One problem with modern natural disaster films is that they only show the disaster(s) happening and how people cope in the midst of those events, but they do not offer solutions in terms of how to rebuild after everything is over. This is a fairly obvious lack, since disaster films today tend either towards depicting apocalyptic scenarios and offering mostly open-ended endings (which are either cautiously optimistic or resolutely tragic), or skip past the disaster and go straight to a dystopian society. Why is there such a gap?
This question can perhaps be answered by what is termed the ‘2012 phenomenon’ in which a wide range of eschatological theories and beliefs were proposed to explain the ending of the Mayan calendar on the date of December 21, 2012. Many of those doomsday theories were rejected by mainstream science at the time, however fear was still prevalent, with 1 in 10 (10%) of global citizens believing that the ending of the Mayan calendar marks the end of the world and have experienced anxiety or fear because of it(“One in Seven”). As a result, filmmakers take inspiration from the hype generated by this phenomenon and capitalize on it to make films such as 2012 (2009), without any real need to offer a scenario for what happens after global cataclysms. However, now that it’s 2013 and the world hasn’t ended, leaving audiences without resolution to generate more hype for doomsday theories isn’t really effective anymore. What can modern disaster films do to keep up with the times?
One possible solution is through depicting disasters in a comedic light. After the mid-1980s, films with environmental messages had a surprising change from being serious films to comedic films. This is thought to be because after the Golden Era of disaster films in the 1970s, boredom towards environmental issues had set in and audiences grew complacent, with people being more worried about keeping jobs than the environment, which became something only those who are financially stable could afford to do (“Comic”). To keep public interest, filmmakers resorted to presenting environmental messages using humor, a tactic that garnered positive results. This effect should be just as effective today, with one modern film in particular exemplifying the solution to the non-resolution problem, Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs(2009). In the film, natural disasters are parodied as an onslaught of giant food, and the problem is resolved by the people who had created it in the first place. If more modern films were able to provide resolution to environmental problems like this one, perhaps it would also encourage people to be more optimistic towards environmental issues today and work to change things for the better.
Sorry, I was doing homework.
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