In February of 2021, Illinois governor J. B. Pritzker signed the SAFE-T Act into law. The act was actually a package of reforms aimed at curbing police abuses and protecting the rights of citizens. The most contentious of the reforms passed in the bill was the Pretrial Fairness Act, which would abolish cash bail in the state beginning January 1, 2023.

Reactionaries did what they do best and reacted. Conservatives in Illinois and across the country have taken to comparing a bill meant to eliminate economic disparities in pretrial detention to the hit movie franchise The Purge.

The cinematic universe of The Purge encompasses five films and a television show, with a sixth film in development. The unifying premise is that, in a dystopian future, the powers that be have instituted an annual “Purge Night” where all crime is legal and people are encouraged to unleash their worst impulses on the world. The original 2013 film, starring Ethan Hawke, was a tense and claustrophobic horror thriller. The subsequent films widened the franchise’s scope, becoming explicitly concerned with how the rich and powerful view the poor and marginalized as disposable playthings.