Imagining decline or sustainability: Hope, fear, and ideological discourse in Hollywood speculative fiction

Abstract

Over the past decade within Hollywood speculative fiction (SF), the natural environment has become more prominent as a cause of societal collapse. Interstellar, Elysium, Wall-E, Mad Max, and Tomorrowland, as a few examples, all include environmental change and deterioration as prominent plot points, rather than merely as settings. I analyze the political and ideological tenor of these films with a discourse framework to assess the influence of certain real-world discourses, as well as their optimism or pessimism in the context of real-world sustainability transformations. Within this genre, one continues to find a degree of ‘Prometheanism,’ or techno-optimism, but the distinctive discursive influence of the past decade and a half has been the rise of ‘Survivalism,’ a more dystopian or post-apocalyptic discourse. When the environment is prominent as a theme, that is, these films more often explore its destruction—often by humans—and the conditions of existence within such environments.

Societal collapse: A literature review

“…Similarly, while dystopian YA novels presented bleak expressions of political and social hopelessness, Hanssen (2018) asserted that they simultaneously applauded the ingenuity and resourcefulness of its protagonists in problem solving. The author's interpretation of the novels as optimistic statements on the need for environmental and social sustainability is in line with Dasilva (2019), although he presented it as two competing ideologies. Whereas both ideologies are firmly immersed in the context of real-world sustainability transformation, one is more techno-optimistic, and the other more dystopian and post-apocalyptic.…”

Imagination and transformations to sustainable and just futures

“…Beyond the debates of inclusiveness and power, multiple articles offer insights regarding the importance of emotions for the exercise of agency and as a catalyst for imagination (Milkoreit, 2017;Galafassi et al, 2018;Pigott, 2018;DaSilva, 2019;Pereira et al, 2019). Pigott (2018) suggests that feelings of apathy and surrender, whether created by too much dystopianism or too much utopianism, can diminish agency, while hope and anger can fuel it.…”

“…For instance, our contributors help us understand how the use of different media engages multiple human senses in creating shared imagination experiences, for instance, through videos explaining laws (Pigott, 2018) or combinations of visualization and sound in theater performances or films (Galafassi et al, 2018;Dasilva, 2019). Pigott (2018) adds an important argument to the discussion of sensory experiences when stating "in addition to understanding imagination as a cognitive skill, .…”