For a while, I resisted watching the various contagion thrillers that were being discussed online as the coronavirus pandemic hit countries across the world. How thrilling could simulated fear and suspense possibly be in the face of actual anxiety and insecurity? But as the horror of the pandemic began to play itself out on a daily basis, I found myself curious about its anticipation in popular film.

Two classics of the genre are Steven Soderbergh’s masterly film Contagion, from 2011, and the more cartoonish blockbuster from 1995 by Wolfgang Petersen, Outbreak (based on Richard Preston’s The Hot Zone). Watching these films in 2020, one thing became clear: we have been anticipating a pandemic for a long time. What our popular culture has had more difficulty in imagining, however, are the ways in which structural inequality would play out in the conditions of a global health crisis.

Both Contagion and Outbreak are set predominantly in the United States, for the most part turning a blind eye to the social dynamics of the Global South, as well as to the internal dynamics of class and race within America. Even the more sophisticated of the two films, Contagion, presents a fairly smooth vision of society, where rich and poor suffer together.