Politics in Fiction

There was recently a Provincial Election in the part of Canada where I live, and there's a Federal Election coming up in about a year.

With the brouhaha going on in the world these days about politics and the divisions between many people that are resulting from it, I figured it's a subject worth raising.

What interests me specifically is the inclusion of real world Politics in movies. This is a subject that has exploded online in recent months.

We've talked on the Quackcast about movies like Elysium as being preachy and annoying, regardless of our beliefs on the themes of that film - but real Politics in movies seemed to really accelerate with the remake of Ghostbusters in 2016, and then Star Wars The Last Jedi at the end of 2017.

(see? I told you I could wring a few Newsposts out of this Star Wars stuff!)

Oddly enough, Star Wars seems to be a bigger deal as far as outrage and Political fights, even though it was Ghostbusters creatives that got themselves more involved with the 2016 US Election, the director claiming the movie endorsed one candidate over the other (to the chagrin of Sony Pictures, the studio behind the movie). The bigger battle over Star Wars is probably because Star Wars is a bigger deal than Ghostbusters, with a larger fanbase.

Among other criticisms, people "protesting" Star Wars are saying that the injection of real life, current-year Politics into the movie have no place in this kind of entertainment. Defenders say that Star Wars has had Political storylines in the past - and the counter argument is that the similarities to the real world were more thematic and at least somewhat vague in previous movies, while the issues in The Last Jedi are preachy and have been shoehorned in to the detriment of telling a good story.

Genre fiction has often played a role in expressing Political ideas in a powerful way that can sometimes not be explored in other ways - but is it always appropriate? Can it be done "wrong" as well?

Do you put Politics, either real world or fictional, into your stories? Is it a bad idea to do so…or do you prefer to see Politics in your fiction?


I cast my vote for you to have a fine Thursday!

-Banes


p.s. For a twisted version of Politics and Entertainment:

I just read about a new game show called "Paid Off" where the prize is the contestant's student loans being paid off.

This is bizarre to me - the student debt crisis is massive in the U.S. and Canada and all over, and this seems…only a few steps away from The Hunger Games or The Running Man. I'm not sure if this is exploitative, or if it's a way to call attention to a huge problem in society.

Crazy times.