Film Analysis of Sleeper

      This past Wednesday I saw Sleeper, a futuristic comedy by Woody Allen. I noticed some of the things we have been talking about in COM 101 and 103. I noticed the lighting was used to create an open and un-menacing atmosphere. I am starting to understand how lighting affects the tone of the the plot. The film would have a completely different tone if it was full of shadows and dark, deep space. This change of tone would most likely change the film from being a comedy into something more dramatic. 

     There are some themes that create parallels with issues in today's society. The topics of addictive drugs, mechanized pleasures, cloning and genetically modified food are brought up. The ball that was being passed around at the party gave everyone a buzz and got them all high. The 70s were a time of free love and experimentation of drugs. Two hundred years later, it still is but only more sophisticated and without the deadly side effects, although Milo did get really addicted to it. Hell, even sex has been mechanized and all intimacy has been removed. The Orgasmatron has removed all need for human bodily contact. The machine also has no relation to the song of the same name by the very loud rock n roll band Motorhead, I think. The main antagonist of the film is a dictator who apparently was the victim of a bombing almost a year before Milo was unfrozen. All that was left of him was his nose in which doctors were tasked in cloning cells from his nose to create an exact copy of the leader. Cloning was not a big topic until the 90s with the onset of the Raeliens and their claim of cloning the first human, dubbed Eve. It has only been recently in the last twenty years that cloning was questioned on its ethics and if it was right we even do it in the first place. The genetic modification of food is not opposed or condemned in the film, but if this movie were to be released today there would be a fire storm of anti-GMO protests. In this day and age, people are condemning GMOs and artificial ingredients. While it is true that some things are not entirely healthy to consume, genetic modification of foodstuffs has been going on for years. Corn is the poster child in their crusade against genetic modification, the irony of this is the fact that humans cant digest corn in its natural state. Just any look into a bag of popcorn will give the answer why we cant digest corn, the unpopped kernels are the natural, most basic form of the veggie. That corn we all know and love to eat slathered in butter has been genetically modified so we can eat it in the first place!!

     Overall, I enjoyed this movie for the comedy, the references, parodies of elements from 1984 and other dystopian future novels. It may have been a comedy but it still proposed a possible future scenario albeit a very exaggerated one. Totalitarian government, new world order, making the people into conformist “sheeple” are all occurring today and nobody is trying to stop it. It is a complete and utter disgrace, appalling in the face of humanity. “ Until you no longer know right from wrong, the Constitution is not worth the paper its written on” We the People written/recorded/played by Megadeth.