An interesting, albeit sometimes flawed, examination of how Hollywood's interest in post-apocalyptic/dystopian fare might have changed the way Americans (and others) look at politics.

Using a variety of movies to make his case, Biskind offers an interesting argument. Sometimes, he's convincing, at other times I think he draws conclusions too quickly.

Worth a try if you are an avid Hollywood movie fan, and also a politics enthusiast.

In the new book, The Sky Is Falling: How Vampires, Zombies, Androids, and Superheroes Made America Great for Extremism, best-selling cultural journalist Peter Beskind gives myriad and detailed examples of how TV shows and movies can either be left, right or centrist in overall theme and in plotlines. After reading the book, I feel more confident that I could analyze media in that way. However, he does not offer any proof that mass media caused America to be great for extremism in the right or left. Rather, he did a great job showing how extremism (and centrism) in certain television shows and movies correspond to certain historical and current events. The two go hand in hand. Worthwhile read.

Thanks to NetGalley, New Press Publishers and the author Peter Beskind for an advanced electronic reading copy.

Left-Central Elite Doesn't Get Movies. I wanted to like this one, I *really* did. The title and description sounded *awesome*. Unfortunately, the book itself was a gold mine - the single *worst* description of a book I've ever used. Meaning you have to sift through a LOT of detritus to find even a single good flake, and an actual nugget worth of goodness is even more rare. Biskind looks at movies as old as WWII and as recent as Black Panther, all in service of a central premise that is so fatally flawed as to be laughable. This subject could have been handled very differently and a compelling case could have been made, but Biskind failed to really even make an attempt to make it. That said, his publisher has their stated goal of "sparking conversations", and in *that* regard, this book may be at least somewhat successful... though maybe in the "any press is better than no press" kind of way.

“The Sky Is Falling” infers a balanced “investigation” (the book blurb’s word, not mine) when it describes “the heroes of today’s movies and TV, whether far right or far left.” Perhaps a stronger examination of the initial sentence was in order: “Almost everything has been invoked to account for Trump’s victory and the rise of the alt-right, from job loss to racism to demography—everything, that is, except popular culture.”

I thought this book would feature a balanced view of how pop culture affects the politics of the world. Indeed, cultural journalist (again, the book blurb’s description, not mine) Peter Biskind spends a lot of time dissecting some of the blockbuster movies and televisions that he feels have contributed to current events. I found many of his discussion points interesting and, in that aspect, the book was an enjoyable read.

What bothered me was the obvious political slant inflicted on the book and its readers. While this may be my mistake for missing a clue (see comment above about the first sentence of the blurb), the author’s arguments are weakened when his personal politics are included. This began early with labeling America a democracy rather than a republic, following up with statements that are opinions rather than fact (one example, when talking about a movie comic book heroine testifying on Capitol Hill: “Trump might have called her ‘Leaking Natasha,’ but the film is on her side, not theirs or his”). Unfortunately, this is not an isolated example, nor did I see these type of opinions expressed concerning anyone else.

Which is too bad, because the book could have been a fair, informative description of how we are influenced by popular culture. If we include books in the author’s discussion, it demonstrates itself to be one more example. Three stars.

It’s an old truism that there are little more than a dozen stories in the world, told with endless variations in Hollywood movies. Peter Biskind is here to update that. In The Sky is Falling, films have taken on political aspects. They have entered an entirely new era of revenge (which used to be outlawed in movies). Common Good has been replaced by self-interest. And of course, the advent of posthumanism can be seen in various and sundry superheroes and accidental tourists. They absolutely dominate the industry. It’s a whole new universe for film.

Biskind sees films as reflecting ideology. Be they science fiction, horror or adventure, they represent extremes. Extremes of both left and right. The left features and favors victims, and uses scientists and doctors to save the city or country or planet. The right favors the military and police over caregivers and scientists, beating back enemies that all seem to want to own it all and annihilate us in the process of grabbing it. Basically, the left embraces the new, the right wants to restore the good old days.

We have abandoned human stories for ever more extreme situations. Everything seems to be based on superheroes lifted from 1950s comic books for 15 year old white boys. To attribute left or right wing political expressions to these setups is a bit of a stretch, but there are enough films out there for Biskind to fill the book with examples backing his thesis. Personally, I see the Hollywood machine as anything for a buck, not having a clue as to what will sell, and copying whatever does. Left and right are out of scope. But Biskind successfully makes the case that films exhibit these properties, consistently and thoroughly, intentionally or not. And he has great fun doing it.

Peter Biskind is very entertaining himself. He swerves in and out of Trump, Bush, Reagan and Nixon criticism. This is not mere Hollywood gossip. Biskind references the likes of Chomsky, Locke and Shakespeare in his comparisons and analyses. He describes films in loving detail so that even though I have not seen many of them (to my own satisfaction after reading this), I have a total handle on the plot and the characters (without having to sit through 11 years of the tv series). The book never sags, but there isn’t a crying need for so much reconfirmation. I got it, early on. For example, I don’t think any of the 12 chapters doesn’t focus on Avatar, clearly the most important film in Biskind’s life. Star Wars and The Walking Dead are not far behind. He is a zombie lover, which by his account, makes him a leftist.

Towards the end, Biskind admits things aren’t necessarily so clear cut, as The Hunger Games is claimed by both left (environmentalists, anti-growth and Luddites) and the right (pioneer frontier women “like Sarah Palin, suckled by wolves”, states disabled by central government, etc.). Similar left-right interpretations are made for Avatar and Star Wars. Movies it seems, can be designed to attract varied audiences. What a surprise.

