STRANGE DAYS of Future Passed

By: Steve Biodrowski
Date: Wednesday, January 12, 2000

For science fiction fans, it's strange to think that we are, in a sense, living in the future. Ever since H.G. Wells' THINGS TO COME, much of the genre has been dedicated to imagining brave new worlds set in years yet to come, but many of those seemingly distant decades have indeed arrived and gone. It was a true milestone when we reached one of the genre's most famous years,1984 (as one wag put it, George Orwell's book is now a historical novel), and now we are within striking distance of 2001.

From the enlightened viewpoint of the present, it is interesting to look back at these cultural artifacts from the past that sought to predict the future. Of course, as Philip Strick pointed out in his book, SCIENCE FICTION MOVIES, the genre is not obligated to predict accurately, or even to predict at all; the point of much science fiction is cautionary in nature, warning us to avoid possible futures. In truth, most futuristic speculation winds up being more reflective of the era that created it rather than the era being portrayed, and this is a good thing. After all, a large part of the success THE TWILIGHT ZONE was that the cloak of science fiction and fantasy allowed Rod Serling to explore themes and ideas that might have seemed too heavy-handed in a contemporary setting. Even that old warhorse, STAR TREK was less about boldly going where no man had gone before than about spreading contemporary liberal values across the universe (and across our television screens).

In a semi-regular series of articles called 'The Days of Future Passed,' we will examine science fiction that should no longer be considered 'futuristic' because it is set in a time that now resides in our past or present; in effect, in some kind of alternate world. Since Y2K just rolled around, it seemed like a good idea to kick off with a look at STRANGE DAYS, a film that climaxes during New Year's Eve as the calendar rolls around from 1999 to 2000.

The first thing that strikes one upon examining the difference between the New Year's Eve seen on television and the one portrayed in STRANGE DAYS, is how badly the film missed the mark. Director Kathryn Bigelow's film, co-written by one-time husband James Cameron, imagines near apocalyptic scene of seething racial tensions building up toward explosion, all of which melts away into a traditional happy ending. Reality offered us, instead, calm crowds and lower-than-expected attendance, the latter thanks to a fear that never occurred to Bigelow and Cameron: a Y2K bug that, in an anti-climax worthy of the film, failed to happen.


Of course, we cannot blame STRANGE DAYS for being inaccurate in its depiction of the future, but the film was clearly trying to make some kind of statement on contemporary societya statement that was filtered through and magnified by the science fiction idiom. Unfortunately, the magnification only further revealed how skewed the film was in its misperceptions. The basic plot involves a S.Q.U.I.D., a sort of mental recording device that creates a virtual reality experience for people playing back events experienced by others. Yet the implications of this device are scarcely explored. Instead, the story drags in a pair of rogue cops whose murder of a popular black music star is recorded by the S.Q.U.I.D. After much running around, and rape and murder, the culprits are finally brought to justice thanks to the recording. In effect, the S.Q.U.I.D. might just as well have been a videotape, and the story could have been set entirely in the present. The futuristic, science fiction trappings are just window dressing for a standard, overblown action film.

The parallel with the videotape of the Rodney King beating is obvious but also misguided. The real revelation of the King beating was not that there are a few rogue cops but that dozens of police officers can watch the beating of a suspect without lifting a finger to stop it at the time and without opening their mouths to report it later. In the film, only one white, male authority figure has to see the S.Q.U.I.D recording in order to be convinced of the guilt of the police officers. In reality, of course, the video failed to convict the officers involved during the first trial; if it weren't for Federal civil rights laws, the officers would still be free today.

The implications of this are too complicated for the film to consider. The true focus of STRANGE DAYS is on violence, not on how politics make violence an acceptable part of the established power structure. Thus, the killer cops are not enough villains for this story. We also have a psycho-killer who likes to use the S.Q.U.I.D. to make his victims feel the pleasure he gets from killing them. In one of the most infamous sequences, we are treated to this experience at length, Bigelow apparently wanting to prove that she can direct as down and dirty as any macho male director. The scene is definitely powerful, but it is also pointless. Bigelow caps it with a shot of star Ralph Fiennes vomiting in disgust, as if anticipating our own reactions to the film. Strangely, Bigelow seems to think she is making some kind of moral point here, as if telling the audiences how they should feel about what they've just seen. But does she really think we need this kind of instruction? The average viewer is already disgusted, and the wacko nuts who get off seeing a woman raped and murdered on screen are hardly going to have their jollies diminished by the sight of a little bile; if anything, it's just one more delightfully disgusting image for them.

Additionally, STRANGE DAYS attempts to take white racist fear of black people and make it acceptable for liberals. Sure, the film's primary villains are all white, but their function in the story is to provoke black anger. Then, when that anger is portrayed on screen, viewers can surrender to the fear provoked by the scenes, without feeling guilty. After all, the film doesn't say blacks are bad; it just says they're mad, and who can blame them? Nevertheless, a large part of the film's intent is to scare viewers with the thought that the old white, male patriarchal power structure is about to falla thought the film itself views with abhorrence, copping out with an ending that shows order restored by the aforementioned white, male authority figure.

On a certain visceral level, one cannot deny the effectiveness of Bigelow's work in STRANGE DAYS, but conceptually the film is near hopeless. Despite visuals designed to bludgeon even the most jaded viewer into some kind of emotional response, the film failed to jack into an enthusiastic audience, and failed at the box office. Critically reviled, it nevertheless found a few defenders who championed it as a neglected masterpiece that would someday be discovered. But from the present vantage point, the passing of years, far from erasing the flaws, have only exposed them all the more clearly. The calm and quiet passing of this New Year's Eve demonstrated that fact beyond any room for doubt.