There is a theory that predicts what movies people will like during Trump's administration.
People like watching in movies what is on their mind on a subconscious level.
Vampire-stories were originally about the horror from the grave. At a time when society had no idea how this "medicine" thing worked. Over time, they transformed into a different fear: The Vampire as the lusty, sexually tempting stranger making you do things you are not supposed to do. Forbidden Love.
Edgar Allen Poe, H.P. Lovecraft... That fateful horror-story competition that lead to Mary Shelley writing "Frankenstein", the first science-fiction story. All these were in the 19th century. An age of scientific upheaval. Science had been born only two centuries ago and revealed mind-bending new answers about the cosmos and life.
Lovecraft's stories focused on the horror from beyond spilling into our innocent daily life.
Shelley's "Frankenstein" is about a revolutionary scientific experiment (to discover the secrets of death and life themselves) that spirals out of control. It lurks just out of reach, the consequences of this experiment ready to ruin the seemingly picture-perfect life of the protagonist at any moment.
In the 1970s and 80s, the theme was Zombies. Why?
The colorful, spiritual era of the 60s and 70s (where you couldn't spit on the ground in California without hitting a new cult) was being replaced by a world of cold, hard, cynical, capitalist conservatism. Reagan.
An era of seeing turned into an era of not-seeing.
Example: "They Live" in which aliens have infiltrated society to turn is into complacent and uncritical consumers, kept occupied by trivialities. We literally cannot see the truth.
In the early 2000s, what became popular was movies/books about young adults escaping from an oppressive society into a parallel world, sort of "urban fantasy". Examples: "Twilight" and "Harry Potter".
Why? Terrorism had made the world serious again. The outlook was bad, full of bad people and war. We didn't like that world. We wanted to live in another one. (And in "Harry Potter", Voldemort was basically waging a terror-campaign against the magical world until it collapsed and he took over.)
http://www.beamsandstruts.com/articles/item/952-vampires-wizards-zombies
Nor are they reading Harry Potter saying "Oh come on! That just wouldn't work! It defies the laws of physics!" Adults who read Harry Potter let themselves take a vacation into a time and mentality where the laws of physics are fluid and bendy. Because it's fun. Because it gives you a taste of what it was like to be a kid, ... And no one's leaving the theatre believing they'll stumble upon a magic hammer or invent a self-generating mini reactor that'll power a bad-ass iron fighting suit. It's just a great way to have fun for a while. It's a little bit of magic spice to liven up the curry of our lives.
Now, which of those elements do we have in the era of Trump?
- He certainly is an evil ruler. Whose followers are willfully blind to what he's doing.
- Instead of a hopeful sci-fi-future, international conflicts are back. Countries like Ukraine and Syria torn down into civil-war in a blink. Saber-rattling in the South-China Sea. Russia threatening to invade the Baltic States.
- What once was deemed rock-solid, can be taken from you at any moment: Your beliefs, your security...
I predict that in the upcoming years movies/books with the following themes will be popular
- "unthinking, merciless, blind masses"
- "escape into a better/different world"
- "your secure life gets taken away from you"
For example:
You must build a new life faraway because Zombies destroyed your old life.
Or... The regime is destroying your life.
Or... Somebody's life gets destroyed and he finds solace in his fantasy.
The robot up-rising of Steven Spielberg's upcoming "Robopocalypse" (basically a mix of "Terminator" and "I, Robot"
would fit perfectly in there.
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