Madmen (2007–2015) succeeded as spectacle by opening a window of taboo enjoyment onto the 1950s, when gender roles were unquestionably binary, patriarchy ruled the day, and Jell-o was an entree.
Despite Chernobyl’s (2019) unrelenting horror, it offers a parallel window of (imaginary) taboo enjoyment, a window to Francis Fukuyama’s End of History, the spectacle of Totalitarian fragility, and comfort in the unquestionable supremacy of the West.
1989 is the kickoff of the End of History (1989–2007) — twenty years of banner Western growth and democratic capitalist triumphalism. Chernobyl is the trigger point.
Just as Madmen offered a reprieve from the identity politics and political correctness of high-liberalism, Chernobyl offered a reprieve from the ambiguity of the global political order over the past decade (the great weirding, from 2008–2021).
What is the great weirding? China climbs global GDP rankings, and the End of History unravels. China moves according to a current of reform and opening, with gains attributable to liberalism, until it doesn’t. Xi Jinping takes a hard Totalitarian turn, lifting term limits, purging opponents, and releasing programs of far-reaching social control in Xinjiang. Incumbent notions of justice and the natural order confound themselves.
Trump is elected, the COVID pandemic disrupts business as usual, and totalitarian states seem to manage the collective emergency with aplomb. N.B. we’re not overlooking the admirable work of socialist micro-democracies Taiwan and New Zealand.
We never expected the post ’89 world order to unfold like this. As things diverge from their anticipated outcomes, collective anxieties grow in the West. Does strong government offer a more efficient way forward? As the mind drifts here, Chernobyl steps in with imaginary relief.
What is the stage for this imaginary fantasy? The decisive scene: the underground decision room in episode one of Chernobyl. The party apparatchiks have convened to discuss the scope and appropriate response to the crisis. Their will to accurately relay up the chain of command is undermined by their individual careerism. Their deliverance comes in the ever-growing pageant of shit Soviet technology — a Geiger counter that caps at a reading of 3.6 Roentgen. The upper bounds of their shit sensors offer a convenient lie.
Once the disaster is sufficiently minimized, the resident elder rallies the collective into a twisted double-speak celebration of the people and the party.
It’s funny watching Chernobyl post-COVID. The contrast of a totalitarian government fully bungling its response, with a totalitarian government effectively managing its response. Does [totalitarian government] x [artificial intelligence] make a killer combination?
The great unravelling may or may not be underway, but some islands of imaginary relief remain.
