Japan’s Earthquakes, Tsunamis, and Godzilla

The recent devastation in Japan is horrible.  And yet it’s a boon for the news industry.  CNN and other news sites are swamped by visitors clicking on the most updated statistics and by the millions of viewers who sit transfixed, watching videos of the ocean’s seemingly slow but unstoppable march through towns and fields and the panicking supermarket workers who quickly move from trying to hold up the shaking shelves to just running for cover.  The whole thing looks like a movie, and not just any movie, but a genre that Japan crafted into perfection decades ago: the Godzilla movie.

What is it about disaster movies that draw us to them?  Why do we want to be horrified as our national monuments are incinerated by alien laser beams, entire cities are engulfed by the ocean waves, and millions and millions of people die as a giant lizard crashes through a crowded city, toppling buildings and smashing cars beneath his reptilian feet?  The first thing that comes to mind is… special effects.

It is undoubtedly cool to see something we could never truly witness (until the events in Japan) come to life.  The promoters know this, filling trailers full of jaw-dropping spectacles, digitally created scenes of fire and destruction that we can only hope never leaves the screen.  But there’s something more than just the arresting visuals (there are disaster novels as well), and that’s the story.  It’s a story that tells us a lot about our culture, what we value, and what we aspire to.  In almost all disaster movies, the central theme is triumph over adversity.

We love to kick ass.  It’s true.  Who hasn’t at some point imagined themselves conquering some foe?  The bigger the challenge, the greater the reward.  And there’s no adversary more universally accepted as “the bad guy” and nothing that forces us to perform great feats of heroism, than a global disaster.  Examine any disaster movie, and you’ll find that the movie is hinged around the stories of the people involved.  The destruction of the world is just a backdrop that allows them to come to grips with their shortcomings and their strained relations to come together as a family, nation or world and step up to become a hero.

Global events such as the one in Japan have the potential to shape the world.  How we react to them as a society can chart out the future of global cooperation, investment, and individual heroism.  But as we examine the following weeks through the telling of personal stories of the heroes of Japan, let us not forget that this power is closely mirrored by the power of film and books.  The stories in Godzilla, Independence Day, 2012 and countless other works of fiction inspire countless millions and may have helped to shape the ideals that have created the real-life heroes that are acting even now to defeat the devastating aftermath of the Japan earthquakes and tsunami.