I love the post-apocalyptic genre as much as the next horror fan, but there is something to be unpacked in how they often reinforce very reactionary political ideas. Not just in the more bluntly conservative ways of thematically rewarding ideas like
- “shoot first ask questions never”
- “never offer mercy”
- “torture works”
- “Strong Government may be doing Bad Things but it is the only thing stopping people from becoming roaming bands of cannibal rapists unless Strong Men with police or military training maintain order once society collapses”
But also in the less easily recognizable reactionary beliefs like
- “power vacuums are real and inevitable” (implying that unless you plan to exert a similar level of power and take the top of the hierarchy then you should not seek to dismantle power)
- “the people who survive are the best— the strongest and smartest and most resourceful, the ones who deserve it most.” (implying that eugenics is an inevitable biological force rather than a political ideology)
- “If someone who deserves to live dies, it is due to the actions of a villain, ‘good’ ‘important’ people do not just die from sickness or hunger or chance or mundane accidents” (more eugenics tbh, or at very least a just world ideology & confusing storytelling conventions with how the world works)
I think this becomes an issue when people—who have not studied, for example, the way that communities engage in mutual aid during natural disasters even if disconnected beforehand—will assume that collapse will inevitably lead to evil cannibal hoards as the biggest threat to survival and therefore the most important thing to prepare for, instead of understanding that collapse is much more likely to lead to an absolute need for community interdependence and cooperation to survive in the face of environmental disaster. I think it’s an issue if you can’t picture disabled people during collapse because you watched a hundred depictions of post apocalyptic shows where disabled people are eerily absent or die immediately, instead of internalizing the much more likely reality that if you survive disaster even if you were able-bodied previously, you and everyone you know will likely be surviving as disabled people.
like the media is fun as a form of storytelling, but if you are approaching your imagination of the future with increasing climate crisis with images you got from zombie shows, you do need to take a break from the fiction and learn from communities that have actually experienced natural disasters in real life.
