Lectures on Tap - "Why Disaster Movies Are Always Set in LA"

📍 Location: Exact address given in confirmation email

🧠 Lecture: "Why Disaster Movies Are Always Set in LA"

🎤 Speaker: Author, Dr. John Trafton

From earthquakes and riots to alien invasions and freeway pileups, Hollywood takes a special pleasure in demolishing Los Angeles on screen. Why has L.A. become cinema’s favorite disaster zone?

In this engaging talk, film and media scholar Dr. John Trafton traces a line from postwar noir anxiety to blockbuster spectacle and post-Vietnam distrust of institutions. Drawing on films like Earthquake, Terminator 2, and Blade Runner, he shows how destroying L.A. isn’t just about spectacle—it’s a way for American cinema to work through fears about power, technology, and the future. In Hollywood, watching L.A. fall apart is often how we make sense of it.

Dr. Trafton is the author of Movie-Made Los Angeles (2023) and the forthcoming Los Angeles and Film: A Cultural History (2026). His work explores how cinema and media shape the city’s cultural imagination, and his research has appeared in journals such as Rethinking History and Journal of War and Cultural Studies. He also co-hosts the scholarly film podcast Moving Histories.

Get a drink, connect, and learn at Lectures on Tap! 🙌

Agenda

6:30 PM – Doors open: find a seat (open seating!), order food & drinks, and expect a bar line—arriving early is key. Attendees are welcome to come as early as 6:00 PM.

6:55 PM – Host introduction

7:00 PM – Lecture begins

7:45 PM – Audience Q&A

8:00 PM – Have 1:1 time with the speaker, mingle with fellow guests, and order another round

8:30 PM – Wrap up.

Know what’s Happening Next — before everyone else does.

Get App

Host or Publisher Felecia For The Win