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Surviving Armageddon: Beyond the Imagination of Disaster Author(s): Mick Broderick Source: Science Fiction Studies, Vol. 20, No. 3 (Nov., 1993), pp. 362-382 Published by: SF-TH Inc Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4240277 . Accessed: 11/02/2011 14:11
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Mick Broderick Surviving Armageddon: Beyond the Imagination of Disaster

1. Subtexts. We accept the lure of annihilation, only to discoverthat it is a temporary condition, a gateway to renewal and rebirth.This is perhaps the most pervasive themein all the world'sreligious mythandritual.It mayalso be the most pervasivetheme in the symbolism nuclearweapons.(Chernus of 85) A quarter century ago in her seminal essay "The Imagination of Disaster," Susan Sontag outlined prevailing thematics and subtexts in the cinema of science fiction from 1950 through 1965. Among these Sontag recognized the dominance of an aesthetic of disaster (with monsters as metaphors of nuclear energy) and a fear of global atomic death which could occur universally and at any moment.1 This survey will demonstrate, however, that the sub-genre of SF cinema which has entertained visions of nuclear Armageddon concerns itself primarily with survival as its dominant discursive mode. From the early postHiroshima films of the '40s which anticipated global atomic conflict and the cautionary tales of short and long-term effects in the '50s through to the hero myths of apocalypse in the '80s, a discernable shift away from an imagination of disaster toward one of survival is evident. These films, and in particularthose of category 4 (see Figure 1), have drawn upon preexisting mythologies of cataclysm and survival in their renderings of post-holocaust life. The most potent of these myths is the recasting of the Judeo-Christian messianic hero who battles an antichrist and his followers, liberating an oppressed community and thereby enabling social rebirth. While some films have explored (albeit fleetingly) post-holocaust life as a site for ideological contestation, the cinematic renderings of long-term post-nuclear survival appear highly reactionary, and seemingly advocate reinforcing the symbolic order of the status quo via the maintenance of conservative social regimes of patriarchal law (and lore). In so doing, they articulate a desire for (if not celebrate) the fantasy of nuclear Armageddon as the anticipated war which will annihilate the oppressive burdens of (post)modern life and usher in the nostalgically yearned-for less complex existence of agrarian toil and social harmony through ascetic spiritual endeavors. Unlike the potential complacency afforded audiences by vicariously experiencing cosmic or natural filmic catastrophes (such as tidal waves, cometary impacts, or earthquakes), the imaginary projections of life in a distant post-holocaust future bypass graphic scenes of planetarydestruction, thus enabling the spectator to evade or dismiss the human causal chain in nuclear warfare and to replace it with an archaic mythology steeped in

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divine cosmic plan.

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heroic acts, inspiredand propelledby some inscrutable predetermined and In this way the post-nuclearsurvivalist cycle of the '80s has signified another mode by which a generationhas learned to stop worryingand love-if not the bomb-a (post-holocaust) future,which after some initial hardshipwill provide the compellingutopian fantasyof a biblicalEden rebornin an apocalyptic millennium peace on Earth. of 2. Contexts.
Science fiction films are not about science. They are about disaster, which is one of the oldest subjects of art...to this day there is nothing like the thrill of watching all those expensive sets come tumbling down. (Sontag 25-26)

In order to explorethe prevailing ideologiesand directionof this genre in the '90s and so contextualize currenttrends,the pre-existing generic field must firstbe touchedon. Priorto the atomicbombingof Hiroshima Nagasaki 1945,sciencein and fictioncinemahadbeen less overtlyconcerned witheschatological scenarios. Yet there remainsa substantial bodyof filmwhichin some formdid entertain notions of secular apocalypse,often employinga mode of disaster spectacleas the significant nodalpointin its narratives. Essentially these can be delineatedas representing either man-madeor cosmiccatastrophes. 2.1. Man-Made.Prometheanand Frankensteinian myth-warnings unreof strained alchemical and technological advance found early cinematic expression as Europewas aboutto enterinto the FirstWorldWar.The just speculativejournalismand science fiction of H.G. Wells et al. provided fertile groundfor motion-picture terrortales of chemicaland mechanical In warfare.2 The War o'Dreams (1915), for instance,a poor chemistwho discoversa powerfulexplosivedestroyshis formulaaftera prophetic dream alerts him to its awesome destructiveness, even though he is offered a lucrativedeal by the US Government. Less sympathetic the scientistin is The Branded Four (1920) who creates for villainsan energy"ray"that is capable of destroyingthe human race.3 In Jean Renoir'sSur un Air de Charleston (1927) the last woman remainingon Earth is discoveredby a scientistlong after a catastrophic war.The contradictory imagesof science are apparentin the contrastbetweenan earlyserial talkie,Voice from the worlddestruction, H.G. Sky(1930),in whicha crazedscientistthreatens and Wells'sThingsto Come (1936),whichforecastsa devastating 30-yearglobal war eventually haltedby a societyof noble scientists. 2.2. Cosmic.Priorto the SecondWorldWarthe mostarresting imagery film depictingplanetarydisasterwas either cosmic or naturalin origin.As a traditional harbingerof doom, the arrivalof Halley'sComet in 1910 was depictedominouslythat same year in The Comet. Structurally, early this narrative resemblesmanyof the contemporary nuclearholocaustscenarios in whichcataclysm survival depictedby panicking and are populaces,cities

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and countryside ablaze, survivors fleeing underground, the looting of precious resources, and summaryjustice. It was followed it 1916 by a comedy, The Comet's Comeback, in which an approaching comet causes all earthly momentum to slow to a halt until only a handful of survivorsremain. Humor and disaster again merge successfully when Mary Pickford portraysa latterday "Chicken Little" who foresees a cometary impact in Waking Up the Town (1925). Preceding Metropolis by a decade, August Blom's sobering production, End of the World (1916), critiques the inherent (sexual) corruption of the bourgeoisie with an apocalyptic undercurrentof class conflict as a far more potent threat to civilization than the overt theme of planetary destruction from yet another comet. Like Blom, Abel Gance employs the comet motif to bring about La Fin du Monde (1930) as a means of depicting religious mania and aristocratic corruption (decadent orgies in the face of disaster). Terminal sexual fantasies also emerge in films such as The Last Man on Earth (1924) and It's Greatto be Alive (1933) after mysterious plagues leave only one male alive capable of perpetuating the species, a theme reanimated with much vigor in many post-Hiroshima films concerned with the sterilizing effects of radiation.4 The city and towering metropolis as a site for natural disaster dates back to the very origins of cinema in films such as the British Last Days of Pompeii (1898), a title reused and story retold dozens of times over the years, Intolerance (1915) and Noah's Ark (1928), each featuring the biblical destruction of Babylon.5 Cosmic interventions also brought down modern monoliths, perhaps most convincingly via the earthquake and subsequent tidal-wave special effects which level New York City in Deluge (1933), footage later used repeatedly by other studios in films like S.O.S. Tidal Wave (1939) and When Worlds Collide (1951). Examining the historical clusters of these films prior to 1945, it appears that many reflect popular fears of devastating calamities in times of perceived global crisis, such as the approach of the World Wars, the 1917 communist revolution, and the Great Depression. Within these fecund antecedents to the post-nuclear holocaust movie a variety of thematic, iconic, and narrative repetitions are apparent which, alongside earlier literary/artistic influences, have helped atomic-survivaltales evolve into a more complex hybrid form. 3. Texts. There is absolutelyno social criticism,of even the most implicitkind, in sciencefictionfilms.No criticism, example, the conditions oursociety for of of which create the impersonality and dehumanization which science fiction fantasiesdisplaceonto the influenceof an alien It. (Sontag34) The following discussion will demonstrate that Sontag's dismissal of SF cinema is far from justified in relation to nuclear movies. Before proceeding with a fuller exploration of this sub-genre it is necessary to demark structurally the parameters of this group into four temporal milieus: films con-

