There are two mindsets at war here trying to purge each other. One wants to revel in the anarchic horror it creates, the story is that for one night each year murder is legal across America, instincts come out to play. It's the same instinct that brings us in front of the screen for this, the desire to see ordered life go to pieces, safeties assailed, conventions dismantled.
Would we watch this if it was about people quietly huddling in their homes until they night was over? No we want to be out there, seeing people purge from the safe distance of fiction, seeing the inanity of the violence, it's the whole reason we come. And along the way, having drawn this violent self out, endless opportunity to show how this self already creeps in the fabric of normal life and waits for this one night; a lecherous neighbor, a wife who finds out she's being cheated on.
It's a potent idea, you can already tell it's going to be a recurring event each summer.
The other mindset is that seriously political things must be said through all this. We can't be just allowed to watch and arrive at conclusions, we have to be bluntly purged of thinking for ourselves. The 'purge' is organized by an oppressive government. It has to be assisted by government troops, the people just don't kill enough. It's all so hamfisted on this end - the rich literally buy the poor as fodder for their game show.
Did we have the slightest bit of trouble understanding for ourselves in the first Dawn of the Dead the desensitized world, the egos and pecking orders? The havoc was organic, swarmed out of nowhere like instincts do. Here it's all the rich guys' fault to get rid of the poor. It's the same Hunger Games mentality at play, a corporate one, where 'sponsors' lure an audience promising spectacle only to constantly remind it's all so decadent and oppressive.
So it devolves from the horror of what people can do to the horror of what an evil government orchestrates, leaving us witless consumers of a message. It's as oppressive to watch as what it warns against. The Warriors was as removed from actual life but then again it was never more than opera.
In the end it all comes down to action kicking and punching rich guys to escape from their maze.
Would we watch this if it was about people quietly huddling in their homes until they night was over? No we want to be out there, seeing people purge from the safe distance of fiction, seeing the inanity of the violence, it's the whole reason we come. And along the way, having drawn this violent self out, endless opportunity to show how this self already creeps in the fabric of normal life and waits for this one night; a lecherous neighbor, a wife who finds out she's being cheated on.
It's a potent idea, you can already tell it's going to be a recurring event each summer.
The other mindset is that seriously political things must be said through all this. We can't be just allowed to watch and arrive at conclusions, we have to be bluntly purged of thinking for ourselves. The 'purge' is organized by an oppressive government. It has to be assisted by government troops, the people just don't kill enough. It's all so hamfisted on this end - the rich literally buy the poor as fodder for their game show.
Did we have the slightest bit of trouble understanding for ourselves in the first Dawn of the Dead the desensitized world, the egos and pecking orders? The havoc was organic, swarmed out of nowhere like instincts do. Here it's all the rich guys' fault to get rid of the poor. It's the same Hunger Games mentality at play, a corporate one, where 'sponsors' lure an audience promising spectacle only to constantly remind it's all so decadent and oppressive.
So it devolves from the horror of what people can do to the horror of what an evil government orchestrates, leaving us witless consumers of a message. It's as oppressive to watch as what it warns against. The Warriors was as removed from actual life but then again it was never more than opera.
In the end it all comes down to action kicking and punching rich guys to escape from their maze.