The Purge was the movie I chose to watch and which I will review as a dystopia. One way this movie can be viewed as a dystopia is by the government being able to control what is going on. The “purge” only occurred being that the government had something to gain from this. The purge allowed for legalized crime to be okay so it would help decrease the crime rate for the rest of the year, it also allowed for the lower class citizens to be targets so the government could maintain a high economic level. With the government controlling what happens and the regular citizens having no voice it demonstrates one of the five stages of oppression; powerlessness. The citizens have no voice on what is occurring and have to abide by the rules or there are consequences.
In the case of this movie, we know that only one group of people is targeted and affected while the other groups of people remain unphased. It is made clear in the movie that the President, first family, and government officials of rank 10 were considered off-limits during the purge. The middle class and high class were not included in the “off-limits” list but they have more advantages than the lower class. Most lower-class citizens do not have any place to sleep let alone anything that can provide them protection in this unfortunate circumstance. The upper classes have houses with weapons, cars, certain securities and are more prepared for this type of event so it would not affect this group as much. This is an example of one of the five stages of oppression; marginalization. The lower class is the only group that stands out and has no means of protection so they are viewed as outsiders.
In general, we know dystopias are bad places. With people running around the city with crazy masks on and deadly weapons for 12 hours and can do as they please, this sounds like a war zone. In a normal or perfect society, we would never see something of this sort nor would our government put us in this situation. In this case, violence is used to benefit the government and is not seen as good but seen as bad. This is an example of one of the five stages of oppression; violence. This also refers to the lower class being that they live with the knowledge that they must fear random, unprovoked attacks.
