The end of the world as he knows it

Besieged white male authority and angry white masculinity in The Omega Man

Crago, Ezekiel

Science Fiction Film & Television (2019), 12, (3), 323–342.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.3828/sfftv.2019.19
Language: English
Pages: 20

Abstract

This essay examines The Omega Man (1971) as masculinist discourse that articulates racial anxiety and the possibility of a post-white, post-patriarchal future. The film exposes the usually invisible hegemonic reproduction of white masculine dominance through its figuration of Charlton Heston as the last man on Earth struggling against racialised mob violence. Through a consideration of this figure of an angry white man desperately attempting to maintain his dominant position in a society forever changed, I argue that this film reveals not only the danger of such men to others, but also some rationale for this rage.

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