Feminist Apocalypse: Representations of Women and Gender in Post-Apocalyptic Cinema

Feminist Apocalypse explores how the post-apocalypse is best seen as a narrative mode rather than genre, and its use in cinematic narrative began in the 1950s, largely fueled by the Cold War and fear of nuclear annihilation. In this book, Ezekiel Crago argues early post-apocalyptic films were primarily concerned with the plight of their usually white male protagonist, but this changed in the 1980s, as films and television shows started focusing instead on white women protagonists.Crago explores post-apocalyptic films such as The Terminator, Dawn of the Dead, Tank Girl, Mad Max: Fury Road, A Quiet Place, etc. and their depictions of women surviving extreme conditions, establishing the theme of the need for others to make surviving livable; women surviving and sometimes thriving through the use of violence and military masculinity; films that center the problem of post-apocalyptic natality and the role of motherhood; the children produced after the end of the world; and examines some wor