ABSTRACT
With recourse to a large number of film examples across time and place, this chapter argues that that not only can societal responses to epidemics take very different courses, but the factors driving these responses do not come out of nowhere. Instead, they are informed by developments already happening or existing within societies. The authors identify two overarching models of epidemic response depicted in film. In the first case, the prejudicial identification of targeted groups during epidemics—those that might be implicated or blamed in some way—is founded upon a pre-existing discord or a dissatisfaction with the “amoral” path that society has followed. In the second case, the resistance and unrest that epidemics sometimes produce—often in response to arbitrary or excessive social controls impeding freedoms or customs—is built upon pre-existing antagonism shaped by widening gaps between elites and experts, between insiders and outsiders, and between those with access to resources and knowledge and those whose access is restricted.
