“Turn it off” is the incredibly blatant message of Edgar Wright’s newest film The Running Man. When everything is controlled by the elite, the media is just another tool of control and division. This sounds frighteningly accurate for the world we live in today.

In the future world of The Running Man, the haves and the haves not are manipulated through reality TV game shows. These shows use desperation to get participants, but display these individuals as leeches on society — further bridging the divide betwee the rich and the poor. However, those at the top don’t care who has what. All they want is ratings to grow their own numbers. Sounds depressingly familiar, does it not?

Edgar Wright’s adaptation of the 1982 Stephen King novel is just one of the latest depictions of an authoritarian regime. For Americans, it does feel prescient because the “circus” is how we’ve always been distracted. Even when large portions of the country are starving, they still have their circus, so the anger that main character Ben Richards displays is very often missing and the revolution stays at bay.

While I agree, we should all “turn it off,” I believe it’s films like this one that help to open our eyes. We see the similarities in movies and compare them to our real world situations. Currently, we aren’t signing up for an all but uncertain death (however the military seems to prey on lower income populations) to make sure our families can eat and get proper healthcare, but we are constantly manipulated by those at the top.

When a small percentage of the population is in control of what is seen on the news and what the government chooses to fund or not fund, including who gets basic necessities like shelter, food, and healthcare, those at the bottom grow desperate. This is where we’ve been heading for decades now, and the train doesn’t appear to be stopping anytime soon.

I wish I had some magical solution to this issue, but I don’t. The only one that has ever made sense to me is to band together in numbers and remember this is a class war not the culture war they would make it seem like. Most of us are very similar. We want the same things, and we are struggling with the same issues. It’s only about building bridges and “turning off” the news and websites that would seek to manipulate us.