Disaster movies are multi-protagonist stories, and more character-centred than most action movies, yet with a simpler plot. The cast of characters will include a range of stereotypes, easy for the audience to interpret and predict, and the basic good versus evil binary will be undisguised, except for one or two characters who shift from one side to the other.
It is through character that the effects of the central theme of the individual in relation to society are explored. Key character types are introduced early, so that the audience can enjoy speculating on how their scenarios will be played out. Characters have to disappear or be killed off in a count-down to the survival of the final few, guessing who will be next is part of audience enjoyment.
Analyze the opening sequence of a disaster movie
The opening minutes of a disaster movie set the scene and introduce the cast of characters, as Warren Buckland shows in his detailed analysis of Spielberg's Jurassic Park (1993). By the combination of camera angle, lighting, and choice of shot with the prior knowledge of an experienced audience, the director can convey a great deal about the character's type and function in a few seconds.
"The way characters are introduced in these opening scenes creates a heightened sense of coherence," Buckland suggests, "and [these scenes] also identify them as protagonists or antagonists." Buckland calls this narration paradigmatic, where the audience is invited to 'read' the characters, then the narration continues syntagmatically. The first action trailer from Jurassic Park demonstrates the character focus.
Analyzing promotional material for a disaster movie, such as the posters for Armageddon (1998), reveals that these set up character relationships and narrative functions in a similar visual way.
Analyse the character types and how they move the plot along
Classic Hollywood realism makes the characters very believable, and lends verisimilitude to the disaster premise even though Propp's analysis of story suggests a cast of characters with set functions. Propp's character functions are those for an epic quest, a grand narrative, but co-operation is an important stage in the plot. When applied to disaster movies, the character functions relate to how the individual can co-operate with others to defeat, or defend against, the impending disaster. Their functions then become more specifically defined:
- Hero / good guy
- Villain / bad guy
- Bad guy turned good, exemplifying the theme of self-sacrifice or redemption
- Good guy turned bad, or at least sneaks out of the way of danger
- Self-doubter, who holds people back by hesitation and panic
- Bureaucrat, often also a profiteer, cuts corners and pinches pennies at the expense of society; includes leaders, politicians, military
- Strong woman, often an expert, sometimes the voice in the wilderness
- Damsel in distress - the stereotypical girl, who gets in the way and screams a lot, and may cause another character to defect at a crucial moment
- voice in the wilderness, the expert nobody listened to until the last minute
- Reluctant hero or unsung hero, who just gets on with doing what's necessary, who may also be a female doctor or nurse
- children, who often know useful information
- support characters
- the victims, who function as symbolic, they have little to say or do
Children are used as a symbol in disaster movies, perhaps of the future that must be saved, or of the high stakes that the characters are playing for in the gambles they must take to win their escape. Characters' fuctions are constrained both by the stock disaster movie themes and by the specific location. The hero may not survive, as Bruce Willis’s character in Armageddon (1998), preferring to rescue their children’s future by their self-sacrifice.
Issues of representation in disaster movies
Issues of difference in gender, race, class and disability are all represented poorly or negatively in action adventure films where, historically, leading characters are mostly white American males. But in disaster movies, race and gender have evolved as somewhat less narrow:
- The clever woman who knows the science or the technical solution is thought to have evolved in response to changes in women's expectations in real life, a strategy to broaden the audience.
- Black leaders, buddies, and heroes emerged as characters in the 1990s resurgence of the sub-genre, enabled by the cult and star status of Samuel L. Jackson, Morgan Freeman and Will Smith, for instance.
- Social class may be the key to understanding the struggle that goes on with bureaucrats or military.
- The notable absence in this sub-genre is that of the disabled person, who does not have agency as a protagonist or antagonist, but is not stereotyped as a habitual victim, either.
Because these are multi-protagonist movies, representation may not be quite so crucial an issue in disaster movies as in others, there usually being no single point of view through which the audience experiences the story. Stock characters, stereotypes and clichéd situations are intrinsic to the mechanics of the disaster plot, along with clear character arcs, when the main 'character' is the disaster itself.
Sources
Warren Buckland (2007) Directed by Steven Spielberg: poetics of the contemporary Hollywood blockbuster Continuum
Vladimir Propp, transl. L. Scott, (1968, repr. 1975) Morphology of the Folk Tale Indiana University
A.A. Berger (1991) Popular Culture Genres: Theories and Texts Sage
Valerie Williamson - Dr. Val Williamson is a freelance journalist and academic specialising in historical and popular culture topics.
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