Apocalypse Always
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Apocalypse Always Decentering Apocalypse through the Lens of the Leftovers Lilian Kok 10013413 Supervisor: Dr. C.H.C.M vander Stichele Second reader: Dr. J.W Kooijman Master Thesis: Religious Studies | Religion and Identity in the Modern World University of Amsterdam Juli 2018 Table of Contents Preface 2 Chapter 1: Beginnings & Endings 5 1.1 Theoretical framework & methodology 6 1.2 Apocalyptic representations as a barometer of society 8 1.3 From optimism to pessimism, from cinema to television 10 1.4 Research proposal & course of action 13 Chapter 2: Apocalypse: beyond the New Millennium 16 2.1 American apocalypses 17 2.2 Post- 9/11 apocalyptic cinema 20 2.3 The neo-apocalyptic paradigm & postmodern pessimism 23 2.4 The loop of apocalyptic dread 27 Chapter 3: Decentralising the Apocalypse: Trauma 30 3.1 Discontinuity 31 3.2 Continuity 40 Chapter 4: Decentralising the Apocalypse: Narrative 50 4.1 The Book of Matt: an old narrative 51 4.2 The Book of the Guilty Remnant: postmodern collapse of language 54 4.3 The Book of Kevin Senior: misappropriation of narrative 58 4.4 An alternative sign-system 59 4.5 The Book of Nora: (re)creating meaningful narrative 63 Conclusion 68 Bibliography 73 1 Preface The first time I had seen the post-apocalyptic television series the Leftovers (White Rabbit Productions) when it came out in 2014, it hit a snare. There was something uncomfortable about it, about the way it seems to put a finger right on the sore spots of our time. For as long as I can remember, I have felt a gnawing need to understand the world and my own place in it. This need to understand has taken me along many different paths, of which one has been an academic journey into Media & Culture. My eyes were opened to the ways in which our society and our perception of reality as a whole is structured and shaped continually by an immense amount of information, images, and narratives that reach us via media. But also, that by turning the focus around, it is possible to use almost any media object as a mirror of ourselves – a reflective surface which can tell much about what we think and how we perceive the world at a certain time in history. In 2012, I had written my bachelor thesis on the depiction of the (Muslim) Other in the subgenre of Anglophone science fiction alien invasion films in the post 9/11 world. Undoubtedly, the shocking video images of the New York attacks on September 11th, 2001 had made a big impression on most people. For me personally, at twelve years old, the event marked the beginning of an awareness of - and interest in, (geo) politics, media, religion and what I would later understand as the realm of 'cultural studies'. Although the specific subject of 9/11 has kept my attention over the course of my studies, I came to realize that it was not so much the attacks themselves which had me fascinated, but more what the public response and political- and media circuses following such a crisis could tell about the constructs and shaping of collective (national) identity and the nation-state. I read a sociological academic article by Mark J. Landau et al.; ''Deliver Us from Evil'' (2004), in which the authors neatly analyze how, post 9/11, the particular religious and apocalyptic rhetoric of President George W. Bush worked to dramatically increase his popularity as president. The article made me realize what tremendous psychological force (collective) narratives can have. These often absolutist, dualistic and somewhat simplistic stories, narratives and myths that demarcate between heroes and villains, good and evil, punishment and salvation, are perhaps as old as humanity itself 2 – and still prove to be central to the ways in which (national) identity, society, and history are constructed and remembered. Many of these narratives have in common that they tell of our origins, progress, and purpose; be it told in the book of Genesis, through the American frontier myth, or within the ideas of the Enlightenment. After finishing my bachelor's, I further pursued my interest in all of the above during the master Religion and Identity in the Modern World, with a specific interest to learn and understand more about the ways in which religion is able to saturate the lives of so many people with a sense of meaning and purpose, as well as the significant part religious narratives and myths have in constructing collective, national and individual identities. During the course of this master, a cross-over between the disciplines of mediastudies and religious studies has always kept my attention; I got particularly interested in the religious narrative of 'apocalypse' and representations of apocalypse in media, and film specifically. Perhaps this is why I was so struck by the Leftovers; I experienced the series