Critical Essay on Adam Curtis' Documentary: HyperNormalisation

Introduction

Adam Curtis is a documentary film-maker born in the year 1955; his areas of work include psychology, sociology, political history, and philosophy. Curtis often refers to himself as a fundamental historian. However, most of his works are usually expressed inform of films. His documentaries have on several occasions won BAFTAS (Manovich, Malina & Cubitt, 2001). Additionally, Adam Curtis has worked for the British Broadcasting Corporation throughout his careers. His interest in documentary film-making has enabled him to become popular not only in the film industry but also in social issues. Adam Curtis became active in the film industry in the year 1983 and he has stayed active to date. Adam Curtis has written or made different documentaries that are geared towards influencing social change and vision of the political world. One of the documentaries written by Adam Curtis is HyperNormalisation that reveals an extraordinary story of how the world or human race got into the strange time of confusion and great uncertainty. In the documentary, Adam Curtis expresses that the individuals who are supposed to be in power are often paralyzed and as a result, they do not have an idea on what to do. The documentary also elaborates how the events keep happening that seem mysterious and out of control, from Brexit to war in Syria, Trump's policies, endless immigration crisis as well as the random bomb attacks. From the documentary, the film-maker does not only explains the reasons why the above chaotic events are occurring, but also the reasons why the common individuals, as well as the politicians, cannot understand them. HyperNormalisation documentary indicates that what has happened to the west, to the politicians, experts, journalists, and to the citizens, have recoiled into the simplified, and usually, complete version of the world (Waugh, 2011). The paper explores Adam Curtis' documentary, HyperNormalisation as part of the body of work that presents the vision of the World.

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In the documentary, HyperNormalisation, Adam Curtis elaborates how the world has arrived into the post-truth political era, from its origin in the year 1975 (Morin, 1985). In the documentary, there is a complex interplay between the rise of the internet, politics, social media, and the media. Through the archives footage as well as the power of retrospection, there is an explanation of how governments have turned out to be the managers and controllers of the risks, rather than visionaries and why the people they lead cannot believe in what they say. Through the above observation, there is a clear elaboration of how the documentary provides the vision for the world, especially at the current time where there is confusion when it comes to politics. While watching the documentary, the viewers may perceive it as a conspiracy; however, the producer is a rational thinker. It seems that the author also takes pleasure in exposing the ridiculous conspiracy theories that are even evident from the internet sources. Everything in the HyperNormalisation documentary is backed up with clear evidence from different sources or historical experiences. However, apart from the evidence, but for those who are old enough, there is the capability to remember different events and reach the realization that the documentary actually makes sense.

Adams Curtis, in the above documentary, HyperNormalisation, applies the historical evidence and events to present the vision of the world. The documentary seeks to casually link most of the defining features of the era such as corporatization, financialization, computerization, managerialism, the importance as well as the abuse of cyberspace and networks. There is also an elaboration of disruption in the Middle East, and the war on extremisms and the failure of the western nations to provide credible and coherent alternatives. The above topics are common in the modern world, they are the major challenges continue to bedevil the global today and as a result, the documentary attempt to provide solution and vision to the world. There is a lot of these in the documentary that everyone may identify with. According to Adam Curtis, as the political and economic philosophy, neoliberalism appeared to offer the possibility of the global environment without politics, a vision that some analysts also deemed as possible and viable. According to the above case, the world without politics will be a simpler world where the free exercise of market forces will resolve some of the major political issues following the democratic approaches, in other words, the solutions will be aided by the aggregate of individual's commercial choices (Rothman, 2014). From the documentary, Curtis provides a vision to the world by arguing with the absence of politics, the neoliberal politicians from the west may stop trying to change the world for better; alternatively, they may decide on trying to manage the world as a single and stable system without the influence of politics or political ideas. The documentary provides a vision of the world by analyzing the past events; Curtis suggests that the avoidance of risks and stability became the point of politics; besides, the politics became about controlling or managing the post-political world (Hooton, 2017). To achieve this, the documentary reveals that western political actors embraced the managerialist public relations system involving commercial corporations, and in line with this approach, there was the idea of constructive ambiguity developed by Henry Kissinger.

