What If ? Science fiction Hollywood films as a cultural artifact: A showcase of Western worldview

In a « disenchanted » West, to use Max Weber words, a predictable world, where modern science, secularism, impersonal market economy and bureaucracy reign supreme, science fiction as a field of speculation, prediction, warnings or as a lab of the future is undeniably popular in cinemas this last two decades. As cultural artifacts, they offer ready to be used reading grids to make sense of a society that becomes more complicated with each passing day. As Walter Lippmann (1997) argued that cinema has "authority over the imagination" and since "The films of a nation reflect its mentality", as perfectly stated by Kracauer (1947), I analyzed how Science Fiction Hollywood films, considered as a cultural artifact, act as a showcase of western worldview, shaping our understanding and expectations of both present and future ? In front of recurrent themes, such as « natural » disasters, wars, dehumanization and social fractures, I chose and examined through discourse and film analyses seventy science-fiction Hollywood films and did six case studies : Avatar, Interstellar, Inception, Jurassic World, Black Panther and Hunger Games. Through a symptomatic interpretation, I systematically analyzed patterns and elements, (codes in Roland Barthes' words), whose frequency is revealing of their cultural relevancy. Science fiction films are as much a product of the society as a producer of discourse within the society, showcasing the Western world, both feeding on and feeding its fears, hopes, visions of the future and featuring archetypes of threats and heroes. I thus analyzed the films through three main axes, guiding my quantitative and qualitative analysis, loosely mimicking Joseph Campbell's hero's journey : the novum, the threat and the savior.