The first typology is based in the mob mentality and deals with frank, accepted institutionalized violence and instantaneous city-wide eruptions of violence. In both cases, the safety net of social mores that safeguards society from itself is temporarily or permanently dissolved, a vision made dystopic through the aspect of its possibility. |
The second typology is the unavoidable, violence in which the perpetrators are in line with their social roles. While the general public still adheres to contemporary social mores concerning violence, the government has taken upon itself to promotes specific instances of violence ‘in the service of the public.’ |
The next classification is the hyper-real. Surrealist hyper-reality is effective because generic surroundings house events of such shocking violence and realism that the viewer can’t help but mentally apply the situation to themselves, adopting the generic environments to anything conveniently familiar. |
The last typological class of dystopic violence is the ever-present threat. In films using this type of violence, the dystopic effect is generated not from the acts themselves but from the ‘safe’ nature of the places where the violence occurs – essentially poisoning the viewer’s sense of security. |
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The effect of these portrayals of violence is much broader than any sense of shock that is the effective element of violence in other film genres, analysis of the specific portrayals of violence of films within the four typologies will illustrate their effectiveness.
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