Hollywood and the Rhetoric of Panic:
The Popular Genres of Action and Fantasy in the Wake of the 9/11 Attacks By Antonio Sánchez-Escalonilla
10 Hollywood and the Rhetoric of Panic 11
Abstract: Modern terrorism and disaster perceiving catastrophe through the me- Too often over the past 20-odd years, film share a common emotional strat- dia or as a viewer of entertainment, the film-makers have failed to tap the egy: the dramatic impact on audiences intrusion of terror into their everyday emotional power of their medium, es- pecially its ability to portray the world through formulas of panic, phobos in world broke the barriers between fiction around us—either as it is, or as it has classical tragedy. In the wake of the and real life to introduce phobos as a been. For the most part it fails to of- 9/11 attacks, Hollywood has experi- fruit of a tangible threat. fer us any useful lessons. After 11 Sep- enced a new refurbishment of popular In the course of the subsequent de- tember, a number of writers noted that genres, especially of the traditional mas- bate over the cinematic treatment of the dreadful images witnessed that day seemed to have more in common with ter plots of invasion and catastrophe in 9/11, Robert Thompson, director of the a contemporary movie than any imag- action, science fiction, and fantasy. This Center for the Study of Popular Televi- ined reality. (38) phenomenon has allowed directors and sion at Syracuse University, defends the Nevertheless, action and fantasy screenwriters to develop themes on la- thesis that a filmic re-creation of the should have become valid genres in an tent social fear between 2001 and 2008 tragedy would provoke a positive effect effort to depict the “real world” after and its connections with issues such as of catharsis on the audience and would 2001 and its human and social conflicts, the conflict between national security reflect the heroic part of the population. also demonstrating that “the most im- and civil liberties, the risk of xenopho- At the same time, it would open a route portant role of the film-maker is to help bia and entrenchment, or the conse- of reflection on the political reaction af- quences of preventive war. ter the attacks, with particular reference to the war in Iraq. “In some ways—ex- Keywords: Hollywood, 9/11, popular plains Thompson—these movies are re- In these fictional genres, security, social trauma, terrorism flecting a need to look back at why these other events started, to show American works, though he attack at the Munich Olympics history in a more heroic light when direct references to the in 1972, transmitted by television it looks quite dark now” (Harris and Tvia satellite to the world, was the O’Keeffe 34). tragic day are avoided, first example of a terrorist act providing the rhetoric of a show for the masses. Fiction Genres in there is a hypothetical The tactic involved creating a dramatic Cinematography discourse of effect that operated directly on each However, with the exception of pro- spectator. In appealing to the “gods of ductions such as United 93 or World contribution to the television,” as was revealed in a later Trade Center, from Paul Greengrass and communication (Dobson and Paine, qtd. Oliver Stone, cinematic reconstructions political debate ... in Weimann 69), the terrorists were fol- of 9/11, 3/11, and 7/7 have not prolifer- lowing the strategy of the tragic genre ated between 2001 and 2009. Moreover, established by Aristotle twenty-three in 2006, the year when Greengrass and explain the ambiguities and complexi- centuries ago in Poetics and Rheto- Stone released their films, a USA Today/ ties of life” (Puttnam 38), as the British ric, as valid in classical theater as it is Gallup Poll revealed that roughly one in producer reminded. in cinema. The strategy consists in the three Americans said they were likely Between 2001 and 2008, Steven catharsis or purification of the audience to see films depicting events based on Spielberg shapes up as one of the most through a double feeling of panic (pho- 9/11, five years after the attacks (Carroll sensitized Hollywood directors to the bos) and compassion (eleos) when faced 42). social fault lines caused by 9/11 and has with the fate of the story’s protagonists. In the face of scarce treatment through proved this in four feature films belong- On 11 September 2001, this symbio- dramatic re-creations, Hollywood seemed ing to popular genres of fiction: Minor- sis between terrorism and visual spec- to opt for fiction when tackling the ity Report (2002), The Terminal (2004), tacle was reproduced, this time with questions posed by Thompson through War of the Worlds (2005), and Munich greater dimensions, in the real settings popular genres such as the science fic- (2006). In offering his reflections on of New York City and Washington, D.C. tion thriller, fantasy, or even dramas on American society post-9/11, Spielberg Madrid and London had a similar expe- historic scenarios prior to 9/11. In these has remained in the field of creative rience with the attacks of 3/11 2004 and fictional works, though direct references fiction and has kept away from settings 7/7 2005. For American and European to the tragic day