The Sky Is Falling

How Vampires, Zombies, Androids, and Superheroes Made America Great for Extremism

By: Peter Biskind

Narrated by: Stephen Lang

Length: 10 hrs and 16 mins

Publisher's summary

Almost everything has been invoked to account for Trump's victory and the rise of alt-right, from job loss to racism to demography - everything, that is, except popular culture. In The Sky Is Falling best-selling cultural critic, Peter Biskind, dives headlong into two decades of popular culture - from superhero franchises such as the Dark Knight, X-Men, and the Avengers and series like The Walking Dead and Game of Thrones to thrillers like Homeland and 24 - and emerges to argue that these shows are saturated with the values that are currently animating our extreme politics.

Where once centrist institutions and their agents - cops and docs, soldiers and scientists, as well as educators, politicians, and "experts" of every stripe - were glorified by mainstream Hollywood, the heroes of today's movies and TV, whether far right or far left, have overthrown the old ideological consensus. Many of our shows dramatize extreme circumstances - an apocalypse of one sort or another - that require extreme measures, such as revenge, torture, lying, and even the vigilante violence traditionally discouraged in mainstream entertainment. In this bold, provocative, and witty cultural investigation, Biskind shows how extreme culture now calls the shots. It has become, in effect, the new mainstream.

©2018 Peter Biskind (P)2018 Blackstone Audio, Inc.

I find this book to be very interesting and I good

and a very good listen and would recommend this to anyone including movies buffs

Makes you think about what you watch.

The observations and analysis in this book put a new layer of understanding and context on the most popular movies and TV shows of today.
The perspective is interesting and this is totally worth listening to, but the way that some characters are repeatedly referred to is super annoying. It’s not “Eric Magneto” — it’s either his given name Eric Lensherr or his super villain name Magneto. We don’t talk about Peter Spider-Man or Clark Superman.

Only good for drinking game

I thought it would be an unbiased opinion. I was wrong and President Trump should be paying rent for the space he is taking up in his head. Would be a good drinking game, just take a shot every time he says “in other words “. A girl would be drunk in five minutes. He points out right wrongs but almost no left wrong or lies.

The reader is fantastic

This book is non fiction. The title is a little misleading. Whatever the case is, the author's view is a bit a-historical. He mentions anti communist witch hunts in the 30s with the same disdain he offers to the origins of the KKK. I think he has a good point when talking about how movies talk past our brains and touch our emotions. I also think he's about 30 years too late for the observation. If you like this book read, "manufacturing consent." If you don't, read it anyway but I'm digressing. I think his idea to be in the middle of anything precludes the idea of something being right or good which honestly does less to further the conversation.

The book is very focused on movies if you fancy yourself a movie buff you might like it, you might also be have to had these conversations in already so ... That's the review!

Oh right, the readers performance is on point. Voice as dire as the subject often is, reminds me of rod sterling.

this rambling diatribe made me long for an apocaly

this was nothing more then a thinly vailed political view and painting people with a broad brush.

Could have been an essay

This book spent way to much time on the same examples to make the same points. Every chapter made the same points, and often with the same shows and films as examples. Not sure why it was necessary to include racial slurs, but perhaps the author fell victim to the shock he was trying to critique. Huge waste of time.

Attack of the beige Supermen

I want to start off by saying a few things firstly, I don't normally review anything. Secondly, I'm going to do something the book fails to do and I'm going to tell you my Biases. I'm a libertarian and in the view of this book an "extremist". So, now let's get to the review, the only good thing about this book is the title. The 1st part of the book, our own chicken little, in this case the author; Completely and totally mischaracterizes Normalcy to suit his own myopic biased agenda. Simultaneously not recognizing the fact that his own opinions, and that's all this book is opinions, are so biased and out of date that they no longer are relevant. Save your money on something actually Worth your time.