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On March 26, 2019, the European Union voted on and passed the Directive on Copyright in the Digital Single Market, otherwise known as the European Copyright Directive. This bill was drafted back in 2001, and its intended purpose was to create universal legislation that would “harmonize” copyright laws across all of the EU. According to an article by Katie Collins: “Article 13 is the part of the directive that dictates how copyrighted content -- including TV shows, films, videos, and pictures -- is shared on the internet. It dictates that anyone sharing copyrighted content must get permission from rights owners, or at least have made the best possible effort to get permission, before doing so“ (Collins). Essentially, the EU is trying to limit and control how copyrights are controlled for the sake of “protecting” smaller creators while limiting any kind of fair use for the purpose of education, critique, and parody. This means no more gag posts involving a funny picture you didn’t take, someone else’s music, or using someone clips for criticism and parody. In short, it means taking away the freedom of speech on a continental level. We see the warning signs for a world similar to Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451.
The world of Fahrenheit 451 is that of complete government control. In the near future of the twenty-fourth century, books have been become such a complete symbol of debate, free thought, and intellectual growth, that special Firemen are employed to burn books and start fires, not put them out. In this dystopia, protagonist Guy Montag lives and serves as one of these book burners until his neighbor, the eccentric young Clarisse opens his eyes to the real world slowly passing him by. No one sits to watch the grass grow, bombs are flying constantly overhead, and Montag can’t even recall how he and his wife originally met. After stealing books from the houses he’s tasked to burn, Montag begins to open his eyes and see what society has become in the era of constantly streamed entertainment and leisure. He’s eventually corned by his boss Fire Captain Beatty, who despite being a Firemen, is clearly one of the more well-read characters of the novel. The most shocking thing that Captain Beatty tells Montag regarding the banning of books and the collapse of free thought is that we ourselves might be responsible. “ It didn't come from the Government down. There was no dictum, no declaration, no censorship, to start with, no! Technology, mass exploitation, and minority pressure carried the trick...With school turning out more runners, jumpers, racers, tinkerers, grabbers, snatchers, fliers, and swimmers instead of examiners, critics, knowers, and imaginative creators, the word `intellectual,' of course, became the swear word it deserved to be” (Bradbury pg.54-55). Beatty, and by extension Bradbury is making the argument that in a struggle for absolute equality, intellectual discourse and debate must be cast aside. Books in this world are symbols of free thinking. They are the catalyst that allows the common man to fight back against oppression. They are burned because we allowed them to be burned. As time goes on, fewer people see them as containing anything of value, so their destruction is looked upon as righteous by the brainwashed masses. The people in this society are their own book burners and oppressors. No one stood up to do anything about it until it was too late, causing the country to be involved in numerous wars and impulsive acts. The novel ends with the optimistic view that Montag and the traveling scholars will rerun to society and help the masses rebuild, but the reader might walk away from the story wondering if it's already too late.
Many readers have argued that Fahrenheit 451 is a world ruled over from the perspective of totalitarianism and not a dystopia. One could make the case that a totalitarianist society is one in which a government takes control with a centralized and aggressive dominance similar to a dictatorship. A dystopia, as discussed before, is a society in which people are given the illusion of choice. No one on the government level is telling them what they should and should not be doing. They simply allow for the regulation and control of its citizens through societal pressures. In his essay on 1984, Robert Resch discusses the differences between totalitarianism and a dystopia. “The term totalitarianism was used to discredit all forms of critical or utopian thinking as inherently dangerous. Totalitarianism became dystopia, or rather a dystopian parody of utopia itself, while American pluralism was transformed into the highest form of good that could be "realistically" expected from a human society“ (Resch) The overconsumption of distrustful media through the gigantic television screens and neighbors spying on one another in the novel could be another sign that the novel is dystopian rather totalitarianist.
