The end is near! Why disaster movies make sense in the '90s - and dollars - Cover Story

Washington Monthly, April, 1997 by Howard Rabinowitz

Hidden within the family-values gloss of the nouveau disaster movie is a reproach, however. Implicit in the moral equation of who-lives-and-who-dies is a stern warning that the paterfamilias must be respected--or else. In Independence Day, the president's wife (Mary McDonnell) fails to obey her husband's request that she return home after the aliens have landed. She disregards his order and pays with her life. (But not before realizing her grave error; with practically her last breath, she apologizes to her husband for failing to do as he asked.) In Dante's Peak, Linda Hamilton's stubborn mother-in-law ignores Pierce Brosnan's exhortation to flee her volcano-side cottage. Guess who's not going to make it to the final reel?

The question remains: Why now? Why has the Heroic White Guy reemerged in the 1990s to protect us in a confused and perilous world? Because the new model of the disaster movie has changed so little from the '70s version, we can speculate that the perceived threats are similar, too. In the 1970s, the Heroic White Guy represented a conservative streak in an America where his voice was often drowned out by a chorus of disparate voices: anti-war protesters, Black Power militants, feminist revisionists, and more. Through his heroism, the White Guy asserted his place in the world and his moral right to occupy it.

The subtle conservative message of disaster movies in the '90s is that all is not right in the world and now more than ever we need a Heroic White Guy who can get us out of a fix. The hero for the '90s isn't a comic book fantasy, a Rambo or Terminator, whose sheer brawn and massive fire power can dispense with the bad guys, but an educated, resourceful middle manager with just enough wits and stamina to survive. In a global economy, with a shrinking professional job market, you might find the Heroic White Guy checking the Help Wanted ads these days--and not finding many opportunities. In '90s disaster movies, catastrophe seems to be lending a hand. It's Nature's way of ensuring that the Heroic White Guy doesn't get permanently downsized.