Page - 73 - in JRFM - Journal Religion Film Media, Volume 05/02

The sacrifice of one’s life is an irrefutable proof of authenticity, as it implies the abandonment of any material power or richness. After dying in full youth un- der mythicized circumstances, Jimi Hendrix, Janice Joplin, Jim Morrison, Kurt Cobain, and Amy Winehouse became automatically heroes-saints-subjects of adoration, as the remarkable pilgrimages of followers to their graves evince. A term related to apocalypse is apocalypticism: “the belief that God has re- vealed the imminent end of the ongoing struggle between good and evil in his- tory”.17 Sklower approaches apocalypticism as part of the counterculture and integrated by three elements, all of them present in rock music: aesthetic van- guardism, the belief in the capacity of art to change society, and a specific re- lationship to modern life;18 the second of these features is crucial to this study. Since the 2000s so-called critical dystopia have actively renewed the production and perception of the modern apocalypse and its surrounding semiological uni- verse.19 CRITICAL DYSTOPIA “Dystopia” is a two-part term, formed by dys (bad) and topos (place). Generally, it involves a society that is undesirable and/or frightening, the antonym of Uto- pia (the no-place coined by More as a too-perfect community). “Critical dysto- pia” is characterized by the possibility of improving the real world and avoiding a material disaster. It is opposed to “classical dystopia”, which describes and criticises – but mostly accepts – a sad fate for humanity. Andrew Feenberg stud- ied dystopia and apocalypse in light of the emergence of “critical conscious- ness”, addressing “the rise of new doomsday myths inspired by the invention of the atom bomb”.20 Feenberg was aware of the restrictions of conventional dys- topia: “[t]he concept of dystopia implies the impossibility of escape.”21 Drawing upon the work of political scientist Lyman T. Sargent, Thomas Moylan provided a definition of critical dystopia that is the foundational axis of the notion: [A] textual mutation that self-reflexively takes on the present system and offers not only astute critiques of the order of things but also explorations of the oppositional spaces and possibilities from which the next round of political activism can derive imaginative sustenance and inspiration.22 17 Geraci 2010, 4. 18 Sklower 2014. 19 More nuances on the different dimensions and definitions of apocalypse and dystopia can be found in Ania 2007. 20 Feenberg 1995, 41. 21 Feenberg 1995, 43. 22 Moylan 2000, 15. Apocalypse as Critical Dystopia in Modern Popular Music | 73www.jrfm.eu 2019, 5/2, 69–94