As post-election hangover sets in, we continue to witness incivility rolling like a tidal wave through this great nation. Much of this is due to the culture war, which grows more intense every day. One should wonder, is it worth fighting anymore? Or, has it already been won?

The answer lies in our ability to find reality amidst an amalgamation of data constantly coming at us through our television, computer, and smartphone screens from untrustworthy media outlets. A highly mediated and politicized culture has many challenges and it is up to us not to get sucked into the machine.

It is becoming more and more difficult to decipher the truth through a nonstop stream of information. Today we see an increase in what Daniel J. Boorstin referred to in 1961 as “pseudo events,” which are a close relative to propaganda. In The Image: A Guide to Pseudo Events in America, Boorstin writes, “while a pseudo-event is an ambiguous truth, propaganda is an appealing falsehood.”

Ambiguous truths behind words like “forward” (to where?) and “hope” (for what?) and “change” (from what to where?) can easily join with propaganda that appeals to those eager for convenient falsehoods. Boorstin continues, “propaganda oversimplifies experience, pseudo events overcomplicate it.” The mess that is our current state of politics begins to make more sense when considering Boorstin’s model. What we have today is an oversimplification of rhetoric and an over-complication of hidden meanings.

Every Wes Anderson film creates a world of its own. Movies like Rushmore and The Darjeeling Limited take familiar people and situations and drop them into the unknown. This is Anderson’s genius; he transforms familiarity into hyperreality (or unreality in some cases). Arguably, the best genre filmmakers are able to build unpredictability out of familiarity. Anderson’s latest, Moonrise Kingdom, draws from numerous genres such as the summer camp comedy, family melodrama, and the adventure film in order to create a unique experience.

The film takes place in 1965 on a New England island called Black Beacon Sound. This narrow, 16-mile-long strip has some general residents as well as Camp Ivanhoe — home to the Khaki Scouts led by Scout Master Ward (Edward Norton). One of the scouts, Sam (Jared Gilman), takes it upon himself to sneak away during the night. Another young islander, Suzy (Kara Hayward), also ran away from her parent’s home around the same time. The island police (Bruce Willis as Captain Sharp), whose headquarters is a small shack at the end of a dock on the ocean, are promptly alerted and a search begins.