Speaker
Description
Disaster movies provided an attractive viewing experience beginning in the early 1900s. Several disaster movies were produced from 1910-1930 and 1950-1970 before the market saturated during what is considered the golden age of disaster movies, the 1970s. A social scientific study of 1970s disaster movies was conducted with results published in a 1980 article entitled “The Study of Disaster Movies: Research
Problems, Findings, and Implications.” The study noted the importance of popular culture in affecting people’s beliefs and discussed the roles movies play in shaping the conceptions and ideas held by the public about the physical and human features of disastrous events. It also illustrated the major substantive observations and impressions (clichés) derived from the content of the disaster movies studied. This research conducts a similar social scientific study of natural disaster movies during what can be considered the second golden age of disaster movies, the late 1990s-early 2000s. How have the major substantive observations and impressions (clichés) illustrated in natural disaster movies changed since the 1970s, if at all?
