I’m going to assume that people reading this won’t have seen Demolition Man, so I will explain the major plot points as I go and it will be full of spoilers. No warnings! If you haven’t seen it, I highly recommend it!
It’s a fun action film that over time has aged strangely and exactly what it’s trying to say still remains ambiguous in my opinion.
Sergeant John Spartan (Sylvester Stallone) also known as the ‘Demolition Man’ due to his violent and explosive methods of crime fighting, was framed for a crime he didn’t commit in 1996. As punishment he is cryogenically frozen and rehabilitated, along with his nemesis, Simon Phoenix (Wesley Snipes) who was apprehended on the same night that Spartan was framed.
In 2032 Phoenix escapes, but the future, pacifist utopia of San Angeles cannot cope with this type of violent, murderous criminal!
So they decide to thaw out Spartan, who teams up with Police officer Lenina Huxley (Sandra Bullock) in order to apprehend Phoenix… with hilarious consequences.
That’s the basic premise of the film, but it deals with quite a lot of complex issues that are still relevant today.
Let’s start with San Angeles, founded by a man named Dr. Raymond Cocteau (Nigel Hawthorne). He is the leader responsible for maintaining the utopia and keeping everything nice and sanitary.
In this future, murder doesn’t happen anymore, the Police are bored and don’t have much to do.
Swearing is met with an immediate fine and tickets are issued via small, wall mounted machines.
Meat, alcohol and smoking are all banned and there’s only one fast food chain left. Taco Bell, for some reason, is the butt of a joke I don’t get.
Sex is regulated, you can’t have children without approval and conception happens in a lab.
Most people in San Angeles accept this as their reality and are happy to conform. However, there is an underground (literally in the sewers) of people called ‘Scraps’ led by Edgar Friendly (Denis Leary) who live freely and want no part of the sanitised utopia on the surface.
Dr. Cocteau released Phoenix in order to assassinate Friendly and remove the undesirable element from society. At the same time, while in cryo-prison, Cocteau implanted information and abilities into Phoenix’s brain that allow him to use future tech and move easily around the world.
Spartan does not have that advantage. Instead he had the ability to knit implanted in his brain as a peaceful activity to pass the time.
Let’s park the ethics of implanting behaviours into prisoners there for a moment.
Demolition Man presents us with a safe, boring, regulated future run by one man and we’re told it’s a Utopia, but we quickly see that it’s not real freedom. So what is this film saying here?
When Phoenix escapes he immediately starts killing people! This is an unprecedented event in San Angeles, the Police literally don’t know what to do.
Is this a warning that pacifism leaves us vulnerable, that it’s a naive and unachievable reality?
Soft men create soft times and hard men make me excited? Or whatever the Hell, that stupid saying is?
In the face of this old fashioned criminal, the only solution seems to be to use an old fashioned cop against him.
Because good old fashioned violence gets the job done. We need good guys with guns in order to protect ourselves.
Fuck yeah! A bit of Copaganda never hurt anyone!
The alternative isn’t explored, because that’s not the film, but who’s to say if the future cops wouldn’t have adapted and been able to apprehend Phoenix without upping the ante?
Anyway, say what you will about the restricted freedoms, the biggest plus I can see to this future world is that crime has all but been eliminated! Presumably because all the citizens have their basic needs met?
In order to reduce/eradicate crime, people need food, shelter and security. They need to not be fighting each other over resources and perceived scarcity. This could be achieved through Socialism. But how it’s achieved in the film isn’t really mentioned.
The fact that the Police are ineffectual is evidence that the desire to conform isn’t enforced through fear and violence though.
San Angeles is clean, to the point of sterile. Where’s the colour? Where’s the diversity? Where are the POC and queers? Where are the various places of worship and religious freedoms? Where are the art galleries, gig venues and culture?
Instead we get bland, white, milqtoast fashion and architecture. I’d say that’s more in line with Right Wing ideas of conformity and uniformity. Step outside of that, like the Scraps and you get erased.
Seems pretty fascist to me.
The Scraps would rather live as messy freedom fighters in the sewers, eating meat, drinking, smoking, swearing and fucking than conform. Truly free! I think these are the relatable, even aspirational people of the future. Something everyone can probably agree on?
Hell, they’re called the ‘Scraps’ like scrappy underdogs! You can’t write this stuff!
The other thing that’s worth mentioning now is that San Angeles has one leader. A dictator, essentially. Even though there is a small council, they all answer to Cocteau. San Angeles is not a democratic society. Democracy being a Left wing invention fyi.
Phoenix is under the control of Cocteau so he defrosts a gang of old school criminals to help him take over San Angeles by killing Cocteau for him. He then attempts to complete his mission to kill Friendly as he can’t overcome his programming. I mean, what’s one more murder to him anyway, especially if the result frees him from the annoying urges he has?
Spartan who had previously visited the underground world inhabited by Friendly and his band of freedom fighters, recruits their help.
Spartan and Phoenix have a big old fight! There’s an amazing decapitation and YAY!
