They’re Heading West : Post-Apocalyptic Visions on the Road

• Autor(a) principal: Duarte, José
• Data de Publicação: 2015
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• Texto Completo: http://hdl.handle.net/10451/27802
• topic: Journey; Road movies; (Post) apocalyptic cinema; Science fiction

‘Hitting the road’ has always been a significant act in the American culture, since it represents the opportunity for a new life. In most road movies, the road is often depicted either in a positive way or, in contrast, as the escape route for outlaws. Nevertheless, the road can similarly represent a place of violence and destruction, functioning ‘either as a utopian fantasy of homogeneity and national coherence, or as a dystopic nightmare’ (Cohan and Hark 1997: 3). The aim of this article is to analyze (post) apocalyptic road movies as critical dystopian narratives that present a horrific future while simultaneously functioning as a metaphor for the present, by pointing to dreadful, but possible alternative realities that, nonetheless, are not devoid of hope.