What Does the Popularity of Dystopias Say About Our Society?

Just 150 years ago, the genre of dystopian fiction was practically unheard of. Now, bookstore shelves overflow with it. Why?

Some scholars suggest we’ve already living in a dystopia—one that mirrors societies presented in novels. A scene from the film, “Blade Runner 2049.” MovieStillsDB

Total surveillance. Complex grids of control. Thought policing. Brainwashing. Bleak cities sanitized of feeling, rebellion, and thought. Advanced technological means of control and punishment. Purges of unwanted dissenters or members no longer useful to the collective.

These are the images that flash through the mind when we think of a dystopia, a scenario that haunts our modern consciousness, and, as a consequence, shapes our literature and cinema in profound ways.