[Warning... it's really long, and I included the bibliography except for the last one which somehow got cut off]
So, without further ado, here it is...
In our class on Apocalypse in American Culture, we have addressed many of the key concepts embodied in the popular visions of “Apocalypse” and other forms of millennial thought. Through pop culture, films, stories, books, and articles, we have seen the ways in which – as Amy Frykholm would have it – “evangelical belief, symbolism, and… apocalypticism has seeped into American culture” (Frykholm, p. 27), and we have been exposed to the deepest and darkest corners of the American fascination with apocalypses and the millennium. In this revelatory process we have seen that, while visions of the apocalyptic variety almost inevitably include destruction and death (either implied or explicit), their greater purpose is not necessarily warning but, as William Katerberg reminds us, they are also “about redemption and hope, as the end of an old, sinful unjust world prepares the way for the creation of a new one” (Katerberg, p. 160) Through the use of five media portrayals, we will demonstrate some of the ways in which this saturation of apocalyptic thought into popular American culture has been used (more or less subtly) to portray a vision of hope on the other side of destruction – no matter how much that destruction might be deserved.
“Now we can move forward… to live once, for real. And then give way, to people who might do it better. To live only once, but with hope. (Æon Flux, Æon Flux)
Æon Flux (loosely based on the MTV animated series of the same name) is not, strictly speaking, an apocalyptic film. Instead, it deals with the concept of a dystopic post-apocalyptic future in which the citizenry is unknowingly being cloned to continue the species in lieu of the ability to actually reproduce on their own – due to the vaccine for an unidentified virus called “The Industrial Disease.” The conflict in this film arises from the decision of the leadership to kill women who were becoming naturally pregnant in order to maintain their place as an essentially immortal benevolent intelligentsia. Of interest to our discourse, however, are the particular versions of hope and horror evident in this beautifully portrayed post-apocalyptic tale.
While the hope in the film is not always directly in one’s face, neither is the horror. The film, though full of violence, is set in a veritable utopia gone slightly sour on the outside and completely rotten on the inside. Thus, the horror which one perceives lives on in beautiful settings and is often only revealed only in references to past events, glimpses of character flaws, or dreamily rendered images of loss, separation, or simply disjointed wrongness. Most tellingly, almost all of the evil and wrong that exists in the film (past or present) arises from mankind’s attempts to modify or correct nature. While we are not shown the root cause of the disease that devastates mankind, the name “Industrial Disease” hints at its origins. Likewise, the attempt to save humanity results in infertility for the species; the act of restoring fertility via cloning and experimentation leads to loss and mental disorders; and the imposition of order on organic society leads to megalomania and murder. Nature is kept at bay with toxic chemicals, and violence is often perpetuated via body modifications or genetically modified plants. Conversely, hope is portrayed through the beauty of nature unmodified. Pregnancy, death, and even chaos are eventually seen as the vehicles by which hope arises. Interestingly violence is portrayed as necessary to reverse the mistakes which mankind has made, though one is left with the feeling that perhaps violence and destruction are part and parcel of the same natural processes which allow hope to survive despite human attempts to derail it – well intended or not as those attempts may be.
“Enter His courts, enter with praise. Praise God the Father, the Son He did raise Spread the message from coast to coast. Every boy and girl can have the Holy Ghost.”
