Here again are my unedited and fairly ramshackle notes from the SST conference, second plenary session.
Michelle Fletcher from King’s College London summarised her paper ‘Edging towards the End: The Building of Disaster‘, an examination of the changing themes in disaster movies. The Towering Inferno, Earthquake, Deep Impact, Armageddon, Volcano, The Day after Tomorrow, 2012 etc.
Not an attempt to trace their respective eschatologies, but a broad brush assessment of themes and motives.
CHANGES IN EMPHASIS OVER DECADES
It’s a disaster – 1970s – criticism of hubris and technological pride and mismanagement. Developing love for those outside of your immediate circle.
Ending disaster – 1990s – the advance of sfx. Disasters averted by human collaboration. Who is saved? Witty banter introduced, levity.
In the Shadow of Disaster – 2000-10s – distance (a toning-down of first-person pulping), reversal of powers, salvation of those within your own realm (Greenland) and lack of societal connection.
The end of all things – 2020s – Greenland, Don’t look up – the requirement for human action to avert disaster. What is saved? Stuff (DLU), contesting of anthropocentrism (DLU again – flashing images of humans in the context of their environment and fellow creatures)
CRITERIA
Unpicking the Ends
Zone of Impact
Family
Who should be saved?
Don’t Look Up – ‘For the first time in the history of the planet, a species has the technology to prevent its own extinction’ – says the president in reference to nuclear weapons, with the potential to destroy the asteroid.
“During a scene where the President and staff offer ‘prayers’ for the world, her abominable
son Jason says the following:
‘There’s dope stuff, like material stuff, like sick apartments and watches, and cars, um, and clothes and sh*t that could all go away, and I don’t wanna see that stuff go away. So I’m gonna say a prayer for that stuff. Amen.'” (Fletcher 2022)
OUR OWN ENDS
Reversals: New Jerusalem – The question of the ‘stuff’ in Revelation – mimetic of the co-option of Roman grandeur and how this might go on to fuel Constantinian ambitions.
Systems: Outside are the Dogs
Borders: Written in the books – Written in the Lamb’s book of life, Angels on the gates, fornicators not in.
A different focus to the anthropocentric
A difference in ‘who makes it in’
RESPONSE FROM: SAMANTHA HARPER-ROBINS
A dancer, researcher in dance and embodiment studies – dance in the Hebrew Bible.
She described her resonance with the 90s era disaster – watching Armageddon hearing ‘Don’t want to miss a thing’ and witnessing the sacrifice: “There was hope for the world but what about Bruce Willis?!” What is the point in saving the world if we all meet with oblivion anyway? What of an afterlife? The 90s trope places the asteroid as an inevitable and irresistible levelling.
The English cultural upbringing where death is not something contemplated nor prepared for until it is present. We lack meaningful ritual contexts for preparation. The dead body has no spiritual meaning. The disaster movie serves this kind of function. ‘A disembodied cathartic ritual’. How does a developing awareness of intersectionality affect our understanding of the themes.
RESPONSE
Visceral memory – criticised as ’emotional pornography’ – the fast editing speed and the emotive soundtrack (Armageddon) – K-19 the widowmaker caused Fletcher the greatest reaction (not included because of genre – war film rather than disaster – so visceral that she will not forget nor watch again).
Cultural nods to Revelation and prophetic writings – underdeveloped and background knowledge (as in the ‘domestic’ US culture) ‘The worst bits of the Bible!’ / ‘Don’t you know what’s happening?! It’s the apocalypse man!’. In recent efforts The end has returned to a nuclear, heteronormative family as that which is preserved
RESPONSES TO QUESTIONS FROM THE FLOOR / ONLINE
- Very neat endings, threads wrapped up. F – This contrasts with Revelation which has ‘The least neat ending ever – we’re left with the New Jerusalem hovering in the air, asking whether it’s ever going to land!’. Disaster movies need to end somewhere positive for the viewers after all the destruction. This is the notion of the Rebuild – in Skyscraper (2018) Dwayne Johnson is asked at the end what are you going to do? ‘Rebuild!’ Also the ‘waters receding’ in Deep Impact. Towering Inferno – ‘We’ll build better.’ Compare Speilberg with the ‘double ending’ where the ending is shown but then further expounded
- The fate of ‘the baddies’ in reference to insider-outsider motifs in Revelation. F – in the 1970s – Towering Inferno has a punishing of evil in the death of the perpetrator of the faulty wiring. But there is necessary complexity for the sake of dramatic tension with regards to the salvation of morally questionable and the death of morally commendable characters.
