Stephen King's ˝The Running Man˝ as a Critique of Corruption and Social Injustice
Candidate: Mihajlo Stefanović, 275 Professor: Milica Živković Subject: Utopia and Science Fiction English Department, Faculty of Philosophy, Niš Philosophy, Niš , Serbia, 2017
P a g e | 2
Introduction
This research paper, centred around Stephen King's ˝The Running Man˝, will attempt to use the novel as a lens through which today's American capitalist society, can be viewed and criticized. The paper aims not only at shedding light on social and political issues of the futuristic American capitalist society in the novel, but it also aims at comparing them to recent views and the current situation of the real-world American capitalist society. The book is certainly not unique in its main theme and motifs, having in mind that similar views of dystopian future had been offered before by such authors as Aldous Huxley and George Orwell, but it makes for a good addition to a plethora of such views in literature. To put the novel into perspective, a brief account of the author's professional biography will be provided, along with some of his milestone works and dominant literary genre. It would be useful to take a look at the plot of the novel, its setting, and its dystopian characteristics, as it would provide the reader with some insight before commencing the analysis of the motifs that are the topic of the paper. Where does ˝The
Running Man˝ stand compared to King's other works? What is it that makes King's America a dystopia? How are the social issues in the novel relevant to today's realworld issues? Since the two important keywords are ˝corruption˝ and ˝social injustice˝, the paper will be structured around these two keywords, beginning with dictionary definitions of the words and then proceeding to exemplify them in the context of both the novel and the real-world American society. Opinions of philosophers, social critics, as well as statistics, will be used to further elaborate the issues of today's American society reflected in the novel. It should be noted, once again, that since Stephen King's dystopian world is set in the United States, the focus of the paper will predominantly be American society, with a few exceptions.
P a g e | 3 The Author and the Novel
Stephen Edwin King (born September 21, 1947) is an American author whose works include horror, supernatural fiction, suspense, science fiction and fantasy. Out of all these, he is revered as one of the greatest horror fiction writers, with many of his novels being adapted into successful films. His first novel, ˝Carrie˝, was published in 1973, and to the present day, King has written roughly around 56 novels, and according to some sources, even more. In his book ˝On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft˝, King (2000) describes his writing discipline: ˝Once I start work on a project, I don’t stop and I don’t slow down unless I absolutely have to. If I don’t write every day, the characters begin to stale off in my mind — they begin to seem like characters instead of real people. [...] I used to tell interviewers that I wrote every day except for Christmas, the Fourth of July, and my birthday. That was a lie.˝ Some of King's well-known
works include ˝It˝ , ˝Pet
Samatary˝, ˝Misery˝, ˝The Shining˝, ˝The Stand˝ and ˝Salem's Lot˝. Since King's name is predominantly associated with horror fiction, ˝The Running Man˝ does not quite fit this category. Not only is this not his ˝typical horror work˝, but it was also written and published under the pen name of Richard Bachman, along with six other novels. He wrote under a pseudonym because ˝back in the early days of my career there was a feeling in the publishing business that one book a year was all the public would accept ˝ (StephenKing.com).
In the original introduction to his omnibus ˝The Bachman Books˝, King (1985) describes himself in the years he wrote the books as "a young man who was angry, energetic, and infatuated with the art and the craft of writing" . King (2000) claims he
wrote the novel within a single week, and the novel was originally rejected, Ace Books' response being: ˝We are not interested in science fiction that deals with ne gative utopias˝ (Beahm, 1998).