are avoided, there is a like Manhattan’s Ground Zero or the citizens, who were only accustomed to hypothetical discourse of contribution Pentagon building, unlike directors such to the political debate, and often solu- as Greengrass, Stone, or Michael Moore From War of the Worlds (Stephen tions are suggested to alleviate the so- in the terrain of documentary (Bowling Spielberg, 2005). cial fractures, but always in the guise of for Colombine, 2002, and Fahrenheit entertainment. In an article appeared in 9/11, 2004). Copyright © 2010 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC 2004 about Hollywood and 9/11, David Independent of the diversity of plots, DOI: 10.1080/01956050903449640 Puttnam made a bitter denunciation: genres, and settings, Spielberg’s hypo- 12 JPF&T—Journal of Popular Film and Television
1956, recounts the efforts of John An- derton, a Washington, D.C., cop in the mid-twenty-first century, to avoid future crimes thanks to the visions of three ora- cles installed in sophisticated quarters of the State Department. This is under the umbrella of a project called Pre-Crime, which is considered infallible, and en- ables the arrest of future convicts who are then given life sentences and re- duced to unconscious vegetables, while images of their uncommitted crimes are played to them in the form of induced dreams. The system’s efficiency has meant that crime has fallen to such an extent as to have almost disappeared, and as a consequence, society enjoys a state of permanent safety. However, the members of this community are con- stantly watched, they lack privacy, and the presumption of innocence has disap- peared from the legal system forever. Spielberg filmed Minority Report one year after the Patriot Act became law. The act was driven by the Attorney Gen- eral John Ashcroft at the request of Pres- ident George W. Bush to avoid a new 9/11 and extended the national struggle against terrorism outside the country’s borders. As Ashcroft himself repeated in a conference seven years later, “Lib- erty is the central premise. Security for liberty” (Tam). For his part, the director made the following reflection the same year his film came out, months after the attacks: Right now, people are willing to give away a lot of their freedoms in order to feel safe. They’re willing to give the F.B.I. and the C.I.A. far-reaching pow- ers to, as George W. Bush often says, From World Trade Center (dir. Oliver Stone, 2006). root out those individuals who are a danger to our way of living. I am on the president’s side in this instance. I am willing to give up some of my personal thetical discourse can be summed up in Taking the Spielberg titles as a refer- freedoms in order to stop 9/11 from five proposals for reflection: the con- ence, one could trace a study of social ever happening again. But the question troversy between national security and panic as a dramatic element and key for is, Where do you draw the line? How civil liberties; the risk of xenophobia reflection within the popular cinematic much freedom are you willing to give and entrenchment in North American genres between 2001 and 2009. up? That is what this movie is about. (Lyman 17) society; the self-destructive effect de- rived from a situation of permanent National Security versus The question of prevention of ter- panic in the face of external threats; the Civil Liberties ror for the protection of the nation and implications of a preventative war on The conflict between national se- the associated risk to basic rights was both a national and international level curity and civil liberties is one of the precisely the one Dick denounced in and in the familiar and social levels, and underlying themes in Minority Report. his story in the mid-1950s, right in finally, the human and social cost of the This science fiction thriller, based on the middle of Cold War paranoia, the spiral of violence-vengeance. a story by Philip K. Dick published in nuclear threat derived from the Korean Hollywood and the Rhetoric of Panic 13
of Pre-Crime but also the change that Of all the sight-related metaphors in takes place in his hopeful manner of fac- the film, perhaps the most significant [Minority Report] ing life. In Minority Report there is a use is that introduced in the first sequence. shows a dystopian of the eyes and vision as thematic sym- It shows a child doing schoolwork and bols that emphasize the ideas of seeing, cutting out a mask with the face of Abra- future marked by the observing, watching, and forseeing. To ham Lincoln at the precise moment that begin with, the oracles are seers at the he takes his scissors to the eyes of the asphyxia of a police service of a police state. Anderton sub- symbolic North American president, state, in the strict jects himself to an eye transplant, and champion of the abolitionist movement. his practically nonexistent privacy is re- sense of the term, and duced to the compulsive viewing of ho- The Internal Threat in lographic videos of a lost son; the pun- 1990s Cinema reigned over by an ishment of the condemned by the state The inefficiency of the authorities in abusive authority. consists in the repetition of the images the prevention of terrorism (the