I don’t heart NY

Posted by Chris

December 31, 2007

There was a story a couple of days ago, linked to by Costa, about why New York City is so often the victim of massive waves of cinematic destruction. The examples are plentiful, but the issue is coming into clear focus with I Am Legend showing a decrepit city and Cloverfield about to show NYC getting the fuzzy end of the lollipop, by which I mean the clawed end of some acquatic monster’s hand.

Not only is this a constant theme in the movies themselves but it also makes for a great hook for the marketing campaign. The Day After Tomorrow’s poster showed the NYC skyline all covered in snow, the Cloverfield trailers and TV spots show the Statue of Liberty’s head bouncing around like a whiffle ball (and the poster shows the body of the statue, or, the tee) and IAL’s posters and ads showed various shots of the city in a state of massive decay.

As the story says, the city so often gets demolished because doing so creates and emotional impact in the audience that the leveling of a cornfield in Indiana just wouldn’t. It’s nationally and internationally a clear sign that something drastic has happened.

That being said, I’d just once like to see Chicago get the shaft in the movies. Just