P a g e | 4 The Plot of the Novel and its Dystopian Traits
The First Edition cover of the book offers a short hook: ˝Welcome to America in 2025, when the best men don't run for president — they run for their lives .˝ It is 2025, and
amidst a worldwide economic crisis, America has turned into a totalitarian dystopia. Ben Richards, a denizen of the fictional Co-Op city is reduced to penury and unable to find a job. He is married to Sheila, and they have a daughter named Cathy who is gravely ill and in need of medicine. These harsh circumstances make Sheila resort to prostitution in order to earn money. Desperate, Richards decides to turn to the Games Network, a television station operated by the government that runs violent game shows. All homes are required to have a ˝Free -Vee˝, and while the service is free, it cannot be turned off, only turned down. In order to make his way to being a contestant in one of these violent games, Richard undergoes rigorous physical and mental testing. He ends
up appearing on ˝The Running Man˝, the Games ' most popular, profitable and dangerous show. He is met with Dan Killian, who is the executive producer of the program, and is met with the challenges lying ahead. The rules of the game are as follows. The contestant is declared an enemy of the state and is given a 12-hour head start before an elite team of Network-employed hitmen called the Hunters are sent out to kill him. The contestant earns $100 per hour that he avoids capture and stays alive, an additional $100 dollars for each law enforcement officer or Hunter he kills. If he survives for 30 days, he is given a grand prize of $1 billion. The public is also included - being rewarded with money for informing the network of the runners location. The runner is also given $4,800 and a pocket video camera, instructed to videotape two messages and mail them to the studio for broadcasting. He can travel anywhere in America, but if he fails to deliver the
P a g e | 5 videotapes, he will stop accumulating prize money, but will still be hunted. No one has
yet ˝won˝ the game, and the previous record was eight days. As the game begins, Richards travels to New York, than Boston, continuing to Manchester, trying to conceal his identity by disguising himself and with help from a few people who also realise the Network is doing everything to keep the people in control, yet nothing about the rising air pollution issues. He is helped mainly by Stacey and Bradley, two African-American youngsters whose sister is dying of lung cancer, and then, in Manchester by a friend of Bradley's. Doubtful of the Network, he sends the tapes from other cities, in an effort to maintain a low profile. In an unfortunate turn of events, the mother of the aforementioned friend of Bradley's informs the authorities about Richards' location, and he almost ends up being caught, while her son is killed in the process. He finally abducts a woman named Amelia Williams and holds her hostage to ensure safe passage to Derry, Maine. The police confront Richards at the airport, but he bluffs his way onto a plane past both them and Evan McCone, the lead Hunter, by pretending to be carrying an explosive charge powerful enough to destroy the entire facility. By this time, Richards has broken the Running Man survival record of eight days and five hours. Richards takes both McCone and Amelia as hostages and demands that the plane fly low over populated areas to avoid being shot down by missiles. However, Killian calls Richards aboard the plane and reveals that he knows Richards has no explosives, as the plane's security system would have surely detected them. Killian offers him a chance to replace McCone as lead Hunter but Richards is hesitant to take the offer, worried about his family becoming a target. Killian then informs him that Sheila and Cathy were murdered over ten days earlier, even before Richards first appeared on the show, and gives him some time to make his decision. With nothing left to lose, he calls Killian back and accepts the offer. He does away with the flight crew
P a g e | 6 and McCone, suffering a mortal gunshot wound. Richards allows Amelia to jump off the plane with a parachute, then uses his last strength to override the autopilot and fly toward the skyscraper housing the Games Network. The plane crashes into the tower, resulting in both Richards' and Killian's deaths. The Free-Vees all over the country go white. The dystopian characteristics of the novel range from the scenery and topography to the socio-political affairs. It is a top-down dystopia, with the elite populating the wealthy and towering parts of cities, and the underpaid or poor groups living in ghettos or badly maintained districts. The Games Building towers everything else, described as growing ˝taller, mor e and more, improbable with its impersonal tiers of rising office windows, its polished stonework˝ (King, 1982). Strictly controlled
content in the form of violent games is used to control the citizens and make them complacent. Dissentience, nonconformity and education (reading books) are treated as dangerous to the authority. This makes the citizens rarely come out, as the streets are ridden with crime. Not only are the streets ridden with crime, but there is a strange air of destruction and dereliction in the streets - broken windows, rats, ghostly silence. ˝The horrifying spectre of air pollution and asthma and lung cancer hovers over the book. ˝
(Sharp Pencil, 2012). Both addictive drugs, such as ˝The San Francisco Push˝ and medicine are found only on the black market, which paints a grotesque picture. Richards' traits as a dystopian protagonist are those of questioning the current political and social affairs. He is overcome with a feeling that something is terribly wrong with the society he lives in. Through him, the reader is able to recognize all the negative aspects of that dystopian world and while it is not that easy to co-identify with him, the reader will at one point or the other start feeling sorry for him.
