"Fear of terrorism is widespread in America."
"Many Americans have actually changed how they live their daily lives."
"A significant number of Americans say they avoid sporting events, concerts,"
"and other public events because of their fear of terrorism."
Let me ask you a question: what are people most afraid of?
You may think it's insects, or natural disasters, or even public speaking,
but an extensive survey conducted by Chapman University in 2015 said
the biggest fears in Americans are cited as the, quote: "man-made disasters",
These fears include bio-warfare, terrorism, and nuclear attacks.
44% of Americans are afraid or very afraid of terrorist attacks.
Compare that to 28% for public speaking and 25% for insects.
Fear of terrorism actually peaked following 9/11
as the majority of Americans were worried that they, or someone they knew,
would be a victim of a terrorist attack.
I wanna suggest that what the public fears is mirrored in Hollywood cinema,
especially the zombie movies directly following 9/11.
But to start, we have to go back in time
to the horror movies of the 1950's.
So let me rephrase the first question:
what were people most afraid of in, say, 1951?
*50's PSA narrator*: "We all know the atomic bomb is very dangerous."
*cont.*: "Since it may be used against us, we must get ready for it."
With the Korean War, Soviet nuclear testing, and McCarthy-ism in full force,
a 1950 poll showed an astounding 68% of Americans thought the Soviet Union
would use an atomic weapon against the United States.
This fear was even used later as a scare-tactic in an infamous campaign ad by Lyndon Johnson,
showing just how powerful the fear was on the public.
*campaign ad narrator*: "These are the stakes."
*cont.*: "To make a world in which ALL of God's children can live, or to go into the dark."
*cont.*: "We must either love each other, or we must die."
So how did horror movies reflect this fear?
The 1950's brought on a wave of disaster movies where aliens or monsters attack,
like 'War of the Worlds' , 'The Blob', and 'The Thing From Another World'.
When you watch battle scenes from the original 'War of the Worlds'
or 'Attack of the 50 ft. Woman' or 'Godzilla',
You notice the parallels between these horror movies and the destructive nature of the atomic bomb.
In fact, the director of 'Godzilla' was very blunt about his intentions with the now iconic monster.
He said, quote:
For Americans, however, the fear was channeled towards the Soviet Union,
our biggest global threat at the time.
In the same way that Godzilla stomps on buildings, and is immune to bullets,
so too would an atomic bomb wipe out cities and be entirely unstoppable by us.
Maybe it's no coincidence that the Japanese film 'Godzilla' was such a huge success in America.
The Japanese fear of the bomb was just as relevant to Americans at the time.
Now, let's jump to the 21st century,
We're no longer threatened by a huge, visible, global superpower.
Actually, the fear of terrorism is quite the opposite.
It's nothing like Godzilla, a giant monster who drops in on a city.
A terrorist hides in the shadows, disguises themselves as an everyday citizen,
and causes society to collapse from the inside-out.
So here's my point:
doesn't the method of destruction for a terrorist sound a lot like the method of destruction for a zombie?
First, it's important to note the explosion of the zombie genre.
io9 posted a nice graph showing a boom in zombie movies in the early 2000's,
paralleling with mainstream video games like 'Resident Evil' and 'Call of Duty' ,
and spilling into other media like the TV show 'The Walking Dead',
there's no doubt that zombies have infected the public conscious.
'28 Days Later' is one of the first successful zombie movies to come out following 9/11,
and it highlights contemporary fears of terroism and decay of social order.
The scene that most strongly ties the movie to terrorist fears is actually the very first scene.
The deadly virus is created in a lab by making chimpanzees watch footage
of Arabic mobs fighting police, burning cars, and beating each other up.
This virus is literally created from Arabic violence.
I particularly like this shot, which makes the human look like it's regressing back into a terrifying animal.
An important element of the zombie genre is that the enemy comes inside a community
and spreads from person to person.
This sounds eerily similar to the method of attack for a terrorist.
A sleeper cell hides within our borders ready to strike,
and once we can finally spot it, it's too late to stop.
I think another key difference between 50's monster movies and zombie movies
is the role of the government.
In monster movies, the government often fights against the enemy,
but in '28 Days Later', the government has abandoned them.
"What about the government? What are they doing?"
"There's no government."
"Of course there's a government!"
"There's always a government, they're in a, a bunker, or, or a plane!"
"No, there's no government. No police."
Not only that, but in the movie the soldiers actually fight against the protagonist.
In the 21st century, with the controversial invasion of Iraq and government surveillance,
terrorism has brought on a distrust of our own government.
Where the 1950's government was always joining in the fight against a common enemy,
it appears that during a zombie apocalypse, we shouldn't count on any government to protect us.
What's so special about cinema, is that it's such a democratic art form.
When it comes to art forms like painting, music, or creative writing,
the message is only channeled through one person, but with cinema,
the final work is the product of dozens of people.
Not only that, but a production process as expensive as making a movie
requires that mainstream movies appeal to as many people as possible.
As a result, movies tend to be a window into the general mindset of the society it was made in.
This means that the subject matter of a successful horror movie has, in it's subtext,
a reflection of the general fears of the environment it was made in.
There are things that, regardless of time period and society, humans are scared of:
the dark is a universal fear because we can't identify the threat.
So, a movie like 'Don't Breathe' seems to do well because,
like 'Jaws', and the ending of 'Silence of the Lambs',
it's scary when the threat can see you, but you can't see them.
It's a timeless fear.
But what about fears that do change over time?
I talked about monster movies versus zombie movies,
but I also think mainstream horror movies about religion are another perfect example.
Religion is at an all-time low in the United States.
More importantly, the fear of damnation is low,
meaning that religious groups tend to spend less time on the pain and torment of hell in their teachings,
and more time on the love and forgiveness that comes from salvation.
This idea is especially true in the Catholic church,
who revised their catechism in 1994 to remove the literary fire and brimstone description of hell,
in favor of a metaphorical place symbolizing the loss of one's faith.
So, how is this idea shown in modern movies?
Around 40 or so years ago, most movies about the supernatural centered around religion.
The devil is often the center villain in successful movies like 'Rosemary's Baby', 'The Omen', and 'The Exorcist'.
Nowadays, though, supernatural beings are still present, but religion is largely ignored.
The ghost is a former mental patient or some unexplained being.
'The Exorcist' is about a child being possessed by the devil.
'Orphan' has a very similar premise, a child who is acting strangely, but religion is hardly even mentioned.
The fact is, that people don't find the devil as scary as they used to,
partly due to less religion, and partly due to a conscious choice to focus less on damnation in religious doctrine.
There's no doubt that there are detectable trends in what horror movies choose to find scary.
If you wanna know what people are afraid of,
you could run an expensive and time consuming statistical study,
or you could just look at what horror movies they find scary.
So the next time someone says: "don't be scared, it's just a movie!", don't believe them.
Thanks for watching.
*Summertime by DJ Jazzy Jeff and The Fresh Prince plays*