tag:theconversation.com,2011:/au/topics/horror-17397/articles
Horror – The Conversation
2024-03-15T05:07:18Z
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/222606
2024-03-15T05:07:18Z
2024-03-15T05:07:18Z
‘An exceptionally queasy atmosphere’: the unsettling new Aussie horror You’ll Never Find Me
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/582118/original/file-20240315-20-dr4lqu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=142%2C11%2C7797%2C5249&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Credit Ian Routledge. Copyright Lot Film Pty Ltd</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>In the middle of the night, during a terrible thunderstorm, a sodden stranger knocks on Patrick’s door hoping to use a phone. Insomniac Patrick (Brendan Rock) is a paranoid, bearded loner who sits alone in his dimly-lit mobile home as if he is waiting for a dawn that may never come. The nameless, barefoot visitor (Jordan Cowan), a 20-something woman with long dark hair and haunted eyes, seems unsure if she’s stumbled across a saviour, or a predator. </p>
<p>This unexpected encounter opens the Australian psychological horror film You’ll Never Find Me, an unsettling and economical chamber piece that makes effective use of its limited location and its dialogue-heavy script.</p>
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<h2>Shifting identities</h2>
<p>We begin the film unsure about either character’s identity or motivations. “I’m afraid you’ve knocked on the wrong door,” drawls Patrick mournfully. </p>
<p>He shows the visitor initially reluctant but surprisingly tender hospitality and she is uncertain how to respond. At time drags on, Patrick demonstrates a deep willingness to wax lyrical about his take on life’s difficulties. “It’s nice to pass the time with a stranger,” he confesses. </p>
<p>As the storm knocks out the power, it’s unclear whether the visitor will be able to leave. It’s also obvious something more ominous and perhaps infernal is unfolding. </p>
<p>Directed by Josiah Allen and Indianna Bell, the film offers a gothic, moody ambience. The mobile home is isolated from others in the park. It presents a claustrophobic environment and comes to be a character in its own right: it creaks and groans like a ship riding the waves. </p>
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<img alt="A man sits at a table at the end of a hallway." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/582119/original/file-20240315-22-dge1jl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/582119/original/file-20240315-22-dge1jl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/582119/original/file-20240315-22-dge1jl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/582119/original/file-20240315-22-dge1jl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/582119/original/file-20240315-22-dge1jl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/582119/original/file-20240315-22-dge1jl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/582119/original/file-20240315-22-dge1jl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">The mobile home comes to be a character in its own right.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Photo Credit Maxx Corkindale. Copyright Lot Film Pty Ltd</span></span>
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<p>The shadowy space seems simultaneously too cramped and too spacious, as if everything is being slowly sucked into the strange, curtained-off section at the back of the home. Ratty 1970s décor aside, time does not seem to be passing in a legible manner, something emphasised through an unsettling string-heavy score and slow, invasive tracking shots.</p>
<p>Information is doled out carefully. The visitor finds odd mementos stashed around the house and is confused at her own inability to keep her story straight. Patrick picks anxiously at the edges of forgotten memories, repeatedly describing the night, and his recollections, as “strange”. </p>
<p>Is this all an insomniac’s drifting thoughts, or the pair’s subjective experience of mutual distrust and paranoia? Has the young woman come looking for Patrick, or has he somehow summoned her? </p>
<h2>A careful dance</h2>
<p>You’ll Never Find Me builds successfully on a “<a href="https://theconversation.com/10-years-of-homegrown-horror-hits-talk-to-me-and-the-golden-age-of-aussie-horror-211031">golden decade</a>” of Australian horror. </p>
<p>This period has showcased diverse innovative and internationally-acclaimed films, ranging from maternal horrors The Babadook (2014) and Relic (2020), to <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Found_footage_(film_technique)">found footage</a> 70s throwback Late Night with the Devil (2023) and runaway hit supernatural horror Talk to Me (2023). </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/10-years-of-homegrown-horror-hits-talk-to-me-and-the-golden-age-of-aussie-horror-211031">10 years of homegrown horror hits: Talk To Me and the golden age of Aussie horror</a>
