I remember watching the first Purge movie when it came out at a special screening, with my sister. Other than a fight that almost broke out between two viewers and getting to enjoy Adelaide Kane’s few scenes, the movie was largely uneventful, with a lot of over-the-top metaphors that just made me lean over and say, “This would never happen.”
Oh, 2013, how I took you for granted.
Now to be fair, we are still a bit away from going full out Purge irl, and just because the movie frames itself as having all these messages, it doesn’t change the fact that people watch these movies for the crazy deaths and a premise that way too many people would love to happen in real life.
The prequel to The Purge, which has used some very on-the-nose MAGA-style hats as part of its branding, is to be released tomorrow, on the 4th of July. When I’ve looked at the posters for The First Purge, I couldn’t help but wonder … what does the political right think of these movies?
Not the pundits who are on television, but the average person. Do they see these posters as an indictment of their ideology and values, since that’s what the films frame it as, or like the rest of the public, do they just see them as movies? The unsubtle nature of these movies makes them both mildly entertaining and dangerous, because they play with a narrative about society’s elites turning the poor against each other, but they lean on violence for entertainment value, to the point that they lose the capacity for any worthwhile critique.
People see whatever they want to see.
Anyway, time for the jokes!
Okay, real talk though: If The Purge were real, what would be your plan? Would you go somewhere else during the holiday, if you could, or would you stay and wait it out?
(via YouTube, image: Universal Pictures)
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