Mass destruction imagery within the science fiction film genre is not a new cinematic development. However, a swell of destruction-centred films has emerged since the proliferation of digital technologies and computer-generated imagery that reflect concerns that extend beyond notions of spectacle. Through illusionistic realism techniques, the aesthetics of mass destruction imagery within science fiction cinema can be seen as appropriating the implied veracity of other film traditions in order to create a baseline of visual credibility, even to the extent of associating its own fantastical fictions with recent historic destruction events. This thesis investigates the representation of mass destruction across the spectrum of contemporary science fiction films emerging from around the world by examining the various methods employed to affect the spectator. The study is divided into four sections: realism, spectacle, sublimity, and correlation. It is structured so as to escalate from the establishment of a baseline of vraisemblance of the spectator’s empirical understanding of the world, to new representations of death and destruction, whereby visual aesthetic correlations emerge between science fiction and historical fact. My study attempts to contribute to the current discourse on science fiction cinema by focusing on the relationship between the aesthetics of realism and spectacle and their impact on spectatorial affect. By re-defining notions of film realism and the cinematic sublime, and through close textual analyses of a number of contemporary science fiction films, the intent of this paper is to present a greater understanding of the complicated inherencies borne by mass destruction spectacle.

Tout comme la dépression, le suicide revêt plusieurs figures. Et au-delà de tout cadre nosographique ou structurel, ce qui les détermine tous-deux réside dans la confrontation à l’épreuve de la perte, du deuil. La mort elle-même prend-t-elle figure dans le vécu de perte de l’objet aimé ? La clinique des sujets survivants au suicide révèle en effet cet étrange paradoxe : Se tuer physiquement pour survivre psychiquement à la souffrance engendrée dans l’actuel par le vécu de perte de l’objet aimé. Inquiétante étrangeté de la mort qui, non seulement se mêle ici intimement à la vie, mais semble aussi détenir en elle une figure autoconservatrice pour la psyché menacée par l’anéantissement : c’est bien lorsqu’il est confronté à la menace d’effondrement que le sujet décide de se tuer, le suicide apparaissant telle une défense contre l’angoisse. Pour appréhender ce paradoxe, il s’agit donc en premier lieu d’interroger le suicide dans son rapport aux problématiques dépressives, et de lier l’expérience primitive de la perte aux fondements de la réalité psychique du sujet. Emergent alors certaines équivalences entre l’expérience de séparation et l’anéantissement psychique, qui permettent elles-mêmes d’envisager l’existence d’une correspondance entre l’éprouvé archaïque de mort psychique et la mort de soi. Cette correspondance entre mort psychique et mort physique, opérant sous l’œuvre du clivage de la personnalité, pourrait bien être active dans la formation du suicide interrompu. / As for depression, suicide reveals different features. And beyond nosographical or structural framework, what determines them both lies in the confrontation of the ordeal of loss, mourning. Is death itself taking in the lived experience of the loss of the loved objet? The clinical study of suicide survivors shows indeed a strange paradox: physically killing oneself in order to survive psychically the suffering generated in the present by the experience of the loss of the loved object. Disturbing oddness of death, which not only mingles here intimately with life, but also seems to hold in itself a self-preserving feature for the psyche threatened by annihilation: it is indeed when confronted with the threat of collapse that the subject decides to kill himself, suicide appearing as a defense against anxiety. In order to understand this paradox, we need first and foremost to question suicide in its relation to depressive problems and to link the initial experience of loss with the foundations of the psychic reality of the subject. Then certain equivalences are emerging between the experience of separation and psychic annihilation, which allow us to envisage the existence of a connection between the archaic proved of psychic death and the death of oneself. This connection between psychic death and physical death, acting under the personality cleavage, may well be active in the development of interrupted suicide.

This study investigates the values that the print media place on human lives in an international context. This was conducted by examining the coverage of death in international news. Although the research literature shows a number of studies that examined the coverage of death, this particular study differs from previous studies because all such previous research has had either a narrow focus or shortcomings in their research methods. In this context, this study is a comprehensive evaluation of how newspapers cover death in foreign news. By focussing on quality newspapers in Germany and Australia, namely the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, the Süddeutsche, The Australian and the Sydney Morning Herald, the study identified the differences in the coverage of death in these newspapers. In particular the study examined whether these newspapers gave preference in any form to reports of death from countries that were culturally similar as opposed to countries that were culturally dissimilar countries. The study further examined and highlighted the basis on which journalists in Germany and Australia made news decisions about whether or not to cover foreign events that included death and what criteria informed their news decisions. By applying a cultural framework developed especially for the purpose of examining international news, the study found clear evidence that journalists primarily look for a cultural connection to their own country in making news judgments in regard to foreign news coverage. The framework used in this study was based on the following four cultural dimensions: world views, value systems, systems of social organisation and systems of symbolic representation. In this regard, an event in which a large number of people have died, but which is located in a country that does not have many links along these dimensions with the newspaper’s home country will not necessarily rate very highly. In contrast, an event involving a few dead people would rate highly if the event occurred in a country with which the newspaper’s home country has many links along the four dimensions. In this regard, issues such as news fatigue, also called compassion fatigue, can be overcome by a cultural connection to another country. Differences in how German and Australian quality newspapers treated stories about foreign death, both in the use of language and the use of photographs, were also examined in detail. In this regard, Australian newspapers were found to display relatively more tabloid characteristics than German newspapers, with clear differences in the language used when describing death. Differences in the use of graphic photographs were not as clear, though distinctions could still be made to a certain degree across national lines. In general, journalists’ approaches to how they treated death could also be traced back to some distinct cultural differences between Germany and Australia.