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<p>You’ll Never Find Me also illustrates the importance of an industry pipeline. Writer/director Bell and co-director Allen, as Stakeout Films, found earlier success with shorts Safe Space (2019), Call Connect. (2019) and The Recordist (2020), some of which also featured performances from Rock and Cowan. Each short plays across genres, featuring evocative soundscapes, moody lighting, tense relationships and claustrophobic settings. </p>
<p>These prior relationships are evident in the film’s confident tone and performances. Cowan and Rock have a compelling chemistry. Extreme close ups on their faces and bodies chart the film’s careful, slow-burn dance between threat and disclosure, or vulnerability and dread. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/582121/original/file-20240315-24-dr4lqu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A bearded man" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/582121/original/file-20240315-24-dr4lqu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/582121/original/file-20240315-24-dr4lqu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/582121/original/file-20240315-24-dr4lqu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/582121/original/file-20240315-24-dr4lqu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/582121/original/file-20240315-24-dr4lqu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/582121/original/file-20240315-24-dr4lqu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/582121/original/file-20240315-24-dr4lqu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">At time it feels like we are watching a play.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Photo Credit Maxx Corkindale. Copyright Lot Film Pty Ltd</span></span>
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<p>The pair move through odd, circular conversations about their life philosophies and past experiences, as if we are watching a play. We’re aware we are witnessing a careful dance – but for a long time it is unclear who might be the biggest threat to whom. </p>
<p>“You’re the one who knocked on my door,” Patrick reminds the visitor, as she becomes increasingly insistent about wanting to leave. Throughout, he posits whether this visitation was a matter of choice or chance, even as the true and terrible nature of the pair’s encounter makes itself known.</p>
<p>You’ll Never Find Me will appeal to audiences who appreciate a rich atmosphere, character-led drama, and creeping yet tense pacing. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/582123/original/file-20240315-28-wwqmdg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A woman's face, half in shadows." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/582123/original/file-20240315-28-wwqmdg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/582123/original/file-20240315-28-wwqmdg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/582123/original/file-20240315-28-wwqmdg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/582123/original/file-20240315-28-wwqmdg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/582123/original/file-20240315-28-wwqmdg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/582123/original/file-20240315-28-wwqmdg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/582123/original/file-20240315-28-wwqmdg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">The film has a rich atmosphere, character-led drama, and creeping yet tense pacing.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Photo Credit Maxx Corkindale. Copyright Lot Film Pty Ltd</span></span>
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<p>For its many strengths, though, the film may divide audiences with its chaotic, surreal final act. As the pair’s conflict comes to a head, the world of the film tilts in a lurid burst of colour, and the narrative doglegs into a conceit that is challenging to pull off. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/film/2024/mar/14/youll-never-find-me-review-movie-australian-horror">Some may see</a> this climax as a fitting conclusion that upends some of our assumptions about character, relationships and motivation. Some, including myself, may find this nightmarish sequence, and the film’s denouement, displaces much of the film’s fine earlier work – particularly its manipulation of space and point-of-view – in a frustrating manner. </p>
<p>There is no doubt, though, this film exhibits a distinct sensibility, captivating performances and an exceptionally queasy atmosphere. It is further proof low-budget Australian horror is currently a site of significant innovation, and it successfully showcases Bell and Allen’s ability to do an awful lot with limited resources. </p>
<p><em>You’ll Never Find Me is out now in Australia and Aotearoa New Zealand.</em></p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/analog-uncanny-how-this-weird-and-experimental-side-of-tiktok-is-forging-the-future-of-horror-222882">‘Analog uncanny’: how this weird and experimental side of TikTok is forging the future of horror</a>
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<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/222606/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Erin Harrington does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
For its many strengths, the film may divide audiences with its chaotic, surreal final act.
