Doomsday, Schmoomsday

Since the Great Recession started, have you noticed a proliferation of movies that center around life after the Apocalypse or some sort of cataclysmic event that confronts humanity? I've actually been thinking about this for a couple of years now, after the observation was presented to me in an article in New York Magazine in 2011.

The author's thesis that, in 2011, the common catalyst for the End of Days is capitalism and that we buy into these movies because we subconsciously concur that the rampant, unchecked capitalism of the last 30 years is responsible not only for our current woes, but also many more woes to come; woes that will make the Great Recession look like one down day on Wall Street.

The point in mentioning this is not to promote this argument - I disagree with most, if not all, of it - but to pinpoint what got me thinkin'. What I've determined is that we are OBSESSED with movies that center on the post-apocalyptic world. And we have been for a long time.

I figure there are three buckets by which we can categorize this genre, but obviously this open to interpretation and I'm sure there are more. This is what I have come up with.

1. Doomsday itself: "War of the Worlds", "Dr. Strangelove", "Independence Day", "World War Z"

2. Dystopic future: "1984", "Logan's Run", "Total Recall", "Escape from New York", "Blade Runner", "Elysium"

3. Horrifying, post-apocalyptic world: "Terminator" franchise, "I Am Legend", "12 Monkeys"

Again, I am under no delusions that there are myriad more movies - say that five times fast - that can be bucketed here and there are probably more buckets. This is just what I have come up with off the top of my head.

So, why does this genre sell? What's got us eating it all up? Well, I think part of it has to do with the Second World War. I will cede that the original "War of the Worlds" was written in 1898 and Orson Welles' radio interpretation was broadcast in 1938. That said, since the early 1950's it's been redone and re-interpreted umpteen times.

The Second World War marked an apex in human technological achievement vis-a-vis war machinery - formidable tanks whose production was scaleable, wholesale air combat conveyed by giant, aircraft-carrying ships, efficient, mass bombing carried out by aircraft capable of efficiently bringing total war to entire cities, jet-propulsion aircraft, and most importantly nuclear weapons. When looking at pictures of fire-bombed Dresden or Hiroshima, the setting of the battle scene at the beginning of "Terminator 2" doesn't look that far off.

This execution of martial technology also coincided with a ruthlessly efficient genocide, the likes of which we had never seen and hopefully never will again. When the camps were liberated in 1945, people saw for the first time the detached, indifferent cruelty and brutality of which humans are capable. I think the confluence of these events stained our social psyche.

In turn, this emotional scar was exacerbated by the nuclear arms race that started in the 1950's, which is the second component leading to our fascination with these movies. We knew we were capable of executing total war, frivolously using the aforementioned technology to slaughter ourselves, and knew we were capable of unfathomable crimes against humanity; now, we had weapons that can end the world with the push of a button. Doomsday was always over our shoulder. It almost happened 51 years ago next month.

So, in living with this constant, plausible what-if, it is in our perverse nature to be curious about said what-if. What actually does us all in? Do we all die? What happens after we're gone? What happens when Doomsday actually happens? Notice the proliferation of this genre in the wake of bad things actually happening.

As the ability to realize the world's end became more scaleable by way of the arms race, information technology developed exponentially. As this was happening, we saw a proliferation of Doomsday movies centered around self-aware artificial intelligence. "Blade Runner", "Terminator", and "Logan's Run" are good examples of this. Each one reflects a scenario where humanity essentially got cocky and we reached a point where we were in conflict with technology, sometimes existentially.

So, there's a lot going on here. There's a recognition that we are capable of unspeakable brutality. There's a realization that we are one-button push away from the ability to annihilate ourselves. Both of these yield a certain chord of existentialism in our psyche. Combine these qualities with our fear of our own hubris vis-a-vis our ability to ultimately control the things we create and our subconscious confidence that the monsters we create will one day rise against us, and you have the conduit to make palpable emotional connections with people via this genre of film.

In "Terminator","Judgement Day" - the day the artificial intelligence executes nuclear holocaust - occurs 1997. The first cyborg is sent back to 1984 from 2029. "Blade Runner" takes place in 2019. "Escape From New York" and "12 Monkeys" take place in 1997. "1984" takes place in...well, it's pretty obvious, isn't it?

I mention this because most of these years have come and gone and life now more closely resembles life as it always has been. We might have "smart phones" and "smart TV's", but we don't have cyborgs, replicants, or any artificial intelligence that can do anything beyond winning "Jeopardy". Yes, our problems have evolved, but not to the point where humanity is at the brink. Yes, the problems of the 1960's, 70's, and 80's seemed so bad that either the world would end, we would be slaves to robots, or both. But, it didn't and we didn't.

The world is beautiful. Our abilities to emote and love are incredibly powerful. You can't code empathy and gratitude. Our brains, which make decisions based on equal parts analysis and emotion, simply cannot be replicated, at least not any time soon. Hateful things happen, but it only causes love to respond and counter them. There is an intangible equilibrium, an unseen, uncontrollable means by which the world corrects itself when it's on the wrong path and, through our morality, we are the ones that contribute most to it. We should gives ourselves more credit.