The Marginalian
The Marginalian

Happy Birthday, George Orwell: BBC’s 1954 1984 Adaptation

From Big Brother to Little Brother, or what Newspeak has to do with the API economy.

Tomorrow marks the 108th birthday of the great George Orwell, best-known for his satirical novella Animal Farm and his dystopian cult-novel Nineteen Eighty-Four — some of the most poignant pieces of political and cultural criticism ever published. In 1954, five years after the book’s original publication, BBC staged a live television adaptation of Nineteen Eighty-Four, starring Peter Cushing and Yvonne Mitchell. The film has now passed into the public domain and is available for free in its entirety online under a Creative Commons license, as well as in a collector’s edition DVD.

In today’s sociocultural context of increasing concerns about privacy, censorship and surveillance, Orwell’s work is more relevant — and more terrifying — than ever, offering a timely warning of the society we might become if we fail to codify, appropriate and regulate the tools and technologies of digital culture, what Jennifer 8. Lee so aptly calls “Little Brother.”


Published June 24, 2011

https://www.themarginalian.org/2011/06/24/bbc-orwell-1984-1954/

BP

www.themarginalian.org

BP

PRINT ARTICLE

Filed Under

View Full Site

The Marginalian participates in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn commissions by linking to Amazon. In more human terms, this means that whenever you buy a book on Amazon from any link on here, I receive a small percentage of its price, which goes straight back into my own colossal biblioexpenses. Privacy policy. (TLDR: You're safe — there are no nefarious "third parties" lurking on my watch or shedding crumbs of the "cookies" the rest of the internet uses.)