P a g e | 7 Corruption
According to the online Oxford Learner's Dictionary, corruption is defined as ˝dishonest or illegal behaviour, especially of people in authority˝ or ˝ the act or effect of making somebody change from moral to immoral standards of behaviour ˝. There are
various ways in which the picture of corruption is painted, chapter by chapter, in the novel. The corrupt ways of the government, namely the Games Network are explicitly shown early on in the novel. The first form of dishonest, brutal and illegal behaviour is most obviously, the media, the means through which those in power control the rest of society. We are introduced to the concept of the Free-Vee, the outstretched, grasping hand of the Games Network. They have their fingers in every home, in every household, in every public institution. The population are held in a state of hypnosis by violent games that thrill, humiliate and subdue. Here's a description of one such game: ˝This wasn’t one of the bi g ones, of course, just a cheap daytime come-on called Treadmill to Bucks. They accepted only chronic heart, liver, or lung patients, sometimes throwing in a crip for comic relief. Every minute the contestant could stay on the treadmill (keeping up a steady flow of chatter with the emcee), he won ten dollars.[...] The contestant, dizzy, out of breath, heart doing fantastic rubber acrobatics in his chest, missed the question, fifty dollars was deducted from his winnings and the treadmill was speeded up˝ (King, 1982).
This excerpt shows but a tiny bit of how the crowd is held in control and mesmerised by violence. The fact that only seriously ill people are taken in for this gruesome show, supports the fact that the game can never be won. This symbolises the power of the government - it can never be overturned. In a way, it instils fear and a kind of subconscious discipline into the general public. The public, even if they wanted to,
P a g e | 8
could never win ˝the big game˝, could never rebel, never show their dissatisfaction. In the novel, this kind of dissatisfaction is only murmured, but not outright expressed. Reality TV, like the lottery, holds out the carrot stick of wealth and fame for being and
˝
doing nothing – the ultimate scam that ensnares the lethargic denizens of refuse programming.˝ (Dyer, 2012). The government turns people into animals by potentiating
and encouraging their animal-like traits, namely bloodlust and violent behaviour. Animals are much more easily controlled and, if necessary, dispatched and replaced. Another way the Network does this is through control of education. Pervert magazines
have almost entirely replaced books, described in the novel as ˝safer˝. Through the means of enticing man's primal sexual urges, his downright lust, control is secured and rational human behaviour is brought down to a point where an ordinary citizen gets an
impression that everything is alright. ˝The Running Man˝, the Network's most popular show works under the guise of justice and law enforcement, where in fact, it is just a
means of getting rid of ˝embryo troublemakers˝ (King, 1982) and a sure way of keeping the public under control, by removing all those who are a potential threat to the established system. In George Orwell's ˝ Nineteen Eighty-Four ˝, Emmanuel Goldstein says: "Proletarians, in practice, are not allowed to graduate into the Party. The most gifted among them, who might possibly become nuclei of discontent, are simply marked down by the Thought Police and eliminated." (Orwell, 1949). The runner is declared an
enemy of the State, yet no background information is provided on why that particular individual is dangerous. Either that, or the information is manipulated and distorted to create a general impression he truly is. Ben Richards is seen by Killian as a perfect candidate, because he is deemed rebellious, anti-authoritarian and anti-social, having been suspended twice from work for failure to respect authority. The best men, truly do not run for President.
P a g e | 9 The crowd control becomes even more prominent as the audience is included in this highly sophisticated manhunt. In one fell swoop, the public is swayed into thinking they are helping to maintain law and order and are promised lucrative rewards for doing so. The only form of collectivism is turned to apprehending a single man. The incentive is desirable, and there is also negative incentive for harbouring a fugitive. In a way, not only is there corruption in the government, but the public is corrupted as well. Taking into consideration the second definition offered by Oxford Learner's Dictionary, it is clear that the Network aims at corrupting the general public. One can easily compare
˝The Running Man˝ to the bloody gladiatorial Roman spectacle, with the spectators have already given a thumbs-down to the gladiator that is Ben Richards, and have now turned to bloodthirsty lions ready to devour. Their rage is fuelled further by the Network which censors and overdubs Richards' tapes broadcast in the show. Richards is
desperately trying to ˝wake them up˝ by informing them of a rising environmental issue the Network is keeping them oblivious of. The final cut of his tapes instead shows obscenities not even spoken by him, and though it is clear that the words and the mouth do not match, nobody seems to notice. Finally, the view of the police as those who are here to ˝serve and protect˝ is also challenged. When Richards carjacks Amelia's car, they are at one point shot at by policemen, even though Amelia was innocent and was pretty much forced to comply with Richards' intentions. Amelia is awe-stricken, coming to the painful realization the policemen would kill everyone who stands in their way. They are later confronted with an even greater piece of the military, but leave unharmed due to them being filmed, and killing a well-to-do, middle class hostage in front of the whole world does not bode well for the Government's reputation.