Revelation – a purging of the Earth – fornicators definitely out, reflecting cultic practices described in the Hebrew Bible. - Judith Wolf – The End of the World used as ‘the end of one’s personal world’ and therefore dealing with trauma. F – this is more explicitly present in television series and arthouse films. However, people have been shown to turn to these mainstream films. Post 9/11 there was a feeling to turn from making disaster films for an indefinite time. However, people resorted to renting disaster films as a means of therapy and identification.
- To what extent do arthouse depictions deviate from heteronormative and other tropes? F – Hope is always there in the big hollywood disasters; Pandora’s box has been opened but it has to end in hope – flying birds, hints of a future. Without this, sales are negatively affected. Children of Men is more on the subject of the post-apocalyptic. There is an interesting cut-scene from Don’t Look Up with Oglethorpe attempting to make up with his estranged wife. Lot and Lot’s daughter ideas – pictures on the walls of houses in France, the visions of the end as an orgy and the politics of survivors.
- B Movies – Earth-tastrophe etc. – do they exhibit the same themes? Where do the Left Behind movies fit?! A cartoonish take on the themes. Left behind on the other hand is ‘post-apocalyptic’ – what happens when society is completely re-ordered. Things so close to the Biblical material are harder to unpick and analyse because of our own proximity. Perhaps Left Behind is best understood alongside horror films, where the theological questions are around fear, what is motivating the terror etc.
- The move of focus from bodily death to the abstract destruction of cities. How can we be helped in preparing for our own death and the death of our loved ones? F – Part of the fun of the disaster film is the tension of who will die when. Clubbing together – what should you do to stay alive? Don’t grab someone else’s place or nudge someone out of the way. Staring into the loved one’s eyes when you have no way out (2012, Greenland). Heteronormative loved ones. Also the older widowed man who speaks to the lost loved one who is waiting for you. It is more about thinking of what is important to you now – a good life is where you get to be old and go to the arms of our loved ones. We like buildings to speak for us – the things that survive and speak of the absence of human bodies
- The opposite shift in Disney films vis the nuclear family – missing parents etc. Survival predicated on different kinships, inter-species. F – We must consider the audience; films targeted at children and to be watched by all. The nuclear family has always been a myth – there is always mess. The idea of Return, of broken families being restored. (Ed. does this parallel the ‘Rebuilding’ trope?) In 2012 Curtis is no longer married In Greenland an estranged family returning and re-establishing the family. In Deep Impact it is forgiveness for the errant father who has re-married. F – Not the real situation but the ideal. And causing us to ask ‘Who do I need to reconcile with?!’
- Aaron Edwards, Cliff College – Is there a danger of reading the elitism in disaster movies into insider-outsider messages in Revelation? F – Revelation has elicited some really troubling ways of building societally – ‘Everybody doesn’t like Revelation until they realise they can use it against their enemies. They can use it rhetorically’ – the Whore of Babylon etc. But Revelation is a book dealing with collective and individual trauma, it isn’t aimed at one particular group. To approach the text responsibility we need to be mindful of the insights of trauma theory. F. throws the question back to the theologians.
- Reception history of Revelation – Regarding the influenza outbreak in 1918 which caused people to reach for the Scofield Bible and how the dispensation and rapture propogated. F –
- What will disaster movies look like post Russian invasion of Ukraine. F – Repeated showing of disasters leads to increase in donations. The research suggests an opening of empathy rather than a desensitization. We are helped by these dramatisations to relate. The lead time in film production means a 5 year delay in interpretation of events. Black Hawk Down was brought forward by 6 months because people wanted to see American soldiers being brave.
Two remaining questions: Are the Marvel films disaster films? F – not if it has supernatural figures – possible, plausible to happen now.
Someone observed that there was a decade-change at SST from the late 90s to now from papers featuring 20 pages on Barth towards the kind of pop cultural considerations this morning!