Llamaggedon

Why does The Apocalypse take up such a massive part of popular culture? It seem like at any given time at least one hit movie is apocalyptic, World War Z being the current one. Personally, I have always hoped that it is because deep down people are sickened by the overwhelming monotony of capitalism.

A large portion of any modern Apocalypse movie is the imagined destruction of everything that is culturally familiar. In early apocalypse movies this usually meant the destruction or abandon of iconic monuments, like the Statue of Liberty in Planet of The Apes for example.Recently, the poor victims of these Micheal Bay style explosions has changed. Today, transnational corporations are a lot more familiar to a global audience than any monument could be. The best example of this is the Time Square scene of I Am Legend. The abandonment of every McDonalds and Starbucks in Manhattan is a lot more unbelievable than the abandonment of The Statue of Liberty I guess.

This fascination for shiny shiny explosions kind of reminds me of the Ow My Balls scene in Idiocracy at times. Being treated to at least an hour of over the top CGI stuff-smashing in the horrendous movie 2012 this weekend certainly reminded me of it, especially considering it was the fifth highest grossing film of 2009.
But I like to think that really it is all a sign of a deep seated disgust at the status quo. I also hope that the popular appeal of post-Apocalyptic films reflects an inner desire for autonomy and the independence granted when all previous social relations have been destroyed and humanity has a clean slate for recreating society. If this is the case, then I can't for the Alpacalypse.

Gileadan Empire

 Every state is evil. And if I am going to personify them, then it is fair to say some states are on another level of evil.  If the average state is petty and cruel bully then an empire is a malicious and ingenious sociopath. The empire has no limit to its hunger for power and size. It not only wishes to exert as much power as possible over its subjects, but it wishes to have as many subjects as possible as well.

This book, undeniably, had a lot to do about the nature of power and the state. We can tell from the historical notes part of the book that Margaret Atwood was thinking about empire consciously when it is stated "no empire imposed by force or otherwise has ever been without this feature: control of the indigenous by members of their own group". This is one of the necessary strategies of the imperial state. The early American empire used it against the Native Turtle Islanders, the British Empire used it in India, And the Roman Empire used it on barbarian tribes on every possible border. It was even used by Akkadian Empire of Mesopotamia, arguably the first empire ever, against the city-states of Sumer.
   
In this section she also stresses the importance of the cultural impositions of the regime. Part of this cultural dominance is the aesthetics of day to day life. All of the costumes that each social class wears was carefully planned out to highlight the role and position of each. More importantly though is the neologisms, as well as the slang, created by the regime. The vocabulary created is even more closely analyzed than the costumes. The naming of the Aunts, for example, to pleasant sounding brand names is a great tactic that Gilead uses to make the first generation of women not fear them. The slang that arose from this society is even more important at normalizing the state's behaviors than the imposed vocabulary of Gilead itself. The term "shredders"  is used as a way to cope with the horror of the empire's infanticide but in the end might also end up being used to rationalize the practice.

Children of Men

When most ecological disaster based dystopian book or movies see a rampant population as one of the main contributors to an environmental apocalypse, Children of Men goes in the opposite direction and envisions a world where an unknown virus has sterilized everyone on Earth.

The main source of anxiety and suspense in most apocalyptic media is the struggle for the characters to preserve their own lives and the lives of their loved ones. Children of Men is such a radical departure from that because the main character starts of in a relative position of comfort and safety compared to most of the world. The main focus of fear is not for the lives of the characters, but for the survival of the human race itself.

Unlike Life As We Knew It I can actually understand why someone might question the point of continuing to live in the face of total extinction.But this movie isn't depressing at all. The characters are likeable and their is a lot of pleasant and even light hearted interaction between them.Nobody in this movie ever has any lack of passion to live. On the contrary they fight for survival of the species.

Eating Your Cat

"It's possible Horton's been killed," Matt said. "For food." (pg. 130)


Environmental catastrophe is inevitable. Their is plenty of evidence to support that this collapse is coming sooner rather than later. I'm sure their are plenty of climate change deniers and "progress" minded people that would disagree with me on this point, but I have no interest in arguing it. It is such an inevitability that I can't see how anyone could deny it.

Therefore, we should all start supplementing our meals with pet food and other less desirable foods so that we are prepared for when that really is all that we have. A little kibble in your brown bag every day might end up saving your life.  Theirs no reason why you shouldn't, cat food is scientifically proven to be healthy and delicious. I'm not ashamed to admit that some of the more upscale all-organic canned dog food brands I have seen look a good deal tastier than many meals I have at one point eaten. Hell, meals I have eaten in the past week probably have less nutritional value than them. And if people think this is gross, then I will rejoice, because that only means more cans of Alpo and chihuahua roasts for me. 

This book never really was an apocalypse novel. The vast majority of it is the main character and her family trying to cope with a drastic change in lifestyle. The difference between the apocalypse and a sudden change in environment and living situation would have caused the same emotional responses from the family members. No element of their post-apocalyptic life is quantitatively worse than what countless of generations have had to face before them. People living in Gdansk or Leningrad during WWII were facing famine and violence far worse than Miranda's family sees. Those people weren't constantly having existential crises, they were too busy trying to survive and even fight back.