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Mapping Contemporary Cinema Climate Change, Capitalism, 9/11, and The Day After Tomorrow By Sophie Livesey KEYWORDS: disaster films, Bush administration, post-9/11 films, The Day After Tomorrow Representations OF large-SCALE CALAMITY have long interested filmmakers, but the contemporary disaster film truly established itself in the 1970s when films such as Airport (Seaton 1970), The Poseidon Adventure (Neame 1972), and The Towering Inferno (Allen, Guillermin 1974) proved extremely popular (Sanders 11). Scenes of mayhem and destruction appealed less to audiences in the 1980s, but the disaster film returned in the mid-1990s on a scale never seen before. Here, the success of films such as Independence Day (Emmerich 1996), Twister (De Bont 1996), Dante’s Peak (Donaldson 1997), Volcano (Jackson 1997), Armageddon (Bay 1998), Deep Impact (Leder 1998), and Godzilla (Edwards 1998) can be attributed to their depiction of destruction using cutting-edge computer-generated imagery (CGI), leading Stephen Keane to claim that special effects are “one of the defining characteristics of the 1990s disaster cycle as a whole” (116). Dante’s Peak and Volcano. But The Day After Tomorrow’s eco-catastrophe The Day After Tomorrow (Emmerich, 2004) extends this trend and makes it undoubtedly the first film of its kind to cite humanity, although reviews were mixed, one aspect that all critics agreed on namely western humanity, as the central and sole problem for the was the outstanding quality of the film’s special effects with large- cause of apocalyptic events. The film is clear that carbon emissions scale set pieces constituting something of a “high-water mark, even have led to the melting of polar ice caps, sending the Northern in these CGI-saturated times” (Robey). While Airport and The Towering Hemisphere into a sudden Ice Age. This began a trend in disaster Inferno showed passengers on a plane or occupants of a skyscraper films of the 2000s in which humanity is deemed responsible for in peril, the disasters featured in 1990s films were decidedly more catastrophe. Al Gore’s political documentary, An Inconvenient Truth apocalyptic, “their main rationale, it would seem, being to face up to followed in 2006 and provided a more fact-driven account of global nothing less, and little more, than the end of the world” (Keane 63). warming, while Wall-E (Stanton 2008) and The Day the Earth Stood The Day After Tomorrow follows this trend, plunging the entire Northern Still (Derrickson 2008) were released in 2008 and expressed similarly Hemisphere into an Ice Age, resulting in mass destruction and death. eco-conscious themes. The latter is a remake of the 1951 film of The disaster film is, as John Sanders notes, “able to tap into prevailing the same name, and while this earlier version identifies nuclear fears in any particular era,” and the worldwide catastrophe in The weapons as threatening the survival of the human race, in the latter Day After Tomorrow is something of a response to the global threat of environmental issues replace this threat. climate change (18). Another reason for disaster on a grand scale The Day After Tomorrow was the first major film to address is that the global focus this entails makes the film attractive to a global warming anxiety. Patrick Parenteau claims that there was lucrative international audience. This seems to have been a feature of “tremendous progress through the 60s, 70s and 80s on a host of Hollywood throughout the 1990s, with an increase in the amount of serious environmental problems” but, subsequent to the election of high-budget films relying on a global market. However, The Day After George W. Bush in 2000, this progress stagnated: “At a time when Tomorrow goes beyond this, interlocking its blockbuster aesthetic with global environmental challenges have never been more daunting, the pressing sociopolitical anxieties and issues. United States government has lost the mantle of leadership it once had on environmental issues” (405). Initially, the Bush administration Ice Age disaster got “off to a bad start by reneging on a campaign promise to address The disaster films of the 1990s cycle did not avoid depicting natural CO2 emissions” (Parenteau 365). The administration also repudiated calamities, for example the tornadoes in Twister or the volcanoes of the Kyoto Protocol, which “committed the developed nations to cut 71 Film Matters Spring 2014 ➜ Mapping Contemporary Cinema Sophie Livesey their emissions,” and that every major nation had signed, including the United States under Clinton (Lord 4). Despite the protests of the international scientific community, the Bush administration stated that the protocol was fundamentally flawed and insisted that there was still “a considerable uncertainty about the scientific causes of global warming” (Lord ix), believing that environmental friendly policies would be detrimental to the economy. The film’s depiction of catastrophic consequences due to global warming under an environmentally disinterested government, who A B OV E A building burning in John Guillermin’s film The Tower- ignore protagonist Jack Hall’s