Erin Harrington, Senior Lecturer in English and Cultural Studies, University of Canterbury
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/222882
2024-02-14T03:36:16Z
2024-02-14T03:36:16Z
‘Analog uncanny’: how this weird and experimental side of TikTok is forging the future of horror
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/575514/original/file-20240214-26-hd8l0m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C2048%2C858&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Skinamarink/Shudder © 2022</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Director Kyle Edward Ball’s feature film debut, Skinamarink, achieved unexpected commercial success last year after going <a href="https://medium.com/quilt-ai/a-look-at-skinamarink-the-viral-horror-taking-over-tiktok-4d393aed10d3">viral on TikTok</a>.</p>
<p>Hailed by some critics as the <a href="https://variety.com/lists/best-horror-movies-2023/skinamarink-2/">best horror film of 2023</a>, or even the <a href="https://www.inverse.com/entertainment/skinamarink-review">scariest of all time</a>, Skinamarink is a work of experimental slow cinema. The film’s ambiguous and grainy imagery exudes the aura of a degraded, possessed VHS tape.</p>
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<p>These aesthetics might seem to conflict with TikTok’s torrent of short, attention-grabbing videos. Yet TikTok has cultivated a hive of creative energy at the intersection of art and horror. Alongside YouTube, the platform has also helped to create pathways to international horror-film careers.</p>
<h2>Bite-sized nightmares</h2>
<p>YouTube and TikTok provide spaces where horror filmmakers can hone their craft and develop distinct voices, in collaboration with a community of users who provide input, theories and feedback. </p>
<p>A unique form of horror storytelling emerges from such <a href="https://stars.library.ucf.edu/etd/5482/">engaged online communities</a>, as they cultivate environments where creators can test new ideas and develop creative ingenuity. This leads to a creative dynamic I call “participatory experimentation”. It’s expanding the boundaries <a href="https://researchrepository.rmit.edu.au/esploro/outputs/9922217009501341">of the horror genre</a>.</p>
<p>Ball’s distinctive aesthetic was developed via his YouTube channel <a href="https://www.youtube.com/@BitesizedNightmares">Bitesized Nightmares</a>. Here, he shared experimental videos based on his nightmares. He then invited viewers to share their own “nightmares” in the comments so he could depict them in subsequent videos.</p>
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<p>One of these nightmare visions is shown in the short film <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HVQzEzW4faA">Heck</a> (2020), the prototype for Skinamarink. Avant-garde in its approach, Heck is a work of art as well as horror. Its experimental beginnings on YouTube are key to its unsettling aesthetic power. </p>
<p>An upcoming cinema screening of Heck at RMIT’s Capitol Theatre, as part of an art/horror program I’ve co-organised with the <a href="https://acca.melbourne/screams-on-screen/">Australian Centre of Contemporary Art</a>, evidences the growing recognition of such digital horror content as “art” in spaces we may not normally expect. This is a significant cultural development. </p>
<p>The global horror hit Talk To Me (2023), one of Australia’s most successful <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2023/aug/04/talk-to-me-us-box-office-highest-grossing-australian-movie-rackaracka">films ever at the US box office</a>, was also germinated via a YouTube channel. Directors Michael and Danny Philipou have more than 1 billion views and nearly 7 million subscribers on their channel, RackaRacka. It was here that they honed their unique blend of horror and zany, violent comedy. </p>
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<p>YouTube has been home to boundary-pushing art-horror since its inception in 2005. Other notable examples include David Firth’s animated series <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M3iOROuTuMA">Salad Fingers</a> (2004-), Becky Sloan and Joe Pelling’s <a href="https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCZOnoLKzoBItcEk5OsES2TA">Don’t Hug Me I’m Scared</a> (2011-) – which <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt14932528/">became a TV series</a> in 2022 – and Michelle Lyon’s <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B0xXpwq9xfQ">Funnie Horsie</a> (2012-2016).</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/salad-fingers-wasnt-just-strange-it-was-art-heres-how-its-still-influencing-the-weird-part-of-youtube-2-decades-on-216911">Salad Fingers wasn’t just strange, it was art. Here’s how it's still influencing the ‘weird part of YouTube’ 2 decades on</a>
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<h2>From the ‘weird part’ of YouTube to TikTok</h2>
<p>TikTok is now also emerging as an important site for this <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/13548565231208569">aesthetically rich “uncanny and weird” creative</a> content. It’s not surprising Skinamarink went viral on TikTok when you consider the app’s category of “analog horror” <a href="https://www.tiktok.com/discover/analog-horror?lang=en">had 2.3 billion views</a> as of when this article was written. The closely related “liminal spaces” category had 4.9 billion views. </p>
