«WE'LL ALL BE THERE»: «THE PURGE» AS AN EXAMPLE OF EGALITARIAN IDEOLOGY IN A BLOODY, «SANITARY» CARNIVAL

Relevance. The aggravation of socio-cultural contradictions of modern civilization generates inflation of classical communicative models and associated historical types of social stratification. Current political practices only exacerbate the split between elites and society. The aim of the research is to analyze the artistic model of deformation of egalitarian ideology in the Hollywood franchise «The Purge». Foreign studies of trends in social stratification focus on transformation of political institutions in the model of bio-power, based on ideological manipulation of the risks of loss of health and life. Methods. The article is based on the tools of semantic and psychoanalytic approaches to the study of modern visual culture in the artistic tradition of American horror films. Results. The main material of the research is the media franchise «The Purge» (2013–2018) in which an attempt is made to visualize ideological projects that legislate social inequality and use biotic threats as an effective tool for self-purification of society in order to simulate a harmonious social environment and actualize the corresponding pseudo-democratic symbols. The most striking cultural symbols of the media franchise are glamorous masks, which express in a concentrated form the desire of the current elite to consolidate its political status and assert its social immortality. Findings. This dystopian project fully demonstrates the priority of violence in the postmodern tradition of social communication. The fundamental contradiction between the elite and the mass is overcome in the model of displacement of statist forms of violence by their carnival practices. This thanatological strategy allows the authorities to form and promote the illusion of a prosperous socio-cultural environment based on ritual, legitimized, leisure violence.