Culturally Relevant Metaphor in "The Dead Zone"

[Blake]

Specifically, in this week's episode I think there was a huge honkin' allegory, relating a school turned upside down by John Smith's vision of a future shooting spree to the United States.

John Smith has a vision of a young shooter he can't identify; in response, the school principal imposes escalating security measures. One of the suspects is a militant, highly intelligent critic of the school; despite the fact that John eventually finds out enough to know that it wasn't him, he is shot by a security guard as he's reaching for what turns out to be a cell phone.

The episode seemed to me to be a pretty blatant statement about the dangers to freedom and safety caused by responding to a threat to freedom and safety with blanket applications of force.

[LadyShea]

Wow, that's a pretty blatant warning of the dangers of the "suspect everyone but especially the 'weirdos'" mentality of our current government!

[livius drusus]

Originally Posted by LadyShea

Wow, that's a pretty blatant warning of the dangers of the "suspect everyone but especially the 'weirdos'" mentality of our current government!

It really was. Particularly since when it turned out that Johnny's vision was of a shooting 5 years in the future, the principle refused to stop the security escalation because now that it was in place, people needed it to feel safe and trust his administration.

[Petra]

I don't watch much TV; but I sure hope many people in the US do and that when allegories like that are shown, a penny drops in more than a few people's minds.

Awake, America, before you kill us all!

[Petra]

Originally Posted by LadyShea

Wow, that's a pretty blatant warning of the dangers of the "suspect everyone but especially the 'weirdos'" mentality of our current government!

Scapegoating weirdoes, intellectuals, and aliens is how the truly dangerous avert attention from the real money.

Thing is, national paranoia is a multi-billion dollar industry. Those with vested interests will do anything to keep it front-of-mind as it's profitability is two-fold. Firstly, it keeps the populations minds off what's really going on; and secondly, it's a huge money spinner in itself - assorted businesses related to various security tasks, arms manufacture and distribution, CIA, etc, etc. Business, as usual.