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Many Hollywood depictions of infectious-disease outbreaks and pandemics over the past near century share some overarching themes, including untrustworthy government, social disparities and stigmatization of the “other,” according to a new analysis of 80 “culturally relevant” films published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA).
Study author Walter Dehority, a pediatric infectious-disease physician at the University of New Mexico School of Medicine, culled from 142 films released from 1914 to 2019 that depicted a human infectious-disease outbreak or pandemic as a key storyline.
He defined “culturally relevant” films as those that made at least $10 million at the box office, adjusted to 2019 dollars; won an Oscar; or had at least one “long-gap connection,” meaning a cultural reference to a film at least 25 years after its debut. (The earliest film to qualify was “Arrowsmith,” a 1931 adaptation of the Sinclair Lewis novel.)
The most common theme, found in 29 of the films, was dehumanization of an infected person; this was common in zombie flicks like the “Resident Evil” series and “Dawn of the Dead.” “The infected are often viewed as objects undeserving of sympathy and as recipients and perpetrators of violence,” Dehority wrote. The theme of biowarfare was almost equally as common, found in 28 movies dating back to the post-World War II film “Counterblast” in 1948.
Twenty films depicted failed leadership, often with governments turning on citizens “in attempts to destroy infected populations and contain an outbreak.” And 19 films showed stigmatization of infected individuals “often out of fear of infection and ignorance” — salient in films depicting HIV and plague outbreaks. Meanwhile, 18 films showed health and class disparities, including gaps in access to health care.
Steven Soderbergh’s star-packed 2011 film “Contagion,” which depicts societal devastation by a highly transmissible and deadly virus, had received a resurgence of interest as COVID-19 reared its head, Dehority noted. The film cracked iTunes’ AAPL, -1.62% U.S. top 10 chart earlier this year.
“Many may remember the development of a successful vaccine at the end of the movie,” Dehority wrote. “Perhaps, as we collectively enter an uncertain future wrought by COVID-19, some of these films will help us share not only a moment of communal reminiscence but of hope as well.”
Several early films leading into the 1950s (such as “Arrowsmith,” 1934’s “The Painted Veil” and 1939’s “The Rains Came”) centered on the sacrifice of “selfless,” generally male, physicians battling disease outbreaks. Movies with alien-infection themes, like “Space Master X-7” in 1957 and “The Angry Red Planet” in 1959, came in the wake of the U.S.-Soviet space rivalry, the study found.
“Such alien infections threatened our newfound confidence in antibiotics,” Dehority wrote. “Though these fears may seem fantastical now, many forget that until 1970, Apollo astronauts were quarantined for 3 weeks after their return to earth for just such a concern.”
A “darker era” of environmental-destruction depictions marked infectious-disease films of the ’60s and ’70s, according to the study, with the first portrayals of post-apocalyptic scenarios in films like 1964’s “The Last Man on Earth” and 1971’s “The Omega Man.” Hollywood lagged in developing storylines about the HIV epidemic, the analysis noted, but later produced films such as “Longtime Companion” in 1989 and “Philadelphia” in 1993.
“Releases after 2000 contributed half of all the movies studied and $2.6 billion in ticket sales,” Dehority added. “Increasingly bleak cinematic offerings were presented, populated with postapocalyptic landscapes (20 films) and hordes of the undead.”