opposite of their crimes. A drug trafficker lacking of the case contemplated by Spielberg) eyeballs says ironically to Anderton that is a theme that is dealt with frequently in “in the land of the blind, the one-eyed Hollywood productions throughout the man is King.” 1990s. Society’s psychosis of insecu- conflict, and the witch hunt undertaken by Senator McCarthy. Unlike Dick’s story, Spielberg’s film ends with the de- struction of Pre-Crime and the absolu- tion of those punished for crimes that, in reality, they had never committed. The awakening of the prisoners in the film refers to the liberty obtained by Segis- mundo at the end of Life Is a Dream. In Pedro Calderón de la Barca’s drama, a prince is condemned to spend his life in a dungeon, drugged and incapable of distinguishing dream from wakefulness, to avoid the fulfillment of a terrible horoscope. In both the play and the film, the theme of individual liberty as a basic right, based on personal dignity and as a key to social relations, is discussed. Another idea expressed in Minority Report consists of the deterioration of social and state structures in the face of the restriction of liberties, motivated by a legislation that is alienated by the prevention of crime: the Pre-Crime department based all of its legality on pre-judgements. The film shows a dys- topian future marked by the asphyxia of a police state, in the strict sense of the term, and reigned over by an abusive authority. In Spielberg’s film, the fate of society and the agent himself runs paral- lel toward liberation, symbolized in the opening of eyes and becoming aware of reality. Anderton, who has become a fugi- tive and victim of the system, has an eye transplant to change his identity and elude its controls: a sign of the new vi- sion that he acquires on the immorality From Minority Report (dir. Steven Spielberg, 2002). 14 JPF&T—Journal of Popular Film and Television rity, lack of protection, and uncertainty of the Condor (1975), The Parallax View Writers (2008): two stories that take were the object of reflection of many (1974), or more recently, Wag the Dog place in one city, Los Angeles, con- film plots in which the threat does not (1997) and Conspiracy Theory (1997). sidered a paradigm of the socially de- come from external agents but from the On the other hand, in films such as Un- structured North American metropolis, very heart of society, either through ter- der Siege (1992), The Rock (1996), and where cultures collide rather than meet. rorist sleeper cells among the population Broken Arrow (1996), the villains took Again, in an allegorical tone, in The or uncontrolled factions of the adminis- the form of CIA agents, members of Terminal (2004) Spielberg deals with the tration itself, a favorite in conspiracy military intelligence, and high-ranking North American reaction to otherness as theories. renegade officials who were capable of a consequence of the latent fear sparked Arlington Road (1999), which came committing terrorist acts against the ci- by 9/11 and translated into legal terms. out in the United States with the elo- vilian population. The film tells the surreal story of Viktor quent subtitle “Your Paranoia is Real,” The image of the federal building in Navorski, subject of the imaginary re- presents an atmosphere of mistrust, in- Oklahoma came to inspire a similar ca- public of Krakozhia, who disembarks at security, and latent danger, in which the tastrophe in The X Files (1998), the plot one of the terminals of John F. Kennedy immediate threat comes not from out- of which presents a threat from paranor- International Airport. Bewilderingly, the side agents but dwells within the bor- mal sources. Even so, the final words of authorities deny him entry to the United ders of the country. At the same time, Path to Paradise, a re-creation of the States to visit Manhattan. “America is the film flags the official versions as yet failed 1993 attack on the World Trade closed,” insists Frank Dixon, second- another element of the ceremony of con- Center, conclude with a phrase of wor- in-command of customs and zealous fusion in conspiracy theories. rying verisimilitude pronounced by the observer of international bylaws. Far The attack on the federal building in terrorist Ramzi Youssef while he diverts from becoming fearful in the face of his Oklahoma City in 1995 had drawn the his gaze toward the Twin Towers: “Next misfortune, Navorski decides to wait for attention of Hollywood from the exter- time, we will bring them both down.” his luck to change and in the meantime nal threat to the interior one. However, makes his home in the premises of JFK titles like The Siege (1998) and Path to airport. Xenophobia and Entrenchment Paradise (1997) highlighted Islamic ter- In this melodrama, Spielberg de- rorism, sparking even more protest from In the wake of 9/11, the public’s fear nounces the legal barriers faced by for- the Muslim communities in the United was turned necessarily to the exterior eigners trying to fit into North American States against a stereotype that had been and showed the risks of xenophobia and society in the wake of 9/11. On the other overexploited by action films since the entrenchment in certain