I particularly like Biskind’s habit of changing endings. If a film is centrist, the character in question would necessarily end up a certain way, but if the same film were extremist, his/her fate would have been much different, and Biskind describes it perfectly. The political positioning changes the story, and story is everything, unless you’re in it for the blood and gore alone.

Peter Biskind has thought more about this, more than any post-human ought to. Analyzed it up and down. Attached great significance to everything, particularly the horror genre. And given a lot of B movies and tv series heavy credibility.

Needs to get out more.

David Wineberg

Biskind is out to explain here just how various TV shows and movies have helped to inform extremism with detailed explanations (some zoomed in to the nth degree), and others in a passing swipe.

It's likely no surprise that movies and shows of their respective eras can serve as a divining rod for the cultural happenings of that period, but here we're shown that this truly occurs more often than you may realize---not just in the more overt shows like 24 or Homeland, but in almost the entirety of James Cameron's oeuvre, in an array of Marvel superhero films, and yeah, even in the Twilight series.

This book is definitely at its strongest when it's comparing and contrasting pro-Trump ideals with science fiction and horror classics, linking some shows/movies; that isn't to say that they're made specifically for the hard right, but that there is ample reason to believe that the message (or, at least, motivations of characters within a particular film or show) shares a common ground with the current GOP/Tea Party/hard right, its mirrored opposite on the liberal side, or somewhere in between. Equally interesting is the posing of evidence regarding movies and shows that, on the surface, might appear as a tool for either the far left or right, but end up being something else altogether.

If the book has a weakness, it's that sometimes the information is so expansive and the book's pace is so frenetic that it's easy to lose track of just what exactly is being covered. I was in for some considerable backtracking, as much of the book's punch relies on the recollection and familiarity of the numerous affiliations across the political/value spectrum. I must also mention that I found several of his assertions of characters within examples to be a stretch (two that come to mind are from The Revenant and 2014's Robocop), but it didn't undermine the overall point he was trying to make (I should note that, while maybe not as exciting or thematically rich as its two successors, there is no way that Batman Begins is the weakest of Nolan's Dark Knight trilogy, as Biskind suggests).

It's always interesting to analyze the thematic aspects of film, and Biskind's book automatically causes one to look into themselves and take notice as to how their values stack up against the movies and shows they may hold dear (and what those shows may really be trying to say). There are also some low-key benefits to reading this: I now feel like I have no need to tackle the Left Behind or Twilight book series. Biskind's done the heavy lifting.

If you're even remotely intrigued by the title of this book, do yourself a favor and read it. It'll enrich many films and shows you're familiar with, and help you keep your mind open to these themes from here on out.

Many thanks to NetGalley and The New Press for the advance read.

This is touted as a work of cultural criticism about how aliens, vampires, etc. represent our cultural moment. To the extent I can get a thesis out of it, it’s that extremist views are now dominant in US popular culture, rather than centrist/quietist/trusting authority views. Unfortunately, Biskind selects his examples apparently at random from successful and not-so-successful media, and it’s hard to figure out what work his sorting of media into right-wing, left-wing, and centrist is supposed to do. Also, though he attempts to show that there was a centrist period in US popular culture, he doesn’t address the question of whether it is that centrism, rather than today’s extremism, that represents an outlier. There were occasional flashes of insight—I appreciated his point that in 2016 politicians weren’t saying “middle class” as much, as if acknowledging that this group was mostly gone, and replacing it with “everyday Americans.”

The Sky Is Falling: How Vampires, Zombies, Androids, and Superheroes Made America Great for Extremism

In The Sky Is Falling Peter Biskind analyzes current styles in mass-market pop culture films and TV shows and discusses how they're connected to political attitudes, extremist and mainstream.

Sometimes these movies and television series present a particular philosophy and sometimes they act as a battleground where contending ideologies fight it out.

Biskind identifies centrist, left-wing, and right-wing attitudes, and some in between.

Among many other films and television series, Biskind looks at Star Wars and what Biskind calls the anti-Star Wars, Avatar.

George Lucas has said how important the Vietnam War was to him and filmmakers of his generation. The war for the planet Pandora in the movie Avatar plays out like a rerun (to put it in TV terms) of the Vietnam conflict.

The television series Falling Skies, about an alien invasion of Earth, is a right-wing explanation about how America has let itself deteriorate. It even includes an American version of the stab-in-the-back theory right-wing Germans used to explain why they lost the first world war.

The explanation “They didn't let us win” is often quoted by Rambo-type characters to explain how America could have lost in Vietnam.

An example of one type of story, presented by the evangelical right, is the film God's Not Dead. Stories of the “rapture,” such as the television series Left Behind, may be popular with a religious audience, but they're also interesting to fans of fantasy or science fiction in general. (Unfortunately, many rapture stories are just bad on an artistic level.)

The TV show True Blood, about vampires on the bayou, and the X-Men films both present allegories against homophobia.

The Walking Dead, a television series about zombies, must be one of the most violent shows on the air. One look at the baseball bat wrapped in barbed wire was enough for me. I don't care what the zombies symbolize.

Biskind looks at revenge heroes (if there can be such a thing): The Matrix, Jack Bauer, and Christopher Nolan's Batman.

Like most of Peter Biskind's books, The Sky is Falling is carefully thought out history and an interesting read.

(Thanks to NetGalley and The New Press for a digital review copy.)