Movies spell disaster for societal values

Liz Lucas Country Feedback

Let's time-travel into the future for a moment. The year is 2075. Playing at a multiplex theater near you - "No Warning: The Oklahoma City Bombing." Does this sound sick to you? Is it a gross insult to the victims? Is it another example of profit-driven capitalizing on tragedy? Keep it in mind when you're buying tickets for the upcoming "Titanic" movie or Broadway musical.

There's a disturbing trend in contemporary entertainment: the disaster movie. These usually involve some kind of natural phenomenon (tornadoes, volcanoes or giant angry snakes) or a technology-gone-wrong scenario (bombs on buses, plane crashes or giant, angry and intelligent aliens).

The plots are simple: a varied group of people meet with disaster and some of them survive. The attractive male and female leads generally fall in love (no doubt their threatened existence has awakened their urge to procreate). There are also assorted kids or animals and a wisecracking sidekick.

In many cases, "disaster" adequately sums up the critics' views on these films.

But these movies are more than multimillion dollar trash. They often provide a new perspective on contemporary values.

Societies' entertainment choices have always exposed a dark underside of their outward rationality. The Romans, for example, had one of the most organized and complex societies in history. But for fun, they would go to gladiator fights or sit back and watch people being eaten by lions.

We usually think American society is the epitome of progress and civilization. But for fun, we watch movies about people being killed in strange and horrible ways.

Of course, this doesn't always happen. Sometimes people survive, and in that case, we can learn a lot about our social values. Usually, only the expendable people die, so we can keep on calmly watching the movie. In "Jurassic Park," the eco-conscious scientists and precocious kids survive the rampaging dinosaurs, but the greedy lawyers don't make it. The eccentric entrepreneur, who was left for dead in the book, is allowed to survive in the movie because he's portrayed as a likable, grandfatherly figure.

"Independence Day" takes the prize in this category - most of the country's population is zapped by aliens - but it's okay, because the cute dog is able to outrun a fire.

It all makes you wonder where our priorities are. What's even worse, though, are disaster movies based on actual events. The Oklahoma City bombing was a national tragedy of an unprecedented kind, the largest-scale terrorist attack in U.S. history. We were horrified. We suddenly felt vulnerable. People who had absolutely no connection to the bombing were emotionally affected - I can't even begin to imagine how the victims' families felt.

But that was two years ago. If the "Titanic" phenomenon holds true again, 80 years from now things will change. There won't be any survivors left, or if there are, they'll be so old they won't matter. It'll be great drama. Andrew Lloyd Webber's and Steven Spielberg's artistic heirs will love it. Or if TV gets to it first, the Neilsens will go through the roof.

So what does all this say about our society? I'm not sure. But I don't think I'll like it when I've figured it out.

In "A Prayer for Owen Meany," John Irving said, "Television gives good disaster." Movies do it even better.

- Liz Lucas can be reached over e-mail at erelucas@umich.edu.

05-14-97