sectors of the hand, the director presents Navorski as 1980s. As Phillip Jenkins explains, the North American population. a sort of anonymous hero, bearer of hu- film studios attempted to show a profile Thus, Peter Stearnes points out the man and social values in which North of a terrorist villain that would not at- fear of invasion and the foreign threat America no longer seems to believe. tract the fury of active national groups: as one of the specific indications of en- demic American fear (74). One safe course was to choose groups In October 2001, following the pass- with no obvious ideology or ethnic af- ing of the Patriot Act, the American filiation, generic “mad bombers” like Through the thriller in Speed, or the hijackers in Passen- Civil Liberties Union denounced the ger 57. In the 1996 film Independence possible injury caused to foreign citi- genre, [The Village] Day, we see scenes of mass destruction zens: “The legislation includes clauses in New York and Washington that, in which could allow the mistreatment of draws an allegory of retrospect, uncomfortably foreshad- immigrants, the suppression of criti- owed September 11; but these fictional cism and investigation, and the surveil- American society attacks were launched by aliens from another planet. (160) lance of completely innocent citizens” entrenched within its (“ACLU”). The deterioration of values Hollywood had also diverted its at- of social coexistence between different own borders, tention at that time to villains proceed- ethnic groups had already been warned ing from the state apparatus itself, typi- of in productions such as Falling Down dominated by a cal of conspiracy theories. This common (1993), Grand Canyon (1991), Boyz n culture of panic that ground—which arose in the 1970s dur- the Hood (1991), Forrest Gump (1994), ing the Vietnam War, the Watergate and The End of Violence (1997), which has ended up scandal, and the Brezhnev era—was denounced individualism, fear, and hos- better suited to the liberal cliché of the tility as reactions to racial, ethnic, and transplanting its threat coming from state sources, intel- religious otherness. In the wake of the fear of otherness to ligence agencies, or military command- attacks, this Hollywood trend continues ers, and proliferated for three decades to develop an integral focus thorough the legal plane. through productions such as Three Days titles such as Crash (2006) or Freedom Hollywood and the Rhetoric of Panic 15
If Minority Report moved in the pessi- mistic terrain of a dystopian future, The Terminal strikes a Capraesque tone in pointing out the beneficial contribution of the immigrant. The alien Navorski makes an effort to integrate in his juridi- cal limbo, learns English, and strikes up relationships with other employees in the building, foreigners like him, who become his true family. Alongside this social aspect of the script, Spielberg also develops a legal aspect through the steadfastness that the stranger maintains against the new U.S. legislation. Here we find the second ele- ment of connection with Frank Capra’s titles during the optimism of the New Deal, particularly Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. If Smith managed to para- lyze the entire legislative machine of the Capitol with a simple strategy at the same time as teaching us a lesson about the true values of citizenship; Navorski manages to make fun of the new spirit of the Patriot Act to teach citizens who live on the other side of customs prin- ciples of coexistence that had been lost long before 9/11. Roger Ebert describes the protagonist of The Terminal as a guy who does not correspond to the image of the invader shaped by the collective imagination and established by the pre- ventative law: Navorski is a man unlike any Dixon has ever encountered—a man who is ex- actly who he seems to be and claims to From The Village (dir. M. Night Shyamalan, 2004). be. He has no guile, no hidden motives, no suspicion of others. He trusts. The airport, and indeed the American legal tains a culture of fear among the inhab- genre, the director draws an allegory of system, has no way of dealing with him because Viktor does not do, or fail to itants, aiming to safeguard their author- American society entrenched within its do, any of the things the system is set ity, guarantee security, and protect their own borders, dominated by a culture of up to prevent him from doing, or not isolation. The terror keeps the commu- panic that has ended up transplanting its doing. He has slipped through a perfect nity united, even though it is based on fear of otherness to the legal plane. The logical loophole. The Terminal is like deception. As we discover at the end of director also warns of the anachronism a sunny Kafka story in which it is the citizen persecutes the bureaucracy. the film, the council of elders is made of this approach, which can cause North up of heads of families from urban nu- Americans to regress to the seventeenth clei who, having endured violence in century. At that time, European colo- The Segregated Community the past, decided to create an isolated nists such as the Mayflower’s pilgrim M. Night Shyamalan deals with this community