Professor Elam

Jan 21 2009 Thursday

Most futuristic films seems to take an apocalyptic view of what is going to happen, which is to say disaster. 

My wife wants to see The Book  of Eli, I read the reviews, have not seen it yet, but it got me to thinking about the socionomic implications of such films. So here goes. 

Socionomics is an emerging social science. It holds that popular culture is determined outside of everyday events, exogenously, and that change in mood determines what happens in society. 

Historic note, most superheroes are created in times of stress and trouble. The original Wanderer occurred in Greek Mythology, Ulysses. The British created Beowulf as their hero in a nation that had none at the time. Superman and Batman appeared in the 1930s, another era of great personal difficulty.  The modern stories of Luke Skywalker in Star Wars and Harry Potter also feature orphans fighting overwhelming odds. Lately this has switched to heroines involved with vampires, Twilight and True  Blood. 

The original Wanderer movie was the television series Kung Fu starring David Carradine. The series debuted in 1972. This is important as that was the high for the transition period from 1966-1972 in the Dow Jones at 1,050. The series was perfectly in tune with what would happen for the next ten years. Carradine played a wandering Shaolin monk, seeking to avoid conflict but always able to handle it when it occurred. Perhaps he was the perfect avatar for an investor or anyone else wandering the American and world landscape seeking some reason in what became an up and down decade of economic stagnation. 

Another landmark film of the time and prescient of what was about to happen was 1971's Dirty Harry. 

Clint Eastwood plays a gold shield San Francisco detective wandering what has become a landscape where criminals seem to roam free to victimize innocents. The film was based on the Zodiac Killer a serial murderer in that same area. Dirty Harry however is no Buddhist monk. 

By the end of the decade America was really coming apart with double digit interest rates and a second oil embargo. And so the stage was set for a truly apocalyptic story, Mad Max starring Mel Gibson. An Australian creation, Gibson plays a policeman whose wife is killed by terrorist criminals. Playing on the energy crisis, things quickly dissolve into complete anarchy where the sole focus is on trying to find gasoline or some energy supply as roving bands of terrorists return the world to a mid evil mindset. Anarchy reigns. 

Hollywood answered with Escape from New York in 1981. When it comes to sci fi horror no one does it much better than John Carpenter did (The Fog, Halloween). Kurt  Russell plays, once again, a lone avenger dropped into an alien land, which happens to be New York City turned into a giant free for all prison camp. NYC had spent the decade reeling from criminal activity and financial crisis after all. Reviews list this as the ideal B movie, no wonder, Kurt Russell is surely the premier B movie actor of our time (Captain Ron is my particular favorite). 

Fifteen years later Russell reprises the role as Snake Plissken but we move to yes Escape from LA. 

But wait, what was the social crisis, we need that to have the audience resonate with the film? Well the closest one could come was the Clinton Lewinsky Affair which turned out not to be so much despite a failed impeachment attempt. As a result, the Movie Industry termed it a bomb as it did not make a lot of money, at the time. But read the review at the link now, gee the young reviewer loves it, why, because now it makes perfect sense. Once again we have the lone avenger wandering an alien landscape fraught with danger, see the connection?  Two financial meltdowns, wars all over the mid East, tsunami, earthquake, you name it, are we all Snake Plissken now?  The reviewer is clamoring for another movie. It has been a while since Goldie Hawn (real life wife of Kurt)  put on her producer hat but the time is perfect for the return of the Snake, Goldie are you listening?

 All of which takes us to the film that did get made, The Book of Eli. Since Goldie did not make shall we call it Escape from Detroit, Denzell Washington stars as the wanderer in an Alien Landscape. Same exact story, same ability to whip all comers and handle whatever happens. So far audiences have not really made the connection, perhaps the improvement in markets since last March has people less worried about their futures, I suspect that is the case. Had the film hit at the March 2009 lows, it would have done better, let's see if it hits the rental lists by November of this year.