I have to admit, I was a little bit excited about watching Amazon’s new show Utopia. First of all, I’m a Utopian – I’ve always been someone who dreams about the possibility of a better world. Second, I saw the trailer and even though reality has been incredibly grim – the trailer with REM’s end of the world and a story that looked like an action adventure as a group of comic loving nerds try to save the world from a real life comic.
We’ve been lucky in 2020. We haven’t lost anyone but the grim reality of 1 million dead, the loss of our livelihood, our daughter losing her childhood to at home learning, and the awful drumbeat of doom that permeates outwards from the White House – like some sort of evil personified and coming to get us. It has all taken a toll – not just on us, but on everybody.
So, we sat down and watched the first episode. It started so good. A young couple in love that inherit a house. A bunch of geeks who are finally meeting in real life after years of knowing each other online. All of that felt so good and resonated with us.
And then – well, and then Fuck you Jeff Bezos and fuck you Amazon. Dark, sadistic, awful, brutal, soul crushing violence and acts of evil. The happy couple destroyed. The happy geeks destroyed. And the one thing the pandemic has spared all of us – kids suddenly dying in elementary schools just as America gets ready to send their children back to schools. Yes, fuck you Jeff Bezos. You lizard eating fucking turd. All your wealth, all your power, all your data and technology and you give us something to make us feel even worse? If there is a hell, you have earned it fucker.
I thought maybe it was just the pilot – maybe things would turn. The next night we sat down to watch episode two – but it just got worse. Salt and bleach and an eyeball spooned from the socket. My daughter screamed and cried, we sent her from the room. We shut off your garbage. Later, by myself, I watched the rest and the bright happy character was murdered by the heroine. Oh, fuck you Amazon. And fuck you for at the same time insulting every comic fan. I won’t watch more. I don’t care what the reviews say. I don’t care what the previews show.
Back in 2016, I thought it was a coincidence that The Man in the High Castle started just as we were faced with the prospect of a candidate who made overt Nazi references and used hard core fascist techniques. I don’t think it was a coincidence. I don’t think this is a coincidence or bad luck either. I can’t quite get my head around what it is – but all I can really say is that something is definitely wrong. There is some sort of evil coming from Amazon and emanating outwards into the world.
Utopia comes from the greek word which means Nowhere. Since the word was born, it has referred to a better world, a place where humanity solves the ills of our species and finds a way to live in harmony with each other and our planet. You’ve stolen that word now. You’ve corrupted it. Yes, I know the comic was written long ago, the production was started before the pandemic, and all the rest but I don’t buy it any more.
Living in the world we live in, it’s almost impossible to escape from Amazon – but maybe that’s what we need to do. There’s an idea for a future series “Escape from Amazon” – unfortunately, it will probably have to be fiction because there seems to be no escape.