This is an old trope, and I’m going to discuss old sci-fi stories. Should I issue a spoiler alert? Let’s jump into our time machine (hint!) and analyze this segregated future.
Prepare for a crazy ride because I’m going to talk about H.G. Wells’ The Time Machine, the movie Demolition Man, but also the Oscar-winning movie Parasite.
Let’s put sci-fi in perspective and discuss the underground people.
The South Korean film Parasite, directed by Bong Joon Ho, won the 2019 Oscar in the Best Movie category, and it deserves this accolade. It is a brilliant story about class disparity and hypocrisy. The upper class in the film is portrayed as frivolous and alienated. In contrast, the underprivileged characters are witty and freeloaders.
The plot of Parasite revolves around a poor family scheming to get every one of them employed by a wealthy, rather petty, and easy-to-despite family. They presented themselves as unrelated, highly qualified individuals. As you can imagine, trouble ensues. But, trust me, you cannot imagine what kind of trouble. If you have not seen it yet, I highly recommend it!
To highlight the differences between classes, the cinematographer’s approach was genius. The elite is always placed in the upper half of the screen, and the working class in the half bottom.
I know. Parasite is not a science-fiction story. But this same contrast of upper class pitched against underground people is also explored in old sci-fi stories. So, Parasite inspired me to write about this old trope.
I will discuss the world and some plot points of The Time Machine and Demolition Man, so there will be mild SPOILER ahead. Be warned.
Eat the Elite
The time traveler in H.G. Wells’ 1895 novel The Time Machine shows us a bizarre future. He travels hundreds of thousands of years into the future to a time when humans evolved into two different species: the childlike Eloi and the savage Morlocks.
The Eloi are a fair-skinned species portrayed as innocent, curious, and carefree. They have a fruit-based diet and are somewhat sex-positive.
Meanwhile, the Morlocks are described as an ape-like species which evolved to live in underground habitats. They are light-sensitive, and, most abhorrent, they furtively hunt and feed on Elois.
In the novel, the narrator speculates about the origin of those new species. In his view, the Eloi were the descendants of the spoiled elite of our time, living without worries or hardship. The time traveler infers that intelligence is a result of fear. And, since the Eloi did not have anything to fear, they became guileless, having nothing to be afraid of besides the dark.
Morlocks’ ancestors, on the other hand, were the working class, once explored for the comfort of a bourgeoisie. At one point, they were relegated to the subterranean. Most interestingly, the Morlocks eventually started to see those who once explored them as targets for them to explore... and eat.
Living underground
This same trope also appears in the sci-fi action classic Demolition Man. This 1993 movie, directed by Marco Brambilla and starring Silvester Stallone, Sandra Bullock, and Wesley Snipes, is a sci-fi gold! (Yes, I like explosions and cars crashing through glass windows. Who doesn’t?)
LAPD Sergeant John Spartan (Stallone) is unjustly blamed for the death of several people while he was pursuing his foe, the criminal Simon Phoenix (Snipes). Both are sentenced to cryogenic prison time, but Spartan’s sentence is cut short because Phoenix has escaped. He wakes up in a future where people listen to commercial jingles for pleasure and use three shells in place of toilet paper. Sandra Bullock’s character, Lieutenant Lenina Huxley was named after the author of Brave New World. Yet here I am comparing the movie to another sci-fi classic.
The story is set in the not-too-far future year of 2032, where half of the society accepts the peacefulness enforced by an authoritarian government run by a strict agency that sets harsh rules against basically anything R-rated, from bad language to unhealthy food.
This half of the society lives in a clean, futuristic San Angeles, the megalopolis formed by Los Angeles, San Diego, and Santa Barbara. The citizens do not know violence, and so they are quite naive.
Those in this society make a great effort to ignore the outcasts living under the city. The underground people do not conform to the control of the Government. The scarcity in this other half of society makes them look primitive. They are barbaric in the eyes of the surface elite. Unlike the Morlocks, the underground people do not eat those on the surface, but they do attack them to get food.
Crazy theory
Now, hear me out. What if Demolition Man and The Time Machine are from the same universe? The timeline fits!
Think about it. A sex-positive, childlike society that does not eat meat and does not have many worries in life vs. an underground society of savage-looking rat eaters who often target the surface people. Am I talking about The Time Machine or Demolition Man?
What if the word Eloi originated from the acronym LA? The underground people are often accused of committing “Murder, Death, Kill.” If you give it enough time, the chances are that Mur-De-Kill becomes, you know, Mur-Lo-Cks.
I know; I’m pushing the boundaries here. It’s all for the sake of fun! This theory is super cool, but it has many holes in it. Why don’t you tell me some of them in the comments? Let’s play. Debunk me!
See you next post,
Ra.
Carla Ra is a scientist by day, sci-fi writer by night.
You can check out her anthology ARTIFICIAL REBELLION here.
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