{"id":1212,"date":"2009-11-17T07:00:07","date_gmt":"2009-11-17T13:00:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/crawler\/?p=1212"},"modified":"2009-11-16T23:24:51","modified_gmt":"2009-11-17T05:24:51","slug":"pop-culture-and-the-apocalypse","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/2009\/11\/17\/pop-culture-and-the-apocalypse\/","title":{"rendered":"pop culture and the apocalypse"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"img-link\" title=\"Creative Commons licensed photo by DTP David Thompson Photography on flickr.com\" href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/36457457@N00\/2637547276\/\" target=\"_blank\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright\" style=\"border: 0px\" src=\"http:\/\/farm4.static.flickr.com\/3136\/2637547276_5d6c64815f_m.jpg\" border=\"0\" alt=\"Storm in the sky\" \/><\/a>A recent article in the Fresno Bee\u00a0examined the current wave of apocalyptic themes in pop culture:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Prophecies about the end of the world have been debated by scholars, theologians and religious leaders for a long time. But it\u2019s not just them. Pop culture also has a fascination with end times.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<blockquote><p>The fascination is clear in society today with the release of recent movies. The film \u201c2012,\u201d which opened Friday, depicts the end of the world and is stirring talk about the meaning of a Mayan calendar with the doomsday date. Another movie, \u201cThe Road,\u201d which opens Nov. 25, looks at a man and his son\u2019s post-apocalyptic struggle to survive.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>One\u00a0sociological explanation for the\u00a0trend:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Sociologists say the interest in books, movies and lectures on the subject increases with bad times, such as those scarred by hurricanes, famines, tsunamis, war and economic collapse.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Commentary from a sociologist:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Margaret Gonsoulin, a sociology professor at California State University, Fresno, says the fascination with end times in pop culture reflects a hunger for meaning in the anxiety people feel in bad times.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<blockquote><p>\u201cThey want to know about the future,\u201d she says. \u201cBut these sorts of ideas about end times mean different things to different people.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.fresnobee.com\/lifestyle\/story\/1709914.html\" target=\"_blank\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A recent article in the Fresno Bee\u00a0examined the current wave of apocalyptic themes in pop culture: Prophecies about the end of the world have been debated by scholars, theologians and religious leaders for a long time. But it\u2019s not just them. Pop culture also has a fascination with end times. The fascination is clear in [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":336,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[39074],"tags":[39112,126,42,117],"class_list":["post-1212","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sightings","tag-culture","tag-disaster","tag-religion","tag-trends"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1212","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/336"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1212"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1212\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1216,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1212\/revisions\/1216"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1212"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1212"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1212"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}