Social Responses to Epidemics Depicted by Cinema

Abstract

Films illustrate 2 ways that epidemics can affect societies: fear leading to a breakdown in sociability and fear stimulating preservation of tightly held social norms. The first response is often informed by concern over perceived moral failings within society, the second response by the application of arbitrary or excessive controls from outside the community.

Keywords

• Cinema
• epidemics
• morality
• disorder
• resistance
• films