ABSTRACT
This chapter offers a series of concise illustrations of works ranting against the machinations of the hegemon. These brief readings first compare Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World (1932) with Terry Gilliam’s film Brazil (1985) and then George Orwell’s 1984 (1949) with Margaret Atwood’s novel The Handmaid’s Tale (1985). These comparisons demonstrate Rants blending elements of satire, science fiction, and monstrosity in order to protest and target modern power. This discussion includes a consideration of how speculative satire incorporates the exaggeration and grimness of Juvenalian satire as a form of gallows humor that elicits in audiences a mirthless laughter that conceals, in fact, agitation and discontent. The chapter then offers examples of filmic Rants that target specific aspects of the Regime. These movies are James McTeigue’s V for Vendetta (2006) as an invective against neoconservative fascism, James Cameron’s Avatar (2009) as an attack on exploitative corporate militarism, and Neill Blomkamp’s Elysium (2013) as a socioeconomic exposé of the cruelty of neoliberal doctrine. The chapter concludes with The Rant Playbook, that is, a summary list of the salient features of speculative satire meant as a helpful guide to identifying this form of contemporary political reprimand and attack.
