Marc-Uwe Kling’s QualityLand: “Funny Dystopia” as Social and Political Commentary

Abstract

Marc-Uwe Kling’s QualityLand (2017) is set in a dystopian future. It is the story of a young man at the bottom of society, tired of technology dictating what he wants or needs. At a staged press conference on Kling’s YouTube channel—all questions asked by home appliances—Kling called QualityLand a “funny dystopia.” But what exactly is that? What at first sounds oxymoronic, is, in fact, a brilliant form of social commentary. This chapter interprets funny dystopia as a conflict of utopia and dystopia, with both satire and anxiety allowing Kling’s novel to pack a punch as it first shrouds the proximity to reality, only to then tear through the veil to highlight this proximity. The analysis highlights the novel as both a timely and effective commentary on our modern capitalist consumer-driven society, showing potential trajectories of technology and the ongoing exploitation of the public that it is used for. The combination of satire and political and social commentary makes QualityLand a perfect example of critical German SF in the twenty-first century.