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1. PREPARATION FOR NUCLEAR WAR AND ITS SURVIVAL Lost City of the Jungle (46) When Worlds Collide (51) The Damned (61) Dr Strangelove (63) Demon from Devil's Lake (64) The War Game (65) 2+5: Mission Hydra (66) Silent Running (71) Chosen Survivors (74) Full Moon High (81) The Old Men at the Zoo (82) Static (82) War Games (83) Countdown to Looking Glass (84) Massive Retaliation (84) Bootleg (85) One Night Stand (85) Control (86) Survival Quest (86) Terrorvision (86) Journeys Inland (88) Bunker Palace Hotel (89) Miracle Mile (89) Spontaneous Combustion ) 2. ENCOUNTER WrrH PtSr-NUCLEAR EXKtATERRSR Rocketship XM (50) Not of This Earth (56) Forbidden Planet (56) The Mysterians (57) Queen of Outer Space (58) Battle of the Worlds (60) First Spaceship on Venus (60) Ikarie XB-1 (63) Dr Who and the Daleks (65) The Love War (70) Superman: The Movie (78) 2010 (84) Light Years (88) Friendship's Death (87) Not of This Earth (88) 3. EXERIENCING NUCIIAR WAR AND

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mSIMMEDIATE FFECT'S
Five (51) The Day the World Ended (56) On the Beach (59) The World, the Flesh, and I Devil (59) The Last Woman on Earth (60) Rat (60) The Final War (60) The Time Machine (60) The Last War (62) Panic in the Year Zero (62) The Doomsday Machine (67) The Last Man (68) Damnation Alley (74) Where Have All the People Gone (74) Martian Chronicles (80) Virus (81) Malevil (81) Parasite (82) The State of Things (82) The Day After (83) Def Con 4 (83) Testament (83) War and Peace (83) The Quiet Earth (85) Threads (85) When the Wind Blows (87) Smoke 'em if You've Got 'cm (89) Population One (86)

cerned with (1) Preparation for Nuclear War and its Survival, (2) Encounters with ExtraterrestrialPost-Holocaust Societies, (3) ExperiencingNuclear War and its Immediate Effects, and (4) Survival Long After Nuclear War. As the chart indicates, the majority of texts belong in the explicitly postholocaust Category 4, frequently situated after a lengthy period of time. Significantly,there have been more films made on this topic during the past decade than the total of all the other categories in the preceding forty years; the bulk of my analysis will therefore address this category. 3.1. Category 1. Preparation For Nuclear War and Its Survival. The atom

bombings whichclosed the SecondWorldWarwere soon widelyperceived

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4. SURVIVALLONG AFTER NUCLEAR WAR

Captive Women (51) World Without End (56) Teenage Caveman (58) Terror of the Year 5,000 (58)

Survival Zone (82) End Game (83) Exterminators of the Year 3,000 (83) Le Dernier Combat (83) Human Animals (83) Beyond the Time Barrier Metalstorm (83) (60) The New Barbarians (83) Creation of the Humanoids Rock & Rule (83) (62) She (83) Lord of the Flies (63) Stryker (83) The Time Travelers (64) Yor Hunter from the Future Sins of the Fleshapoids (65) (83) End of August at the Ozone 2019: After the Fall of New Hotel (65) York (83) In the Year 2889 (66) Warriors of the Lost World Brasil Anno 2,000 (68) (83) Planet of the Apes (68) Last Exterminators (84) The Bed Sitting Room (69) O-Bi, O-Ba: The End of Beneath the Planet of the Civilization (84) Apes (69) Dark Enemy (84) I Killed Einstein, Gentlemen The Load Warrior (84) Sex Mission (84) (70) The Terminator (84) Escape from the Planet of Warriors of the Wind (84) the Apes (71) Z for Zachariah (84) Glen and Randa (71) America 3,000 (85) Battle for the Planet of the Breastament (85) Apes (73) Desert Warrior (85) The Final Program (73) Future Hunters (85) Genesis 11 (73) Land of Doom (85) Zardoz (73) Letters from a Dead Man Planet Earth (74) (85) A Boy and His Dog (75) The Load Warrior 11 (85) Logan's Run (76) Mad Max III: Beyond ThunWizards (77) derdome (85) Deathsport (78) 2020: Texas Gladiators Buck Rogers in the 25th (85) Century (79) Warriors of the Apocalypse The Golem (79) (85) Things to Come (79) Wheels of Fire (85) Quintet (79) The Afterman (86) The Ravagers (79) Equalizer 2000 (86) In the Aftermath (86) Aftermath (80) The Final Executioner (86) Mad Max 2: The Road The Killing Edge (86) Warrior (81) Lunar Madness (86) Heavy Metal (81) Cafe Flesh (82) Radioactive Dreams (86) Rats: Night of Terror (86) Parasite (82)

Robot Holocaust (86) Roller Blade (86) Warlords (86) Akira (87) Angel of Vengeance (87) Cherry 2000 (87) Creepzoids (87) Desert Warrior (87) Hell Comes to Frogtown (87) Land of Doom (87) Le Big Bang (87) A Man Called Rage (87) Mutant Hunt (87) The Survivalist (87) The Time Guardian (87) Treasure Island (87) Urban Warriors (87) After Shock (88) Badlands 2000 (88) Crime Zone (88) Inferno of Safehaven (88) Lawless Land (88) Quest Beyond Time (88) Steel Dawn (88) The Survivor (88) World Gone Wild (88) Cyborg (89) Deadly Reactor (89) Desert Warrior (89) Escape from Safehaven (89) Masseba (89) Rising Storm (89) Robot Jox (89) Salute of the Jugger (89) Tin Star Void (89) Delicatessen (90) Dreams (90) Future Zone (90) Hardware (90) Shredder Orpheus (90) The Terror Within II (90) Fist of the North Star (91) Neo City (91) Terminator 2: Judgement Dly (91) Mindwarp (92)

as the openingsalvosof an anticipated ThirdWorldWar,one whichwould sparefew cities (particularly the continental in USA, previously untouched