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<p>Although “analog” typically refers to pre-digital audiovisual technology, “analog horror” refers to horror content which may be produced digitally, but which has an eerily nostalgic technological quality. This content is often suffused with a hazy grain, reminiscent of Skinamarink’s cursed videotape aesthetic. </p>
<p>Analog horror videos may be depictions of creepy inhuman (but human-like) creatures, such as in <a href="https://www.tiktok.com/@your_darkside_guide/video/7320884717128125738?is_from_webapp=1&sender_device=pc&web_id=7247360749801375234">this TikTok video</a>.</p>
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<p>Or they may depict mundane domestic spaces that become threatening once you realise the hallways have off-kilter corners, or the exits are impossible to access. Such imagery of everyday spaces evacuated of purpose, and instead injected with dread, produces the “<a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0170840613495323#:%7E:text=Most%20often%2C%20however%2C%20it%20is,suddenly%20becomes%20strange%20and%20unfamiliar">uncanny</a>”: a feeling of the familiar merged with the unfamiliar. </p>
<p>The creepy house in Skinamarink is a compelling example of this. Throughout the film, the cosily familiar space of a childhood bedroom becomes deeply unfamiliar and unsettling as doors and windows disappear and the ceiling suddenly seems to become the floor.</p>
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<p>TikTok’s user-friendly bag of special-effects tricks, such as retro-cam filters, green screens, body warping and face-morphing enable everyday users to experiment with these horror aesthetics with a community of like-minded enthusiasts.</p>
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<p>But while analog horror is being driven in new directions on TikTok, it has long been a mainstay of YouTube. One influential example is Marble Hornets (2009), which depicts the “<a href="https://techcrunch.com/2014/06/30/the-story-of-slenderman-the-internets-own-monster/">Slender Man</a>”, the internet’s most famous bogeyman.</p>
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<p>The <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C8d12w6pMos">Mandela Catalogue</a> (2021) is a more recent example from YouTube. It has had a substantial influence on how the genre <a href="https://www.tiktok.com/discover/mandela-catalog?lang=en">has crystallised on TikTok</a>. This eerie series by Alex Kister depicts an alternative reality in which “alternates” (malevolent doppelgangers of real people) have overrun Wisconsin. Doppelgangers are another <a href="https://courses.washington.edu/freudlit/Uncanny.Notes.html">element of the uncanny</a>.</p>
<h2>The future of experimental art-horror</h2>
<p>Participatory art-horror experimentation on social media is having a global cultural moment. Last year, prestige film studio A24 (which also distributed Talk To Me) contracted 16-year-old Kane Parsons to direct his first feature based on his eerie YouTube video <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H4dGpz6cnHo">The Backrooms</a>. </p>
<p>Director Jane Schoenbrun’s films also harness the themes and aesthetics of analog horror. Like Skinamarink, their debut feature, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/We%27re_All_Going_to_the_World%27s_Fair">We’re All Going To the World’s Fair</a> (2021), is an unapologetically creepy work of experimental slow cinema. The film unfolds largely through the vlog of an isolated teen YouTuber as she embarks on a (possibly deadly) online “challenge”, narrating her experience to her followers from her bedroom.</p>
<p>Schoenbrun’s upcoming second feature, I Saw the TV Glow (2024), another product of A24, similarly refracts aesthetics and themes of online horror genres such as analog horror and liminal spaces. It has been described as a “<a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/tv-movies/tv-movie-features/i-saw-the-tv-glow-jane-schoenbrun-sundance-horror-movie-transgender-rights-90s-fred-durst-1234955526/">surreal coming-of-age horror film</a>”, a “<a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/news/sundance-film-festival-i-saw-tv-glow-justice-smith-b2485062.html">masterpiece</a>” and Sundance’s <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/tv-movies/tv-movie-features/i-saw-the-tv-glow-jane-schoenbrun-sundance-horror-movie-transgender-rights-90s-fred-durst-1234955526/?sub_action=logged_in">hottest movie</a>.</p>
<p>The careers of Ball, Parsons, Schoenbrun and the Philipous showcase how experimental horror trends on TikTok and YouTube have successfully crossed into the mainstream. As emerging filmmakers harness social media to build their creative visions, we can expect participatory experimentation to keep expanding the frontiers of the horror genre.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/222882/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jessica Balanzategui receives funding from the Australian Children's Television Foundation, the City of Melbourne, and Creative Australia. Jessica is currently working with the Australian Centre of Contemporary Art to run public programs associated with their major exhibition, From the other side. </span></em></p>
A wave of horror content is popping up across TikTok, carrying on a legacy that began on YouTube.
