The Apocalypse Continues

So the world didn't end last week on Mayan Apocalypse day, but that doesn't mean that doomsday isn't still coming soon to a theater near you. In 2013 we can look forward to two comedies about the end of the world, Edgar Wright's "The World's End" with Simon Pegg and Nick Frost, and "This is the End," which has a gaggle of celebrities, including Seth Rogen and James Franco, playing themselves facing the end of days. And then there's the endless stream of post-apocalyptic science fiction action movies lined up, with such cheerful titles as "After Earth" and "Oblivion." There's no consensus on how the world is going to end, but there seems to be no doubt that we're all marching steadily toward the abyss.

Now this isn't the first time we've had had predictions of an apocalypse, and it's not the first time the impending doom has been co-opted as a marketing gimmick by Hollywood. Nuclear holocausts were all the rage during the Cold War era, giving us a few classics like "Dr. Strangelove" and "Planet of the Apes." Renewed anticipation of the Rapture spawned a cottage industry of Christian-themed disaster stories, including the "Left Behind" series. Back at the end of the '90s, there were several films, mostly action and horror, which used the coming of the new millennium as a handy plot point when they couldn't come up with anything more clever. Arnold Schwarzenegger even had a throwdown with the Devil for the occasion. And then there was also that remake of "The Omen" that only seemed to exist so that it could be released on the auspicious date of June 6th, 2006. The fact that nothing particularly interesting actually happened on12/31/99 or 06/06/06 didn't phase anyone. We just moved right on to the next theoretical deadline.

The potential 2012 apocalypse has definitely been one of the biggest in recent memory though. Theories about the end of the Mayan calendar have been brewing for a very long time, and have gotten quite hyped up in the popular culture over the years. Roland Emmerich's disaster pic "2012," released in 2009, is the most obvious one to take advantage of this. And then there was 2007's "I Am Legend," set in a 2012 where a plague had killed off most of the human population. 2012 itself gave us the romantic comedy, "Seeking a Friend for the End of the World." Even art house fixture Lars von Trier got in on the action and obliterated planet Earth in 2011's "Melancholia." And of course there have been all the SyFy made-for TV spectaculars and cheap direct-to video B-movie thrillers, along with all the gleefully portentous apocalypse specials on the Discovery Channel. The National Geographic Channel has even been profiling paranoid true believers in "Doomsday Preppers," currently in its second season.

Dusting off the armchair psychologist, I want to point out that the apocalypse mania probably isn't all due to marketing efforts. Our media mirrors the psyche of the audience that consumes it, and the continued fixation on the destruction of humankind and/or the planet Earth points to a growing unease about the state of civilization as we know it. 2012 was a rough year, with a lot of things for the American populace to worry about, including the state of the environment, the "fiscal cliff," a contentious election, and an economy that's still shaky a best. I suspect a lot of people have idly wondered if it might be better to just blow up the whole mess and start civilization over. Many have theorized that the recent prevalence of apocalypse-themed fiction, including the very popular zombie apocalypse sub-genre, is tied into this vein of fatalism. I mean, how else to explain the success of NBC's deeply mediocre apocalypse adventure serial, "Revolution"? 2012 may be over, and it's not clear which date the loonies will latch onto next, but until we get out of this cultural funk, apocalypse media isn't going anywhere.

Of all the upcoming apocalypse films and shows, it's the comedies that I'm looking forward to the most because they seem the most self-aware and the most likely to do something interesting with the concept. After all the gloom and doom of movies like "The Road" and "The Turin Horse," it'll be nice to get some laughs out of these disaster scenarios for once. Apocalypse narratives have become a full-blown genre over the last decade or so, and they're past due for a good riffing. Probably the best part of Mayan Apocalypse day was getting the new teaser trailer for "This is the End," which promises the destruction of Los Angeles and irreverence in abundance.

However, I don't really have an issue with apocalypse films and shows sticking around in pop culture for a while longer. They're often contrived as hell, but they're very rarely boring.
---