Blackouts in Film and TV with Denis Newiak

Widespread power outages have happened before, but authorities usually diagnose the cause and restore electricity within days, if not within hours. And with few exceptions, such blackouts occur without dissolving social bonds and prompting massive violence.In big screen and television fiction, however, things are different. Thrillers show us the dangerous, life-or-death scenarios that can arise when regular power and all it provides disappear. Science fiction explores diverse causes and implications of blackouts. Horror stories take full advantage of the darkness and the resort to pre-modern technology. All of them say something about us and about modernity.Denis Newiak has extensively researched and written about the intersection of crises, film and TV, and modern humanity. Most recently, his book Preparing for the Global Blackout: A Disaster Guide from TV and Cinema jumps into how fictional representations of lost electricity show us the contradiction that modern life is both safer and more dangerous than it was before the widespread availability of power. David Priess chatted with him about the field of media theory, their childhood attraction to disaster films, the many causes of fictional blackouts, how characters tend to react when realizing that things will be very different, the importance of radio in blackout fiction, the importance of darkness, what becomes valuable in no-electricity worlds, how comedies handle power outages, and Newiak's hope that government officials and business leaders with emergency management responsibilities are paying attention to what movies and TV reveal about humanity pushed to the edge.Among the works mentioned in this episode:The movie WALL-EThe TV show The Big Bang TheoryThe TV show 13 Reasons WhyThe TV show Bates MotelThe book Wicked by Gregory MaguireThe movie SoloThe movie ContagionThe TV show The Walking DeadThe TV movie 14 HoursThe movie The Book of EliThe TV show Grey's AnatomyThe TV show Tribes of EuropaThe movie The PurgeThe movie How It EndsThe TV show BlackoutThe movie CloverfieldThe movie 10 Cloverfield PlaceThe movie The Cloverfield ParadoxThe TV show V (1984-85)The TV show V (2009-11)The movie Close Encounters of the Third KindThe TV show SuperstoreThe TV show CommunityThe TV show The Flight AttendantThe movie MoonrakerChatter is a production of Lawfare and Goat Rodeo. This episode was produced and edited by Cara Shillenn of Goat Rodeo. Podcast theme by David Priess, featuring music created using Groovepad. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.