The Purge is a movie series that depicts the idea of how violence is the cure to ensure a functioning society and in result, describes how purging is a human right needed for our world to live in harmony. Really, the premise sounds outlandish, but is there a point?
Not only are there four glorious movies, but at last, there is a T.V show…that heavily disappointed me. But what The Purge touches on ever so slightly (and really well, might I add), is a political commentary. In all truth, this cinematic franchise was able to connect fiction to a very prevalent problem. The First Purge depicts images inspired by historical events such as the Charleston church massacre. This movie portrays a totalitarian takeover that once seemed like a passing blip in the dystopian genre. The Purge: Anarchy and Election Year tiptoed around these sensitive topics by touching upon the themes in a more generic manner.
The New Founding Fathers of America are a political group that installs a 12-hour period where the law pauses. The First Purge takes place in Staten Island, where a scattered disarray of murders take place in a bid to test the theory that humanity needs an outlet to manage pent up rage. The Purge series is a political commentary about wealth and underlying power structures. Through purging, the wealthy can bring forth their rage within the comfort of their own homes, while the rest face the danger of the outside. Gangs storm Staten Island adorned with supremacist markings, a common theme in The Purge. Similar to Trump’s 2019 tweet that told four congresswomen of colour to, “go back and help fix the totally broken and crime-infested places from which they came from.”
The armed forces attempt to purge the underclass by posing as participants. This fictional version of the United States uses imagery from history, as well as current events to elude its overarching message, that this is happening. In Election Year, which came out in 2016, election rigging is taken to the extremes by voter suppression and blatant lies. So in reality, maybe we should be asking ourselves if the director, James DeManaco, is a psychic? As a Purge fanatic, the cross between fiction and our reality is mildly unsettling.
Maybe in the wake of horror movies stepping up their game, this is not a cinematic masterpiece. As it has been called “low budget” and “mediocre” I think the overall dynamic of the plotline and the underbelly of the Purge was forgotten. The Purge started because of politics. That fact alone should be a reason to watch
The idea is to entertain while also introducing viewers to the systematic biases against poorer citizens and corrupt government. These films do all of this while cloaking such controversial sentiments with raw innate violence. This violence is what covers the film as a horror movie but it should really be the horror that it is all mirroring real life.