Recently I’ve been gnawing away at Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World Revisited, a series of ruminations on the state of modern society (modern as in 1958, the year the book was published) and its relationship to the themes in his dystopian novel Brave New World, which had been published 26 years prior. One of the chapters, title “Chemical Persuasion,” addresses existing and newly invented psychotropic drugs and compares them to soma, the hypothetical substance used by the denizens of Huxley’s new world to medicate themselves, and more insidiously used by the scientific overlords of this world to maintain order and complacency within the population.
In Brain Candy, the troupe of comedians known as the Kids in the Hall provided their own satiric take on the subject, postulating a new compound called GLeeMONEX, which encapsulates its users in the frame of mind they experienced during their happiest memory. Ultimately, the theme of this film echoes that of Brave New World, that eternal bliss can come at a steep price, and that it is a fundamental perversion of human nature for a person to be blissfully happy all the time.
The Film: Brain Candy
The Song: “Pablo and Andrea”
The Artist: Yo La Tengo