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fate. Withina year Hollywood by modernwarfare)from a Hiroshima-like and scenariosof spies, warmongers, terrifiedcitizenspreparing entertained for atomicconflict,such as Notorious, Rendezvous 24, and The Lady From Shanghai (all 1946). However,it was the UniversalserialLost City of the the Jungle (1946)whichforegrounded mostpervasive (anddesired)response to the threatof nuclearwar-survival-in the form of an "atomicantidote," who expediently Meteorium245, discoveredby a gun-runner plans for his world. own victoriousfuturein a post-holocaust Hence,fromthe outsetpopularfilmdepictedthreedistinct waysin which people might respondto threatenedatomicwar:prevention by heightened surveillance counterespionage, and fromtargeted resignationandso escaping areasto assumedhavens,andimmunization fromattackby usinga comparable or superiordefensivetechnology. Although a few early films articulateda capacityto anticipateand thereby survive the unthinkable(Unknown World, 1951), as the genre evolvednuclearmovies openlyquestionednot only the desirability such of strategic posturing Strangelove,1963;Fail Safe, 1964;Seven Days in May, (Dr 1964),but also its intrinsicfallacy(The Damned, 1961;Ladybug,Ladybug, 1963; The WarGame, 1965). The prevailingsentimentopposed both the mindsetand the act of planningfor such (inevitable)events and proposed thatsuchlegitimization wouldactually of precipitate occurrence nuclear the war (Chosen Survivors, 1974; Wargames,1983; Control, 1986). While these films may concurwith Sontag'sassertionsabout the preoccupation SF of cinemawith"theperennial humananxiety aboutdeath,"theycontradict her claimthat their purposeis to "accommodate negate"this anxiety(36), and for they portraycivil-defenseposturingand fallout shelters as extremely dubioussolutions. 3.2. Category Encounterswith Extraterrestrial 2. Post-Nuclear Societies.
Whenyou stop to thinkthatwe're all God's children, wherever maylive we in the world,I couldn'thelp but say to [Gorbachev], thinkhow easyhis just task and mine mightbe in these meetingsthatwe held if suddenly therewas a threatto this world from anotherplanet outsidein the universe.-Ronald FallstonHigh School.(Smith25) Reaganaddressing Rocketship X-M (1950), one of the earliest of post-war SF films, reintroduced the mythic theme of encountering cosmic forces which overwhelm contemporary technology, now modified toward a decidedly cold-war, nuclear-age perspective. Pre-Hiroshima SF cinema had forecast global disaster in the bipolar form outlined above, but increasingly films of the '50s adopted scenarios of both cosmic and man-made holocausts, most often in the guise of humans encountering extraterrestrial civilizations well in advance of ours which have paid a terrible price for abusing nuclear power (This Island Earth, 1956;Not of This Earth, 1956, 1988; The Mysterians,1957; Queen of Outer Space, 1958; Dr Who and the Daleks, 1965; The Love War,

1970).
More damning are the films concerning extraterrestrialspecies as totally

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suchas the phantom societiesin Forbidand annihilated devoidof survivors den Planet (1956), The FirstSpaceshipon Venus(1960), and IkarieXB-1 (1963).6 Most recentlythe theme has continuedunder the guise of the Supermanseries where the Man of Steel, havingalone escapedthe apocalyptic explosion of his native Krypton,brings with him superioralien of capabilities intellectand strength(poweredby the Sun'sfusionreaction) eradication Earth'snuclearmissiles of thatultimately leadsto his unilateral in Superman The Questfor Peace (1987). IV: All of these textsto varying which degreesrelyupondiscursive strategies
combine rhetoric and imagery to warn explicitlythe human protagonists (and

As by extension,the audience)of the dangersof nuclearconflict. such,they shouldbe recognizedas important sites for ideologicalcontestation, advoto thesis.7 catingin thisspecificrealmopposition the statusquoandSontag's They also make for interesting comparison with anotherkey SF sub-genre, alien emissaries from advanced civilizationsthat have avoided nuclear warfarewho visit Earthto warnor threatenus awayfromaggressive of use suchtechnologies, force(e.g., TheDaythe usually demonstrating by superior EarthStoodStill, Waming FromSpace,The27thDay, TheStranger from Venus, The CosmicMan, TheSpace Children, more recently2010).8 and 3.3. Category Experiencing 3. NuclearWarand its Immediate Effects.This is of category comprised movieswhichdevotethe majority theirnarrative of to the depictionof nuclearwar and its short-term Unlike the consequences. two precedingcategories,the remainingfilms under discussionexplicitly
approach the nuclear holocaust as a lived (i.e., not imagined) event.

What differentiatesthis group from Category4, SurvivalLong After NuclearWar,is thatthe characters haveall personally livedthrough war the and symbolizethe "old world"strugglingto exist in a new post-nuclear
environment. Within the narrative there has been some depiction of the

social "normalcy" the status quo prior to its materialdestruction. of This may only be brief, but the functionof the plot is to engendera sense of familiarity locatingprotagonists by (and spectators)withinthe pre-conflict of equilibrium the knownbefore the predominant narrative discourserelocates them into the disorientating post-holocaust realm. There are at least three distinctdiscursive modesin this group-renewal films,whichposit the war as promoting socio-cultural rebirthusuallyin the formof the heterosexual couple,the family,or the smallcommunity; catharsis films,whichgraphically depictthe destructive impactof nuclearwarand the problematics survival; terminal of and filmswhichportray end of the the humanspecies by showinglong-termsurvival impossible. as 3.3.1. Renewal. The firstfeaturefim dramato depictlife in the immediate of aftermath atomicwarwasArchOboler's Five (1951).9In thisprototypical text one can observea numberof key genericconstructs whichcontinueto informcinematicdepictionsof the post-holocaust world and a numberof familiar new impetusunder genericmotifsand tropeswhichhaveacquired

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a post-nuclear scenario. The opening and closing biblical references, for instance, provide the narrative of Five with an apocalyptic frame, and the finale carefully posits a symbolic Adam and Eve inheriting the Earth.10 Key thematics foregrounded by Five include radiation and fallout as the major killer, pathological denial and projection by survivors,and the (ir)relevance of pre-holocaust social mores and institutions in the post-nuclear world. Major iconic devices include the deserted city, the discovery of incongruous human skeletal remains, newspapers as testimonials to events immediately preceding the war, and the scarring effects of radiation. Films of renewal that place particular emphasis on post-holocaust sexual mores include The Day the WorldEnded (1956), which introduced the popular generic theme of mutation; 7he World, the Flesh, and the Devil (1959), whose finale countered prior generic conventions by anticipating the demise of two powerful Western social taboos, interracialsexual liaison and polygamy;Rat (1960); The Last Woman on Earth (1960); The Last Man (1968); Human Animals (1983); and more conventionally,Panic in the YearZero (1963) and Damnation Alley (1975). 33.2. Catharsis. Of all the films discussed in this survey, it is only this small group which closely approximates Sontag's "imagination of disaster," but even so, the vast majority of their narratives are devoted not to repetitive imagery of disaster, but survival after a single catastrophe.11 Nor do they correspond to Sontag's view that SF films are "wishful thinking...the hunger for a 'good war' which poses no moral problems, admits no moral qualifications. The imagery of science fiction films will satisfy the most bellicose addict of war films, for a lot of the satisfaction of war films passes, untransformed, into science fiction films" (31). Although some attention is paid to depicting-via spectacularpyrotechnic explosions, firestorms and the leveling of model cityscapes to simulate nuclear attack (e.g. Japanese productions The Last War,1960, and 7he Final War,1962)-what an atomic war might be like to witness and survive, in the main most films opt for less costly and often technically shoddy effects and process work to represent a Third World War.12SF films of the '50s utilized topical fear imagery in the form of invisible radioactive fallout to render economically their future end-of-the-world scenarios without employing catastrophic images of blast and heat razing entire cities, which helped to combine existing conventions and an iconography crucial to the genre. The familiar menacing tick of Geiger-counters and stock footage of fission and (less frequently) fusion detonations in '60s films then merged with (official government) imagery of the sophisticated technological means for delivering this megadeath (ICBM launches, Polaris submarines, B-52s, Fail-safe blackboxes and computerized War Room gameboards). In the '70s and early '8OsSF films returned to closer mimetic renderings of thermonuclear war (stock hydrogen bomb explosions), emphasizing in greater detail the devastating impact upon urban landscapes and the horrors confronting (predominantly underground) survivors in the immediate aftermath.