in which they might live in fathers were establishing themselves on theme of social self-defense in The Vil- peace. Even if they had achieved rela- the East Coast to flee from persecution: lage (2004), a thriller about a small, iso- tive stability and happiness, the creation a heroic deed of foundation in a new lated community in a hamlet completely of a perfect, safe society through a cul- world where they could start a perfect disconnected from the outside world ture of terror is revealed to be unsustain- civilization, even if the fear of the indig- and surrounded by a wood inhabited able, since the survival of the commu- enous peoples or their own slaves would by ferocious creatures of superhuman nity depends on outside help. eventually mean the failure of the idyll. nature: “Those We Do Not Speak Of.” The 9/11 metaphor is obvious in this This phenomenon is also analyzed by The governing council of elders main- tale by Shyamalan. Through the thriller Moore in Bowling for Colombine. 16 JPF&T—Journal of Popular Film and Television
In another of his films, Lady in the Jersey, on the other side of the Hudson and apocalyptic: a terrific storm, the Water (2006), Shyamalan tells a fairy River: the same setting chosen by Orson eruption of an alien tripod in an urban tale in which the lead role is the warden Welles in the famous radio version of square, the fragment of a downed plane, of a community of neighbors in Phila- October 1938. corpses floating on a river, hysterical delphia that gives shelter to a nymph crowds, a burning train flashing past, The image that stands out in my mind from an aquatic world. The magical the most—explained Spielberg—was the deadly pursuit of the extraterrestri- character has been sent to deliver a mes- the image of everybody in Manhattan als, and so forth. sage to one of the neighbors, a writer, fleeing across the George Washington In his study of the fantastical cinema which is vital to human happiness. In the Bridge in the shadow of 9/11, which of Spielberg, Andrew Gordon associates film, the community in the block comes is something that was a searing image various situations of panic from War of that I haven’t been able to get out of to represent American society itself, my head. This is partially about the the Worlds with the events of 9/11 (261). made up of people of different races and American refugee experience because Thus, the continual flight of citizens is cultures (Hispanic, Anglo-Saxon, Afri- it’s certainly about Americans fleeing a reflection of the crowd that dispersed can American, Eastern, and Asian), and for their lives after being attacked for through the streets of Manhattan; the all of them will become involved in the no reason, having no idea why they’re ashes of the humans touched by the ex- being attacked and who is attacking nymph’s mission. In allegorical tone, at them. (Aames) traterrestrials’ rays fall on the protago- the end of his film Shyamalan shows nist, reminiscent of the images of New a community that cooperates as one to In his third film after the attacks, the Yorkers covered in dust from the fallen build a promising future. In fact, the director dealt with the question of social towers; the remains of the crashed jet nymph is welcomed by a man, the war- panic directly, through a science fic- call to mind the falling of the United den, who lost his family to violence in tion thriller of catastrophic proportions, flight over Pennsylvania; the photos an assault. At the same time, in the back- in which the choice of an area close to of the disappeared and the candles of ground of the film, the media makes New York City established an immedi- homage to the victims remind us of the constant allusions to the war in Iraq in ate relationship with that day in 2001. civilians killed in the attacks; and the a clear contrast with the message the In fact, the most emblematic image of decision of the young Robbie to join magical person brings as well as with 9/11, the New York skyline with the the army that is repelling the invasion the attitude of the protagonist, which is Twin Towers burning, had been taken is a similar gesture to that made by the neither hostile nor insecure. from the opposite side of the Hudson in thousands of adolescents who went to Both the warden in Lady in the Water New Jersey. the enrollment offices to defend their and the members of the council of elders The new Spielberg title also makes an country in 2001. in The Village have suffered attacks. obligatory reference to the 1953 produc- But more than a reflection of popu- One of the council elders asserts that tion, an era marked by society’s psycho- lar panic, Spielberg’s version presents “fear protects,” but this posture turns out sis in the face of threats against security a meditation on the assault of a people, to be unworkable. In his fairytale, Shya- and liberties: from the dangers of the the North Americans, who had never be- malan takes a step further and brings a Cold War, the infiltration of the Eisen- fore experienced one. The script allows valid response to the question of trauma, hower administration by Soviet agents, various readings: “You can read our consisting in the reinforcement of social and