warnings, did not go unnoticed as ing Inferno a parallel to the Bush administration. Sidney Perkowitz notes that this “fictional situation is uncomfortably close to present attitudes, perish in the film both in New York – in which arrogant businessmen where, unlike other governments, the United States has for some attempt to pay off a bus driver to get to safety – and in Tokyo, time rejected evidence for global warming” (208). Many journalists where a suited man attempts to protect himself from huge hailstones and commentators have furthermore noted the striking resemblance with his briefcase to no avail. A homeless man taking refuge in the of the fictional vice president, played by actor Kenneth Welsh, to New York public library however is shown to be more resourceful, vice president, Dick Cheney (Revkin, “When Manhattan Freezes deploying techniques he has learnt from his desperate situation, Over”). The filmic vice president is presented as “ruthless and such as using paper as insulation in order to survive the cold. This aggressive,” standing against climatologist Jack Hall’s proposals, predates similar treatment of bankers and capitalist professionals in whilst the president is “shown to be rather impotent in the face of films made subsequent to the financial crises of several years later, in the catastrophe, relying on others to make decisions” and is killed which affluence is often identified as morally problematic. The Day off in a storm-induced plane crash (Sanders 75). This is certainly a After Tomorrow, borrowing from the 1970s disaster film convention of departure from the characterization of a strong, competent president punishing the guilty through acts of God, implies it takes a dim view in the Clinton-era 1990s disaster films Independence Day, Armageddon, of these corporate victims. Furthermore, the film turns global politics and Deep Impact, and highlights the clear reaction in The Day After on its head, as Americans illegally flee into Mexico and the Third Tomorrow to the Bush administration and its perceived mishandling of World ultimately saves western civilization from the frozen onslaught environmental issues. Read thus, the summer 2004 release of The Day in return for debt cancellation. Such situations are perhaps a reaction After Tomorrow is highly significant, with the film seemingly geared to to a government that seems to place capital accumulation above persuading voters not to appoint Bush to a second term of office in social, humanitarian, and international environmental issues. elections held in November of that year. It is important however to remember that the film’s main goal, like This strong ecological message and political impulse divided all Hollywood blockbusters, was financial. Director Roland Emmerich opinion. Many environmentalists “were split on whether to embrace and producer Gordon Smith have repeatedly “pointed out that their the movie for raising the climate issue or avoid it because of its primary goal was to create a ‘popcorn movie’ that would draw a distortions,” concerned that the film “so overstates the issue that it mass audience” and that raising public consciousness about global might cause people to simply laugh off the real questions” (Revkin, warming was a secondary goal (Leiserowitz 26). The exaggerations “When Manhattan Freezes Over”). Although few climate experts of climate change can be viewed, then, as first and foremost a desire felt that the film’s events, especially their extremely compressed to fit the disaster movie formula, known to draw in large box office time frame, was likely, many felt it was a good opportunity to sales (Heumann and Murray 5). Monetary motivations become more raise awareness. Al Gore announced that he would give speeches transparent when considering that the film’s $125 million budget coinciding with the film’s release, stating that although fictional, the came from Twentieth Century Fox, a division of News Corporation, film publicizes a long ignored but extremely important issue (Bowles). a “conservative media empire” (Revkin, “When Manhattan Freezes In addition, Andrew Revkin reports that environmental volunteers Over”). Although contradictory, considering the liberal message handed out environmental leaflets at theaters on opening weekends, of the film and the conservative, capitalist aims of the company, and furthermore that the prospect that audiences would be “alarmed “the movie’s potential to make lots of money has trumped any enough to blame the Bush administration for inattention to climate major concerns News Corporation executives may have about its change” caused the government to demand that NASA ignore politics” (Revkin, “When Manhattan Freezes Over”). In the global questions raised by news media regarding the film and its depiction marketplace for big-budget action movies, the environmental message of climate change (Revkin, “NASA Curbs Comments”). The impact benefits the film’s financial gain internationally, potentially drawing of The Day After Tomorrow in this area has been studied in a report by greater audiences through its engagement with current events.

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