Politics is a game, and like in every game, the rule is simple – control the movement of the game, and you determine the outcome. When a team is holding the game, advancing is the best move. But if there is no way forward, the next option is to hold on to it until a way is paved. And if the opponent is controlling the game, then the team has to make sure that they force them to play according to their terms.
I often watch science fiction, but it is not every day that you come across a film that replicates itself in society. However, this week, I was surprised to see a series I was watching repeat itself on the international scene. It was so frightening to see how in this series, one could observe the Russian COVID-19 vaccine saga and Donald Trump’s COVID-19 status in this Amazon Prime Movie, Utopia.
“Utopia is an American drama web television series adapted by Gillian Flynn from the 2013 British original. It was released on Prime Video on September 25, 2020 [1].” Utopia tells the story of how a comic book may be the key to saving a world plagued by panic, conspiracies, and a pandemic[2]. It narrates how a group of young guys fascinated by this comic book – Utopia – set out to find it to save the universe. And in their quest to procure this manuscript which they have neither seen nor have any proof of its existence, they were met with different challenges. They were met with challenges ranging from the assassination of their colleagues and family members to being framed to have committed atrocities they have no idea of.
And more to this race to save humanity, there was another unethical economic war and both physical and character assassinations going on. At this point, both the debate on the origin of COVID-19 and the latest drama over the COVID-19 status of the United president come into mind.
In the series, two doctors are fighting to control the narrative. Dr Kevin Christie (John Cusack) had an economic interest, and so, it was in no way because of his interest in the ethical consequences of his moves. And having no way of convincing the world that he had an economic interest, he used Dr Michael Stearns (Rainn Wilson), a renowned biologist, to achieve this goal. The latter did not see it coming, as he was fixated on finding a cure for a virus he discovered in Peru. Unfortunately, everything was staged to him, and the patient he thought to have cured died and was secretly replaced by her identical twin sister.
Then with the effort of the Utopia fans and Jessica Hyde (Sasha Lane), Dr Stearns discovered that the new virus was created, likely, in a meat factory run by Dr Kevin Christie. More still, he came to understand that the nova virus was being intentionally propagated.
Coming back to what is going on recently in both Moscow and Washington’s political stages, we observe how strong politicians, like Dr Kevin in Utopia, are exploiting scientists to achieve their political goals. In Utopia, Dr Kevin uses the children he raised to score his goals. And both in the US and in Russia, we observe similar games.
And in both cases, too, we discover how they use online foot soldiers to control the narratives. So, knowing that the political game is not always about rectitude and justice but about controlling the narratives, one has to be cautious about what one is being served as in our political narratives.