Jessica Balanzategui, Senior Lecturer in Media, RMIT University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/216594
2023-12-20T13:25:45Z
2023-12-20T13:25:45Z
50 years later, ‘The Exorcist’ continues to possess Hollywood’s imagination, reflecting our obsession with evil
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/566712/original/file-20231219-29-5tk48y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=964%2C1264%2C2636%2C1671&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The film went on to gross nearly $450 million worldwide.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/poster-for-william-friedkins-1973-horror-the-exorcist-news-photo/504412731?adppopup=true">Movie Poster Image Art/Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>When the “<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0070047/">The Exorcist</a>” premiered 50 years ago, in December 1973, some theatergoers <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1974/01/27/archives/they-wait-hoursto-be-shocked-the-exorcist-got-mixed-reviews-why-has.html">fainted or broke down in tears</a>. A few <a href="https://www.syfy.com/syfy-wire/the-exorcist-what-it-was-like-to-see-the-movie-in-theaters">even vomited</a>.</p>
<p>The film, which cast a young <a href="https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000304/">Linda Blair</a> as a girl claiming to be possessed by the devil, was an almost instant success, with moviegoers <a href="https://nypost.com/2023/08/12/original-audience-reaction-to-the-exorcist-was-off-the-charts/">waiting in line for hours</a> to secure tickets. It went on to gross <a href="https://www.boxofficemojo.com/title/tt0070047/">over US$440 million</a> worldwide.</p>
<p>The horror film eventually <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0070047/awards/">received two Oscars</a>, for Best Sound and Best Adapted Screenplay.</p>
<p>In the 50 years since, the cultural fascination with Satan has persisted. <a href="https://www.thepublicdiscourse.com/2023/07/89371/">But as religiosity has waned</a>, popular portrayals of Satan have also changed. Rather than embody pure evil, Luciferian characters that are complicated – even likable – have emerged. </p>
<h2>Cinema’s dance with the devil</h2>
<p>The devil has never been a stranger to the movies. He appeared as early as 1896, in Georges Méliès’ “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qt0w2qP6REg">The House of the Devil</a>, a three-minute silent film. </p>
<p>Just five years before the release of "The Exorcist,” Roman Polanski’s “<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0063522/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0_tt_7_nm_1_q_rosemary%27s%2520">Rosemary’s Baby</a>” told the story about a young woman, played by <a href="https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001201/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0_tt_1_nm_7_q_mia%2520farrow">Mia Farrow</a>, who was carrying Satan’s child. </p>
<p>That film also took home two Oscars. Still, critics generally credit “The Exorcist” with kicking off a run of movies about Satan and demonic possession. </p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="Movie poster featuring drawings of various actors, young and old." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/566722/original/file-20231219-23-ts8rod.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/566722/original/file-20231219-23-ts8rod.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=957&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/566722/original/file-20231219-23-ts8rod.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=957&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/566722/original/file-20231219-23-ts8rod.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=957&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/566722/original/file-20231219-23-ts8rod.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1202&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/566722/original/file-20231219-23-ts8rod.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1202&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/566722/original/file-20231219-23-ts8rod.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1202&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">The Italian theatrical poster for the 1974 film ‘Beyond the Door.’</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Chi-sei-italian-movie-poster-md.jpg">Wikimedia Commons</a></span>
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<p>Imitations appeared all over the world. There was the 1974 Italian film “<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0071212/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0_tt_8_nm_0_q_beyond%2520the%2520door">Beyond the Door</a>,” starring <a href="https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0005236/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0_tt_2_nm_6_q_juliet%2520mills">Juliet Mills</a> as a young woman pregnant with the Devil’s baby. The Turkish film “<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0072148/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0_tt_8_nm_0_q_seytan">Seytan</a>,” which told a story almost identical to “The Exorcist,” was released that same year. The 1976 film “<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0075005/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1">The Omen</a>” and its sequels imagined the rise of Satan’s son, Damien Thorn. </p>
<p>Other filmmakers showcased the versatility of the subgenre by imagining Satanic encounters everywhere from cruise ships to schoolyards. Jack Starrett’s “<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0073600/">Race with the Devil</a>” told the story of vacationers fleeing a Satanic cult. A slew of TV movies also appeared, such as “<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0073662/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0_tt_8_nm_0_q_satan%27s%2520triangle">Satan’s Triangle</a>” (1975) and “<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0077429/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0_tt_2_nm_0_q_devil%2520dog%2520hound">Devil Dog: The Hound of Hell</a>” (1978).</p>
