“The
end of the world is not once and for all, but recurring,” (Plate). The
apocalypse is something that has shown up for years in pop culture. For
decades, directors have built entire stories around an apocalypse. We’ve seen
it in movies like Godzilla, Independence
Day, After Earth, and even in satirical films like This is the End. The common theme that runs through all of these
movies is that there is a grand ending of the world. This is a concept that
people have considered as a real possibility for years. “Prophets” are people
who have been in contact with the divine in order to receive and relay messages
to the general population. These prophets, often times, are the ones who relay
the ideas of the apocalypse and when it is going to happen. However, all of the
speculation thus far has been wrong since the world has yet to end. Why is it,
though, there is only one apocalypse and one world in these situations?
On
September 11, 2001, the World Trade Center collapsed and it looked a little too
familiar because scenes like that had been portrayed in movies in the past. Even
though this wasn’t the end of “the” world, it was the end of many individual
worlds. One of the issues that I have with the pop culture portrayal of
apocalypses is that they are seen as a singular event that will kill off the
entire population of earth. However, I think that apocalypses happen every day
on a smaller scale. Each day, people are dying and people are losing loved
ones. These individual devastations are apocalypses in themselves because they
mark the end of an era for that individual. This resembles the typical idea of
an apocalypse because even though it isn’t mass destruction, it is the end of
something for someone. Therefore, I think it is important for us to realize
that an apocalypse does not only mean the end of “the” world, because in
reality there are infinitely many worlds. Each person has so many of their own worlds,
and when one of those comes to an end, that represents that person’s own,
individual apocalypse. Also, an apocalypse doesn’t have to occur because of
aliens or monsters. Instead, it can be happening from disease or global warming
or natural disasters, which are things that affect society every day. For
example, every day more than 1,500 Americans die of cancer. Sickness is one
example of a real life apocalypse that is happening each day, and as Plate
stated, is recurring.
(This photograph looks just like cities in apocalypse movies, however it is actually a real photo from a city that was affected by an earthquake.)
