Conventions in Disaster Movies

Although I have done a page about my article “Disaster Narratives by Design: Is Japan Different?” and I have done many posts (linked from that page) about disaster movies analysed for that article, as well as some additional disaster movies, in which I refer to the Conventions in Disaster Movies that I developed in that article, I have not yet done a post that provides a list of these conventions. This post does that.

Group	Convention
A	1. Pillars of Truth
	2. Mood of dread/threat
	3. Primarily impacts nationality of narrative makers
	4. Image of disaster
	5. Dominance of male characters
	6. Mini-victories
	7. Family
	8. Suffering Protagonists
	9. Cross section of society represented
	10. Savagery but optimism
	11. Death of main character
	12. No distancing in time (may not apply to historical narratives)
B	13. Conflict between characters, but unite against disaster
	14. Panic
	15. Isolation
C	16. Show dead bodies
	17. Contemporary significance

Based upon Table 2 in “Disaster Narratives by Design: Is Japan Different?” (2020: p.196).

Conventions in Group A were found in at least 60% of both English-language and Japanese-language disaster movies; those in Group B were found in at least 60% of English-language movies, but less than 60% of Japanese-language ones; those in Group C were found in less than 60% of English-language movies but at least 60% of Japanese-language ones.

For a full discussion on and explanation of these conventions, see the article “Disaster Narratives by Design: Is Japan Different?“

The research for the article has also helped me to develop two other publications, which I will post about in due course, and an online lecture ‘Japanese Disaster Narratives: Conservatism and Revisionism‘.