View source for Pretend We’re Dead: Capitalist Monsters in American Pop Culture

'''Newitz, Annalee. ''Pretend We’re Dead: Capitalist Monsters in American Pop Culture''.''' Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2006.

Reviewed by Janice M. Bogstad, ''SFRA Review'' #285 (Spring 2008): pp. 21-22.[http://sfra.org/resources/sfra-review/285.pdf]

Bogstad notes that in the next to last chapter of the book Newitz

<blockquote>
takes on cyberspace and AI as subsuming the human, starting with ''[[LOGAN'S RUN|Logan’s Run]]'' and moving on to ''[[THE MATRIX|The Matrix]]''. Her focus here is the mass media portrayed through the media — that is, “mass media which swallow up the people who consume it.” This discussion [...] about the way that media representations are embraced by their audiences so that they try to become what they see links both machine control of humans as in ''Logan'' and ''Matrix'', where supercomputers literally control the human body, to the mediated self-reflexive gesture found in such films as ''[[PLEASANTVILLE|Pleasantville]]'' (a comment on 1950s television defining the family for its viewers) to ''[[THE TRUMAN SHOW|The Truman Show]]'', which attempts to create a candid, reality-television feel with a person who does not know he is a character being viewed by millions.
</blockquote>


RDE, finishing, 13Jan21
[[Category: Drama Criticism]]