What Happens When Society Can’t Take a Joke Anymore?
The upside of censorship? Unlimited optimism about our perfected future, where the best traits are gradually conditioned into all the shiny, happy people holding hands, and the misfits are quietly repressed into oblivion.
The downside? I’m not hearing anything, apart from some pretty chill crickets.
That’s the theme of our latest video, and of the 1969 film in reference titled The Joke (dir: J. Jires). And it’s a real laugh. Despite its dated black-and-white look and foreign subtitles, its eerie themes ring extremely familiar in our contemporary society.
Under Soviet control in this eastern-bloc nation, not only was communication closely-monitored, but offensive speech was censored and its sayers heavily penalized. The protagonist of the film ended up in a six-year stint in a prison work camp for daring to criticize the ebullience and naivety of the youth movement of the 1960s.
It was bad enough then; but what’s worse is that today, so many still seem to not know any better.
The same dangerously-vacant friends and neighbors and classmates have cropped up again to use their powers to inform on and silence those of us who dare to upset them.
Consider this video the next in a series of several videos on incarcerated speech and the prisonized population that the powers-that-be are constructing — where speech becomes unsayable, and ultimately, thoughts becomes unthinkable.
Be forewarned that those who go through such an ordeal of being suspected, accused, interrogated, re-educated and rehabilitated are never the same again. It’s not just a switch that can be flipped; it’s something that is permanently debilitating, and so, it must be addressed now — before any further damage is done.
