Under Construction Seminar Series: James Curnow
31 July 2008
The Third Wave of Disaster: Science Fiction Cinema and the New Era of Anxiety
Photo: Restroom Signage by Marcin Wichary
The science fiction disaster film has had sporadic success over the last 60 years, the peaks of which can be seen in three distinct waves – those of the 1950s, the 1990s and the 21st century. The wave of the 1950s has largely been seen as a kind of response to the social anxiety brought about by the nuclear threat exemplified by the cold war. The wave of the 1990s can be seen as the result of a rapid increase in special effects technologies and a decade of mild paranoia brought about by millennialism, as well as being a kind of nostalgic reinvention of the SF disaster films of the 1950s, appropriating the imagery whilst detaching it from any real social anxiety.
This paper focuses on a third wave of science fiction (SF) disaster films that has come about in the 21st century as a response to present social anxiety.