Films set in a post-apocalyptic world would, according to American researchers, be a good way to prepare for all the eventualities that can happen during a global disaster such as a pandemic.
- Horror and zombie movies are good preparation for a pandemic or even a global catastrophe.
- These stories have the ability to project us into the “next world”, which explains their effectiveness.
The Covid-19 pandemic has shown everyone how easily reality can surpass fiction. Whether it’s old movies, like Contagion by Steven Soderbergh, released in 2011 but which has recently taken on a particular resonance, even television series based on a post-apocalyptic world, fiction has never ceased to prepare us for the “world after”.
If this film genre is very popular, moviegoers did not know that immersing themselves in fiction prepared them for the reality of 2020. This is the observation made by researchers from the University of Pennsylvania (United States ) whose works were published on 1er January 2021 in the magazine Personality and Individual Differences.
Informed moviegoers
In their research, the team realized that people who enjoy watching horror movies may have been better prepared than others for the Covid-19 pandemic. “My last research collaboration was unique in that my colleagues wanted to identify factors beyond personality that contribute to people’s psychological preparedness and resilience in the face of the pandemic.explains John Johnson, emeritus professor of psychology at the University of Pennsylvania. After controlling for personality influences, which were actually quite strong, we found that the more movies people had seen about zombies, alien invasions and apocalyptic pandemics before Covid-19, the better they dealt with the current pandemic. These kinds of movies apparently serve as mental rehearsals for real events.”
To demonstrate their claims, the researchers designed an Internet survey to which 310 participants responded. Thirteen survey items assessed positive or negative resilience and a series of six questions focused on pandemic preparedness.
“A preparation for life”
Second, participants were asked how much they liked the following genres: horror, zombie, psychological thriller, supernatural, apocalyptic/post-apocalyptic, science fiction, alien invasion, crime, comedy and romance in cinema and television. Finally, participants were asked about their interest in films dealing explicitly with pandemics as well as past and present experiences.
“What we found was that people who watched certain types of movies before the pandemic seemed to be helped by them during the pandemicemphasizes John Johnson. For me, that implies an even bigger message about stories in general, whether in books, movies, or plays. Stories are not just entertainment, but preparation for life.”
If you haven’t yet done your film literacy on the subject, know that watching these films is always beneficial according to John Johnson, even if the pandemic (or any other global disaster) is already underway. “I’m not sure watching such movies now would be helpful for our current situation. However, my understanding of pandemics and other life-threatening events is that similar challenges are absolutely inevitable in the future. The past is often too easily forgotten. Who remembered the Spanish flu epidemic until scientists evoked this page of history during Covid-19? It reinforces my belief that consuming stories from books, movies, and maybe even video games is not just an idle pastime, but a way for us to imagine simulated realities that help prepare us to future challenges.”
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