P a g e | 10 Surely, one must take a look at how these examples of corruption are reflected in the American capitalist society today. Douglas W. Texter (2007) calls ˝The Running Man˝ "a very Marxist-oriented interrogation of the American superstructure" . Texter believes that The Running Man parodies or critiques the American educational system as a whole, particularly standardised testing. The tests Richards has to undergo while applying for the Games, open doors for some people and exclude others, much like SAT tests. Having each successive test on the next higher floor mocks the idea of upward mobility. Education in America today is threatened by corporations, and public schools
are threatened to become ˝dead zones of imagination˝ if the corporate powers have their way (Graeber, 2012). Noam Chomsky (2014) also supports the notion of a corporate attack on education, listing costs and student debt as significant factors and quoting a trustee of the New York State University system: ˝ There has been a shift from the belief that we as a nation benefit from higher education to a belief that it is the people who are receiving the education who primarily benefit, so they shou ld foot the bill.˝
Chomsky (2011), also speaks of the notion of ˝corporate personhood˝ , which is the ability of organisations to be recognised by law as an individual, bringing with it certain rights, protections and abilities that are enjoyed by human beings. He says that the progressives supported it, believing that the so-called organic institutions were more important than individuals. ˝Over the years, corporations have gott en rights that are way beyond those of persons of flesh and blood˝ . He also states that over the years, the
legal definition of person was formed so it does not include ˝creatures of flesh and blood who don't have the right documents˝ . In the novel, the Network is usually referred
to as if it were a real person, a living being. It has become more human with more rights than the dehumanized population who are nothing without permits, ID cards and clear
P a g e | 11 records. During their application for the Games, the potential contestants all get an ID card. Not being branded, means not being human. Bill Guttentag (2008) comments on the actual reality of reality TV shows,
stating that nearly all of them are not particularly real. ˝ The conceits, the casting, the shooting, the editing, the storytelling - they're not intended to serve as beacons of light and truth, they're intended to make the audience stick through to the next set of commercials.˝
Another Guttentag's quote reflects the manufactured truth offered to the
public, when Richards' tapes are broadcast on live television in the novel: ˝These shows frequently use what I call 'frankenbites' and frankenbites are sound bites that are taken out of context, statements from the participants, by stealing a word from here and two words from there, and then artificially constructing these sentences and putting them over neutral footage˝. And while the aforementioned frankenbites are used for
intensifying and re-scripting reality mostly for fun and intensification, such cutting and re-scripting happens in the media as well, media that is supposed to inform the general public of the truth. Paul Joseph Watson (2017), an English YouTube conservative personality, provides one such example in one of his videos. Namely, on July 7th, three Muslim women dressed in black attacked and stabbed a woman in London while reportedly chanting about Allah and the Quran. A BBC interview with an eyewitness was revealed to have intentionally had a part where ˝Allah and the Quran˝ were mentioned cut out from it, as there is an obvious skip in the video. The Telegraph has also interviewed the same eyewitness, but this part was not omitted in the broadcast footage. ˝The BBC has intentionally edited out eyewitness testimony...˝ (Watson, 2017). The BBC may not be an American broadcast service, but this does serve to exemplify how the media in the novel is reflected in the real world media.
P a g e | 12 Social Injustice
Injustice, as defined in the Oxford Learner's Dictionary, is ˝the fact of a situation being unfair and of people not being treated equally˝ or ˝an unfair act or an example of unfair treatment˝ . To define social injustice, one has to turn to what social justice is, in the first
place. According to Oxford Living Dictionaries, social justice is defined as ˝ justice in terms of the distribution of wealth, opportunities, and privileges within a society ˝.