Pleasantville is a 1998 science fiction drama film written and directed by Gary Ross. David and his twin sister Jenifer are two high school kids living on opposite sides of the social ladder. Jenifer is one of the popular girls with lots of friends, while David is an awkward social outcast with poor people skills. At home, David watches reruns of a 1950’s black and white syndicated television show called Pleasantville, similar in tone and presentation to Father Knows Best, the series about a small (almost entirely white upper middle class) town that lives by post-WWII nuclear family structures and gender norms. Through a series of events, both David and Jenifer are sucked into the world of Pleasantville and are forced to adapt to the social norms and rigid structure of a 1950’s family show. Instead of entirely blending in, the siblings eventually decide to teach the town about the real world outside, eventually causing the black and white world of Pleasantville to become filled with color, freedom and artist expression. Similar to other dystopian stories, the people of Pleasantville don’t realize they are being controlled, censored, and repressed until someone makes them aware of the fact they are and respond by rebelling against and other throwing the established order of the town.
Pleasantville is strange in that the only way in which the town functions is if everyone is in their specific place, doing their specific job at exactly the right time. For example, David takes on the role of Bud, the main son character in the show, and basketball practice cannot start or end unless he’s present. Otherwise, all the other boys just stand around. In a paper discussing the nature of Pleasantville's political themes, Evrim Koç writes about how the citizens of the town react to being aware that they have a choice for the first time in their lives. “As events unfold, it becomes clear that “pleasantness has its price”. These depictions of control, peace, and order in the mirror are coupled with the scenes of restriction and confinement. In this monochrome world, the books are empty and residents are confined in the suburban boundaries since they “never travel beyond Main Street, no one knows of any world outside..... As the people in the town realize that the order is maintained indeed by social and spatial restrictions, they start to liberate their desires and needs and resist against the oppressive codes.” The repressed nature of sexuality is a huge element of the film. Both Jenifer and her fictional mother have sexual awakenings and discoveries. One infamous scene in the movie has a role reversal in which Jenifer has to tell her very repressed mother about what sex is, and that it can be enjoyed. Sexual, literate and artistic freedom are all core elements that the film explores. Unlike 451, David, Jenifer, and the citizens of Pleasantville are able to win out against there oppressors and provide the town with the freedom on choice. How they use this new freedom is left up to the viewer's imagination.
Both Fahrenheit 451 and Pleasantville provide examples of creative works that show the downsides of oppression and censorship. They seek to inform us about the nature of dystopia, and the various forms it can take. While Bradbury goes about allowing the people of future America to decide they want to slowly but surely be silenced and robbed of individuality and freedom, Pleasantville goes about asking what society might do if they only had just discovered that they were being oppressed their entire lives. In both stories, we can see the negative effects of extreme censorship and giving in to the mob mentality to preserve the status quo. Legislation such as European Copyright Directive and Article 13 show that people in power want to silence the majority so our voices can’t be heard, and they can continue to oppress others to solely benefit themselves. Science fiction stories like these can serve as cautionary tales that show us why we can’t stay silent, and why can’t be passive in freedom of speech and expression.
Works Cited:
Bradbury, Ray. Fahrenheit 451. Simon & Schuster Paperbacks, 2013.
Collins, Katie. “Everything You Need to Know about Europe's New Meme-Ending War.” CNET, CNET, 25 Mar. 2019, www.cnet.com/news/article-13-europes-hotly-debated-eu-copyright-law-explained/.
Ersöz Koç, Evrim. "Control and Resistance in the Heterotopic Spatiality of Pleasantville." CINEJ Cinema Journal 5, no. 1 (2016): 57-83.
Resch, Robert Paul. “Utopia, Dystopia, and the Middle Class in George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four.” Boundary 2, vol. 24, no. 1, 1997, pp. 137–176. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/303755.
Ross, Gary, Jon Kilik, Robert J. Degus, Steven Soderbergh, Tobey Maguire, Jeff Daniels, Joan Allen, William H. Macy, J T. Walsh, Don Knotts, Marley Shelton, Jane Kaczmarek, Reese Witherspoon, John Lindley, Randy Newman, Fiona Apple, and Paul T. Anderson. Pleasantville. New York, NY: New Line Productions, 1999.
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