the Nazi Fifth Column in the Capi- movie several ways. It could be straight links. tol, to the McCarthy witch hunts, the 9/11 paranoia. Or it could be about how revelation of secrets of nuclear technol- US military interventionism abroad is Invasion and ogy, and the launch of Sputnik in 1957. doomed by insurgency, just the way Preventative War The director found a political and social an alien invasion might be” (Barboza, Four years after the attacks on New climate similar to that which had played qtd. in Gordon 261). This interpretation York City and Washington, D.C., Spiel- out half a century earlier, and the choice of the extraterrestrial invasion as a re- berg revisited the theme of the threat of the emblematic title War of the Worlds flection of the invasions among human to the citizenry in his film War of the would not correspond to a simple re-cre- civilizations was already explicit in the Worlds. This involved taking up the plot ation of a fictional plot, particularly in Wells novel, through a reference to the of the novel of the same name by H. G. a dramatic setting touched by a genuine destructive actions of the British Empire Wells, written in 1898, which tells of catastrophe. toward other peoples of the Earth. a Martian invasion of British territory. The War of the Worlds script, written In 2005, the occupying forces of the In 1953, Hollywood produced a first by Josh Friedman and David Koepp, U.S. army remained in Iraq and un- cinematic version directed by Byron tells of the exploits of Ray Ferrier, a leashed a struggle against very disparate Haskins, the plot of which centered on stevedore on the New Jersey docks who resistance forces. Despite the official Los Angeles, although the collective tries to save the lives of his two chil- stabilization of the country and the in- lead role showed simultaneous lines dren on the weekend an extraterrestrial stallation of a new government, the war of action in various locations on the invasion takes place. The civil popula- continued on Iraqi soil, transforming planet. Spielberg’s remake would place tion’s panic is shown in various drama- it into a bloodbath of terrorist attacks the epicenter and the invasion in New tized images that are both spectacular and clashes with guerrillas. Meanwhile, Hollywood and the Rhetoric of Panic 17 the civilians suffered the awful con- sequences of the social and economic change. Through a narrative allegory, In the wake of the 9/11 attacks, the critical the war in Iraq was incorporated into possibilities of the subgenre of invasion and Spielberg’s filmography as another el- ement of reflection surrounding 9/11, catastrophe reappeared with renewed vigor while using a popular genre like science fic- tion. According to Jason Vest, “The re- the traditional dramatic schemes forged during the sult is a film that dares to criticize subtly 1940s and 1950s remained unchanged. but surely, the patriotic fervor that has characterized the United States in recent years” (67).
Renewal of the Subgenre of 1940s and 1950s remained unchanged. respect, beyond artistic values, the 2005 Invasion and Catastrophe The allusions, explicit or implicit, to the version of War of the Worlds stands as a In the wake of the 9/11 attacks, the tragic day in 2001 would be inevitable reference for successive productions in critical possibilities of the subgenre of when re-creating a tragedy on U.S. soil this new stage of the subgenre, for both invasion and catastrophe reappeared since, over half a century, the hypotheti- its historical and political implications with renewed vigor while the traditional cal threat had changed into the perpe- as well as for its metafilmic dimension. dramatic schemes forged during the tration of a concrete disaster. In this Among the key changes contributed by the Spielberg film, the critical po- sition toward the war in Iraq particu- larly stands out. This factor determines the victimhood of U.S. society that, matched with Iraqi society, has suffered a real invasion. The catastrophe also highlights nuclear aspects of the social reality of the United States, such as its capacity to react to a collapse of the system and the direct consequences for families themselves. In the case of War of the Worlds, this institutional and social reflection is marked by pessimism and thus warns of citizens’ hysteria during the extraterres- trial attacks. Although occasions of her- oism or solidarity are underlined, panic is the tone of the plot, and certain scenes reveal a Hobbesian view of society, whose members are capable of murder- ing others in their desire to survive. The question of panic as a threat against a society under attack is one of the warn- ings of Wells’s novel. Spielberg merges two original characters, an artilleryman and a vicar destabilized by the horror, into the character of Ogilvy the sniper. Ray and his daughter take shelter in a basement where Ogilvy, entrenched, fires on the extraterrestrials and pro- claims fanatically that, as the story dem- onstrates, America cannot be invaded. Ogilvy, victim of paranoia and fanati- cism, ends up posing a mortal danger to the father and daughter, imprisoned in the same mousehole as he is. Ray ends From The Mist (dir. Frank Darabont, 2007). up killing him. 18 JPF&T—Journal of Popular Film and Television
