Novels, films, TV series or video games: cultural productions imagining post-apocalyptic worlds concentrate a very pessimistic era where catastrophic prophecy dominates.
Culture is a sponge that absorbs the spirit of the times. So when the Zeitgeist turns black — like it is now with the combination of the pandemic, economic inequality, the climate crisis, the new war in Europe, and the possibility of a nuclear Armageddon — when the present paints gray on gray and the future darkens, cultural productions darken or, on the contrary, play on tragic irony, this mockery of despair.
We have just seen this in concentrate with the production Don’t Look Up (Netflix) recounting the media and political tribulations of two astronomers announcing that the end of the world is very near. The film, reminiscent of a tragicomic pamphlet, stops at the last moments of the Earth of humans, struck by a new destructive comet. This is Doctor Strangelove version 2.0.
After the disaster
The most buoyant creative favor goes rather to the post-apocalyptic (or post-apocalyptic) genre, imagining post-disaster societies. So when Diana Maude Couture had to choose a subject for her master’s degree in literary studies at Laval University (2019), it imposed itself, and in particular through stories intended for teenagers.
“There was a turning point in literature between the beginning of the 2000s and the following decade, when we went from a very dominant fantastic genre to something much more post-apo”, explains the one who is now doing a second master’s degree, in librarianship that one. “My younger sister, who is seven years younger than me, only read science fiction about the world after, while I, a teenager, a few years earlier, I did not read any. »
The mutation can be summed up by the passage, at the top of the lists of bestsellers, of the low fantasy dominated by the series of Harry Potter (1997-2007) to the trilogy The Hunger Games (2008-2010). And in this science fiction, the menacing extraterrestrials of the XXand century have disappeared to make way for humans responsible for their own misfortunes. For his memoir, Mr.me Couture focused the analysis on Silo by Hugh Howey Divergent by Veronica Roth and the series The 100 by Morgan Kass. These fictions take place in societies that have already been rebuilt, whose new political structures they dissect and classify.
“In each of the novels analyzed, the cause of the apocalypse is human and unfortunately voluntary, caused by biological weapons or nuclear war, explains Mr.me Sewing. These worlds are hopeless: if someone, eventually, has the possibility of triggering the apocalypse, the worst happens. We can obviously think about what is happening in Ukraine at the moment… ”
The hyperapocalypse
The possibility of great nuclear destruction is not fictional. Ulrich Kühn, an expert on the subject at the University of Hamburg, told the New York Times that Russia might well detonate an atomic bomb in Ukraine. A possible response from NATO would trigger massive strikes in the northern hemisphere. A 2019 Princeton University simulation counts 85.3 million immediate victims (dead and injured) in 45 minutes of self-destruction by the atom.
“The first meaning of the apocalypse is religious, of course, but the very principle of civilization includes a fear of its annihilation,” explains literature professor Patrick Bergeron, of the University of New Brunswick, a specialist in the genre post -apo in culture. He explains that the First World War introduced another relationship to the death of individuals and societies. Four empires sank with the great massacre of 1914-1918.
The initially very biblical references of cultural creations shifted into secular tragic consciousness with the nuclear age, which reached its apotheosis between the Cuban missile crisis and the 1980s. say exploded, becoming climatic, ecological, bacteriological or cybernetic. Throughout, the genre has attracted top authors, from William Golding to JG Ballard, from Margaret Atwood to Cormac McCarthy. Jean-Paul Engélibert, a great specialist in the very vast subject, summed up the dark contemporary literary creative influence by speaking of “apocalypses without a kingdom” (this is the title of his 2013 book): in our stories, the great annihilation arises, but no paradise ensues.
“The attacks of 2001 made us enter a hyperapocalyptic phase,” adds Professor Bergeron. We are spoiled for choice and you can choose your end of the world. We have never been plunged into so many threatening situations for humanity. Add the deep erosion of living together, between “wokism” and libertarians or posthumanist currents, and we understand why we are sinking into the hyperapocalypse. »
The screens are saturated with it, often through transpositions of novels. Yellowjackets (with Quebecer Sophie Nélisse) resumes His Majesty of the Flies with an all-female cast. Diana Maude Couture says the adaptation of The 100 is even better than the book, a rarity. Professor Bergeron talks about zombiemania everywhere in movies, TV series, novels. He points out that, in superhero movies, “a new trope” involves the destruction of gigantic proportions of neighborhoods or entire cities. He even cites a 2012 LG TV ad touting the ability to replicate the end of the world live.
Play in the ruins of the world
Can we have fun with the end of the world? In any case, we can dive into it and have fun with a multitude of video games in the post-apo vein. This War of Mine (2014) is inspired by the siege of Sarajevo in the 1990s. The player must manage resources to help the survivors of a destructive war.
“It seems to me unfortunately very close to the situation in Ukraine,” says Bruno Dion, giving this example himself. He chose to make post-apo games his subject of mastery. “There are a lot of them and the production comes and goes, a bit like in the cinema. The imagined universes make it possible to explore rich themes, such as the causes of the destruction of the Old World by the evils of humanity. At the same time, there remains hope since there is something after the end of the world. »
Series fallout (a reference to atomic fallout) is set after the nuclear holocaust of 2077. The version Fallout 4 from Bethesda Game Studios launched in November 2015, except in Japan, which had to wait another month to receive redacted versions of atomic warfare footage and references. Sim Settlements, a novelty introduced in Fallout 4, can rebuild a society.
In this world after, the few survivors evolve in the middle of a land in ruins. Bruno Dion’s 2015 memoir is nicely titled The exploration of post-apocalyptic ruin video game as a creator of memory and emotions. The analysis shows that the “ruinoform landscapes” bearing traces of the vanished world and the cause of its destruction act on the agency of the players.
“The game gives the opportunity to decide what everyone wants to do in their world after the end of the world,” says Mr. Dion, who now works in the field of video games in Montreal. “The player must make moral choices. He can explore possibilities, ways of being and behaving. He can be a nice guy. He can be a villain…”
Like many companies around the world, Japanese video game giants Nintendo and Sony have suspended their day-to-day business with Russia, the aggressor of Ukraine. The two groups have stopped sending games and consoles there.
Nintendo has also announced the postponement of the release to an indefinite date of a new version of its franchise. Advance Wars 1+2: Re-Boot Camp, scheduled for April 8, “due to international events”. The strategy game with drawn and childish imagery uses tanks and planes to take over cities. One of the warring factions seems to be inspired by Russian military imagery…