Inspiration for Apple Computers George

Inspiration for Apple Computers

George Orwell's book, Nineteen Eighty-Four, has been the creative and thematic inspiration for a multitude of spin-offs, take-offs, and parodies over the last 50 or more years. Especially in the last 23 years, since 1984, advertisers, authors, TV producers, humorists and filmmakers, among others in the creative arts, have had plenty of material to use. There is a good reason why: Orwell's dreary depiction of a totalitarian society shocks the senses of every democracy-loving individual, and the use of images and ideas from Nineteen Eighty-Four tends to get people's attention in an emotional way. That is the point of this paper.

Meanwhile, to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the writing of this book by Orwell, Plume books published a glossy, attractive version. The Foreword (by Thomas Pynchon) takes a trip through time, from the 18th Century ("Mason & Dixon") to the 1940s ("Gravity's Rainbow") and on to the Grateful Dead. Pynchon puts his best narrative style forward in the material, pointing out that even after Hitler, the Japanese and the fascist Italian dictator Mussolini were all defeated (the trio of fascists were called the "Axis") by 1948, when Orwell wrote the book, "the will to fascism had not gone away."

Pynchon writes - in his interpretation of why Orwell wrote the novel - that "...far from having seen its day [fascism] had perhaps not yet even come into its own." And moreover, Pynchon continues, "the corruption of spirit, the irresistible human addiction to power, were already in place, all well-known aspects of the Third Reich and Stalin's U.S.S.R..."

Who or what was going to prevent fascism to come again and take control of Britain and the United States, Pynchon wonders - "Moral superiority? Good intentions? Clean Living?" Pynchon draws a parallel between Orwell's "Oceania's Ministries" and the current Department of Defense under the Bush Administration, which has had its problems with human rights (in particular, the apparent use of torture that has been well publicized, and the authorization of brutally inhuman acts to prisoners at Abu Ghraib in Baghdad). Pynchon hints at the warrant-less spying on citizens through phone tapping by the Bush Administration, too, which has similarities with "Big Brother" in the Orwell novel.

Meanwhile, one classic example of using a theme in Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four was the Apple (Macintosh) computer commercial in the broadcast of the Super Bowl in 1984. The Raiders and Redskins were playing, and the Raiders were leading the Redskins at halftime, 21-3. It was getting to be a one-sided game, and then the Raiders scored on an interception just before the end of the first half. Never previously had Super Bowl commercials had such a huge impact on the football-watching fans, but this time it really made a huge impression.

According to an article on CNN.com, it was "...one of those events you're drawn to before you're even aware of it" (Leopold, 2006). There was a gray picture on the screen, and then a long row of men dressed in drab gray, marching single file through a translucent tube of some kind. The voice in the commercial says "Today, we celebrate the first glorious anniversary of the Information Purification Directives. We have created, for the first time in all history, a garden of pure ideology."

The men who are marching are bald, and moving like robots, all with the same blank expression. They are probably meant to mirror the "Proles" in Orwell's book; the Proles are the faceless masses of citizens who live in Oceania, which is a totalitarian state. The Orwellian state is controlled by Big Brother, the Thought Police, and governed by the Ministry of Truth (which deals with education, news and entertainment), the Ministry of Peace (which handles matters of war), the Ministry of Love (where the secret police work) and the Ministry of Plenty (dealing with the economy, which is practically non-existent).

In the novel, the Ministry of Plenty had promised citizens they would produce 145 million pairs of boots, but only 62 million pairs were made. The information put out then was that "...the Party had made five million more boots last year then they had expected to." But wait, in the same paragraph in Chapter 3, it was possible that "no boots at all were made," because even though the newspaper said five million extra pairs were made, "...you could see that half the people in Oceania had no boots." This is an example of Orwellian government putting lies in the form of propaganda out in newspapers, not unlike the current administration in Washington, by the way, which has admitted bribing journalists (with $200,000) to write positive stories about education programs ("No Child Left Behind"); and administration officials testified in Congress under oath that they editorially changed science reports before they were released to the public, to make Global Warming seem not as serious as it really is, among other things.

The "Information Purification Directives" in the Macintosh commercial was probably meant by Macintosh to be like the "Ministry of Truth" in the novel.

Then, a few seconds into the 60-second commercial, a very sexy, good-looking woman is running in a white tank top and red shorts and she carries a sledgehammer. No one had seen this commercial before of course, and it was mesmerizing. There were soon storm troopers chasing after the woman in red shorts. The woman is the only thing in the commercial that has any color; everything else is drab gray. As she keeps running with the sledgehammer, the voice (a face is shown on a huge video screen) says that in the "garden of true ideology, "...each worker may bloom secure from the pests of contradictory and confusing truths."

Next, the workers are all seated in a large auditorium and the video screen - with the face on the video screen looking very intimidating and the voice loudly giving out orders - and the camera shows the woman with the sledgehammer has now entered the auditorium, and is being pursued by police in helmets. "Our Unification of Thoughts is more powerful a weapon than any fleet or army on earth. We are one people, with one will, one resolve, one cause," the man in the video says, while an annoying loud musical tone blends in with his voice. This last line about "thoughts" seems very much like Orwell's Thought Police. The woman spins around like an athlete getting ready to throw the hammer in the Olympics, and flings the sledgehammer toward the screen. "Our enemies shall talk themselves to death and we will bury them with their own confusion." Just before the sledgehammer smashes the screen, Big Brother says, "We shall prevail!" Then the smashed, vaporized screen sends a foggy windy blast into the faces of the Proles who are still seated. They begin to smile. The Apple commercial runs up into the screen: "On January 24th, Apple Computer will introduce Macintosh. And you'll see why 1984 won't be like '1984.'"