Another significant note of pessi- mism appears in the story’s ending. Ray finally arrives in Boston and leaves his little girl with his exwife, but he is not invited into the home despite the fact that he has fulfilled his duty as a father: looking after his child during his week- end visitation. This ending contrasts with the typical final reconstruction in the endings of the subgenre, expressed in social and familial reunions after the disaster. Family reunions of survivors occur in classic-style films such as In- dependence Day and Deep Impact and even in the farce Mars Attacks! Let us turn to examine the impact of the catastrophe on the social and famil- ial links in three films that followed 9/11 and were produced in 2008: The Mist, Cloverfield, and The Happening. In the denouement of The Mist, di- rector Frank Darabont takes the social pessimism of War of the Worlds even further. Using Stephen King’s plot, Darabont tells the story, in apocalyp- tic tone, of an invasion by fantastical monsters who provoke panic among the inhabitants of an eastern town. In The Mist, the ghost of the war is also present through the army’s responsibility for the disaster, which is unleashed by a scien- tific experiment. In this case, the theme of social disintegration is approached from the point of self-destruction: vio- lence by humans themselves—the prod- uct of panic—or the recourse to suicide From Cloverfield (dir. Matt Reeves, 2008). become as overwhelming as the threat of the monsters. The allusion to social disintegra- tion becomes patent in Darabont’s film young son, a woman, and two elderly same time, causes catastrophe. Given from the moment a group of civilians people. On their adventure to nowhere, the situation, the panic of the popula- take refuge in a supermarket while flee- the group is horrified by the devastation tion under threat is unleashed, and they ing from danger. During the siege, a of the country. When the vehicle runs worsen the crisis with their own ten- visionary passes on her fanaticism to out of fuel, the nearby presence of the sions, mistrust, and superstitions. If some of the terrorized survivors. The monsters leads the adult survivors to Spielberg rebuilt the family element to paradigm of the entrenched paranoid, make a terrible decision. The painter a certain extent at the end of War of the which also finds its archetype in Ogilvy, kills his son and three companions to Worlds, Darabont’s film frustrates the is reproduced in this film with deadly save them from an even more terrible heroic possibilities of the protagonist, consequences for his companions in death, but he does not manage to end his also a father, and concludes in the crud- misfortune. own life. The tragic fatum of the protag- est nihilism. Desperation, in summary, The recourse to suicide, the second onist reaches the point of cruelty when, is the high price paid by the citizen in sign of social self-destruction, is set moments later, the mist dissipates and the face of the senselessness of a mili- out in the ending of the script. After the he discovers that the army has finally tary power conceived to defend and not murder of the visionary in self-defense, managed to control the situation. to attack. an end identical to that of Ogilvy, the As in Spielberg’s film, in The Mist the Cloverfield follows a similar plot to protagonist flees in an automobile with army plays the inverted part of a defen- The Mist. The setting this time is a New a painter who is travelling with his sive force against the invaders but, at the York City punished by the hounding of Hollywood and the Rhetoric of Panic 19 two gigantic beasts, one monster and cated terrorist attack and flee to rural In both The Happening and War of the offspring, of unknown origin. Not as areas, unsure of their destination. Elliot, Worlds, British society of 1898 and sharp in reflections as the previous pro- a secondary school teacher whose mar- North American society of 2005 or 2008 ductions, this film creates an atmosphere riage is about to break up, also escapes see their roles transformed and go from of urban panic that directly recalls 9/11. with his wife Alma and Jess, a friend’s being collective aggressors to collective To the visual realism, a resource with young daughter. During their flight, the victims of attack. Shyamalan was aware pretensions of verisimilitude is added, protagonist discovers that humanity is that this inversion of roles may not be since at the beginning of the film the suffering from an unusual attack from welcomed favorably by the audience: spectator is told that the images of the the vegetable kingdom through a toxin “Now I’m not telling them the story that film come from a video with the notice that induces fatal self-harm: it is a de- they want to hear, I’m telling them the “tape found in an area previously known fense mechanism against human beings, story that I want to tell. People want to as Central Park.” the only species on Earth that threatens hear that the human is master over all, The plot of Cloverfield also descends to make other living things extinct. that humans are