A kiss at the end of the world
Why does the apocalypse always seem so joyless?
My guy and I were watching the first episode of “The Last of Us” yesterday and we noticed that all the apocalypse shows we’ve ever seen are kind of the same. The tone is so hard to sit through: impending dread and awful things right around the corner in every scene. It honestly hits a little too close to home these days. I don’t remember feeling that so much when I was a kid or even into the Aughts, but now I have to temper it most of the time. There’s a perpetual current of crisis flowing parallel to the mundane, with a little stream of hope just nearby.
We tried to think of dystopian comedies. “Shaun of the Dead.” “Zombieland.” We couldn’t think of too many movies where people are still multi-dimensional and fall in love and have a good time despite it all. Maybe it’s because it‘s too close and writers just don’t have perspective: perhaps we’re living through the apocalypse now, or almost, so it’s hard to be anything but scared. But we could still giggle once in a while, right? It’s not gonna be all dirty clothes and dead car batteries forever. So instead of another round of zombie body horror, I want to pitch a few new stories.
How about an apocalypse rom-com? A meet-cute over foraging for wild greens. Boy in a ragna-rock band meets Girl just trying to find pants with pockets (still). They…
