Life & Faith

  Film and TV critic Alissa Wilkinson on the end of the world - as pop culture imagines it. --- “Dystopia is like the more woke version of utopia. It’s where we’re working out our biggest anxieties as a culture. For instance, does the human race deserve to continue? Or would it be better if we just went away?” Alissa Wilkinson fell into film and television criticism after completing a degree in computer science – which she says actually helps her analyse culture well.  “I think my job is to watch a movie as well as I can, and then be able to look at my reaction to it as a good watcher and articulate why that reaction happened, and then also to make space for the reader to have their own experience with the work of art,” Alissa says. “Sometimes [my job is] to just say ‘this is bad’ or ‘this is a masterpiece’, but if I don’t add the ‘why?’ then I’m not doing my job at all as a critic.” She’s particularly fascinated by ‘“end of the world’” narratives and is the co-author of How to Survive the Apocalypse: Zombies