Like most people, I spend a lot of time scrolling through YouTube. And unless you have an ad blocker, which I don’t, you get all the ads while watching anything and everything on this platform. From commercials about insurance to the Mayoral Debate and Republican nonsense like Purdue, everyone’s trying to be part of your video watching experiencing. Now, Katy Perry and Orlando Bloom are involved in these commercials with a dystopian twist on voting rights.
In the Transmissions From the Future by RepresentUs, an organization set on dismantling the root causes of inequities in our democracy, Katy Perry and Orlando Bloom play an aged-up couple who deliver a dire warning to the past and the citizens of the United States of America about voting rights. Set in the year 2055, the ad shows Bloom saying, “You are our only hope.”
Bloom follows that with, “The America you know doesn’t exist in our future. Democracy is dead. We have no voice. The regime watches our every move.”
Perry continues with a warning that sounds all too familiar considering the voter suppression laws and attitudes that Republicans are having a ball putting together: “Voter suppression ran wild all over America.”
Voting rights died in the Senate in this commercial, and “we lost our right to vote,” according to Perry, leading to the dangerous future they know to be home in 2055. And as things get more intense in the trailer, their warning reaching more viewers in the past, someone dressed in all black is trying to break down their door and stop their broadcast.
The RepresentUs Transmission From the Future ends with Perry and Bloom running for their lives and the message “Democracy lives or dies with you. Call your Senator and tell them: Pass the For the People Act,” with a link to their site whileyoucan.us. And this ad comes at a time where Bloom stated to Deadline that the For the People Act is the “single most important piece of legislation of our lifetimes.”
And no matter how you look at it or how cheesy you feel this ad is, it speaks to the real fears that people have about the future of our republic and if the For the People Act isn’t passed. Because people like me feel like voting is a right that should be protected on all fronts. And the only way to make our elections fair is by making it easier to vote—not harder—ending gerrymandering, and change campaign finance laws, to name a few.
Although, to be fair, voting rights have always been under attack, and the people who are usually targeted by those efforts look nothing like Katy Perry or Orlando Bloom. And then, of course, the policies that result from the officials selected by that skewed voting system disproportionately hurt people of color and marginalized groups and have left many people feeling like they’re already living a dystopian existence that only those with privilege can imagine is some far off, dire future.
Ultimately, this video is a dire warning that takes things to the extreme, but it feels real because the consequences of suppressing our rights to vote as people of the United States of America is core to who we are as a people and a nation. Voting rights are under attack, and there are real consequences.
(image: YouTube)
Want more stories like this? Become a subscriber and support the site!
—The Mary Sue has a strict comment policy that forbids, but is not limited to, personal insults toward anyone, hate speech, and trolling.—
Published: Jun 22, 2021 12:48 pm