(All Saved Freak Band – 100th Psalm)
For Christians, Elves and Lovers (FCEL) by the All Saved Freak Band is a compilation with a millennial and specifically apocalyptic message. Aside from the importance of the band as one of the very first “Jesus Music” and “Christian Rock” bands, the fame of their ex-James Gang lead guitarist Glenn Schwartz, the groups tragic past as members of the Church of The Risen Christ commune founded by Larry Hill, the subsequent loss of band members to accidents due to sleep deprivation and electric shock, and their demise along with the collapse of their highly controversial commune; the album itself deserves respect as probably the only Christian album designed specifically to tie together Christian evangelism and “what [J. R. R.] Tolkein believed about the Gospel and God, and their relationship to fantasy… the real world, angels, men, and elves” (FCEL, liner notes). The album itself is fairly upbeat and produced in the bands usual style – which Rachel Khong of the Yale Herald called “part folk, part garage, part psychedelic, part blues and part who-knows-what" (All Saved Freak Band, Home Page). References to common themes in American apocalyptic thought abound throughout the album: the love song “You Haunt My Mind” references John’s vision in “Revelation” of a city “coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband,” and the dark “The Theme of the Fellowship of the Ring” uses Tolkien’s words as a vehicle to introduce a dark force of which we are asked, “Can we do as well in this hour, [and] destroy its power?” (FCEL).1
More importantly, however, the lyrics hold dire warnings of the eschatological collapse which the band saw coming. The opening song calls upon the trope of Biblical martyrdom through references to Stephen’s death at the hands of the Sanhedrin. “We are chosen people to do a task, and we're gonna meet the devil someday when he takes off his mask,” it warns, “Soon the hour will come, it's gonna get very, very dark” (FCEL, “Stephen”). Due to the albums evangelistic purpose, however, we hear in the album a deeper message of hope. “He's [God’s] gonna give the power to some,” Mike Berkey croons, “the light will shed forth in your heart.” After all, if we take heed, we “still have a choice” to be saved (FCEL, “Stephen”). In fact, the song “Old Man Daniel” reminds us that we too can reach heaven and avoid destruction if we can “finally learn to pray” (FCEL). Coming out of a world freshly exposed to Hal Lindsey’s The Late Great Planet Earth and from under a strong-willed commune leader who had visions of an invasion by China and the USSR (Terry, “The Journey to Heal”), it is amazing that these new converts had hope, but hope they proclaimed, and despite the horror which they thought was to come, hope they believed in.
"A unifying, purposeful life here on Earth, and the hope of heaven for themselves and their children. A real heaven, not mythology or philosophy. A heaven that will be theirs to shape.”
(Lauren Oya Olamina, The Parable of the Sower)
In The Parable of the Sower, Octavia Butler leads us into a world peopled by the survivors (and non-survivors) of an apocalypse which has left the West Coast where her heroine lives and prepares for the inevitable destruction of her home and family in a state of cultural, societal, financial, and legal disarray. When the destruction of her family’s compound is realized, she sets out with two companions through the post-apocalyptic landscape to America’s North-western coast where she begins to see her dreams of a peaceful humanistic society realized. Though we see the despair in the hyper-empathic Lauren’s presentient musings, we are immediately introduced to the hope implicit in the story, as she “discovers” the god that she will follow, and thus the path she will embark upon to create a religion that will change the world and create a future for the human race.
Butler’s work is particularly interesting in that the post-apocalyptic landscape inhabited by her characters is created through a series of what appears to be highly plausible “mini-apocalypses.” Unlike many visions of apocalypse in popular culture, Butler provides us with a world in which what might be considered somewhat “ordinary” crises combine to create an effect which is usually visualized as the result of large scale destruction in more traditional versions of pop-ocalypse. Of more importance to our purposes, however, is the vision of hope which she buries under extremely graphic rape, pillage, murder, and starvation. Through her masterful first-person narrating of the tale, Butler manages to show us a message, path, and plan of created hope via the voice of her juvenile prophetess of doom.
“We are bathed in radiation from a variety of sources both natural and man-made, we are trying to do our small part to improve general health and enhance dignity. Thank you for your interest in our products.” (Rocky Flats Gear, Home Page)
Rocky Flats Gear and their radiation proof underwear first came to my attention through a link on the website of Coast to Coast AM, a radio show dedicated to “UFOs, strange occurrences, life after death and other unexplained phenomena” (Coast to Coast AM, Home Page). The article referenced was a piece from CBS News in which Rocky Flats Gear describes their new underwear “that purportedly prevent the [new TSA] scanners from peeping at your privates” (“Thanksgiving Wishes,” CBS News). Upon visiting the website of the company itself, however, I found that the story was a bit deeper – provided us a glimpse of yet another way in which apocalyptic thought and language has crept into American Culture.
