Ever felt powerless to change the course of world events, adrift in a jumble of seemingly random and chaotic global news, struggling to rationalize the injustices in the world?
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What makes conspiracy theories so seductive?
The characters on Amazon Prime Video’s Utopia want to believe — and they might have a point.
These feelings of uncertainty, unease, isolation, and suspicion inform the world views of the central characters on Amazon Prime Video’s Utopia, a suspenseful thriller that combines comic book fandom and conspiracies with a topical setting.
Against the backdrop of a deadly outbreak, four friends find themselves unraveling a conspiracy in a comic book that could be the key to saving the world. While they each have their own unique reasons for getting involved, they are united by the search for deeper meaning.
For as current as the themes are on Utopia, though, conspiracy theories themselves have a long history.
According to Mark Fenster, author of Conspiracy Theories: Secrecy and Power in American Culture
“We know conspiracy theories have been around since ancient times. The Romans believed that Christians conspiratorially played a role in the burning of Rome.”
Another widespread theory circa 1321 AD claimed that leprosy sufferers were poisoning Europe’s water supply to raise an army and conquer the healthy — the medieval equivalent of a zombie apocalypse.
Of course this theory did not have any factual basis. But that did not stop the population of Europe from assigning blame for the imagined crises to familiar targets: foreigners, Muslims, and Jewish people — outgroups who were regularly targeted by virtue of their race or place of origin.
Moving forward a few hundred years, conspiracy theories abounded in the 13 colonies before the United States won its independence from Great Britain. As in the case of medieval Europe, often racist and bigoted undertones (or overtones) accompanied the suspicions. According to Fenster, “You saw conspiracy theories relating to the indigenous population, to the French… and in the lead up to the Revolutionary War to the British government.”
It’s as true now as it was then — conspiracy theories crop up in times of uncertainty, when people are unsatisfied by official explanations of events or do not trust authorities and government agencies. In 2020, a poll from the Pew Research Center found that over 60 percent of Americans believe both that the government withholds information from the public, and that the media intentionally ignores important stories.
Each time, people felt ill-informed, powerless to change the course of events, or manipulated by shadowy figures. One way people fight these feelings is to turn to conspiracy theories.
According to researchers at Northumbria University, “conspiracy beliefs satisfy important psychological needs,” including “allowing people to make sense of events,” “address feelings of powerlessness,” and “deal with a lack of control.”
While some conspiracies have turned out to be true — such as the US military testing LSD on unsuspecting citizens — it’s not just these kernels of truth that cause new theories to continue cropping up. It’s because the world is chaotic. And conspiracy theories can help people feel like they can make sense of it all.
In the case of the characters who are pursuing the messages hidden in Utopia, they just might be right about their suspicions — and the truth that’s out there could be scarier than anything they have imagined.