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3.33. Terminal.The firsttrulypessimistic depiction the short-term of effects of nuclear war came with Stanley Kramer'spolemical version of Nevil to Shute'sOn the Beach (1959), whichintroduced the genre a disturbingly new narrative departure. Whereasearlierpost-nuclear scenariosemployed biblicalor classicalmotifs of social rebirth(often in the form of the lone surviving couple),On the Beach evokeda movingeulogyfor the humanrace in its depictionof total ecocide from a future (1964) thermonuclear war whichblanketsthe globe withlethalfallout.This typeof radioactive shroud, conceivedby strategistssuch as HermanKhan,was utilizedas the Soviet DoomsdayMachinedeterrentin StanleyKubrick's sublimeDr Strangelove (1963). If one interprets,as many commentators the blacklycomic do, Vera Lynn'ssong endingof nucleardetonations rhythmically accompanying thenthe cloudof Cobalt-Thorium "We'llMeet Again"as ironicapocalypse, G also makesStrangeloveone of the few earlyfilmsto actually envisagethe completeextinctionof the humanrace througha nuclearexchange. Aftermorethantwentyyears,the occasional of cinematic rendering total humanannihilation from nuclearwarwas givenaddedimpetusin the early '80swhen scientistsstudying of planetary impactsandthe correlation floraand-fauna extinctioncycles arrivedat a NuclearWintertheory,forecasting wouldplunge thatsmokeanddustfromevena limitedSuperpower exchange winter.13 surprisingly, Not the entireglobe into a long (potentially terminal) nuclearwar films againbegan adoptingdoomsday premisesof gradualand irrevocable genocide(77te Day After, 1983;Testament, 1983; Threads, 1985;
Population One, 1986; When the Wind Blows, 1987; Miracle Mile, 1988).

However, as the discursiveweight of the majorityof these movies themehasbeen humanity's resilient survival suggests,the ultimateprevailing after a global ordealby fire. The final category(4) impliesby its fecundity that movie portrayalsof long-term and intrinsicdefining characteristics in environment more appealingthan the other are survival a post-nuclear cinematic approachesto atomic war. The last decade in particularhas this and demonstrated category's into increasing popularity penetration the market. international 3.4. Category4. Surval Long AfterNuclearWar.
I understand that filmmakers, attempting to depict the future, are forced to include people-without them the stories would be considerably duller. Maybe that's the truly unacceptable price of nuclear devastation: Eternal nothingness equals eternal boredom for today's audiences, hence a dramatic requirement of films appears to dictate a philosophical conclusion in all science fiction films, namely that in some form (however diminished and mutilated) we'll survive.-Nicholas Meyer, director of The Day After. (Meyer 33)

and As Meyer'squoteimplies,the veryact of conceptualizing thenrealizing the cinematically effect of nuclearwar forces the viewer into imagining In holocaust filmsare beyond disasterinto survival. this manner post-nuclear of thereforepredicated for uponan imagination survival, withoutsuchthere no no can be no exposition,no narrative, perspective, point of view.14In

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scenaristshave returnedto familiar order to representthe unthinkable, humansurvival. long-term terrains depicting mythological iconographic and Apart from the devastating(though limited) atomic warfareinflicted chosen to upon Japan, science-fictionfilmmakershave predominantly scenariosin a far distantfuture. constructand locate their post-holocaust title, a narrator is The catastrophe usuallyrelatedvia a brief introductory who describesthe events,a montageof nuclearexplosions(often only one mushroom cloud-a truetotem an suffices,so apocalyptic icon is the broiling of requires of the atomicage), or a combination such.Thisgenericstrategy that nuclearwar is not only possiblebut also the audienceto acknowledge probable.The feared conflicthas become a fait accompli,signifiedby this introduction. now stereotyped mode of narrative The categoryalso perpetuatesand attenuatesa numberof thematic considerations outlined earlier, principally the dichotomies of city/ marauders/communitymutant/normal, wilderness,underground/surface, family. genre ploy associatedwith the long3.4.1. Homo nuclearus.One recurring term effects of nuclearwar questionsnot only how the humanspecieswill 1956; survive also in whatform. A numberof films (e.g., The Werewolf, but I Wasa TeenageWerewolf, People, 1972) have explored 1957;The Twilight the theme of radiation mutation on human and animal life over the would make it years-some suggesting that deliberate experimentation possible to breed a race capableof survivalin the hostile post-holocaust frompre-Hiroshima antecedenvironment. imagery Theyemployestablished ents, such as The Island of Lost Souls (1932) and Dr Cyclops(1939), to recasttheirfamiliargenerictales of horrorinto storiesof genetictransformaterials. mationcausedby exposureto radioactive Otherfilmsadoptsimilarthemesfromwithina distinctly post-holocaust in a of milieu.After a montageof nucleardetonations, narrator Creation the 92 Humanoids(1962) states that afteran atomicwar destroyed per cent of were built to do most tasks, androidsof increasingsimulacra humankind, roboteventually becomingsentient,and in a twistending,the xenophobic, In hating hero discovershis own syntheticstructure. Zardoz (1973), The (1986),the post-holocaust Final Program (1973), and Rats:Nightof Terror in terms. However,survival(at future is transcended hybridevolutionary fairiesand least in humanform) is not alwaysensured,as the Tolkienesque mutantintellectsof dwarvesof Wizards (1977) or the anthropomorphized domestic animalsin Rock & Rule (1983) portray,albeit both in the less of representation screen animation. disturbing heightened-fantasy 3.4.2.The Futureas Past. A new narrative device,similarto the encounterdislocation, postholocaust societies,is thatof temporal ing of non-terrestrial In either by technologicalmeans or via ironicjuxtapositioning. the latter scenariois withheldfrom the audience,who are strategy,the post-nuclear led to believe the events take place in a distantstone-agepast.

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Like the blind Martianatomic survivorsin Rocketship X-M, the key protagonists Roger Corman's of production, Teenage Caveman(1958),are depicted as fur-cladwarriortribes, in this instance confined to a valley wastelandand a hideousmonsterthat surrounded a deadlyradioactive by can kill by its touch. As a warningto futuregenerationsa narratedcoda revealsthat a devastating atomicwar has causedhorridmutations the and
return of the dinosaurs. In Yor:Hunterfrom the Future (1983), She (1983),

inhabita futurepost-nuclear and Ator:the Invincible(1984), protagonists Eartheven thoughthe imagery evokesa prehistoric generically past familiar BC fromcountlessexploitation moviessuch as OneMillionYears (1966) or
WhenDinosaurs Ruled the Earth (1970).

