Manhatten gets MAMEd

Having seen New York destroyed on countless occasions I have to wonder what it's like to actually live in a city constantly under assault by fictional disasters. But why is it that New York always draws the short straw?
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PIXELS by PATRICK JEAN. by onemoreprod

My guess is that New York is simply the de-facto yardstick for civilization so it’s an easy way for film makers to convey the scale of their disaster to an audience.

But is there more to it than that?

In the US there’s always been rivalry between the east coast and the west and Hollywood is in LA so it follows that Manhattan might be the victim of a sort of metropolitan tall-poppy syndrome. Or maybe it stems from some deep-seated psychological rejection of urban life. Not to mention that the directors of these blockbusters are all men so we can’t discount the possibility that the destruction of New York is just collateral damage in their patriarchal efforts to symbolically topple the greatest woman on earth – Lady Liberty.

. . .Or maybe not.

See also this video on the Goodie Bag depicting; ‘Four decades of celluloid New York annihilation distilled into one musical montage.’

Richard Pendavingh

Photographer, designer and weekend historian. Editor of The Unravel. Writes about design, tech, history and anthropology.

https://twitter.com/selectav

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