The good guy with a gun wins. See, it takes old fashioned, sensible violence to beat the chaotic evil violence of Simon Phoenix.
The Demolition Man does his thing and there’s a lot of collateral damage. Friendly and his ‘Scraps’ join everybody else on the surface and Friendly makes a speech, lifted right from his stand-up routine no doubt:
‘See according to Cocteau’s plan I’m the enemy, ‘cause I like to think; I like to read. I’m into freedom of speech, freedom of choice…
I want high cholesterol. I wanna eat bacon and butter and buckets of cheese, okay?…
I’ve seen the future. Do you know what it is? It’s a 47-year-old virgin sitting around in his beige pyjamas, drinking a banana-broccoli shake, singing ‘I’m an Oscar Meyer Wiener’.
You wanna live on top, you gotta live Cocteau’s way…
Your other choice: come down here, maybe starve to death.’
Friendly’s speech actually comes across more Libertarian than full blown Right wing. Perhaps that’s the film’s intended message?
That the Left and Right are barely distinguishable from each other and minimal state intervention in the private lives of citizens is the correct way to live?
Except, there are huge ideological differences between the Left and Right. They are not the same, or ‘as bad as each other’, but this films confusing message and mixed up idea of a ‘fascist utopia’ really muddies the waters.
Now, let’s look at the restrictions people live under in San Angeles and try to decide exactly what kind of society it is.
Swearing
This is literal language Policing. If you swear or use ‘bad language’ you’re issued a fine on the spot. Spartan is unaware of this when he first arrives and keeps casually getting fined.
The memorable joke is that toilet paper has been replaced with three sea shells in the future. Lacking the skills required to use them, Spartan swears a bunch and uses the paper tickets to wipe his arse.
This is a good joke! I lolled.
It’s a ‘Fuck you’ to language Policing from a character I believe represents ‘common sense’ and ‘old fashioned’ values.
Being fined for swearing is ridiculous. Everybody likes to swear, but the tiers of swearing and bad language aren’t explored here. In that scene, Spartan swears continuously into a machine, but exactly what he says isn’t audible. Presumably it’s a string of low tier swear words? Like:
‘Go to Hell, you shit eating, piece of crap bastard!’
His character is upstanding enough that he wouldn’t use racial slurs or drop any c-bombs… probably.
Language is a whole other, slippery topic and people rank some words as more offensive than others, so it’s subjective a lot of the time. But the film doesn’t touch that. It ignores the distinction between swearing and hate speech.
What type of society would blanket ban and censor all ‘bad language’, even low tier swear words?
Language is policed by every side of the political spectrum, but there is a very clear divide between using hate speech versus general swearing. Shit. Everyone likes to swear and anyone who wants to ban it all is more likely to be a puritanical Conservative, pearl clutching, Christian Nationalist. Let’s spell it out; that’s the Right wing.
The Left simply want consequences for using racial slurs, hate speech and inciting violence. You want to say shit and fuck? Go nuts, but y’know, read the room first.
Banning all swearing is not Left wing, its fascist censorship.
Health
Fast food, meat, alcohol and smoking are all banned in San Angeles! Presumably, because these things are all bad for our health?
This is a Nanny State. Where a Government is perceived as being overly protective of its citizens, by using laws and advice to control choices about health.
Similar to how a nanny manages children. You can’t just eat sweets, you need vegetables too!
Adults aren’t trusted to make the best decisions for themselves, essentially stripping away personal choice, freedoms and bodily autonomy. It’s currently not against the law to eat or drink ourselves to death, but medical professionals will strongly advise against unhealthy lifestyles and do their best to keep us alive however they can.
Be that diabetes or heart and cholesterol medication, stop smoking support, dietary advice etc. We follow that advice for our own good, if we want to live.
What type of society would want to enforce laws that protect us from our own bad habits or even think it’s a good idea?
Everybody wants the freedom to choose what to eat, drink and put in their bodies.
It’s weird that this ‘food policing’ is seen as Left wing oppression, but I can see how that conclusion may have been reached.
It’s true that there’s correlation between veganism and leaning politically to the Left, however the Left is hugely in favour of bodily autonomy and freedom to choose.
So encouraging choice and creating healthier options could be seen as part of the Left wing agenda, but telling people what they can or can’t eat/drink/smoke is most definitely not.
The Left want assisted suicide and euthanasia to become legal. The Left want to legalise and regulate drug use. The Left is pro-choice, pro-trans. Broadly speaking, the Left are pierced, have coloured hair and tattoos! I think those examples are more than enough evidence to show that the Left want you to live however you choose and do whatever you want to your own body.
Banning food stuffs that are bad for your health is not part of the Left wing agenda, it’s an extreme Nanny State. But if it did happen (which it won’t) would it really be detrimental to society?
I imagine it’s something people on any political spectrum could argue for or against, but that’s a whole other essay.
Sex
This is a BIG one!
The most oppressive and fucked up aspect of San Angeles is brushed over pretty quickly and it’s reproductive rights and bodily autonomy.
Sex/reproducing/kissing/the exchange of bodily fluids is against the law! If you want a baby, you have to go to a lab and be approved.
