The utopian idea was something interesting that we talked about this week. I like that someone in the class talked about the new movie coming out called “The circle”. It reminded me of Munoz’s reading about utopia. At first when I saw the trailer for this movie, I was genuinely excited for it cause I was like, this company called the circle helped the main character’s father through whatever he’s going through so they must be a good company with no bad intentions whatsoever. He has some type of disease in the movie and I guess by using these cameras all over the world, they were able to help him somehow. I got excited by the idea of a company doing good for everyone in the world, even if it did mean no privacy. I guess I should have saw right through that because the second time I watched it, it struck me a little bit different. It scared me to think that there could be a society where these people are always watching to change the world and make it “perfect” in their eyes. I guess even now though, there there is a true possibility that society and everyone in it is always being watched by the government or someone overseeing everything to make society how they see fit. I hear all the time from people around me that the government is listening to everything we say in front of our technology so I guess this new movie is playing off of that. I wouldn’t past the government to have something to do with watching people’s every moves through technology. I can see why they would do it because it’s the easiest way to pay attention to people and catch bad guys but then also I can see how it is an invasion of privacy because there’s no consent from the citizens for any of it. Unfortunately, as a community, there’s really not much we can do about it though except grin and bare it. Let’s just hope we don’t become like this new movie trailer because the ending doesn’t look it’s going to be a happy one for everyone involved.
SGST/ WOMS 200-011 
The comparison between the transient onstage utopias referenced by Muñoz and the corporate surveillance “utopia” portrayed in The Circle highlights the danger of remaining complacent while digitization opens up more and more of our lives to government and corporate scrutiny. The capacity for conceptualizing a better world contained in the performative utopias Muñoz describes can exist only in the freedom provided by the shadow of the dominant culture, so under an eternal surveillance regime it would cease to exist. A “perfect” world permits no change or improvement, so while the temporary utopias created onstage present an opportunity for the outcast and oppressed to imagine a better world, a permanent utopian vision forced upon society by the rich and powerful would likely end in disaster for everyone unable or unwilling to live in a way decreed to be acceptable.
LikeLike