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Feb. 9th, 2014 02:07 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rinueI find the Nicholas K fall collection hilarious, because the aesthetic it seems to try to express is: Imagine that we lived in a post-apocalyptic world. We're still very rich, though.
It's notable because post-apocalyptic depictions tend to be characterized by a certain equality; they're awful, but awful for everybody. Or perhaps I should say precarious for everybody. There is usually some form of (needless to say villainous) paramilitary organization, whether it's Water and Power in Tank Girl, the Thunderdomers in Mad Max, or whatever those cannibal guys are in The Road, but not a lot of comfort seperating the goodies and the baddies, and in keeping with that scarcity, a lot of baddies turn on each other rather than being united in their privilege.
Bear in mind I'm not talking about dystopian fiction generally, which is often characterized by wildly unequal wealth distribution. I'm talking specifically about the post-apocalyptic sort, which as a genre convention tends to shuffle the deck in favor of the gritty. It's almost entirely devoid of the idle rich. (Possible exception: Land of the Dead, which I haven't seen.)
But is that realistic? It doesn't seem to be what happened in most of the pre-industrial past, or areas of the modern world affected by desertification. You start to get kings and queens and powerful religious beliefs to tell you they deserve to be there.
Nicholas K may be accidentally, ridiculously, on the money.
It's notable because post-apocalyptic depictions tend to be characterized by a certain equality; they're awful, but awful for everybody. Or perhaps I should say precarious for everybody. There is usually some form of (needless to say villainous) paramilitary organization, whether it's Water and Power in Tank Girl, the Thunderdomers in Mad Max, or whatever those cannibal guys are in The Road, but not a lot of comfort seperating the goodies and the baddies, and in keeping with that scarcity, a lot of baddies turn on each other rather than being united in their privilege.
Bear in mind I'm not talking about dystopian fiction generally, which is often characterized by wildly unequal wealth distribution. I'm talking specifically about the post-apocalyptic sort, which as a genre convention tends to shuffle the deck in favor of the gritty. It's almost entirely devoid of the idle rich. (Possible exception: Land of the Dead, which I haven't seen.)
But is that realistic? It doesn't seem to be what happened in most of the pre-industrial past, or areas of the modern world affected by desertification. You start to get kings and queens and powerful religious beliefs to tell you they deserve to be there.
Nicholas K may be accidentally, ridiculously, on the money.
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Date: 2014-02-10 06:27 am (UTC)