From 'Robinson Crusoe' to 'Lost': Desert island life in pop culture

Anyone reading Daniel Defoe's "The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe" in 2024 won't just see the life story of a British man who sets off to become a merchant sailor and gets marooned on a deserted island for 28 years. Fact is, the protagonist was a slave trader who referred to Indigenous people as "savages" and takes on Man Friday, an Indigenous man, as his servant, who calls him "master."

British author William Golding's "Lord of the Flies" tells of how a plane evacuating a group of schoolboys from Britain crash-lands on a deserted island. The group's attempts to establish social order degenerate into savagery. The story's theme of exercising reason amid chaos remains relevant in the age of social media and fake news.

Seven castaways try to escape the deserted island on which they're marooned, only to have their attempts often thwarted by the witless titular character — played by the late Bob Denver (pictured here seated front and center). Despite plot holes and being panned by critics, this escapist American sitcom's aim was to provide simple laughs with the core message of learning to live with one another.

This widely panned film is about two young cousins-turned-lovers who are marooned on a tropical island in the South Pacific. As they reach puberty, their emotional and physical changes, as well as the lack of guidance or societal restrictions, lead to them falling in love and eventually having a baby together. Christopher Atkins and Brooke Shields (pictured) were 18 and 14 during filming.

Danny Boyle adapted Alex Garland's novel for the big screen with Leonardo DiCaprio playing Richard, a young traveler who discovers a hidden utopian community living on a secluded, pristine beach somewhere in Thailand. While it's not a typical marooned-on-an-island story, it is a cautionary tale that illustrates how the flawed human condition can dismantle the best-laid utopian plans.

The American reality TV series made "Outwit, Outplay, Outlast" a catchphrase of the early 2000s. The format, which was first used in 1997 for a Swedish TV show "Expedition: Robinson" (as in Crusoe), features a group of usually 16 to 20 contestants who are confined in a remote, exotic location and compete for a cash prize. The American version, in its 46th season this year, offers $1 million.

In yet another turn-of-the-century castaway drama, Tom Hanks plays a FedEx troubleshooter who is stranded on an uninhabited island after his plane crashes in the South Pacific. The story focuses on his desperate attempts to survive and return home. Hanks' inanimate co-star, Wilson the Volleyball, is iconic and has become one of the most-requested items for the actor to autograph.

Suspenseful and surreal, the multiple Emmy Award-winning American series "Lost" is about a group of people whose plane crash-lands — where else? — on a remote island in the Pacific. As the survivors work together to stay alive, they discover many mysteries about the island. The series attained "iconic" status for its non-linear, character-driven stories.