The View From the Arena
Dystopian teen films will remain popular as long as they keep reflecting truths about young people’s prospects under capitalism.
The pessimistic Lord of the Flies, which has been adapted many times for the stage and screen, was criticized after the emergence of a story about six actual shipwrecked teenagers. Rather than turning on each other, the real-life Tongan castaways lived communally for 15 months before their rescue. (Robbie Jack / Corbis / Getty Images)
It hardly takes a mastermind to figure out how the fight-to-the-death film genre works as an allegory for our cultural moment. The Edgar Wright remake of The Running Man just played in theaters a few months ago, and the South Korean series Squid Game was among the most-watched television series internationally from 2021 to 2025. […]
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