not a ban but they pulled it back cuz I know there are some like Where the Red Fern Grows and um tequilla mocking bird that I believe Nationwide is no longer being assigned which is horrible oh interesting it's horrible absolutely we need to not stop talking about these things so anyway um yeah or like any any of you guys who are teachers yeah tell us give us your perspective too yeah that would be really interesting I looked that up before but alas here we are um So within my own life recollection of just Hunger Games obviously I remember it becoming like explosive and and took the World by storm I think we were a little bit older when they came out in movies and at that point I wasn't really paying much attention otherwise I'm trying to think I mean for us like all the books like we' all just talk about the books like as a community but I don't remember in me like popular media as far as like movie franchises other than zombies like that kind kind of post-apocalyptic type of themes I couldn't think of anything else really that stood out to me what about you yeah I mean a lot of the books that we were reading when we were younger right like we were still in the area the area in the era of like the dystopia and stuff was fine to read in school so you know yeah so Brave New World was assigned we read that Fahrenheit 451 was assigned we read that Lord of the Flies was assigned we read that mhm um I remember all of those pretty vividly from high school for sure um as far as like dystopia in you know like TV or like movies I do remember I wasn't allowed to watch it but I do remember seeing like Snippets of at my friends houses and stuff of the Terminator movies those were really popular uh yeah duh yeah sorry Terminator yeah yeah so I do and I was really freaked out I remember I went to Universal Studios and they had a Terminator ride and I was like so freaked out on it as a kid see but that's I love that I love that for them for Terminator because realize how Fantastical that movie was 20 years ago 30 years ago look at how close that is and I don't want to sound like a tin foil hat over here but look at how close we are with AI right now you know with with our the way technology has progress into robotics you put those two together we aren't that far away the movie I robot even I think that's what it's called when it came out I haven't watched it yet but I want to because that it's I Robot right is that the one Will Smith no not Will Smith so it might be the wrong one I'm talking about um somebody's screaming at me it's the guy who plays um I'm curious now it's a guy who does Bohemian rap city he does Queen he's such a good actor yeah I don't remember anyways he so it's that same kind of you know concept with robots my I looked up robot and just roombas come up that's funny guys they're taking over machine see I'm telling you but look at how crazy and farfetched so much so that we didn't even consider it to be a dystopian theme which was huge when we were kids just everybody was watching Terminator I'm still scared of it I haven't watch but yeah you scii but it's actually dystopian because it's what if the robots take over the world I Robot does have Will Smith okay so I don't know what mov talking oh dang D I'm pretty sure I saw this one it wasn't that good um look the guy who plays um Queen Bemo and Rap City uh now I'm forgetting his name look up his IMD Robbie is his name Robbie he kind of looks like Bruno Mars a little bit I know I can picture him Ramy Malik yeah yeah um okay and then he's in like some type of dystopian movie thought unless he is an IR robot and he's a robot no I don't know I think he's like some kind of AI robot I haven't seen it yet so I don't remember why this helps us out but maybe because it's more new uh Mr Robot Mr Robot it gets 8.5 Stars so that's oh it's like riveting like it's supposed to be really good dystopia but not dystopia it's a word of C it's a tale of c a cautionary tale of what could be not too far from our future interesting I'll have to look at that um yeah it won like a bunch of a so yeah I'd say like Terminator also you know I feel like sometimes it gets overlooked but Star Wars yeah yeah for sure you know it's like that I feel like as a kid it was very like you know obviously that's all about a revolution yeah um I'm trying to think there was like one other one that I feel like was really popular when I was younger and I can't really remember I mean obviously I watched like I said before the 28 days franchise when I was in high school that zombie apocalypse yeah zombies had like a huge craze and some of them were dystopian some of them were not I know I'm trying to think I feel like there was obviously a lot more I mean there's a lot that Stephen King does and there he has a lot ofan books The Stand and there's that um there's that one with the cars that drive themselves and like gr people off the road I'm pretty sure that's Stephen King but it's almost like a horror genre for him but it's not because you can see some re you know you can relate to some themes in real life that you see yeah I mean I did not read the stand until I was an adult but I was obsessed with the original miniseries that came out either in like the mid90s or early 2000s you know another one that I just thought of from our childhood the freaking Matrix oh yeah yeah yeah I know I just pulled up like popular just took movies or whatever strangely that one did not pop up I think it's one of those cuz that was now 20 years ago it's one of those SciFi but a lot of sci-fi can be dystopian depending how far along our te technology has gotten since it came out you know totally not that farfetched wow yeah yeah I feel I feel like for me it was probably a lot more like books that I was reading than like movies and shows I was watching cuz I wasn't really allowed to watch a whole lot when I was younger yeah um but yeah it's so crazy to think about they're just they're they're everywhere the themes and all of them are very very similar and most of I feel like the science fiction movies I've seen yeah as far as shows I mean I watched The Walking Dead you know up until it got so dumb um and I never watched that yeah it was really good and there's been a lot of dystopian shows can't remember now of course other than the ones we've talked about handmaid's tail and stuff but yeah it just leaves you feeling like uh I'd rather consume it as a book which is interesting that books are more likely to get banned so that tells you something so are there any other faves in the genre that you want to shout out before we're done here with this introductory episode I don't think any other that we haven't touched on have come to mind what about you yeah I mean because I already mentioned the orics and Craig Trilogy please everyone go read it the other one that I wanted to mention um that I feel like doesn't really get talked about enough um are these two books uh by Octavia Butler she's amazing if you guys haven't read anything by her parable of the sewer and parable of the