Apocalypses NowTwo Modes of Vulnerability in Last Night and The Mist

  1. Fabián Orán Llarena 1
  1. 1 Universidad de La Laguna
    info

    Universidad de La Laguna

    San Cristobal de La Laguna, España

    ROR https://ror.org/01r9z8p25

Zeitschrift:
Canada and Beyond: a Journal of Canadian Literary and Cultural

ISSN: 2254-1179

Datum der Publikation: 2018

Ausgabe: 7

Nummer: 1

Seiten: 61-70

Art: Artikel

DOI: 10.33776/CANDB.V7I0.3143 DIALNET GOOGLE SCHOLAR lock_openArias Montano editor

Andere Publikationen in: Canada and Beyond: a Journal of Canadian Literary and Cultural

Ziele für nachhaltige Entwicklung

Zusammenfassung

This paper draws on Judith Butler’s notions of vulnerability, precarity, and grievability to examine two filmic texts: the Canadian Last Night (Don McKellar, 1998) and the American The Mist (Frank Darabont, 2007). Both primary sources feature the apocalypse as their principal narrative and thematic concern –a trope virtually unexplored from the standpoint of the production of vulnerability and the bodily dimensions of political and ethical life. In the present contribution I conduct a close analysis of both films so as to identify and evaluate the significantly contrasting modes of vulnerability produced in these two narrations. I argue that these conflicting worldviews originate from the differentiated episodes of (de)valuation, legitimization, and recognition experienced by and in bodies in the face of the ultimate phenomenon of vulnerability: the apocalypse. My structuring argument is that Last Night complies with the notion of vulnerability as a locus of ethical cohabitation and affective engagement while constructing a heterogeneous sense of Canadianness. The Mist, on the other hand, deploys vulnerability as a discursive mechanism that causes individual and social bodies to be subjected to a range of violence-prone asymmetries and processes of dehumanization, rearticulating key rhetoric and imagery from American cultural history

Bibliographische Referenzen

  • The 700 Club with Pat Robertson. Christian Broadcasting Network. Virginia. September 13, 2001. Television . Bercovitch, Sacvan. The Puritan Origins of the American Self. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2011.
  • Blake, Linnie. The Wounds of Nations: Horror Cinema, Historical Trauma and National Identity. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2009.
  • Bracke, Sarah. “Vulnerability and Resistance in Times of Resilience.” Vulnerability in Resistance. Eds. Judit Butler, Zeynep Gambetti, and Leticia Sabsay. Durham: Duke University Press, 2016. 52-75.
  • Butler, Judith. Frames of War: When is Life Grievable? New York: Verso, 2010.
  • Butler, Judith . Precarious Life: The Powers of Mourning and Violence. New York: Verso. 2004.
  • Butler, Judith . “Precarious Life, Vulnerability, and the Ethics of Cohabitation.” The Journal of Speculative Philosophy 26.2 (2012): 134-151.
  • Butler, Judith, Zeynep Gambetti, and Leticia Sabsay. “Introduction.” Vulnerability in Resistance. Eds. Judith Butler, Zeynep Gambetti, and Leticia Sabsay. Durham: Duke University Press, 2016. 1-11.
  • Gramsci, Antonio. Selections from the Prison Notebooks of Antonio Gramsci. Eds. & Trans. Quentin Hoare and Geoffrey Nowell Smith. London: Lawrence and Wishart, 1991.
  • Hall, Stuart. “The Question of Cultural Identity.” Modernity and its Futures. Eds. Stuart Hall, David Held, and Tony McGrew. Oxford: Polity Press, 1992. 273-326.
  • Heineman, Kenneth J. God is a Conservative: Religion, Politics, and Morality in Contemporary America. New York: New York University Press, 1998.
  • Hutcheon, Linda. “The Canadian Postmodern: Fiction in English Since 1960.” Studies in Canadian Literature: Introduction and Critical Essays. Ed. Arnold E. Davidson. New York: MLA, 1990. 18-33. Keith, W.J. “Third World America: Some Preliminary Considerations.” Studies in Canadian Literature: Introduction and Critical Essays. Ed. Arnold E. Davidson. New York: MLA, 1990. 5-17.
  • Krewani, Angela, and Karen A. Ritzenhoff. “Introduction.” The Apocalypse in Film: Dystopias, Disasters, and Other Visions about the End of the World. Eds. Karen A. Ritzenhoff and Angela Krewani. London: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2015. xi-xxii.
  • Kroestch, Robert, and Diane Bessai. “Death is a Happy Ending: A Dialogue in Thirteen Parts”. Figures in the Ground: Canadian Essays on Modern Literature Collected in Honour of Sheila Watson. Eds. Diane Bessai and David Jackel. Saskatoon: Western Producer Prairie Books, 1978. 206-215.
  • Laclau, Ernesto, and Chantal Mouffe. Hegemony and Socialist Strategy: Towards a Radical Democratic Politics. New York: Verso, 1985.
  • Last Night. Dir. Don McKellar. Lions Gate Film, 1998. DVD . Lipset, Seymour Martin. American Exceptionalism: A Double-Edged Sword. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1996.
  • McSweeney, Terence. “The Land of the Dead and the Home of the Brave: Romero’s Vision of a Post-9/11 America.” Reframing 9-11: Film, Popular Culture and the “War on Terror”. Eds. Jeff Birkenstein, Anna Froula, and Karen Randell. New York: Continuum, 2011. 107-126.
  • Melancholia. Dir. Lars Von Trier. Zentropa Entertainments et al., 2011. DVD.
  • The Mist. Dir. Frank Darabont. Dimension Films and Darkwoods Productions, 2007.DVD.
  • Moreman, Christopher M., and Corey James Rushton. Zombies Are Us: Essays on the Humanity of the Walking Dead. Jefferson: McFarland & Co., 2011.
  • Pontypool. Dir. Bruce McDonald. Maple Pictures, 2009. DVD.
  • The Road. Dir. John Hillcoat. Dimension Films, 2009. DVD.
  • Salamini, Leonardo. “Gramsci and Marxist Sociology of Knowledge: An Analysis of Hegemony-Ideology-Knowledge.” The Sociological Quarterly 5 (1974): 359-380.
  • Slotkin, Richard. Regeneration Through Violence: The Mythology of the Frontier, 1600-1860. New York: University of Oklahoma Press, 1973.
Fuente de los datos: Dialnet