Let's Talk: Kids. They Have No Respect For The Apocalypse

I'm going to do my best to think of every movie or television series I can that's involved civilization crumbling and law no longer really being relevant.  These are the post-apocalypse worlds that filled the 80s and 90s that I still think back to fondly.

The Running Man
Mad Max
Aliens
Escape From New York
Independence Day
Escape From L.A.
The Matrix
Tank Girl
Waterworld
Logan's Run
Soylent Green
Planet of the Apes
Night of the Living Dead (the original)
Thundarr The Barbarian

You know what something I distinctively remember about those movies and shows is?  When people live in a dirt-filled post-apocalyptic landscape, they tended to look like they lived in that kind of landscape.  Nobody was too "pretty."

Well, almost nobody.

Suddenly, around the turn of the century, this all changed.  Now, the only way you can tell who's going to survive the end of the world is based on who the most attractive people are, and I, for one, am still trying to figure out why this is so.




Now let's look at series and movies now that present the post-apocalypse.  How about one on one of the big networks, Revolution?

The apocalypse is, like, so totally bogus.

A group of young, attractive people become the key point in a massive plot where all the world's power was shut down, but they still have perfect hair that apparently gets done in a salon every day and perfectly clean clothes.  In Falling Skies, aliens invade, but by golly a woman will still be able to get highlights in her hair because the primary cast has to be, you guessed it, young and pretty.

"Really?  It takes most people at least an hour to get their hair like this?  Mine just does it naturally."

I'm going to sound like an old cantankerous fart here, but I remember when the way to tell someone was going to survive wasn't that they were the prettiest person in the cast.

I mean, let's look at Taaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhh, no.  Nonono.  I almost forgot, one of the key rules of this blog is we never, ever, ever look at Tank Girl.  God help me if a picture from that ever shows up.  Especially a picture of-

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH Dammit.

Okay, back on topic.  Let's look at the big epic stories.  We had the world being saved by Mel Gibson, Ah-nold, Kurt Russell, Michael York, Harrison Ford...we didn't have pretty teenagers running around fixing everything and basing who survives entirely on whether or not they happen to be attractive at the moment.  I've seen any number of shows where you can immediately tell someone's going to die because they suddenly get dirtier than everyone else.  Or they get a scar, or their clothes rip, or any other number of things that would decrease their "hotness."

I realize that we're trying to draw younger crowds into things, and things were never really "realistic" before when it came to hair (no, seriously, hair just grew into helmet-like shapes in the 60s, and Adrienne Barbeau's hair was always feathery, you needed enough gel to clog a hippo to get it to stay down) but it really does feel like it's reaching a point where we can fully expect the next big Internet meme quiz to be "WILL YOU SURVIVE THE APOCALYPSE?" and there will be only one question:

"r u hot or not?"