Summary
- The Running Man
accurately predicted the future with its vision of a dystopian society and its merging of entertainment and politics. - The film’s portrayal of manipulation through media resonates now more than ever with the rise of reality television and fake news.
- The Running Man
‘s commentary on entertainment and politics intertwining became a reality with Arnold Schwarzenegger’s venture into politics.
The 1987 dystopian action film The Running Man stars Arnold Schwarzenegger as Ben Richards, a police helicopter pilot who, after being wrongly convicted of the mass murder of unarmed civilians, is sentenced to life imprisonment and then coerced into being a contestant on America’s most popular television program, the diabolical game show The Running Man, in which Ben must win to survive.
Set between 2017 and 2019, The Running Man, based on Stephen King’s 1982 novel of the same name, accurately predicts the future, including the deepening divide between the poor and the rich, an impending economic collapse, and the increasing merging of entertainment and politics. The film also foresaw the public’s growing addiction to exploitation and violence as a means of escapism. Indeed, the film’s impact was most immediately visible with the competition television series American Gladiators, which debuted in 1989 as a virtual copy of The Running Man, minus convicted contestants and government-sanctioned murder.
The Running Man Isn’t Far Away From Today’s Reality
The Running Man
- Release Date
- November 13, 1987
- Director
- Paul Michael Glaser
- Runtime
- 101
While The Running Man certainly made telling predictions about life in 2017 and 2019, the film’s bleak vision of the future seems especially apt and recognizable in 2024. In this context, The Running Man is, despite its various creative flaws, as much of a 1980s visionary achievement as Blade Runner and RoboCop. The movie is set in a dystopian United States where food and oil are in short supply amid a collapsed world economy. The United States has transformed into a totalitarian police state, in which dissent is punished with death, while television is controlled by the state. In a world in which truth is obsolete, justice is treated like a sick game, and the featured prize isn’t a set of steak knives but rather human life.
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While the central concept of The Running Man, of the powerful manipulating entertainment and the media to distract the rest of the population from their harsh reality, certainly existed long before the film, this resonates more now than at any previous point in history, especially with the continued rise of fake news and reality television, which have become increasingly indistinguishable.
The Running Man Predicted the Rise of Deepfake Technology and Fake News
The Running Man opens with police helicopter pilot Ben Richards observing a group of unarmed food rioters in Bakersfield, California. After being ordered to indiscriminately fire on the unarmed mob, Ben refuses and is eventually subdued by his colleagues. Because the footage of the ensuing massacre was altered to make Ben look like a mass murderer, he was falsely blamed for killing approximately 60 people and sent to a prison labor camp with the nickname The Butcher of Bakersfield.
The next example of media manipulation in The Running Man occurs after Ben escapes prison and enters the apartment of a woman, Amber Mendez, whom Ben takes as a hostage. While attempting to board a flight to Hawaii with Amber, played by Maria Conchita Alonso, Ben is arrested at the airport and then coerced by Damon Killian, the creator and host of The Running Man game show, to become a contestant. After Ben is taken into custody, a news report falsely states that Ben shot various people at the airport.
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After Ben is hurled via a rocket sled into the game zone, which is an abandoned section of Los Angeles, Amber, who saw the fake news report about the supposed airport shooting, uncovers the original unedited footage of the Bakersfield massacre and realizes Ben is an innocent man. Before Amber can reveal the truth, she is captured and sent into the game zone, where contestants or “runners” are hunted by armed mercenaries with names like Buzzsaw, Dynamo, Fireball, and Sub-Zero.
Later in the film, when it seems that Amber and Ben are poised to emerge as survivors in the game, Killian summons a retired stalker, Captain Freedom, to fight a stuntperson posing as Ben for the purpose of faking Amber and Ben’s deaths, which are presented on television through digitally altered footage. After the network’s signal is hacked, all the unedited footage is revealed to the masses. As the truth is revealed, Ben, in keeping with today’s transient media culture, instantly transforms from being a notorious mass murderer to a national hero.
Arnold Schwarzenegger Became a Political Gladiator
One of the most accurate predictions in The Running Man is how entertainment and politics became increasingly intertwined. While this was apparent in 1987, when former actor turned politician Ronald Reagan was nearing the end of his second term as President of the United States, this link is also clearly embodied by Arnold Schwarzenegger, who was elected governor of California in 2003. While the idea of Schwarzenegger, who was re-elected in 2006, achieving success within the political arena seemed unfathomable in 1987, Schwarzenegger’s entry into politics was preceded by one of his The Running Man co-stars, former professional wrestler Jesse Ventura, who was elected governor of Minnesota in 1999 and served a four-year term.
Of course, the most shocking convergence of entertainment and politics occurred with the 2016 election of businessman and former reality television star Donald Trump as President of the United States. Schwarzenegger debuted as host of Trump’s television reality competition series The Celebrity Apprentice on January 2, 2017, less than three weeks before Trump, who hosted the series between 2008 and 2015, was inaugurated as the first citizen President of the United States in history. The Running Man is streaming now on Pluto TV.
