My boyfriend B. thinks that the way nuclear stuff as a plot device is working right now is both an expression of anxiety and a veering away from the most realistic expressions of that anxiety. He has a government job, and nuclear terrorism from Russian nukes is not a policy worry being discussed right now. You'll notice these films don't have nuclear threats from North Korea, which is a major policy worry. So it's 'the thing we're afraid of, at one remove', which also fits with recent WWI media-- an apocalypse made somewhat less distressing by being just out of living memory in the past, and also, though nothing was ever the same after it, humanity obviously survived, is at a higher tech level, etc. Or the Captain America movie, where HYDRA are specifically not Nazis, despite the long history of Nazi movie villains, in a time when Europe is racked with anti-immigrant racism...
In short, to be effective, an action movie does need to tap somewhat into actual fears, but if it gets too close to them it has the potential to really upset people. Contagion, earlier in the year, which was about a worry people actually have treated in an at least attemptedly realistic fashion, was a horror movie. A good action thriller gets the zeitgeist a little, but only enough to make it reassuring when Our Protagonists kick the danger in the ass.
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regna
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Date: 2012-01-02 20:47 (UTC)In short, to be effective, an action movie does need to tap somewhat into actual fears, but if it gets too close to them it has the potential to really upset people. Contagion, earlier in the year, which was about a worry people actually have treated in an at least attemptedly realistic fashion, was a horror movie. A good action thriller gets the zeitgeist a little, but only enough to make it reassuring when Our Protagonists kick the danger in the ass.