Apocalypticism
Here’s a short list off the top of my head:
The Road, 2012, The Book of Eli, Zombieland, Cloverfield, Planet of the Apes, Mad Max, Equilibrium, The Day After Tomorrow, Battlestar Galactica, 28 Days Later, I Am Legend, Terminator: Salvation, 9, and The Matrix.
Some of the most pervasive, box-office-breaking, and culturally relevant movies in our society have a common thread. They are all apocalyptic or post-apocalyptic works. There seems to be a cultural fascination with the end of the world.
I’ve been wondering for a little while now as to why this trend exists. While the trend itself is fairly well established, its sources are much more difficult to ascertain. I think it comes from two underlying trends, both of which bear addressing.
The first is a simple human trait. There is a curiosity, fascination, and even fear of the unknown. We don’t know what the next day will bring, so it is compelling to see a depiction of what might be. It is a form of imagination and pretend that adults, perhaps more than children, are willing to engage in. Thinking about tomorrow can bring about a level of satisfying scare. How much more so when we see a struggle to survive?
The second seems to be a response to another cultural trend. People enjoy watching these movies, I think, because of our desire to engage in epic and important things. When our culture, conditioned in nihilism and the meaninglessness of life, sees extraordinary threats toward survival, there is a recollection of how much life does mean to us. If there is nothing to live for in normal life, an incredible series of pretend events may just help us to appreciate what we do have.
Hollywood makes movies like this because they sell. In engaging the deeper question as to why these apocalyptic tales have struck a collective nerve, we have to remember the fact that we want our lives to have more meaning than survival.
Or, barring that higher purpose, we want survival itself to take up the entirety of meaning.
 “Matt Pitchford is a 20-year-old sophomore majoring in Rhetoric and Media Studies at Willamette University in Salem, OR. He has a passion for communication, engaging contemporary culture, and the occasional round of ping-pong. You can read more over at his blog, The Troika Press.” |
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