divine, always correct, to the plane of social and emotional Shyamalan follows the threat-catas- always right” (Pickard). links, since it focuses on a couple who trophe-survival pattern under the shadow The idea of a lack of communica- revives their relationship in the midst of terrorist aggression, since the toxin re- tion across different human levels, dealt of the attack, during the course of their leased by the plants recalls the psycho- with by Shyamalan in stories as differ- escape through Manhattan. The action, sis of an anthrax attack days after 9/11. ent from each other as The Sixth Sense which combines rescue and chase from However, the approach is turned on its and The Village, moves to the social and an epic perspective, concludes with the head when we learn that humans them- familial circles in The Happening. The explosion of a nuclear bomb in Cen- selves are “a threat to this planet,” as a introduction to the scene in which two tral Park that puts an end to the beasts scientist explains at the end of the film, teenagers are murdered by a group of but also wipes out the fugitive couple. and that the phenomenon has been sim- the entrenched when they ask for shelter Once more, the role of the army is con- ply a warning or prelude. In The Hap- in a rural property belongs to the first troversial in a story of invasion and pening, the director takes the idea of the category. This is the only explicit violent catastrophe that is far removed from citizen as an agent of panic and cause attack in the whole film, and it reveals the Godzilla tapes, which were an im- of his or her own destruction and raises once more the archetype of deeply en- mediate reference for Cloverfield. As in it to bioecological proportions that are trenched North Americans who defend The Mist, the leading role falls on the beyond political considerations. In fact, their lands from intruders and constitute fugitives who are trying to rebuild their the latter only appear to exist as a com- a more dangerous threat for the fleeing links in the middle of the chaos, only mon ground in the subgenre via refer- group. The ending turns once more to to finally see their hopes frustrated in a ences to the conspiracy theory and the the pattern of the entrenched through the crushing way. atmosphere of apprehension generated character of Mrs. Jones, a mad elderly in the wake of the attacks in 2001. lady who is isolated in her farm and The Contribution of Shyamalan The notion of humanity as the most shows her hostility to the surviving trio. With The Happening, Shyamalan dangerous species on the planet is ex- The Happening’s ending contrasts deals once more with the question of a pressed in the film’s social plane. Hu- with that of War of the Worlds, Clover- social threat, this time through a catastro- man institutions and the administration, field, and The Mist in the familial aspect phe. The action begins symptomatically particularly the army, turn out to be of the script, since Shyamalan pres- in New York’s Central Park; throughout completely inefficient at facing up to ents a true and complete rebuilding of the city, strange mass suicides of the the danger. This becomes clear in the the relationship between Elliot and his most atrocious kind have begun to oc- scene in which a soldier gives useless wife. This is expressed in the climax of cur. When the plague spreads to other instructions that the survivors remain the film, when the teacher conquers his Eastern cities, the people are in no doubt in groups while he establishes a hypo- fears, and exposing himself to the lethal that they are dealing with a sophisti- thetical “attack zone” and “safety zone.” danger of the toxin, decides to abandon his shelter to be reunited with Alma. The scene is a double triumph for the pro- tagonist: first, he has avoided danger, and second, he has reestablished his As in The Mist, the leading role [in Cloverfield] union with his wife. The possible family falls on the fugitives who are trying to rebuild their restitution insinuated in The Mist, which would include an adoptive mother for links in the middle of the chaos, only to finally see the small surviving child, is frustrated by desperation and death. In The Hap- their hopes frustrated in a crushing way. pening, however, Elliot and Alma sur- vive the threat and welcome Jess into their house (she had been orphaned by 20 JPF&T—Journal of Popular Film and Television the catastrophe), and they await the birth ject that preoccupies Haggis in his film Dobson, Christopher, and Ronald Paine. The of their first child. In the Valley of Elah as well as Shyama- Carlos Complex: A Pattern of Violence. As do Unbreakable, Signs, and The lan in The Happening and Spielberg in London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1977. Print. Sixth Sense—previous films by Shya- Minority Report. In Spielberg’s case, his Ebert, Roger. “If Kafka Had Been Taking malan—The Happening deals with versatility in the use of genres is dem- Prozac: Man Trapped in Airport Has an the restitution or reinforcement of the onstrated when employing the rhetoric OK Time.” Chicago Sun-Times 18 June family union as a premise with which of panic according to dramatic mecha- 2004. Web.