Description
Book Synopsis Stories of world-ending catastrophe have featured prominently in film and television. Zombie apocalypses, climate disasters, alien invasions, global pandemics and dystopian world orders fill our screens--typically with a singular figure or tenacious group tasked with saving or salvaging the world. Why are stories of End Times crisis so popular with audiences? And why is the hero so often a white man who overcomes personal struggles and major obstacles to lead humanity toward a restored future?
This book examines the familiar trope of the hero and the recasting of contemporary anxieties in films like The Walking Dead, Snowpiercer and Mad Max: Fury Road. Some have familiar roots in Western cultural traditions yet many question popular assumptions about heroes and heroism to tell new and fascinating stories about race, gender and society and the power of individuals to change the world.
Table of Contents
- Preface
- Introduction: White Masculinity and the Liberal Apocalypse Allegory in Popular Culture
- One. Neoliberal Apocalypse, Capitalist Realism, and the Status of Critique in Children of Men and Mad Max: Fury Road
- Two. Settler Colonialism, Gender, and Joss Whedon's Firefly/Serenity: The Limits of White Irony
- Three. Crises of Masculine and Neoliberal Subjection in The Walking Dead
- Four. Futurities and Speculative Fictions in Sci-Fi Cinema: Sleep Dealer and Snowpiercer
- Conclusion. Allegory with a Vengeance in The Girl with All the Gifts
- Chapter Notes
- Bibliography
- Index