Adams Curtis presents a vision to the world in his documentary by offering alternatives to the political, economic and social states of the present world. According to the documentary, Curtis explains that for over thirty-five years, western politicians have always stick to the idea that there is no alternative to the neoliberalism and at the same time, they recognize it as a hugely successful system that is associated with the economic order that is beneficial to everyone on the society, bringing about the general increase in the living standards and overall happiness among the people (Hooton, 2017). However, the experiences of people from different parts of the world suggest different scenarios where the majority of workers perceive the system as negative and that it does not help in bringing about the social change (Ellis & McLane, 2005). People have been exposed to longer working hours, increased dangerous working conditions, stagnating wages and the dysfunctional markets as well as the destruction of the welfare state that was meant to support the people in times of need (Hooton, 2017). From the documentary, Curtis recommends that the gap between the lived experiences and the political rhetoric has led to the insightful cognitive dissonance in the western countries as the compliant media and politicians present the world in an infinitely positive way that individual's own experiences tell them that it is not true. From the film, Curtis clearly elaborates that the stores that the politicians and their followers make in the media tell us about the world no longer make sense (Ellis & McLane, 2005). Succinctly, the credibility gap between the lived experiences and public rhetoric has led to the process of Hypernormalisation, a situation where citizens and politicians are resigned to maintaining the charade of the functioning society.

It took Curtis 2 hours 46 minutes to make Hypernormalisation, however, the process could have not taken that long except that to elaborate the above well-established narrative of neoliberal failure (Ellis & McLane, 2005). Curtis attempted to explain the vision of the world through myriads of seemingly unconnected stories that are incorporated in the film structure. From the documentary, the stories that Curtis chose to tell include Libya and Muammar Gaddafi, Syria and Hafez al-Assad, Donald Trump's bankruptcy, Henry Kissinger's foreign policy in the Middle East, the history of suicide bombing, the function of the computers in corporations and financialization and the New York City's 1975 bankruptcy (Ellis & McLane, 2005). All these stories present historical perspectives that help in defining the vision of the world. Curtis covers the stories of suicide bombing and how the world has come far to become an integrated place. However, with social integration, there are still issues that deter the achievement of visions of the world. Political interferences and extreme human decision impact the dreams that define the future of the world. Curtis explains the war in the Middle East and how it has led to increased terrorism that interferes with the vision of the world (Ellis & McLane, 2005). Terrorism, in general terms, refers to the internationally indiscriminate act of violence meant to cause terror among the people, or fear to ensure a financial, religious, political or ideological gain. Terrorism is often used to refer to violence orchestrated by the terrorist during peacetime.

The history of suicide bombing is well brought out in the documentary (Hooton, 2017). Specifically, the poor man's atomic bomb is explained with clarity in collaboration with the turmoil in the Middle East. Curtis explains that in the past, journalist believed that their jobs were to assert the truth and expose lies; however, in the modern world of hypernormality, their roles are to maintain social, economic and political stability (Ellis & McLane, 2005). Terrorism is an act of violence that affects both the innocent and the criminals. It is one of the greatest tragedies that mankind face in the current society. The Boston Massacre was one of the modern act of terrorism that consumed the lives of many innocent people in a social event (Hooton, 2017). The attack was characterized by explosion and shootings that caused a lot of injuries to the people in the marathon event. There is domestic and international terrorism. The act of terrorism is a kind of psychological warfare aims at causing tension among the population. Most terrorist lack expertise, resources as well as the manpower to counter state actors. Terrorists often accomplish their criminal agenda by staging violence that usually changes the perception of the people towards social and political issues (Ellis & McLane, 2005). Domestic terrorism is usually caused by the racial sentiments that lead to the murder or mass killings of the people affiliated with a specific race. The acts of terrorism are meant to send specific information to the target audience. Domestic terrorism has been in existence for a long period of time and it has influenced the social and political structures in the United States for decades (Adams, 2016). Curtis, in his documentary, provides a narrative that aims at establishing the vision of a peaceful global environment, without the political antagonism and superiority among other states such as the west that believe that they have strong domination of the earth, the world will achieve its vision of being peaceful.

Conclusion

From the documentary, Curtis criticizes the western radicals in the eighties and seventies since they gave up on their attempt to change the world and submitted to neoliberal and individualistic logic by turning to self-expression instead of collective action (Ellis & McLane, 2005). Curtis incorporation of the idea of stuff on the ideological conflict in the nineties between the cynical political and corporate and technoutopian technologists was great in shaping the future of the world. The story of Donald Trump literally engaging in gambling in Casinos to abiding to save his company is a surprising storyline in the documentary (Curtis, 2007). Larry Fink's computer company from the film is fascinating. On the other hand, there are several occasions where the banality of evil is categorically illust...