While underwear advertisements are the last place one might expect to find references to the Bible, apocalypse, and atomic weapons; this company’s website – advertising inventor Jeff Buske’s anti-radiation undies – has it all. The blurb at the top of the page provides us this highly commercialized version of horror and hope in two short paragraphs. “Background radiation has increased over the decades from atomic weapons testing, coal power plants,... industrial accidents, medical/security imaging, and use of depleted uranium munitions,” the site trumpets, “putting us all at greater cancer risk and generational DNA damage.” (Rocky Flats Gear, “Home Page”) However, Rocky Flats Gear’s fig leaf imprinted underwear (Bible reference alert!) can provide us with the hope that we need, since their “novel products can protect tissues from a broadband of ionizing and non-ionizing radiation,” and provide us for the first time “radiological shields [that] are attractive, durable, affordable, fun, and comfortable to wear” (Rocky Flats Gear, “Home Page”)
“The creator of the universe works in mysterious ways. But he uses a base ten counting system and likes round numbers. So you really want to avoid being, let’s say, in mobile home number 1,000,000 in the year 2000.” (Dogbert, Dilbert)
While a comic strip might seem an unlikely choice to demonstrate my theme of apocalyptic hope through horror, I found the Dilbert strips from March 24-26, 1994 to give an excellent example of the ways in which this concept has entered into our popular discourse. In these episodes, Dilbert creator Scott Adams uses the voice of his highly cynical Dogbert character to humorously voice popular fears surrounding apocalypse. Based on the premise that people must fear large round numbers, Dogbert begins to terrorize various Dilbert characters with threats of apocalypse in the year 2000 – either for simple fun or for financial gain.
While Dogbert does indeed offer hope of a sort to his victims (by avoiding mobile homes numbered 1,000,000 for example, or giving up all their money – to Dogbert – since money is evil and the world is ending), this hope is – of course – completely fallacious and for humorous intent. However, behind this very skeptical humor lies the real hope which Scott Adams gives us. Dogbert, in allowing us to see the absurdity of the apocalyptic narratives which so many of us buy into, offers us the chance to think… about ourselves, our fears, and the panacea’s provided to us by those who we should treat skeptically. In the end, this is perhaps the best hope of all.
“WELL DONE… YOU’RE FIRED” (God, to David Koresh)
Apocalyse is part and parcel of the social and cultural world in which we, as Americans, live and breathe. Of this we can be certain, and from this there is no escape visible in the near future. But while – like the proverbial poor – apocalypse may always be with us, there is nothing preventing us from having a little fun with it. In the end, this is what we have. As Amy Frykholm points out, American apocalypticism… provides the material out of which we make the world,” and it “shapes our stories about America itself and… the direction and meaning of the world.” (Frykholm, p. 14) However, as this selection of media demonstrates, part and parcel of the apocalyptic package we are offered includes HOPE. The hope is often barely imaginable, just out of reach, and poorly described; but this is perhaps simply a result of the function of hope itself. Hope is by its very nature often ineffable and incomprehensible, but thanks to the (apocalyptic) stories we tell ourselves, it is also inevitable. For this, I am thankful.
Adams, Scott. "Dilbert - Search Results for 'end World'" Dilbert Archive. Web. 29 Nov. 2010.
Aeon Flux. Dir. Karyn Kusama. Prod. Gale Anne Hurd, David Gale, Gary Lucchesi, Gregory Goodman, and Martha Griffin. By Phil Hay and Matt Manfredi. Perf. Charlize Theron, Marton Csokas, and Jonny Lee Miller. Paramount Pictures Corporation, 2005. Netflix.
All Saved Freak Band. For Christians, Elves and Lovers. Rock the World Enterprises, 1976. Vinyl recording.
"The All Saved Freak Band (Home Page)." All Saved Freak Band. Web. 28 Nov. 2010.
Butler, Octavia E. Parable of the Sower. New York: Warner, 2000.
Frykholm, Amy Johnson. "The Rapture in America." Rapture Culture: Left behind in
Evangelical America. Oxford, England: Oxford UP, 2004.
"Home Page." Coast to Coast AM. Web. 29 Nov. 2010.
Jaslow, Ryan. "Thanksgiving Wishes: TSA-Proof Underwear for Travelers - Health Blog – CBS News." Breaking News Headlines: Business, Entertainment & World News - CBS
News. CBS News. Web. 29 Nov. 2010.
Katerberg, William H. "Transcendent Horizons and the Redemption of Time." Future West: Utopia and Apocalypse in Frontier Science Fiction. Lawrence: University of Kansas, 2008.
"Rocky Flats Gear protect your heath, privacy and dignity." Rocky Flats Gear protect your heath, privacy and dignity. Web. 29 Nov. 2010.
Terry, Shelley. "The Journey to Heal." - ExChristian.Net - Ar
