Diseased Cinema: Plagues, Pandemics and Zombies in American Movies

American movies about infectious diseases have reflected and driven dominant cultural narratives during the past century. These movies – both real pandemics and imagined zombie outbreaks – have become wildly popular since the beginning of the 21 st century. They have shifted from featuring a contained outbreak to an imagined containment of a known disease to a globalized, uncontainable pandemic of an unknown origin. Movie narratives have changed from identifying and solving social problems to a despair and acceptance of America’s failure to fulfil its historic social contract. Movies reflect and drive developments in American capitalism that increasingly advocates for individuals and their families, rather than communities and the public good. Disease movies today minimize human differences and envisage a utopian new world order to advance the needs of contemporary American capitalism. These movie narratives shaped reactions to the outbreak of Covid and reinforced individual responsibility as the solution to end the pandemic. Figures Preface Introduction Disease Movies Past and Present Early Disease Movies from the Advent of Film to the Early 1990s The Rise of Viral Disease Movies and a Nostalgia for the Past Post-Apocalyptic Worlds and Posthumanity Future Pandemics in Movies 1. Early Disease Movies: American Norms and Containment Introduction The Origins of Disease Movies: From Silent Films to World War II The Heroic Public Servant and the American Dream: Panic in the Streets (1950) An Alternative Vision: The Seventh Seal (1957) Revealing the Rot in American Values: Night of the Living Dead (1968) A Critique of Values and a Global Pandemic: Shivers (1975) and Virus (1980) Conclusion 2. Disease Movies in Transition: Globalization and Imagined Containment Introduction The Disease Is Contained: Outbreak (1995) Prescient Transitions: 12 Monkeys (1995) and 28 Days Later (2002) Fast Zombies and Fragmentation: Dawn of the Dead (2004) Dark Disease Movies and a Pandemic Sequel: 28 Weeks Later (2007) Conclusion 3. Post-Apocalyptic Disease Movies: Pandemics and Posthumanity Introduction Spiritual Faith in the Twenty-First Century: Children of Men (2006) and Black Death (2010) Individual Choice in a Fractured Society: Contagion (2011) Patriarchal Zombie Pandemics: Zombieland (2009) and World War Z (2013) Hope for a New Society: Rise of the Planet of the Apes (2011) and Its Sequels Conclusion 4. Remaking Humanity: The Body Snatchers Introduction The Infection of Small-Town America: Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956) The Spread to Urban America: Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978) An Aggressive Expansion across America: Body Snatchers (1993) The Attractive Threat: The Invasion (2007) The Happy, Bio-Engineered Transformation: Little Joe (2019) Conclusion 5. Popularizing the Pandemic: The Resident Evil Franchise Introduction Nostalgia for an Imagined Containment: Resident Evil (2002) Transitions and New Paradigms: Apocalypse (2004), Extinction (2007), Afterlife (2010) and Retribution (2012) The New Apotheosis: The Final Chapter (2016) Conclusion 6. Movie Myths: The COVID-19 Pandemic Introduction Consuming Movie Pandemics during COVID The Blurring of COVID and the Movie Pandemic Landscape The Wrong Lessons of Movie Stories The Stories Missing in Movies Conclusion Conclusion The Historical Arc of Disease Movies Depicting an End of Times Landscape The COVID Story Movie Myths and Stories for the Future Bibliography INDEX h4Discusses how the depiction of diseases in movies has changed over the last century and what these changes reveal about American culture/h4ulliExamines disease movies as a genre that has emerged over the last century and includes pandemic and zombie films/liliReveals the changes to the genre’s narratives over three broad time periods: the beginning of film through the 1980s, the 1990s through the mid-2000s, and the late 2000s and afterward/liliInvestigates the evolution of disease movies through three perspectives: historically notable films, remakes, and franchises/liliAnalyses disease movies in the context of the development of American, global capitalism and the fragmentation of the social contract/liliExplains the role of disease movie narratives in the American experience of Covid/li/ulpAmerican movies about infectious diseases have reflected and driven dominant cultural narratives during the past century. These movies - both real pandemics and imagined zombie outbreaks - have become wildly popular since the beginning of the 21st century./ppThey have shifted from featuring a contained outbreak to an imagined containment of a known disease to a globalized, uncontainable pandemic of an unknown origin. Movie narratives have changed from identifying and solving social problems to a despair and acceptance of America’s failure to fulfil its historic social contract./ppMovies reflect and drive developments in American capitalism that increasingly advocates for individuals and their families, rather than communities and the public good. Disease movies today minimize human differences and envisage a utopian new world order to advance the needs of contemporary American capitalism. These movie narratives shaped reactions to the outbreak of Covid and reinforced individual responsibility as the solution to end the pandemic./p