Help or Hindrance?

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While we will be looking at the series that travels back and forth around the different classes with various stories, there is also a film that is quite linear and the story travels from the tail to the engine room, exploring the inequalities.

It has been said that Snowpiercer is a sequel to Charlie and the chocolate factory. Charlie inherits the Wonka fortune and grows up to be Mr. Wilford [1] who designs the train to save humanity.

"The only way to fix social inequality is to destroy the very foundations of our society" [2]

A thousand and one carriage train, stretching 10 miles long is the only thing humanity alive.

A second ice age has hit the world and Mr. Wilford designed a train that circles the earth lasting 122 days each round trip. This train is the only thing keeping certain criteria alive. The divide in the train is where you lay in the class.

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Defining cult

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"A cult can be broadly defined as unorthodox or spurious" [3]

A typical cult has charismatic, unaccountable leader, persuades by coercion and exploits its members, economically, sexually or in some other way.

The survivors on this train are overcome with nostalgia for their lives before Snowpiercer. Mr. Wilford evokes these feelings of nostalgia to get what he wants, he manipulates them into doing things his way by promise of their lives back once the earth thaws. He in the meantime is living a grand lifestyle.

A perpetual motion machine, a hypothetical machine that works without an energy source, has very many stories to tell.

This train is known as Snowpiercer.

Snowpiercer is based in the year 2021, seven years of circling the earth since the world became frozen. 

"Commentary on our global socioeconomic structure as well as a statement regarding our futility against powers of nature" [2]

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Production

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Series - Released in 2020

Screenplay by Bong Joon-Ho & Kelly Masterson

Screen story by Bong Joon-Ho

Created & Developed by Josh Friedman & Graeme Manson 

Genre - Drama Dystopian, Fiction Thriller & Post-Apocalyptic

Film - Released in 2013

Produced by Jeong Tae-Sung, Steven Nam, Park Chan-Wook & Lee Tan-Hun

Production Companies - Moho Film, Opus Pictures & Union InvePost-Apocalyptic

Genre - Action, Thriller, Drama & Sci-fi

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Both are based on the French graphic novel from 1982 Le Transperceneige by Jacques Lob, Benjamin Legrand & Jean-Marc Rochette

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Opinion matters

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This is not your mainstream viewing as it explores controversial storylines, from the poor forced to eat gelatinized cockroaches, unbalanced rationing from the rich, exploring cannibalism and cult suicide.

This makes it a modern form of cult television, drawing a minority audience who can stomach the mean but real way in where society holds many of it's own.

Cult TV normally has a committed and loyal fan base or audience, this cult franchise is not to be confused with the cult groups involved in this series and film. The difference being that the cult franchise is best described by Alun Harries words [4] "a cult film is one that has a passionate following, but does not appeal to everybody. Cult must be popular only to small group of hard-core devotees, must be something without mass appeal. As part of the cult TV fan base, fans do not give up on something, fans who embrace something that the mainstream disregarded as too weird, too transgressive, too subversive- that is cult!"

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The definition!

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Whereas, in modern English, a cult is a social group that is defined by its unusual religious, spiritual, or philosophical beliefs, or by its common interest in a particular personality, object, or goal [5].

The definition of a cult is best described by the sociology dictionary, it explains that, a relatively small group that excessively controls its members, whom share set of acts and practices which require unwavering devotion, and are considered deviant (outside the norms of society), and typically led by a charismatic and often self-appointed leader [6] this is Mr. Wilford down to a tea!

These goals in the train engineers' eyes are that humanity must exist on the train but only by order of his commands, as long as he has what he wants, the others can suffer but have to be grateful to him for their survival.

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Given after watching this series, I have learnt the difference between a cult group and a cult franchise, something I was unfamiliar with and always looked at anything 'cult' as being negative. This series or film is worth a watch as not a lot can be given away, no one likes a spoiler. 

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Bibliography:

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[1] Kottke, J. 2017. Why Snowpiercer is a sequel to Willy Wonka & The Chocolate Factory. Kottke.org. https://kottke.org/19/01why-snowpiercer-is-a-sequel-to-willy-wonka-and-the-choclate-factory [accessed on 20/02/21]

[2]James, A. & Starner, N. 2018. The Ending of Snowpiercer Explained. Looper.com. https://www.looper.com/108629/ending-snowpiercer-explained/ [accessed on 10/03/21]

[3]Ross, R. 2009. The Guardian. Watch out for tell-tale signs. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/belief/2009/may/27/cult-definition-religion [accessed on 09/02/21]

[4]Harries, A. 2016. What is cult? We are cult.rocks. https://wearecult.rocks/what-is-cult [accessed on 25/02/21]

[5] Zablocki, Benjamin. 31 May 1997. "A Sociological Theory of Cults" (paper). Annual meeting of the American Family Foundation. Philadelphia. "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 8 March 2005. Retrieved 29 March 2005.

[6]In: sociology dictionary. n.d. [online] Available at: <https://sociologydictionary.org/cult/> [Accessed on14 February 2021].