The entirePlanetof theApes series (1968-73)and TV spin-offsemploy of of similardisorientations time andspace in theirsurrealrenderings postholocausthumanregressioninto farmingstock with corresponding simian intellectualevolutiontowardan industrial, pre-atomic, Other but capacity. filmsto employthe "RipVanWinkleas visitorto the post-holocaust future"
plot device include Genesis H (1973), Planet Earth (1974), Buck Rogersin the 25th Century(1979), and the Polish production Sex Mission (1984), in which

men awaketo find a matriarchal two hibernating societythey despise,one where all males perishedfrom radioactive contamination decadesearlier. Now:Todayas Tomorrow's The 3.43. Apocalypse Yesterday. most frequent temporalshift,however,comes from films depictingdeliberateattemptsat a future.In The timetravelin whichcharacters discover nuclear war-ravaged TimeMachine(1960), a Victorianinventortravelsinto the futureonly to find that London and the rest of the world had been devastatedin the Planetof theApes by 20 years,World atomicwarof 1966.Anticipating Without End (1956) depicts astronautslandingon an unknownplanet (postholocaustEarthunrecognized) wheregigantic spidersanddeformed (mostly mutantsroamthe surface.The expedition cyclopean)primitive discovers an underground technologicalcity inhabitedby nubile women but sexually impotentmen who explainthey are survivors a 22nd-century of atomicwar. lb Melchior's7he Time Travelers (1964) portraysresearcherscreatinga futurewherethey find murderous portholeto a barrenpost-holocaust bald mutantsat war with a scientificcommunity underground of survivors desto contaminated perately trying escapethe terminally planetin a starship-ark builtbytheirandroid The visitors protectors. 20th-century eventually manage to returnto theirowntime but are trappedin a marvelously realizedcyclical whichpreventsthem fromwarning theircontemporaries time-loopparadox of the futurewar.Equallyfatalistic of renderings the theme can be foundin
Beyond the Time Bamer (1960), which features a test pilot thrust into the

an futurewho also encounters underground of technologically race superior

telepathic survivors, and Escape from the Planet of the Apes (1970), where

a trio of time-travelling scientistsare executedwhentheyreveala future ape of "history" nucleargenocidewhichmarksthemas (the causal)prophetsof doom.

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Anothervarianton this theme portrays emissariesmaterializing from a holocaustfuture into the 20th century,ostensiblyto halt the post-nuclear immutable progressleadingtowardthe cataclysmic (The Terror war from the Year 5,000, 1958;I Killed Einstein, Gentlemen, 1970;and Future Hunters, 1985),whichexplicitly adoptsapocalyptic mythology when emissariesfrom Earthhopingto averta nuclear futurevisit contemporary a post-holocaust war by using a Christian religiousrelic. The Terminator(1984) entertains a a similarpremise,but froma bleakernihilistic perspective: cyborgfromthe 21st centuryis sent into the "past"to eliminateSaraConnor,the motherof a post-holocaust resistanceleader.But insteadof Connortryingto prevent the nuclearwar, foretoldas being preemptedby Pentagonartificialintelligences,she acceptsandaccommodates potentialfutureaspreordained this In and preparesfor its survival. the recent sequel Terminator2: Judgement Day (1991) direct action is taken to avert this nuclear predeterminism, as thoughthe finale remainsambiguous to its eventualsuccess. It is significant that,in theircollectiveattemptsto anticipate future, the eachof the filmsin this category forecastsinevitable nuclear warfare leading to social inertia,decay,and/or total annihilation. More often than not these moviesarticulate overtmessagesof warning both throughexpositorydialogueand in the depictionof dehumanized futuresthe survivor At speciesstruggleto inhabit. best, a few filmsdo provide a narrative "escape" conventional (the Hollywood happy ending), suggestby ing the possibility communal of rebirthin some far distantfuture,but such for a conclusionremainsproblematic, it always requiresthe presenceand intervention prewar of individuals (always male)to motivate reinvigorate and the survivors' literallysterile domain.Otherwise,these films have either a fatalisticor an ambiguousconclusionwhere it is hoped that "the present" of (i.e., contemporary audiences)will learnfromtheirvicarious experiences the variously tomorrows so not continueon the represented post-nuclear and roadto extinction. ClearlythisgrouprefutesSontag's claimthatall SF cinema inculcates strangeapathyconcerning processesof radiation, "a the conwhichshe finds"haunting depressing" and and tamination, destruction" (37). 3.4.4. Exterminating Angels:The Post-apocalyptic Hero. By far the most significant dominantgenericmovementof this sub-genre been the and has in hero mythology the '80s.As their fecund emergenceof post-apocalyptic titles imply,these films are less concernedwith disasterthan with relating the survivors' heroic acts of justice, reprisal,and/or vengeance.Set long after the nuclearwar, they depict a world in which what little fabric of remainsis constantly threatened rampaging community by bandsof maraudindividuals occasionally smaller, or ers, challenged onlyby (selt)righteous by organizedgroups. They are the Warriors,Terminators,Exterminators, Equalizers, Hunters,and Gladiators the post-apocalyptic of future. The '80s cycle essentiallycommencedwith two Australian exploitation films,Mad Max (1979) and its sequel TheRoad Warrior (1982), neitherof which is expresslypost-nucleareven though both are frequentlyread as

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metaphors such.Ironically, cross-cultural of the successof these filmsrelies upon an existingcinema of nuclearand ecologicalcatastrophe, e.g., The Warior(1975),DeathRace2000(1978).The cyclewas givenadded Ultimate impetusby the more regionalized microcosmic disasterfare of Hollywood productions duringthe '70s, e.g. Earthquake (1974),Meteor(1979). Yet even prior to Mad Max the predominant imageryset in this longAs term realm was that of atavismand regression. early as 1952, Captive Womendemonstrated anotherapproachto nuclearwar by combiningthe neophytevisionsof its contemporaries (Five,Rocketship X-M) in rendering as a far distantEarth reducedto barbarism a consequenceof an atomic a ThirdWorldWar.Set in the ruinsof Manhattan thousand yearshence,the filmdepictsthree distinctcastesof survivors: Mutates,offspring those the of the genetically damagedby radiation; relatively healthyunderground-dwelling Norms;and their mutualenemy,the brutaland satanicUpriverpeople. A decade later Lordof the Flies (1963) showedhow quicklydormantatavisticdesiresmanifestthemselves whena groupof BritishPublicSchoolboys on crash-land an uninhabited islandduring nuclear a The war.Similarly, End of Augustat the OzoneHotel (1966) bleaklyportraysa ruthlessregressive band of women survivors years after a nuclearwar who roam about a 15 barrensurfacekillingmercilessly, whereasIn the Year2889 (1966) loosely remadeCorman's Day the World Endedbut addedthe themesof cannibalism and mutanttelepaths.Mutationas regressionof the most surrealand absurdist formwas effectivelystagedin RichardLester'scomicBed Sitting Room (1969)wherethe few survivors WorldWarIII in Londonstruggle of to maintaintheir customary"stiff upper lip" in the face of post-nuclear Lester'smise-en-scene, and adversity. principally quarries trashyards,avoids the expecteddisastermilieu by adoptingbizarrejuxtapositions British of mores againstthe makeshifthybridsto which survivors must adapt. The incongruityis foregroundedby survivorschoosing to deny the horrific realities of their new environment, evident in the speed at which some mutate into furnitureand wildlife, or the ironic romanceand 18-month gestationof an unmarriedmother'smonstrousfoetus, which marvelously slightsthe conventional Adam-and-Eve genericclosure. Infantile desiresand in fantasiesare alignedstrikingly Jim McBride's Glen and Randa(1971)in the pairof adolescent "noblesavages" leavetheirbucolic post-holocaust who Eden in searchof a mythical "Metropolis". banality/naivete the new The of Adam and Eve is carefully studied. A Boy and His Dog (1975) elaborateson both Lester'sand McBride's inventive visionsof survivors theirrandom, and utilitarian garbs-an aesthetic clashes of styles which anticipated evokingschizophrenic punkby several years. The literal grabbagdress of the surface dwellerswho surviveby looting, murdering,raping, and bartering reoriented existing survivor iconography awayfromboth the conformative modernist uniformof future remnant societiesas in TheTimeTravellers Logan'sRun (1976)andthe and luxuriousoff-the-rackapparelaffordedthe short-termsurvivor/looters in films such as Five or The World, Flesh, and the Devil. the

