The trailer for Civil War, a new film about the crack up of America from Alex Garland and A24, dropped like a bomb on the internet. The film is coming out next year in April, it’ll tell the story of a war journalist, played by Kirsten Dunst, traveling with her family across the U.S. as the country goes to war with itself. Right wing grifters online have already decided that the film is “predictive programming”—an example of shadowy deep state elites using their control of the media to prepare the population for an actual civil war.
This is, of course, bullshit.
Predictive programming is a long-running conspiracy theory that claims powerful Hollywood elites are using the media to program the populace. The idea is that, at the behest of the Illuminati or somesuch, Hollywood makes films like Civil War to normalize the idea of conflict between the states. Philosopher Alan Watts coined the term and it’s been used ever since to explain away the eerie similarities people find between art and the real world.
Another film about an apocalypse, Leave the World Behind, gained similar attention this week. The film, which stars Julia Roberts and Ethan Hawke, tells the story of two families trying to survive a vague apocalypse that follows an unexplained blackout. Barack Obama produced the film, which made it an ideal target for conspiracy-minded internet personalities who make money by sharing reactionary takes with their perpetually scared and receptive right-wing audience. Like Civil War, weirdos are pointing to it as an example of elites using art and the media to control us.
The idea is ludicrous on its face and completely misunderstands how art works and the reciprocal nature between a society and the art it creates. The most popular version of the predictive programming conspiracy theory is the idea that The Simpsons predicted something. The only thing The Simpsons ever predicted was our stupidity. But that hasn’t stopped conspiracists from laying the blame for events as wide ranging as 9/11, the pandemic, and the election of Donald Trump at the feet of The Simpsons.
Conspiracy theories flourished in the wake of the Sandy Hook shooting. A popular one stated that The Hunger Games and The Dark Knight Rises predicted the event—The Hunger Games because it’s a story about the murder of children and The Dark Knight Rises because it mentioned a place called Sandy Hook.
Art is always in conversation with the society that gave rise to it. It’s a reflection of our anxieties and fears. When it’s at its best it can offer us catharsis through fiction, a way to work through a thought or feeling before it becomes an action. With political polarization increasing in America, what would have once been normal political disputes are becoming violent. It makes sense that an artist like Garland would want to explore that in fiction. That doesn’t mean a real civil war is coming, or that government elites are preparing us for such a conflict.
Movies do not, thank god, predict the future. Not every fiction that is written comes to pass. The idea of a second American Civil War is a staple of fiction in the U.S. In 2006, the TV show Jericho told the story of a nuclear civil war involving powerful business interests. In 2022, HBO Max aired DMZ, an adaptation of a comic book about people living in Manhattan during a second American Civil War. No one cared.
Second civil war stories help Americans make sense of specific moments in political time. Decades later, they often appear strange. In the 1990s, HBO aired a made-for-TV movie directed by Joe Dante of Gremlins fame. This largely forgotten black comedy starred Phil Hartman as an American president facing a populace worried about special interest groups and immigrants changing the electoral college. It’s essentially the Great Replacement Theory as a dark comedy.
More than a quarter century later, the racist conspiracy theory persists, and so does the country. These stories about America going to war with itself didn’t come to pass. The odds are good that Civil War won’t either.
