Eugenic Undercurrents in Contemporary American Dystopian Films: Biopolitical Warning and Immunitary Exclusion in The Thinning

Abstract

This article examines The Thinning (2016) as a dystopian film that critically represents the transformation of educational evaluation into a mechanism of social classification and exclusion. Set in a future society confronting overpopulation and resource scarcity, the narrative centres on a national standardized examination through which low-scoring students are removed from society in the name of collective survival. Instead of presenting obvious dictatorship, the narrative presents a system in which official rules, everyday institutional routines, and accepted practices quietly decide who is allowed to remain part of the community. Through scenes, dialogue, and broader representational patterns, the narrative reveals how apparently neutral processes can acquire political meaning. A qualitative interpretive approach based on thematic close reading is employed to examine key scenes and recurring situations. The film is treated as a cultural text in which meaning emerges from narrative situations, characters’ behaviour, and institutional settings. The theoretical framework combines selected concepts from three thinkers. From Michel Foucault, the discussion uses the idea of biopolitical governance to explain how authority regulates populations through monitoring, measurement, and normalization. From Francis Galton, it uses hierarchical differentiation to clarify how measurable ability becomes a standard of human value. From Roberto Esposito, it adopts the concept of immunitary logic, explaining how communities justify exclusion as protection. Together, these concepts form a process in which population management produces classification which justifies elimination. The narrative finally reveals that the students officially declared failed are not killed but transferred into concealed labour facilities, hence, they remain biologically alive yet are no longer recognized as members of society. By presenting elimination as an organized administrative process rather than visible violence, the narrative highlights the ethical risks within merit-based systems. The article concludes that the film functions as a cautionary cultural text that invites reflection on how modern institutions can normalize inequality while appearing efficient and necessary.

Keywords: The Thinning, biopolitics, eugenics, immunitary logic, meritocracy, dystopian film