MovieChat Forums > Starship Troopers (1997) Discussion > Other depictions of functional authorita...

Other depictions of functional authoritarian societies in film?


Can anyone think of other depictions in films of ""ideal"" (and I feel I need to use two sets of quotes here...) seemingly functional and sustainable authoritarian societies like the one in 'Starship Troopers', that are united (no ongoing war at home or obvious signs of class divide and poverty), apparently completely post-racial (very diverse population and no racial-discrimination...) as well as featuring very strong gender-equality (mixed locker-rooms and showers, women in higher position of power like Sky Marshal Tehat Meru, women in the military and on the front line...)?


Of course, many aspects of the authoritarian society in 'Starship Troopers' are problematic (to say the least) by most modern liberal democracies' standards:
- It sets 'violence' as its founding principle (the whole "something given has no value.... violence is the supreme authority from which every other authority is derived" speech by Michael Ironside).
- Citizenship is conditional upon military service (all citizens are expected to serve).
- A large portion of the adult population is either maimed or disabled, due to wounds sustained during service.
- It has no second thought about sacrificing its youth to the war effort (e.g sending extremely young recruits to the front).
- Political propaganda ("would you like to know more?") is ubiquitous, which means free-speech and freedom of the press are most likely non-existent.
- It has the death penalty (with public broadcasting of executions!).
- It seems to be in a perpetual state of war (with non-human foes).


I find it extremely interesting and wise that Verhoeven chose to depict a bona fide authoritarian society without resorting to the most obvious negative features usually associated with fascist societies, such as race/sex/class discrimination or eugenics.
It makes it less easy to brush aside any possible comparison with contemporary (of 1997) American society on immediately identifiable and obvious grounds, and forces one to compare both societies based on their deeper organising principles and values instead (i.e. violence as the foundation of society, unity strongly dependent on identifying a common enemy stigmatised as the "Other", etc.).


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[deleted]

Robot Jox (1989)

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Equilibrium is the closest I could come up with.

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Robocop

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Robocop was a high crime dystopia

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Starship Troopers is a liberal representative democracy with a capitalist economy. It's not explained in the movie, but federal service (not military service) is required for citizenship and the military is just one form of federal service. In the book it is not required to serve in the military. The new government guaranteed everyone a federal job because service was required to vote, but had trouble fulfilling the promise due to overpopulation. Jobs were assigned based on testing, if you were smart you might be a pilot, if you were dumb you might be infantry, and in the book if you were really dumb they would assign you to extremely hazardous duty. It was meant to dissuade dumb people from becoming citizens. They also strongly encouraged colonization to relieve the pressure of overpopulation and bugs wanted the same planets, so that's why they were in a war with them. They threw troopers at the bugs because they had a lot of troopers and life was cheap.

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What is capitalism?

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You got it almost right, except for the core politics of the movie: it's a fascist society, disguised as a democracy. Maybe the book is different, but the movie makes it very clear that we are watching Nazis. You might argue that we are actually seeing Communism at work, because of a bureaucratic hierarchy in people's society and assignments by the government, but the movie is probably more of a mix of that and fascism.
In any case, the veiled promise of citizenship due to service is nothing more than a recruitment strategy of the militarized government.

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In the movie we only see the military but in the book the military and govt are separate. There is no such thing as a fascist, communist, military, democracy. A bunch of soft, half-educated critics and hollywood nobodies whose experience includes making and watching movies, criticized ST as fascist because of the superficial resemblence in the uniforms, and Verhoevan stupidly went along at first, then in the commentary concedes it's not a fascist society. He took a lot of heat from people who are useless and dumb.

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Gattaca which came out the same year comes close. They had eugenics and a futuristic society...though not as futuristic as Starship Troopers.

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Ender's Game.

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If we do become an authoritarian society in a hundred years would people start resenting the Federation and how they run things? would a rebellion come about?

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"the federation assimilates people and they don't even know it"

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