From Hannah: Perhaps it’s because of Twisters (it’s really good, actually), but I want to talk about disaster narratives. We’ve kind of done this before, when we talked about end of the world stories. But I don’t think they’re necessarily the same — we know in disaster films like Twister and Twisters and Geostorm and Crawl that the world itself will go on after the storm passes. Even sci-fi disaster stories like The Quiet Place series are more about living life after a cataclysmic event than an acknowledgment of an end.
Disaster narratives are a staple of pop culture, not just film. For example, one of the buzziest books of the summer is the new novel Eruption from Michael Crichton and James Patterson about a … volcano eruption.
And it makes sense these stories keep being told — we are dealing with the intersecting issues of climate change, pandemics and potential pandemics, food shortages, historic storms … well, you get it. So how do these disaster narratives reflect reality … or not? If reality is (potentially) depressing, why is there an audience for this kind of story? Are these stories actually depressing or can we find some form of hope in them? And what makes something a disaster narrative anyway?
When you mentioned Towering Inferno, that got me to movies like Poseidon Adventure, and Airport ’77 –> to my question: do you count “Airplane!” as a disaster movie, even as it makes fun of disaster movies?
When you mentioned Towering Inferno, that got me to movies like Poseidon Adventure, and Airport ’77 –> to my question: do you count “Airplane!” as a disaster movie, even as it makes fun of disaster movies?
When you mentioned Towering Inferno, that got me to movies like Poseidon Adventure, and Airport ’77 –> to my question: do you count “Airplane!” as a disaster movie, even as it makes fun of disaster movies?
When you mentioned Towering Inferno, that got me to movies like Poseidon Adventure, and Airport ’77 –> to my question: do you count “Airplane!” as a disaster movie, even as it makes fun of disaster movies?
When you mentioned Towering Inferno, that got me to movies like Poseidon Adventure, and Airport ’77 –> to my question: do you count “Airplane!” as a disaster movie, even as it makes fun of disaster movies?
When you mentioned Towering Inferno, that got me to movies like Poseidon Adventure, and Airport ’77 –> to my question: do you count “Airplane!” as a disaster movie, even as it makes fun of disaster movies?
When you mentioned Towering Inferno, that got me to movies like Poseidon Adventure, and Airport ’77 –> to my question: do you count “Airplane!” as a disaster movie, even as it makes fun of disaster movies?
When you mentioned Towering Inferno, that got me to movies like Poseidon Adventure, and Airport ’77 –> to my question: do you count “Airplane!” as a disaster movie, even as it makes fun of disaster movies?
When you mentioned Towering Inferno, that got me to movies like Poseidon Adventure, and Airport ’77 –> to my question: do you count “Airplane!” as a disaster movie, even as it makes fun of disaster movies?
When you mentioned Towering Inferno, that got me to movies like Poseidon Adventure, and Airport ’77 –> to my question: do you count “Airplane!” as a disaster movie, even as it makes fun of disaster movies?
When you mentioned Towering Inferno, that got me to movies like Poseidon Adventure, and Airport ’77 –> to my question: do you count “Airplane!” as a disaster movie, even as it makes fun of disaster movies?
When you mentioned Towering Inferno, that got me to movies like Poseidon Adventure, and Airport ’77 –> to my question: do you count “Airplane!” as a disaster movie, even as it makes fun of disaster movies?
When you mentioned Towering Inferno, that got me to movies like Poseidon Adventure, and Airport ’77 –> to my question: do you count “Airplane!” as a disaster movie, even as it makes fun of disaster movies?