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More provocatively, A Boy and His Dog acts to distill much of the preceding category of film examining long-term survival, while adding variation to the generic corpus. By now long-familiar motifs and tropes are sardonicallyunited in a post-apocalyptic desert plateau around what used to be Phoenix, Arizona. Decades after a cataclysmicwar, an adolescent named Vic and his mutant-telepathic dog, Blood, respectively hunt for women and food. Seduced by a mysterious girl, Quilla-June, Vic is lured to Topeka, a feared underground community of survivorsruled by a patriarchalclique of elders who ruthlessly kill such non-conformists as fail to subscribe to surreal mid-west "wholesome" family mores. Vic is required to impregnate the city's newlywed women so as to reinvigorate and strengthen Topeka's genetic stock, periodicallyweakened due to prolonged subterraneanlife. The farcical though nightmarish imagery of Topeka's nocturnal inhabitants, dressed in turn-of-the-(20th)-century costume with rouge circles adorning their whitefaced cheeks, evokes a prophetic critical sense of postmodern nostalgia in its attempt to recreate a repressive communal past (which is at best mythical and far from utopian). It represents the perpetuation of Middle American praxis as a (continuing) means of social control, permeating with its invisible ideology successive generations who are sutured into unconscious compliance. Vic rejects his preordained role and leaves Topeka during a minor (oedipal) adolescent coup, preferringthe companionship and dangers of the surface life, where there is the faint promise of a better life "over the hill." In its ironic though brutally misogynistic finale, Vic cooks Quilla-Jane and feeds her to his starvingfaithful hound, bleakly signifyingthat post-holocaust life can only be revitalized throygh the (literal) cannibalization of prewar goods, artifacts, and sentiments.1 Unlike these predecessors, the Mad Max features can be read as primary to the wave of early films identified as postmodern because of their adopting strategies of pastiche, intertextuality, and bricolage (see Broderick). While constructed as traditional action/exploitation films, the trilogy evolves beyond the confines of generic expectation toward a recasting of the JudeoChristian myth of a messianic hero-saviour annihilatingan oppressive tyranny, and liberating an elect into a new reign of communal harmony. In this way, the heroic exploits of Max, rapidly recycled in successive rip-offs expressly located in post-nuclear holocaust arenas, provided an almost instantaneous international staple for cinematic images of nuclear war and its long-term survivability.16 Max quintessentially conforms to Joseph Campbell's description of the classic hero of the monomyth (36). The journey of Max throughout the trilogy as an idealized everyman symbolizes the "necessary" path of the collective social process toward rebirth and renewal after the hero's successive trials by entropy, deprivation, and nuclear war. As such, these films (more so The Road Warrior) provide a narrativetemplate, already rich in mythic resonance (but with a truly inventive costume and production design) for other filmmakers to copy. Even before Mad Max III: Beyond Thunderdome(1985), with its spatio-temporal domain specifically located as

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holocaust was thatof a futurepost-nuclear internationwasteland, exhibited clones(principally fromItaly,Spain,Israel, a waveof exploitation ally, genre were releasedaroundthe world. and the Philippines) In narrativeterms, these films act as a synthesisof existinggeneric modes which overlap differentdiscursiveelements rangingfrom biblical epics to science fiction and horror.Indeed,so fertile now is the imaginary if long-term post-holocaust terrainthattherehavebeen unconventional, not of musicals(Sons bizarre,graftings such elementsto formpost-apocalyptic of Steel, 1989), hard-core porn(7he Load Warrior, 1984;Breastament,1985), musicalhard-coreporn (Cafe Flesh, 1982),film noir (Radioactive Dreams, 1986),and westerns(2020: Te-xasGladiators, 1985; Deadly Reactor, 1989). The pervasivestructurethroughout,however, is a conflict between "good"(i.e., workingtowardsa sustainable, profitablefuture) and "evil" (nihilistically what little remains),the two having consumingor destroying emergedas bipolarphilosophiesin the post-nuclear world,with the interventionof the lone (often initially ambiguous) warrior-hero-anarrative trichotomywhichdates back at least to Captive Women. 3.4.5.The Good.For the most part,these filmsdepictthe idealized"good" forcesof the post-holocaust worldas communities attemptreconstructhat tion throughrenewal,not of the immediateprewarlifestyleand ethics,but of an earlier,superseded and Oftenit is intrinsically morality socialethos.17 whichinformthe purposeandbehavioral linkedto religiousstrictures codes In New Barbalians (1983),a survivors' of a sect or groupof survivors. Thze camprun by a man with a clericalcollar(addressedas Father,but named the sect Moses) is actually site of an apocalyptic of "Dialationists" have who been travelling about in the wildernessfor two years.They awaita sign to fulfill a prewarscripturalprophecywhich has alreadysaved them from nuclearhorrorsby advising chosento take shelterand not to reemerge the for seven years. Post-holocaust based at a permanent communities, statically campsite, are usuallyled by an elderlypatriarch, wise in technological organization and/or loric tradition(such as the professorwho runsthe refineryin 2020: Texas Gladiators, 1985, or the contrasting weaponsstrategistand pacifist leaderin Stryker,1983).The communesthey lead are generallycomprised of men,women,andchildren, withmonogamous, heterosexual and marriage life sustaining/procreating as the society's goals(romantic sub-plots involving heroes and women from survivalcamps motivateaction in most of these films).Imagery frequently idealizestheiragrarian andsimplistic toil lifestyle (the "honest"and "fair"laborof a Protestant workethic),with characters (often blonde) wearinglight robes and furs (The Road Warrior, Stryker). They are also the keepers of secrets which can be either spiritual(a divine calling that has chosen them to surviveand inheritthe Earth) or material(mainlyas guardiansof preciousand limited resourcesvital for in subsistence the harshpost-nuclear landscape; water,oil, or alternate e.g.,

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energy sources). As such they become the victims of attack by vicious competitors, contemptuous of their lifestyle, who pillage their goods. Because the community offers little resistance to the constant raids, some individualssecretly rebel against the pacifist posture and pursue group goals through offensive external means. As in the technocratic survivor-cultures visited by time-travelers outlined above, these camps are in danger of collapse through their own inertia and hubris and so require the intervention of a messianic warrior-hero to unify and lead them from the wilderness. 3.4.6. The Evil. In general, the forces associated with "evil" long after the nuclear war are those that have adopted postures antithetical to that of the good survivors. Their community also is dominated by patriarchal law, but normally in the form of a younger, autocratic and ruthless tyrant, who commands a band of (mostly, if not exclusively) male troops. In The New Barbarians,for instance, the "good" apocalypticsect is narrativelycontrasted with the "evil" Templars, who invert the others' chiliastic purpose with antimillennial acts which thematically position them as metaphoric anti-christs, exemplified histrionically in their leader's genocidal rant:
We are the Templars, the warriors of vengeance. We are the Templars, the warriors of death. We have been chosen to make others pay for the crime of being alive. We guarantee that all of humanity, accomplices and heirs of the nuclear holocaust, will be wiped out once and for all-that the seed of Man will be cancelled forever from the face of the Earth!18

