This attempt at constructing a utopian society, however, is doomed to failure. By creating a society that is entirely communal to isolate the community's dwellers from want, personal happiness is impossible. Moreover, a society that attempts to structure itself entirely upon keeping fear at bay is a society with no real culture at all. Virtually every rule of the society is designed to highlight the division between the forest dwellers and the persons who live in the community. For example, the community is kept vigilant by the sight of a watchtower. Red, the color of the people of the forest (and also a color associated with red-baiting in American society) is entirely prohibited from the community.

What is also limited, within the framework of the community is sexual desire. The teenagers of the Village feel particularly stifled by this constant watchfulness. By constantly trying to police the safety of this created...

A society that attempted to banish want and fear in the form of alien invaders instead creates a new generation of young people who feel alien within its enclaves as the creatures of the forest, because their natural, human desires to seek freedom cannot be realized.
The Village," for all of its archaic language and design, feels uniquely contemporary today. When society is threatened by fear, either the fear or 'Reds' or the fear of terrorism, there is a great temptation to justify repression as a way of guarding what is sacred, such as the family and even freedom itself. But one cannot secure freedom and safety by creating a society of watchfulness, which ultimately provides the least safe and secure sense of community of all.

Works Cited

The Village." Written and directed by M. Night Shyamalan. 2004.