Literature, Film and Social Movements

By Jonathan Moens Through our questionnaire, we have found that when asking students what books or films best depict their societies, they frequently responded by referring to classic dystopian novels including Huxleys Brave New World and political documentaries. Both of these genres have a unique ability to represent the world in an audacious and deeply critical manner, commenting on the social and cultural degradation of contemporary societies. Are these sorts of genres able to shape our thinking to the extent that we value social and political change more, and as a result, make us more likely to advocate for change? The Two Dreaded Questions As with most qualitative research projects, you never really know what the outcome will be until youve collected all the data and have taken the time to condense this information into meaningful narratives. I feel Marilyn Strathern neatly summarises what the underlying philosophy of qualitative research is- a deliberate attempt to generate more data than the researcher is immediately aware of at the time of collection. Following this idea, we created many focussed and immediately relevant questions on social and political activeness combined with more speculative questions, namely ones trying to understand what Literature or Film they would relate their society to: If you could describe our current society with a book, which would it be and why? and If you could describe our current society with a film, which would it be and why? The above questions relating to literature and film were seen as challenging to say the least- and with good reason. To categorise your perception of a society into an art form is to say that either society is simplistic enough to be condensed into a book/film, or that there exists a book/film comprehensive enough to illustrate societys exceptionally complex nature. There is something very restrictive about this question; yet, it also has the unique capability of truly gaining insight into ones conception of the world. Making analogies allows people to frame their thoughts in a completely different medium, and solves the problem of having to reduce abstract mental ideas into definitive words. No wonder Artists, who, when asked to describe their work, use metaphors, symbols and other abstract devices rather than talking literally- meeds only listen to Francis Bacon refer to his idiosyncratic marks as both a caress and a blow on the subject to confirm this point. Dystopian novels including Brave New World, Fahrenheit 451 and 1984 were the most common responses to the question regarding literature. At first, it seemed extreme to think that the majority of answers associated current societies to these provoking depictions of a rigidly controlled, spiritually degraded and technology-dependent virtual world. But perhaps these analogies are not as radical as they might appear. Discussing with some of the people who filled the questionnaire, it seemed apparent that referencing dystopian societies was not supposed to signify an accurate mirror image of the real world, but rather, it was an attempt to allude to the values and themes that dystopian fictions so effectively convey: a humanitarian attitude criticising the existing social and political system (Booker, M. 1994). Dystopian Literature, Political Documentaries and Sociological Theory. Studies of social movements have come up with numerous theories as for why people participate in protests, the Relative Deprivation Theory (RDT) being a major one (Mcadam, D. 1997.) This theory states that people join protests when they are feeling deprived, that is, the experience of being deprived of something

to which one believes oneself entitled (Mcadam, D., Zald, M. and Mccarthy, J. 1996). Having said this, I anticipate that people who perceive their own socio-political environment as a dystopian novel and this is similar, if not equally true to political documentaries- have embedded in them certain prejudices including a critical political outlook, underlied by a great sense of deprivation . Arguably, these prejudices makes them see political and social activity as something important and necessary. With this in mind, I decided to further investigate and create a sort of Psychological profile of people who view their world as such, and how that might manifest itself in greater political and social activeness. Creating a profile: a) 87,5% of people who associate societies to dystopian novels and political documentaries were also extroverts. b) Instead of joining protests, going on strikes or running for public offices, students are much more likely to post things on social media or talk about social and political issues with friends and family. c) Introverts are simply not very active. They are all very unlikely to post things on social media and are also more likely to do nothing about unsatisfactory conditions than extroverts. d) Extroverts, on the other hand, show a strong willingness to post things on social media, particularly those who associated their society to dystopian novels or political documentaries. e) Extroverts who relate societies to dystopian novels and political documentaries were found to be less likely than other extroverts in doing nothing about unsatisfactory conditions. Many things have been brought to light when trying to convert all this qualitative data into meaningful narratives. For one thing, it seems that students simply do not value protesting as a means to create social and political change and that personalit-type certainly affects our involvement. Whether it is fear of policeforce intervention or more sociologically speaking, a lack of what Doug McAdam termed a political opportunity being a situation where it seems opportune to challenge an existing political institution due to its vulnerability (Mcadam, D., Zald, M. and Mccarthy, J. 1996), students dont seem concerned about how influential their actions will be, but more, how easily performed they are. Students value

effortless activities more than influential onesmaybe we should re-consider our priorities. As my profile suggests, extroverted individuals who associate their societies to dystopian fiction or political documentaries are much less likely be passive in unsatisfactory conditions than both other introverts and extroverts, and more willing to proliferate awareness of a social or political issue on social media. Intuitively, it seems that extroverts value social and political activism more than introverted people. However, this kind of reasoning whereby correlation = causation might be misleading and ignoring a major point: that the nature of social and political activities are in themselves better suited to socially confident and outgoing individuals (Van Stekelenburg, J. and Klandermans, B. 2009). Thus, whereas both introverts and extroverts might value social and political activism as equally, introverts, being less social, might not get involved. This leads me to think: should we change the nature of social and political activities so as to tailor them to different personality types? The important point I want to make here is that ones conception of a society defines his role in it (Van Stekelenburg, J. and Klandermans, B. 2009). It appears from our results that by perceiving your society as a dystopian fiction or a political documentary -even if not literally- that you will view your society in such a way that makes you more pro-active. All Arts, theatre, dance and music included do not directly mould the way we perceive our environment, but they certainly do reveal values and ideas of societies that many seem to adopt. Its unique ability to mould our perception of the world; fuel us with ideas and instigate a passion within us, are all powerful forces that shape our understanding of societies, and by extension, how we decide to engage with it. In a world where Film and Literature permeate an increasingly large portion of our lives, and where the democratisation of knowledge allows easy-access to these mediums, it appears to me as extremely relevant and significant to think that perhaps, if we all perceived the world more like these brutally critical depictions of our societies, that we would value social and political change more, and therefore be more pro-active in trying to advocate for change.