The biological way of having sex has been replaced with two Cerebro-like head sets that allow you to link minds and experience the sensation of sex without actually touching.
Huxley explains that because of health crises in the past like AIDS, which lead to the collapse of society, (yikes!) their leader Cocteau:
‘Was able to outlaw and behaviourally engineer all fluid transfer out of societally acceptable behaviour’
I mean WOW!
Eugenics and removing individual’s right to bodily autonomy is some straight up Nazi shit.
This absolutely evil policy was treated as being on a par with far more trivial and annoying things such as no swearing, no smoking, no eating meat and no drinking alcohol.
There’s no question that the kind of Government responsible for that type of legislation is undoubtedly fascist.
The Left is queer, the Left is slutty, the Left is sex, kink and sex worker positive. It’s pro-choice and is all about enthusiastic consent. Any restrictions on that lifestyle, comes from (yet again) Conservative, Puritanical, Christian Nationalists. The Right. Who view anybody living that way as sinners and deviants, all the while enviously peeking at them through a crack in the closet door.
Conclusion
On the surface, San Angeles appears to be a Left wing utopia, well… somebody’s idea of what they think a Left wing utopia is. But on closer inspection, it’s closer to Nazi, fascism.
This film posits and reinforces harmful misconceptions about the Left.
I can imagine the thought process…
The Left want a pacifist utopia, well that’s dumb. It’s impossible! What if a bad guy shows up? What then? You’d be screwed. That’s why we still need guns and fighters.
Yeah! And you can’t say anything these days without being arrested or fined for it. We should include that in the film. Any swear word gets you a fine. Yeah, the Left would LOVE that wouldn’t they?
Oh and vegans want to stop us eating meat! I bet they’d make it against the law if they could. If I want to eat lips and arseholes, then that’s what I’ll eat.
I’m being speculatively silly…
The one that took a minute to think about was sex. How could the Right perceive the Left as being prudish when it comes to that?!
Then it hit me.
Feminism and how women have been gradually raising their standards over time. This could be seen as an attack on sex itself and how cry-baby, incel’s feel entitled to access women’s bodies, but can’t. That lack of access could be seen as prudish and how future sex wouldn’t even involve touch because women are so standoffish now (1993) *yeesh*
I’ll stop speculating on the writing process. Back to San Angeles:
The absence of crime in San Angeles implies that everyone’s needs are being met, therefore I think it’s safe to assume SOCIALISM! So yes, Left wing in that regard, but that’s truly the only evidence I see.
They still have Police though?
I believe that on the whole, this entire narrative misrepresents and bashes the left, while generally favouring Right wing popular opinions about ‘common sense’ and ‘traditional values’. John Spartan and Edgar Friendly, representing those ideals.
John Spartan himself deals with living in the future pretty well. He takes being mocked by the people of the future on the chin, because he’s made of sterner stuff.
They view him as a brutish cave man, best left in the past, they look down on him as uncultured and stupid.
But I believe the writers intended him to represent the everyman in the face of the lofty, snobby elitist Lefties of San Angeles.
But are the citizens of San Angeles actually Left wing? Is that an accurate depiction?
I don’t think it is. I think it’s a caricature and how the writers perceive those on the Left to be.
Simon Phoenix isn’t political as far as I can tell, but he represents the chaos we need protection from. He’s an outlier that we will never be able to get rid of, so need to be prepared for. Pretty sensible really.
But is the solution to that a ‘good guy with a gun?’
And is aiming for a future free of violent crime really naive? Surely that’s what everyone wants right? Regardless of political affiliations?
As characters go, I actually like and agree with Spartan and Friendly! I think that’s the whole point. Perhaps my most important observation about this film is that viewers on all political spectrums can see themselves in those characters and in the Scraps.
This film appeals to a broad audience because there’s something for everyone to rail against, feel passionate about, agree or disagree with! It’s quite clever really.
We’re all being repressed or persecuted somehow, we all want to fight against it, but just can’t agree on who/what is to blame and we see the enemy we want to see.
Those people who feel as though their rights to eat junk food, smoke, drink, swear and have sex whenever they want are somehow under attack, may just have an inkling into how actual oppressed people feel.
The Left want all of those things too, but somehow have been framed as the enemy of them instead. Currently, none of those things are under threat.
On the other hand, women’s bodily autonomy and trans/human rights, amongst other things, are. Right now.
Demolition Man seems to have been written by a Libertarian with cognitive dissonance and a general dislike and misunderstanding of the Left.
It’s a supposed cautionary tale about a Left wing utopia that the Right fear and are fighting against, but it’s wholly inaccurate. Instead it reveals that a lot of Right wing concerns are really non-issues, whilst bashing the Left for these perceived/imaginary attacks on their freedoms.
When examined, the extreme restrictions in San Angeles (and reality) end up being far Right and fascist.
It’s some impressive mental gymnastics and large scale cognitive dissonance. In my opinion, it’s Right wing propaganda against the Left.
Am I wrong?
Now go and either watch, or re-watch Demolition Man x
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