Similarly, the punk villain of World Gonie Wild (1988) reads the "Wit and Wisdom of Charles Manson" to his followers at prayer meetings, and the opening sequence of Texas Gladiators features a brutal scene where an evil posse violate nuns and crucify a priest. Their philosophy of survival rests solely on satiating immediate, short-term desires, randomly looting, raping, and killing those who obstruct them. The iconography and imagery associated with them comprise crude punk aesthetics (leathers, chains, studs), barbaric weaponry, motor bikes (virtually ever; depiction of ravaginggangs has them as bikers), and souped-up cars.1 Frequently there is overt homosexual display amongst the gangs (the hero in New Barbarians and a boy in 2020: Te-xasGladiators are respectively raped by marauders).20They prey on the weaker survivorsand find them legitimate targets by expediently aligning them with irrelevant, prewar ideals-or holding them complicitly responsible for the very cataclysm itself. Hence, as a scavenging pack, they are impulsive and nomadic by necessity. The marauders'social agenda is one of regressive and brutal oppression, subjugatingwhen not annihilatingremnant communities. If on occasion these bandits do unite toward a collective purpose, it is only geared toward maximizing gains for an elite, despotic few at the murderous expense of many through slavery and domination. In The Last Exterminators(1984), a corrupt neo-feudal aristocracyuses contaminated survivors (and later healthy ones) as targets in lethal games, whereas 2020: Texas Gladiators features a technologically superior neo-Nazi troupe

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who purge dissenters from their fascistic New Order post-holocaust millennial reich (cf Lifton 4). 3.4.7. The Hero. As outlined earlier, the "hero" of the post-nuclear holocaust world conforms to the classical, cross-cultural mould of mythological champions. With few exceptions, the hero is male and frequently a drifter who has rejected social conformity due to a past of persecution at the hands of the forces of evil-most often via the rape, murder or kidnapping of a loved one, crimes he has witnessed but been unable to prevent. His project becomes one of self-preservation, of surviving in the wilderness through superior dexterity, strength, and cunning, fending for himself (though he gladly challenges the forces of evil wherever they are encountered). He is often at first a morally ambiguous character, one who rescues or protects an "innocent" from a deadly fate at the hands of evil raiders, more so by circumstance than deliberate intervention. Often this encounter leads to a suspicious and antagonistic rapport that later becomes one of respect when the innocent proves his/her prowess in battle, which may in turn save the hero's life. The hero is also aided by magical helpers along the way-mutant dwarves in Land of Doom (1985) and Stryker; American Indians in Texas Gladiators; children in New Barbarians, Exterminatorsof the Year 3000 (1983), and Beyond Thunderdome; women in Desert Warrior (1987), Warlords(1989), and Hell Comes to Frogtown(1987)-all of whom have been victimized by the evil forces responsible for the hero's earlier renunciation of communal/familial life. His predestined role is to confront the evil regime and, with the help of others, to wreak vengeance on his foes in a terrible battle, and ultimately to destroy the oppressors-an act which is frequently concomitant with the liberation of the material resources necessary for social rebirth.As Campbell relates, "The effect of the successful adventure of the hero is the unlocking and release of the flow of life into the body of the world" (40). This finale is rendered literal in the downpour of rain which falls for the first time in many years at the end of Stryker,WorldGonie Wild, and Steel Dawn (1988); in the hero's setting men and/or women free to procreate and thus ensure the continuance of the species in Desert Wamior(1987), Le Demier Comnbat (1983), 2019: After tlheFall of New York (1983), America 3000 (1985), and Hell Comes to Frogtowni; the hero's liberation of petroleum in The Road in Warior and Extenninators of the Year 3000; and in the hero's leading children away from corrupt and decaying post-holocaust influences as in Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdomeand Lettersfromn Dead Man. a As Ira Chernus has observed,
the actual situation after a nuclear war might, of course, bear little if any resemblance to this mythic vision. But such logical objections are unlikely to diminish its attractiveness. For this scenario speaks not to the logical mind but to the unconscious yearning in each of us to be a hero. The myth of the heroic survivors of nuclear war is merely one instance of the more general myth of the hero, which is perennially popular in our culture as in every other. (8)21

SURVIVING ARMAGEDDON 4. Pretext.

379

You know, I turn back to your ancient prophets in the Old Testament and the signs foretelling Armageddon, and I find myself wondering if, if we're the generation that is going to see it come about. I don't know if you've noted any of those prophecies lately, but, believe me, they certainly describe the times we're going through. -Ronald Reagan to the American-Israeli Public Affairs Committee, October 1983. (Caldicott 27)

To illustrate the dangerous level of credence given to spurious apocalyptic logic and desire, for eight years the Commander in Chief of America's nuclear arsenal paradoxically entertained belief in a foreseeable biblical apocalypse in which he thought the Soviets were "going to be involved," resources while at the same time committing his nation's military-industrial to a Strategic Defense Initiative designed to save the world from this imaginary destruction by making nuclear weapons "obsolete" (Rogin 36). In holding these two contradictory notions, President Reagan reoriented strategic policy for a decade and demonstrated his exemplary capacity to imagine beyond (apocalyptic) disaster and into a realm of (millennial) survival. By necessity and definition, the apocalyptic imagination requires an imagination of disaster. Armageddon becomes an apocalypticraison d'etre: the forces of good and evil are destined to battle each other. Depending upon the interpretation, in this schema God's saved elect are either "raptured"up into Heaven at the moment of nuclear conflagration, or the righteous and victorious survivors reign on Earth for a millennium in peace before ascending into God's dominion (Lifton 4). During the late '70s and early '80s imagery of genocidal nuclear stockpiles increasing year by year and converging with a renewed bellicose Christian fundamentalism and heightened superpower tensions encouraged a subculture of survivalists to prepare to emerge from the anticipated holocaust in a position of dominance. However, now that we have seen the signing of the INF treaty and START agreement, unilateral arms reductions by both superpowers, the democratization of Eastern Europe, and the dissolution of the Soviet Union, it is difficult to expect films exploiting survivalismto proliferate with the apocalypticvigor of the neo-cold war '80s. But as Paul Boyer has demonstrated, historically it has been the period immediately following disarmamenttreaties and geopolitical shifts which has led to the submerzence of nuclear fears and their projected displacement onto other arenas. 2
NOTES 1. The following analysis is not so much a revision of Sontag's critique as (to use a cinematic analogy) a sequel-or as Umberto Eco might have it, a palimpsest on which her original still lingers-whereby its central thesis is scrutinized within the context of a significant and growing SF subgenre, the post-nuclear holocaust film. Disaster of course is not confined to the milieu of science fiction. Indeed it has become a potent site for narrative cinema in itself, most obvious in the spate of disaster films which proliferated and attracted huge box-office draws throughout the