Under the assumption that social injustice must be an opposite of this definition, let us
take a look at these ˝opposites˝ as illustrated in the novel. When one looks at the distribution of wealth in the novel, there is a clear cut between the well-off and the poor classes. The poor live in the midst of chronic air pollution, urban violence and street crimes and government informants, while the wealthy live for pleasure in a protected enclave of skyscrapers and decadence. It is mentioned several times in the novel that the rich, especially those inhabiting the Games Building have nose filters that protect them from the air that feels ˝ like smoking four packs of cigarettes a day just breathing˝ (King, 1982). Lower classes are either unable
to afford these filters or can only come by cheap ones which serve no long-term purpose. The wealthy watch the Free-Vee for pleasure. The poor watch it out of misery, dreaming of an easy way out. As the novel opens, it can be immediately noticed that Richards is one of the poor. He did not care for or watch the Free-Vee, but since his daughter got sick, ˝he had been watching the big -money giveaways˝ (King, 1982). This same economic inequality, which pushes his wife into prostitution, also pushes Richards to apply for the Games. Not only him, but many others, as we can see later when he stands in a long line and goes through a great amount of red tape in order to apply. When he first stands in line, the candidates are asked to dispose of valuables. But there are no valuables in his wallet. He resorts to borrowing coins from a guard, only to call
P a g e | 13 his wife on the phone. As he moves up and gets chosen for the games, he is provided with a luxury room and services at his disposal, a temporary illusion before the running starts. The poverty of the people is his main enemy once he starts running, because the people are so desperate that they will give out his whereabouts for money, an incentive that works so well having in mind their current financial state. There is a recurring motif
of the ˝New Dollar˝ which is apparently worth more than the old currency, and this motif stands as a promise of wealth and fortune. The class distinction is brought home in the final third of the novel, when Richards carjacks and takes hostage a well-to-do woman, Amelia Williams, who is absolutely oblivious of the struggles of those not so well-off. The following excerpt from the novel perfectly sums up these struggles and an obvious divide among the people in terms of class and money: “It’s disgusting to get blackballed because you don’t want to work in a General Atomics job that’s going to make you sterile. It’s disgusting to sit home and watch your wife earning the grocery money on her back. It’s disgusting to know the Network is killing millions of people each year with air pollutants when they could be manufacturing nose filters for six bucks a throw.” (King, 1982)
It should also be noted that King frequently uses racial slurs such as kikes, niggers and negroes. Although this issue is not wholly addressed in the novel, it helps
support the divide in privilege from a racial standpoint. It is further illustrated through the characters of Stacey and Bradley, both of which are African-American, that race has to do with wealth and social status. However, Dan Killian, the executive producer of the Games, is also African-American, ˝so black, in fact , [...] he might have stepped out of a minstrel show˝ (King, 1982). Whether this means wealth is stronger than race is
debatable.
P a g e | 14 Before further exemplifications of how the social injustice and inequality in the novel are reflected upon the real world America, it would be worth mentioning a dated, but still relevant class theory by Karl Marx (1848). Marx viewed modern society as having
only
two
classes
of
people:
the
bourgeoisie
and
the
proletariat.
The bourgeoisie are the owners of the means of production: the factories, businesses, and equipment necessary to gain profit. The proletariat are the workers. According to Marx, the bourgeoisie in capitalist societies exploit workers. They are paid by the owners just enough to afford food and a place to live, and the workers have a false consciousness or a mistaken sense they are well off, not realizing they are being exploited. However, ther e is mention of the third, transitional class called the ˝petite
bourgeoisie˝, whose definition does not go beyond ˝small capitalists˝. It is interesting to compare this class model to the stratification in the novel. Namely, the Network with its representative Dan Killian, represents the bourgeoisie. Ben Richards and many those like him represent the proletariat, and it is safe to say that Amelia Williams belongs to the third, transitional class. Marx's theory of the proletariat rising against the bourgeoisie is somewhat reflected in a line, spoken by Bradley: ˝ A bad day is comin', though. A bad day for the maggots with their guts full of roast beef. I see blood on the moon for them. Guns and torches. A mojo that walks and talks. ˝ (King, 1982).
According to an Internet article found on Social Justice Solutions website (2016), more than 60 million Americans do not have adequate access to basic health care while also suffering the effects of poverty, discrimination, and dangerous environments that accelerate higher rates of illness. Almost 50% of all American households are financially insecure, without adequate savings to meet basic living expenses for three months and the top 1% owns nearly half of the total wealth in the U.S, while one in five children live in poverty.
