‘Godzilla: King of the Monsters’ is screening at Liberty by Scope, Colombo City Center and other film halls across the island
The monsters that stalk us in popular culture embody fears about our contemporary human condition. As a new Godzilla movie opens in cinemas this week, we might gain insight into what currently haunts us most.
The endless waves of zombies in film, TV, and literature are said to reflect the mindlessness of our behavior, whether as a cog in the industrial machine, or as noted by film scholar Leo Braudy, as “an unthinking member of a mass consumer society.”
For Braudy, zombies “may best represent the anxieties of the 21st century” because these nameless monsters can represent whatever fear most consumes us as individuals, which might include pandemics, globalization, or the anonymity imposed by impersonal technology.
However, the age we are currently living in requires another monster—one that is capable of representing the awesome complexity and enormity of the challenges facing humanity today. That monster is Godzilla.
Quartzy
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