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'70s. As I have argued elsewhere, the phenomenon of the disaster epic in a period of relative detente may be read as a metaphorical articulation of nuclear holocaust fears sublimated into other arenas. See Mick Broderick, "From Atoms to Apocalypse: Film and the Nuclear Issue," Nuclear Movies (Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Co, 1991), 36-37. 2. For literary equivalents, see Boyer, Brians, and Dowling. 3. Spencer Weart demonstrates how rays in this context are always analogous to atomic power and are "descended entirely from older myths."See his Nuclear Fear, a History of Images (Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP, 1988), 46. 4. The comet motif was recently conflated with apocalyptic nuclear fears in Night of the Comet (1984), where the few uncontaminated survivors of an extraterrestrial plague are taken to an undergroundbunker designed to keep the race alive for years after a nuclear war. 5. The proliferation of these biblical epics with their detailed attention and narrative space afforded to scenes of populaces destroyed by cosmic intervention demonstrates an ongoing anticipation of an apocalyptic, if not eschatological, future. 6. In many ways the filmic and artistic precursors are epics which show vanquished empires, forgotten races, and extinction. Often such post-Hiroshima representations are clear metaphors of potential nuclear catastrophewith veiled references to prehistoric tribes and dinosaurs, violent volcanic eruptions annihilating whole societies, the fall of the Egyptian, Roman, and Greek empires, the disappearance of Atlantis at its technological zenith, and the Biblical destruction of enemy cities. 7. This is not to suggest these films are on the whole ideologically sound. Indeed, outside of their prophetic nuclear caveats, many are embarrassinglygung-ho in their militarism, as well as misogynistic and exploitative in both form and theme. 8. Some films have avoided this cosmic-interventiontheme by placing the nuclear warning squarely in human terms, either from nuclear scientists, as in Seven Days to Noon (1950), or from "terrorists" in Spider-ManSttikes Back (1979). Andrei Tarkovski's Stalker (1979), for instance, actually merges the two themes by inverting the cosmic-intervention trope when a protesting nuclear scientist tries to destroy an alien intelligence with a small (kiloton) nuclear weapon. 9. Although Five has been castigated for an "unrealistic" rendering of the material conditions which would confront survivors,it seems clear in retrospect that the narrativepurpose was not to entertain (costly) imagery of atomic destruction, but to explore some germane emotional and ethical problematics of post-holocaust life by adopting a poetic and allegorical discursive strategy. For an example of contemporary and later critical responses to Five, see Ernest F. Martin's essay in Jack C. Shaheen, ed., Nuclear War Films (Carbondale: Southern Illinois UP, 1978), 11-16. Martin unwittinglyhits the nail on the head when quoting reviewer Robert Hatch for support: "To suppose that the atom will bring quick death for the millions and a bright, clean world for a bright, clean boy and girl to repopulate is to tell a fairy story to the soft minded." It is precisely the mythic, fable-like quality of Five which imbues its narrative and has led to countless generic repetitions. To dismiss this power totally ignores its later effect on post-war filmmakers,reflected in scenes from Five terrifying 1950s youths in Jim McBride's Great Balls of Fire! (1989). 10. Significantly, the child of the sole surviving female, as a symbol of the old pre-holocaust age and its former associations, must die to enable the survivor-lovers to unite and start again. 11. The Day After, for instance, employs only five minutes of sustained pyrotechnic disaster footage, or less than 5% of its running time. 12. Unlike virtually all other nuclear war films of the time, these films contained carefully constructed, graphic imagery of atomic explosions in comparable scenarios of geopolitical accidents leading to all out war. Having had first-hand experience of

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the horrific effects of atomic weapons at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, it is not surprising that Japan produced these SF dramas. Like the popular radioactive monster genre (Godzilla, Rodan, etc.) created by the Tanaka-Honda-Tsuburaya team at Toho studios, these films applied the same destructive special-effect techniques, previously employed as metaphoric nuclear destruction, to cinematically project "the unthinkable." In both films, however, the magnitude of these catastrophic events is narratively grounded by the loss and grief of survivors for their loved ones, rather than focusing on the politico-military leaders responsible for the events. 13. Prior to this theoretical announcement, films such as World War III (1980) symbolically portrayed the end of the species in a finale reminiscent of Fail Safe (1964), whereas post-nuclear winter theory films like Red Dawn (1895) show a conventional war in the US with invading Soviet troops who employ surgical nuclear strikes at key locations to minimize radiation (and the filmmakers having to depict a nuclear winter?). 14. Some SF authors have managed to render nuclear annihilation of the species in ironic terms, avoiding the survivalistperspective by describing alien visitors who fimdprewar artifacts or automated human devices still continuing their programslong after the race is dead. 15. For an interesting comparison between A Boy and His Dog and Beyond Thunderdome, see Peter C. Hall and Richard D. Erlich, "Beyond Topeka and Thunderdome: Variations on the Comic-Romance Pattern in Recent SF Film," SFS 14:31625, #43, Nov 1987. 16. For example, numerous instances are evident in music video, as early as The Police's Synchronicity clip (1983), and as recent as Keith Richard's TakeIt So Hard II (1990). 17. At first, Beyond Thunderdome-which was a considered reaction to the genre rip-off that preceded it-seems an exception here. But the unconventional aspects are superficial since Bartertown is only figurativelyrun by a woman (Master-Blaster has real power) and the settlement is not progressive but an admixture of outmoded styles and customs (a "sleaze pit" Max calls it) which debilitates and enslaves its populace. 18. In an earlier scene, the Templars attack another (religious) group of survivors. Their leader, Juan, is introduced to the audience rending a copy of the Jerusalem Bible in two, saying, "Books! That's what started the apocalypse!" Such imagery posits the Templars as comparable to Islamic foes who, after numerous crusades against them, persecuted early Christian pilgrims in the Holy Land. 19. Apart from the obvious outlaw association rendered by bikers like Brando in The Wild One, the imagery also serves to engender familiarityvia reduplication of the Western genre's convention of horseback chases and Indians attacking wagon trains or stagecoaches. 20. The dominance of this motif reinforces the understated homosexual subtext of The Road Wamor's mohawk Wes who vengefully attacks the "good" community after his young lover is killed by the Feral Kid's boomerang. The action thus aligns him with Max's outrage at the murder of his wife and child in the first film. The more common link with homosexual acts is that of assault, nihilism and depravity -and a practice which will ensure the species' death. Other repeated genre motifs in this cycle involve sado-masochism, urinating on captives and voyeuristicallyforcing prisoners to watch loved ones raped, tortured and murdered. 21. As such it closely resembles Jean-Franqois Lyotard's concept of the socially constraining and legitimating master narratives described in The Postmodem Condition: A Report on Knowledge (Manchester, UK: Manchester UP, 1986), 2741. 22. Described as "the illusion of diminished risk" (Boyer 352-67).

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1988. Abstract.-This survey argues that the substantial sub-genre of SF cinema which has entertainedvisions of nuclearArnageddon primarilyconcerns itself with survival as its dominant discursive mode, not disasteras suggested by Susan Sontag. From the earlypost-Hiroshiima films which anticipatedglobal atomic conflict, the 'SOs cautionary tales of short- and long-term effects, through to '80s hero myths of apocalypse, a discemable shift away from an imagination of disaster toward one of survival is evident. These films have drawn upon pre-existing mythologies of cataclysm and survival in their renderingsof post-holocaust life, the most potent being a recasting of the Judeo-Chiistian messianic hero. 77Te cinematic renderingsof long-termpostnuclear survivalappear highlyreactionary,and seeminglyadvocate reinforcing the symbolic orderof the status quo via the maintenanceof conservativesocial regimes of patriarchal law (and lore). In this way the post-nuclear survivalist cycle of the '80s has signified another mode by which a generationhas leamed to stop worryingand love-if not the bomb-a (post-holocaust)future, which promises a compelling, utopian fantasy of a biblical Eden rebom in an apocalyptic millennia of peace on Earth. (MB)