There's No Place Like Home

        Why must our conception of apocalypse be rooted in the familiar? In today’s media and film industry, most apocalyptic movies are set in major cities. Tokyo’s fought off Godzilla, New York’s fended off just about everything from aliens (The Avengers, 2012) to contagion (I Am Legend, 2007), and countless unnamed metropolises have struggled to survive the end of days. What’s the draw of attacking these massive, familiar cities? Why do we need to make the apocalypse personal? It's only when our own fortress has been breached that we truly categorize something as utter devastation. Much like many other aspects of life, we need some element of relatability in order to empathize. Perhaps it is an unfortunate testament to the condition of human nature that we can often only conceptualize chaos if it directly relates to us. Although, that’s a relatively unfair statement. I’m not trying to argue that the majority of the country is incapable of empathizing with the apocalyptic like atrocities happening all over the world. But rather that the fear of these situations is most potent when its placed in the context of our lives. Our fear is most palpable when it’s our home and our city up on the screen and under attack.

        Furthermore, it’s critical to note that these movie settings are usually urban. There are apocalyptic movies set in the suburbs or rural areas. However, the overwhelming majority is in the city. We’re all familiar with the image of collapsed buildings, chaos in the streets, and the monster ravaging a city on fire. What is it about cities that make them the perfect setting for the apocalypse? In comparison to rural areas, cities are a prime example of human innovation. Cities are something that man created – they’re a place that took years and years of work to build. Have we thus come to understand the apocalypse as a destruction of the world we have created? Why does the destruction of nature bother us less than the devastation of our own realm? Perhaps, it’s an unconscious recognition of a direct attack on mankind and all that we have worked to create.