Hollywood Shields Us
I rewatched Terminator 2 today. By all means, it remains an absolutely fantastic film and will always stand to me an a great example of a strong female protagonist done perfectly well unlike most modern films.
There’s a famous and rather horrifying scene that reminded me of a frequent thought I have. In it, Sarah Connor watches a nuclear explosion over the city of Los Angeles. She and other people, including children, burn alive before being turned into bones by the shockwave.
The scene hit me differently this time as it’s really quite terrifying. You just don’t see stuff like that anymore. Although, we rarely saw it in the first place.
See, Hollywood doesn’t actually want to frighten you that much. If you came out of movies traumatized, you’d never go back. There’s a limit to what they show and what’s perhaps most fascinating to me is the limit is rather low key in my opinion.
Realistic effects of nuclear war is a great example of what they don’t show. An all out nuclear exchange is mortifying in a way that is hard for us to grasp. And there’s an actual example of a movie that tried to do this.
The Day After was a 1983 straight to tv movie that depicted an all out nuclear exchange between the US and the Soviet Union. Over 100 million people watched its debut. The fifteen minutes or so of the movie depicting the nuclear exchange are almost beyond description. It grapples with the reality that there is no running, no hiding, and hundreds of millions of people die within a few minutes. It doesn’t stop there by showing the devastating effects of radiation. It was so frightening they couldn’t find any sponsors for it and I believe it caused panic in some areas of the US. (Not to mention never aired again in such a capacity)
The movie finishes with a “disclaimer just before the end credits, stating that the film is fictional, and that the real-life outcome of a nuclear war would be much worse than the events portrayed onscreen.”
And these limited events absolutely horrified people. I have tried several times to watch the segment and honestly, I can’t do it. It’s chilling all the way down.
Similarly, I don’t believe any movie has shown the effects of all out chemical warfare. There are countless other examples I can think of that are possible in nature that Hollywood either doesn’t show or dumbs down. Did you know there are parasitic funguses that can turn animals into literal zombies? Yeah. I really don’t need to see that taking over the human species.
All this is to say, Hollywood is in the business of entertainment, not giving people nightmare fuel. Once I realized this a few years ago, I’ve always enjoyed horror movies a little more for balancing the tightrope so well to scare us just enough but not to overtly frighten us forever.