The Real Disaster of Hollywood Disaster Movies





“I think that most people don’t get to live in these big cities where we have skyscrapers, beautiful cars, and beautiful people, so it’s this wish-fulfillment of getting to destroy these things.”
Neal Moritz, the producer of Battle: Los Angeles.




“If there was ever a truly apocalyptic era, it is ours….
What is unique about our current situation is not that present-day man is capable of greater evil than the man of antiquity or the primitive.
He merely has incomparably more effective means with which to realize his propensity to evil.
As his consciousness has broadened and differentiated, so his moral nature has lagged behind.

Carl Jung, Civilization in Transition




I hate to be the one to break the news to Mr. Moritz, but there are people who actually choose not to live in these big cities with all these beautiful people and beautiful cars.
This myopic view of the world is part of the pathology of Hollywood, what a Jungian might call The Hollywood Complex.
When I experienced the devastating loss of a relationship — through my own stupidity as a young man — I dreamed of cities being destroyed and a new city being built in the center of the country. It was as if my way of thinking– the current government, as it were– had gotten me into this devastating situation, and needed to be destroyed and rebuilt in a new, more balanced way.
I would suggest that these disaster movies are partially about the current disaster of civilization we are experiencing, a wish to destroy something that is killing us and needs to be replaced. This is similar to dreams of death, where what needs to die is a current way of thinking or perceiving the world — not a physical death, but a symbolic death.
These disaster movies are also a reflection of the fearful times we are living in, the increasing possibilities of disasters from global warming, nuclear war, over-population, terrorism and weapons of mass destruction.
Sorry, Neal, but the idea that the goal of life is to be a beautiful person with a beautiful car is just the kind of disastrous thinking that is at the root of the problem. Clearly, aliens have already taken over Hollywood.

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