as a philosophical exploration of the same sentient questions on the meaning and purpose of life that had concerned myself. Even more so, the Leftovers is a contemplation on the ways in which we innately create and cling to myths and narratives to situate ourselves and the cosmos; to help us cope with the difficult and absurdist aspects of life and death, and to connect with one another through the beauty of storytelling. The series traces the connections between our experiences of the greatest catastrophes and our most intimate losses. The Leftovers reminds us of the splendor and significance of narratives, but also of the suffering and division they can cause when taken rigidly or dogmatic. Analysing the Leftovers, to me, was like diving into a rabbit hole. I've watched the series many times, and every time I found new references, layers, and subtexts, providing the series with a quite complex hypertext I was eager to sift through and understand. Admittingly, in following the 'breadcrumb trail' of subtexts and references the Leftovers leaves behind for whoever is interested in finding them (and I believe many more, different of these breadcrumb trails could be found, telling different stories) - I often found more than anticipated. I found myself deeply embedded in the works of Camus and Sartre, Freud and Lacan, the Book of Job and Don Quixote, and many more old religious, pagan and secular myths. At least two notebooks with scribbles and thoughts on the series must have been filled, alongside which this thesis developed accordingly. I found it mind-boggling at times how 3 through all of its layers of meta- and subtexts, the idea of narrative is always present in this series - the Leftovers is a story about storytelling, and invites the viewer to immerse too in all the stories and myths we have created throughout history, which in turn, the series employed to create its own. This thesis can be seen as the result of a very modest exploration of our time and age, and the importance of (collective) myths and narratives - through the lens of the Leftovers. Many 'aha moments' have led to small or bigger shifts in the focus of this essay - as my own understanding of all that is discussed below expanded, this thesis has evolved organically with it to the following result. My dear mother and partner, who both patiently endured my rambles and doubts during the process of writing this thesis, and who continue to inspire me with stories and narratives of their own – thank you for that, and for believing in my capacity to create my own. I owe much gratitude also to my supervisor Dr. Caroline vander Stichele, for her great support, thoughtful comments and suggestions - and for being understanding always. 4 Chapter 1: Beginnings & Endings Every story ends in apocalypse, Frank Kermode writes in The Sense of an Ending (1967), one of the leading literary works on apocalypse. Indeed, apocalypse has often been associated with marginal (millennial) groups, but this fails to acknowledge the immense influence the myth of apocalypse has always had on the human imagination. The end has inspired the oldest religious myths and has been impressively represented in god-fearing works of art. Apocalypse has been the subject of many dystopian novels and cinematic spectacles of doom. Although end-time thinking reaches back thousands of years, and perhaps would be expected to have withered in this modern age, different scholars have noted that apocalyptic thinking now in fact flourishes like never before. The twentieth century had brought great technological progress - but with it came the possibility of complete annihilation into the hands of man. What the end could look like was made visual for the world by the bombs on Nagasaki and Hiroshima. Much can be said, like David Domke and Kevin Coe have engagingly done in the God Strategy (2008), on how apocalyptic thought has become increasingly intertwined with especially American politics and culture since the twentieth century (12-13). Especially the growing influence of evangelical groups on American media as well as politics deserves serious attention, as this, at least in part, helps to contextualize the particular apocalyptic sensitivity of contemporary America. As a staggering 61% of American adults believe the world will soon be brought to an end (3), as noted by Daniel Wojcick (1999) – apocalypse does definitively not reside at the margins of society anymore. Although different scholars have noted this particular American sensitivity, in Millennium, Messiahs and Mayhem (1997) Palmer and Robbins argue that this heightening of apocalyptic expectation may indeed represent a global phenomenon (4). With all the unrest in the world - reaching all corners of the earth more easily than ever in this global information age - this is quite understandable.