- Also Known As:
- Unknown
- Version
- Languages:
- Length:
- 85 minutes (Uncut)
- Review Format:
- DVD
- Year:
- 2013
- Country:
- Predominant Genre:
- Science‑Fiction
- Director:
Directors James DeMonaco - Outstanding Performances:
- None
- Premiss:
- Using the 28th amendment of the U.S Constitution the government has established one night a year – called "the Purge", which occurs on March 21 to 22, in which all crime is legal, and all police, fire and medical emergency services remain unavailable for 12 hours, from 7 p.m. until 7 a.m. the next day.
- Themes:
- Advertising | Aggression | Alienation | Art | Atheism | Black people | Capitalism | Christianity | Civilization | Coming‑of‑age | Compassion | Communism | Corporate Power | Courage | Curative | Curiosity | Destiny | Eastern world | Emotional repression | Empathy | Equality | Erotophobia | Ethnicity | Evolution | Family | Free Speech | Friendship | Genocide | Globalisation | God | Grieving | Guilt | Gynophobia | Humanity | Identity | Individualism | Justice | Loneliness | Love | Loyalty | Mankind | Materialism | Mercy | Narcissism | Nationality | Nature | Nostalgia | Original Sin | Parasitism | Passivity | People Of Color (POC) | Personal | Personal change | Political | Political Correctness | Pornography | Preventive | Propaganda | Rationality | Redemption | Religion | Religious fundamentalism | Republicanism | Role modeling | Sadomasochism | Schizophrenia | Science | Self‑Esteem | Self‑Expression | Sex | Sexism | Sexual Repression | Social class | Society | Snobbery | Solipsism | The State | Stereotyping | Terrorism | Totalitarianism | The West | White culture | White guilt | White people | White privilege | White supremacy
- Similar to:
Given the frustrated nature of Whites – resulting from their lack of a substantive culture that helps them by telling them who they are – it is hardly surprising that Whites would believe humans to be inherently‑violent, despite there being no evidence to support such a contention in the scientific literature.
Rather than create a culture that allows Whites to know who they are and then allows them to express pride in their achievements; while supporting them when they have existential problems to face (the preventive approach), Whites, here, simply indulge their endemically‑violent urges – as they currently do regarding ethnic minorities, non‑heterosexuals, non‑Christians, etc. A purging of fear‑caused‑hatred and hatred‑caused‑fear that, in the real world outside the cinema, occurs all the time, rather than just once a year – and is just as ineffective.
The premiss is absurd because, once it becomes socially‑acknowledged that one has no responsibility for one’s fellow man, why would anyone obey the law at any other time? Moreover, everyone would become a target for reprisal, not just the unwanted portions of society; resulting people not trusting their neighbors and the inevitable decline into social anarchy. Why would anyone feel compassion for anyone, at any time, for any reason? White Christianity would become a smoke‑screen for bestiality – as it is today. Whites live as though they have no reason to live, given that they can never trust their neighbors, friends, family, work‑colleagues, etc. Society would not be purged but collapse – unless the anarchy implied by The Purge
were continuous – as it is today.
This movie also fails to acknowledge the sexual‑repression inherent in White culture, which could be used to legitimize rape. But that would just increase the ongoing estrangement of White men from White women at any other time. It also fails to address the fundamental racism of Whites and the anarchy that would result from regularly legalizing Auschwitz. A society based on complete selfishness would not last much beyond the first Purge
; that Whites conflate the Personal with the Political means having no personal life and living with those they should know actually hate them. Yet what alternative do Whites possess but to kill each other – either morally or physically – until the last White is left? The purge would make civilized life completely impossible, which is why it would have to be hidden – as in real life.
The movie is aware of its own bizarreness and tries hard to make us aware of this. But it never overcomes the feeling that Whites are so self‑estranged that they have no understanding of either human nature or their own. A better film would have resulted if the fact that this future White culture was, in fact, more clearly presented as an analogy to the present White one, but in reverse: Whites openly‑expressing their self‑belittlement, all the time, rather than just once a year. As so‑called White History Month is actually unnecessary because every month is White History Month.
Where the film really scores is in its analysis of The Purge
as not so much a catharsis of unresolved emotion, but a cull of the poor and everyone else who cannot afford expensive security systems. Revealingly, here, Whites always assume the worst in others, if it is undeniable in themselves, but Whites never assume the best in others, when claiming the best in themselves.
Yet, this film remains absurd in only half‑revealing just how awful White people are, but not at revealing why they would be so self‑destructive in their scorched‑earth social policy. There is no battle over resources to explain the White violence on show here, only the dramatically‑unexplored White need to feed off the suffering of others to compensate Whites for their inability to satisfy their needs in a healthy fashion. Whites here get to know what it is like to be treated as untermenschen in its prediction of White decline – despite being just as violent as the violence being condemned in the playing. Much like the neighbors who hide behind their security systems, this movie wants to avoid the violence of the excluded while indulging in it whenever possible.
The characters are little more than two-dimensional stereotypes who do not serve to exemplify and explore whatever deeper insights into White culture the screenwriter may (or may not) possess. The poor plotting is also exemplifies by there being far too many dei ex machinae. Yet, this remains a solid entertainment and a superficially thought-provoking look at the moral emptiness of present-day America, that was always inherent in White culture.
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