I’m done with dystopian fiction – reality is scary enough

When it’s 2am and I’m still wide awake, chewing on my cuticles and trying to think my way through the same plot hole that has dogged my third book for more than a year, I catch myself wishing I could split my consciousness at the point where work and real life meet, so I might finally know peace. And then – oh, right. Severance is a psychological horror show, not a clever idea for achieving work/life balance in late-stage capitalism.

The click of realisation always comes to me later than I want to admit.

When I first saw Spike Jonze’s film Her, in which Joaquin Phoenix’s character falls in love with an AI operating system voiced by Scarlett Johansson, I thought, “Sounds dreamy.” The idea of the love of my life living in the pocket of my handbag, always there when I need them but able to be powered down when it’s convenient, with no physical body to sweat or shed hair or hog the blankets, their personality designed by an algorithm tailored perfectly to me and only me … I’m not hearing any downsides here, guys. According to my therapist, though, it is neither normal nor healthy to wish for a partner who lives in the cloud.

Credit: Robin Cowcher

Each time some celebrity announces the birth of their child via surrogate, the internet dutifully explodes with discourse about the ethics of surrogacy, and whether a woman should have the right to commodify her own body. I read through these comment threads looking for answers to my own opinions, thinking always of Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro, in which a subclass of people are bred to donate their healthy organs and body parts to the ruling class as needed. With news of three trafficked Thai women rescued from a human egg farm in Georgia, I have to wonder if the novel was a story, or a blueprint.

Lately, when the credits roll on some creepy and poignant show set in the not-too-distant future, I don’t feel a prickle of anxiety, or a rush of relief that those characters’ worlds are not mine. I don’t seem to feel anything, and I don’t think it’s because the writing isn’t good, or because the performances aren’t believable. I think my heart rate stays steady because these blue-filtered dystopias are no longer all that different from our everyday.

What’s sci-fi any more, and what’s just realism?

There’s no need to undergo the severance procedure: we’re all working all the time anyway. Guilt dogs our downtime: if you have time to watch television, you have time for a side hustle. This is why you’ll never afford a house.

How many loves of my life have lived in my handbag already? How many times have I fallen into limerence with a perfect stranger from Bumble, hand growing numb around my phone as I wait for their name to light up my screen again – only to finally meet them in person, and find we have nothing to say to one another? None of them ever had Scarlett Johansson’s smoky, silky voice, either.

An early episode of Black Mirror accidentally depicted the grossest political scandal in recent memory before anyone even knew it had really happened. Rewatching it in today’s political climate, Veep’s crude, absurdist comedy is no longer shocking or satirical; it’s become a quaint, wholesome little show about the beating heart of politics, in line with Parks and Recreation.

On any given Saturday morning, outside any given apartment block in South Yarra, we watch The Hunger Games play out as dozens of people fight for tenancy in an overpriced, under-ventilated one-bedroom flat. I’m pretty sure the Earth Matthew McConaughey’s character leaves behind in Interstellar is about five years away, and the one we see in Mad Max can’t be far behind. We all know that every weirdo loser billionaire watched Ex Machina and got so carried away over their manic pixie dream girl that they missed the cautionary tale of their own hubris.

The Handmaid’s Tale was never an easy read or watch, but America is looking more like Gilead with every passing day. If a certain opposition leader gets the top job in our next federal election, I fear that our country will soon be following a similar path.

The magic of dystopian fiction is in its feasibility. When its creator takes something from our reality and perverts it, their ideas get caught between our teeth, and that unsettled feeling follows us around for days. Now, though, all those stories seem less like idle thought exercises and more like warning signs we’ve ignored. God, I miss crass buddy comedies and formulaic romcoms.

No need to wait for the credits to roll. Dystopian fiction is done now, everyone. Reality ruined it.