talents um these are some of my favorite uh kind of dystopian novels as well and she's an amazing author I'm trying to think of other ones but I feel like when I think of those ideas I always think orex and Craig Trilogy and then um parable of the sewer those are my f yeah yep yep so did you have anything else that you wanted to add before we do a um Hunger Games themed Smasher pass and sign off just to lighten the mood a little just that distopian books are so important that we always have access to because we it's it's just good to like hear about the people's plight of other situations I think it's a definitely the type of theming in a book that can incite empathy with people because especially when it's packaged in such a way that you don't even realize you know what that's why we love fantasy so much because we can learn and gain and grow without it I think being like shoved down your throat like a self-help book or even a memoir of somebody's plight you feel like that's them but when author such as suan Suzanne Collins for The Hunger Games has packaged the characters in such a way that they can become relatable and then you could see yourself in the story helps pull into those feelings of like how would I feel if I saw humans subjected to this or if that was happening to me so it's a huge reason why I feel distopia novels movies media needs to continue on and persevere yeah yeah there you go I agree I feel like I completely agree that we just need to remember that like no is do we NE necessarily need to be like afraid that everything that's going to happen in our dystopian novels is going to happen in real life like no we don't need to live our lives that way but I think that as you say it's important to remember that a lot of these things have happened or are happening to other people all over the world and just because we have the privilege of living where we live and during a certain point in time does not mean that everything will be you know the way it is forever so it's nice to be able to educate ourselves but as you say also be able to read about other types of people and situations so that we can put ourselves in other people's shoes yeah and remember that you know we're all just humans on this little floating rock out in space and what affects one person affects all of us in one way or another and I think that's why we were assigned so much of that reading growing up too is because the education at the time wanted to educate people on the different plights of people and the different possibilities and stuff not to scare us I was never scared from any of these books no I gained a lot of insight and thoughtfulness and it helped me understand things even though it's a fantastical allegedly like situation so I hope that they're still reading some of these or something like it because it's important it's important first of all I just want to say thank you for you know being here for a little like uh research history lesson um and hopefully that kind of helps put some things into perspective moving forward as we're reading The Hunger Games since obviously these books and movies uh delve very deeply into a lot of the themes that we talk about and we can kind of hopefully get some perspective on where that has come from moving forward and as I said if we read any more y a dystopian Series in the future yeah we kind of have that to base on okay so yeah to end on a high note let's just do a a hunger gam Smasher pass shall we let's shall just to ease us into this Hunger Games world that we're going to be fully immersing ourselves in starting uh now I guess yeah yeah all right you go first hit me okay you want me to go first do it so I have to know smash or pass hey Mitch pass from what from what I know so far let's ask it again after the prequel book cuz that is his book that's coming out the new one yeah we're going to find out more about him what I know so far up until 20 20 30% into mocking jay a little bit of the movies but that's a gray area it's a pass what about you I would say pass as well because of the fact that I think that what I appreciate about heyit's character is just that he's such a like I don't know it's like he almost has like a big brother kind of more of like a protector dad energy a little bit and so to me it kind of separates it out a little bit like I don't look at him in that way but he's cool in a lot of other ways yeah I appreciate his character but yeah yeah yeah see alcoholism for me I don't know the alcoholism thing yeah isn't great but I try to give him a little bit of a past because of what he's been through yeah true true sure you know what I mean yeah yeah so what about you well you know just because I know what your answer is going to be I'm sure you know mine but we got to know for the people in the polls President Snow so this is a complicated answer for me what okay let's hear it well uh well you haven't read uh Ballad of song birds and snakes yet yeah and I haven't even yeah yeah I'm only up until this point so interesting interesting I am not going to spoil anything for anyone in case you're new to the series that Ashley's face just freaked me out um I would say like sunrise or not sunrise on the reaping that's a new one um a ballot of song birds and snakes I don't know have you guys seen that movie that's a smash smash smash oh I haven't no we'll watch it we'll watch it next week yeah we will um yeah so President Snow and The Hunger Games trilogy is a past P past okay okay all right okay it depends on his era it depends on his era it's a very Tom Riddle e situation you know if you know what I mean yeah there you go yeah there you go so right now I'm assuming you would be a past hard past right now what I know so far yeah yeah dud doesn't have a whole lot going for him right now but we find out a lot about his past soon that's crazy oh I'm so excited I am so excited that's all I want to do is read it it's very very good just know that we are sacrificing our Hunger Games reading time because we're making these podcast episodes for you Liz is researching all morning for this episode I'll be editing it so we do this for you guys I hope you appreciate it no we're happy to do it we love sitting here talking with you guys about all of this we thank you so much for joining us yep yeah any any last words should I wrap this up okay I think we're good I think we're good awesome thank you guys make sure to like follow And subscribe before you go that way you don't miss out on our future videos which from now until the foreseeable future I think it's five or 6 weeks we will have Tuesday and Friday uploads with our normal episodes being Tuesdays and minod hunger game coverage on Fridays with a wrap-up episode that we will be talking about the movies and did they do them Justice we have some fun uh smash or pass poses to do then so definitely come back and check that out and you guys we'll see you Friday we'll see you Friday we'll see you Friday and next Tuesday and next Tuesday and then Friday and Tuesday you get the gist okay bye bye