Don’t Panic

In the midst of a crisis, herd mentality tends to increase. Certain media groups and politicians sow distrust, causing people to panic-buy supplies or even guns. Cinema often explores the dangers of panic and groupthink.

One classic example is Panique (1947) by Julien Duvivier [corrected from “Claude Duvivier”]. An allegory for how the French could have supported Nazi occupiers, Panique realistically examines how people make decisions in a crowd that they would never make alone. When a man is accused of murder simply for being different, a small group’s vocal outrage eventually turns the entire town against him.

While the remake, Monsieur Hire (1989), is arguably more polished, Panique more directly addresses the danger of herd mentality in a contemporary post-WWII setting.

In Los Angeles, during the coronavirus outbreak, people scrambled for sanitary products and other items. LA is often stereotyped as morally or socially extreme; John Schlesinger’s The Day of the Locust (1975) took that idea to extremes, culminating in another frightening example of collective hysteria. During a movie premiere, tensions flare and a chaotic riot erupts when violence breaks out—yet radio commentators mistake the riot for excited moviegoers.

The Day of the Locust uses that riot to summarize its built-up anxieties. People easily succumb to fear, preparing for the worst once they sense any threat. Horror films often reveal the worst sides of humanity under pressure. In Ringu 0 (2000), the third in the Japanese “Ring” series, Sadako’s curse stems from the fear she engenders in her theater troupe. As she’s blamed for strange occurrences, fear escalates to anger.

Fiction can be more “truthful” than reality in that it distills and focuses our anxieties. Hopefully, the real-world response to crises won’t match these movie scenarios—but these films remind us that panic can be as dangerous as any outbreak.

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