P a g e | 15
In their article ˝Wealth Inequality in the United States˝, Lisa A. Keister and Stephanie Moller (2000) say that: ˝ researchers agree that wealth ownership in the United States is extremely unequal and that inequality has worsened in recent decades ˝.
A small percentage of the population holds the largest concentration of wealth in the United States. In a Skype interview with the Huffington post, Noam Chomsky (2014) describes the current economic situation as ˝pure savagery˝ . He asserts that the corporate class, the wealthy and the government are creating a system designed to keep control by ensuring that the middle class remains downtrodden. The fact is, that in the mid-twentieth century one person could, by holding down a normal job, own a home and feed and educate a family — a prospect that is fairly impossible today (Chomsky, 2015). To wrap-up, here are some statistics by the Pew Research Center (2016) about racial inequality:
about four-in-ten (43%) blacks are sceptical that the country will ever make the changes needed for blacks to achieve equal rights with whites.
About four-in-ten (43%) black Americans believe the country will never make the changes needed for blacks to have equal rights with whites
About eight-in-ten (84%) black Americans say blacks in this country are treated less fairly than whites in dealing with the police
blacks and whites are more likely to say blacks are treated less fairly than whites in the country than they are to say this is the case in their own community.
Note that these statistics are taken strictly for comparison to King's novel, and the statistics represented partially show the current situation of racial inequality in the USA. It is worth mentioning that the USA's former president, Barack Obama was also African-American, with his novel counterpart being Dan Killian, in a way.
P a g e | 16 Conclusion
Taking into consideration how well King's novel (and the corruption and social injustice described therein) fit well with the critiques and opinions of contemporary American capitalist society, one can simply conclude that it definitely serves as a critique of social injustice and corruption. King, however, did not bring many novelties to the table, as such dystopian and, in a way, prophetic views have already been offered by other literary authors. The novel's focus on how a government regime is upheld through violent games and reality television, can be mildly upsetting for the reader, having in mind the variety of reality shows being broadcast today. King's portrayal of inequality is one in many, but again, adds another point of view, and it is meant to warn, as all dystopian views are. The angry, fast-paced writing style may, in some way, remind us of the swift passage of time, the time one should use to ponder how these issues are manifested in reality and, hopefully, strive to solve them.
P a g e | 17 Bibliography
Beahm, G. (1998). Stephen King from A to Z: An Encyclopedia of His Life and Work. Kansas City, Missouri: Andrews McMeel Publishing. Chomsky, N. (2011). On Corporate Personhood. Boulder, CO: University of Colorado. Chomsky, N. (2014). Current Economic System Is 'Pure Savagery'. Huffington Post. Chomsky, N. (2014). How the Young Are Indoctrinated to Obey. Alter Net . Chomsky, N. (2015). Requiem For an American Dream. El Segundo, California: Gravitas Ventures. Dyer, J. (2012). American Gladiators: How The Running Man is Our Reality. JaysAnalasys.com . Graeber, D. (2012). Dead zones of the imagination: On violence, bureaucracy, and interpretive labor. Journal of Ethnographic Theory , 2 (2).
Guttentag, B. (2008). The Real and The Reality of Documentary Film with filmmaker Bill Guttentag. San Francisco, California: Fora.tv. Keister, L. A., & Moller, S. (2000). Wealth Inequality in the United States. Annual Review of Sociology , 26 , 63-81.
King, S. (1982). The Running Man. New York City: Signet Books. King, S. (1985). The Bachman Books. New York: New American Library. King, S. (2000). On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft. New York City: Charles Scribner's Sons. Marx, K. (1848). The Communist Manifesto. Bishopsgate, London: Workers' Educational Association. Orwell, G. (1949). Nineteen Eighty-Four. London: Secker & Warburg. Pew Research Center. (2016). On Views of Race and Inequality: Blacks and Whites Are Worlds Apart. Sharp Pencil. (2012). Stephen King: The Running Man (as Richard Bachman) (1982). Sharp Pencil . Social Justice Solutions. (2016). Grand Challenges for Social Work: Identify 12 Top Social Issues Facing America.
StephenKing.com (n.d). Frequently Asked Questions. Accessed on 14. June 2017 Texter, D. W. (2007). A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Dystopia: The Culture Industry's Neutralization of Stephen King's The Running Man. Utopian Studies , 18 (1). Watson, P. J. (2017). BBC Censors "Allah" From Interview About Muslim Attack. InfoWars.com .
