The Imagination of Disaster in a Work By Susan Sontag
The imagination of disaster is a topic written by Susan Sontag. In the article, she posits that masses and ordinary citizens are influenced by the fiction movies and films that they produce. These artforms and media play a role in the reflection of the minds of people. Hence, a horror movie or a disaster movie would show humanity’s fears in their vulnerable state. For example, if a calamity occurs, then the people might think of the movie being likened with the disaster that they are facing. Likewise, she reiterates that most of the art that portray disasters do not show the events that occur after the final onset of destruction-- the rebuilding (Sontag, 2013).
Sontag also states that for utopian and dystopian films, their vision of perfect and imperfect worlds are influenced by the status quo of the present society. What is normal today is followed and generally accepted by the many. She states, however, that the happy endings portrayed in the films do not necessarily attribute to wish-fulfilling, and thus, science fiction films acts as the mirror that inevitably expresses the pressing and genuine concerns of the individuals and the society (Sontag, 2013). She also writes that the imagination of disaster from generation to generation does not differ from one another. This is so because people’s views of these topics have not changed. What is different is in the way in which these artforms portray the disaster or calamity (Sontag, 2013).
Lastly, Sontag claims that science fiction films help people in the management of their true fears, allowing them to deviate from realistic fears to more of fantasy. It also gives an outlet to cruel or unfair ideals by giving an oversimplification to things, such as giving a concise division between good and evil (Sontag, 2013). In other definitions, disaster imagination can be likened to disaster preparedness, in which people formulate ideas and preparations for natural disasters (De Guzman, 2016).“The Upside of Down: Disaster and the Imagination 50 Years On”
In the article, Levine and Taylor recounts Sontag’s article’s main points. They further state that in her article, science fiction films tell us about ourselves. With the production of such media, these further reiterate our current state in the world. It portrayed our most dreadful fears and our victories in which films depict of. Likewise, in recent years, these fictional films that show disaster and turmoil contribute to a real occurrence. For Levine and Taylor, discourse about these events can be spawned (Levine et al., 2013). “Japan: The Imagination of Disaster”
This article explains the effect of horror films to the Japanese people’s mindset in the face of disasters and calamities. It shows that people often think of “Godzilla” or popular Japanese culture when in calamities. It has also seeped through the culture, showing examples in art and imagery such as Hokusai’s Great Wave, Akira, Grave of the Fireflies, and others. These films and art show that Japan has been ravished by calamities and by nature. However, one thing remains constant for the ever-hopeful-- that these show how Japan is rebuilt and how it gets back up again in the face of diversity (Anderson, 2012).
