If Netflix’s most-watched shows are any indication of the future of humanity, we could be in trouble. From the zombie apocalypse to totalitarian nightmares, Netflix is rife with dystopian entertainment—and we just can’t seem to get enough.
Television is the traditional means of escape for the modern working family and has been for more than 50 years. A glance at the most popular shows from each generation offers insight into Western society at the time. Back in the 1970s, “Dallas” and “The Love Boat” were the worlds we escaped to. Today, we are more inclined to relish the distorted world of “The Walking Dead.”
Gone is the ultimately Utopian vision of “The Neverending Story” of yesteryear. In their place, we have zombies, totalitarian rulers, and “big brother” societies.
Dark visions of the future and themes that speak to our greatest fears seem to offer the most attraction. The problem is, the things we fear have become so ubiquitous that they no longer instill the same dread that they once did, thus the boundaries are pushed ever further and our projected visions of the future become ever darker and more perverse.
Our obsession with apocalyptic worlds is not new, but it is on the rise. The ‘80s was the era of the romcom, the ’90s the sitcom, and the 2010s have put us in the era of dystopia. There is something unsettling about this pervasive fascination with apocalyptic futures, a certain ominous foreboding that comes from preferring to look at the world through a dark and distorted lens rather than an idyllic one.
This is not to diminish some of the great dystopian works or to imply that they are a modern phenomenon. They serve as stern and potent reminders of humanity’s capability for self-destruction and of the price we pay for losing our moral compass as a species. They are necessary and powerful tools, but their growing pervasiveness is troubling.