<h2>Interest in exorcisms surges</h2>
<p><a href="https://time.com/isgoddead/">Anxiety about social change and growing secularism</a> gave “The Exorcist” influence beyond the box office.</p>
<p>In November 1973, a month before “The Exorcist” premiered, The New York Times reported that among U.S. Catholics, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1973/11/12/archives/catholic-churchgoing-still-declining-based-on-samplings.html">attendance at weekly mass</a> had dropped to 48% from 61% between 1972 and 1973.</p>
<p>After the movie came out, curiosity about Catholicism rose significantly.</p>
<p>This was especially true with regard to exorcism, a rite <a href="https://www.americamagazine.org/faith/2020/10/20/explainer-exorcism-catholic-priest-halloween">so rarely practiced within the church</a> that the film’s protagonist, Father Damian Karras, says that in order to find someone to perform it, he’d “have to get into a time machine and get back to the 16th century.”</p>
<p>Nonetheless, in January 1974, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1974/01/28/archives/-exorcist-adds-problems-for-catholic-clergymen-hit-film-the.html">The New York Times reported</a> that the Catholic Church was receiving “a wave of inquiries from persons who believe that they, or their acquaintances, are possessed by demons.” </p>
<p>Many of these requests came from people who were no longer, or never had been, churchgoers.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Black and white photo of bundled up people lined up outside of a movie theater." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/566714/original/file-20231219-21-i5c7gx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/566714/original/file-20231219-21-i5c7gx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/566714/original/file-20231219-21-i5c7gx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/566714/original/file-20231219-21-i5c7gx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/566714/original/file-20231219-21-i5c7gx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=498&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/566714/original/file-20231219-21-i5c7gx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=498&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/566714/original/file-20231219-21-i5c7gx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=498&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">A crowd braves frigid weather in New York City to see ‘The Exorcist’ in February 1974.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/scene-from-dantes-inferno-it-might-be-with-stem-rising-from-news-photo/1160965641?adppopup=true">Bettmann Archive/Getty Images</a></span>
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<h2>Fears of satanism snowball</h2>
<p>“The Exorcist” and its imitators were very much still in the zeitgeist <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/31/us/satanic-panic.html">during the satanic panic of the 1980s</a>, which involved thousands of false accusations of Satanic ritual abuse throughout the U.S. and Canada.</p>
<p>In 1980, “<a href="https://www.cbc.ca/arts/satan-wants-you-filmmakers-q-a-sean-horlor-steve-j-adams-1.6822213">Michelle Remembers</a>,” a memoir about a young woman’s sexual abuse by a satanic cult, was published. Though it was eventually discredited, the book is thought to have kicked off the panic.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="Cover of book featuring sinister devil looming over a girl clutching a doll." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/566724/original/file-20231219-17-iyysn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/566724/original/file-20231219-17-iyysn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=990&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/566724/original/file-20231219-17-iyysn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=990&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/566724/original/file-20231219-17-iyysn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=990&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/566724/original/file-20231219-17-iyysn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1244&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/566724/original/file-20231219-17-iyysn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1244&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/566724/original/file-20231219-17-iyysn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1244&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">‘Michelle Remembers’ was eventually discredited – but not before helping to spur the satanic panic.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1177037179i/676637.jpg">Goodreads</a></span>
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<p>Throughout the 1980s, <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/satanic-panic-film-movie-michelle-smith-memoir-b2300716.html">reports of satanic rituals and abuse</a> reached hysterical levels, perhaps most famously in <a href="https://rumble.com/vqpqxx-martensville-satanic-scandal-history-of-satanic-movement-in-canada.html">Saskatchewan, Canada</a>, where day care workers were accused of satanism and sexual abuse. Major media networks capitalized on fears of a fallen world, with NBC running a 1988 special entitled “<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1988/10/26/business/program-on-satan-worship-spurs-controversy-at-nbc.html">Devil Worship: Exposing Satan’s Underground</a>.” </p>
<p>Meanwhile, accusations of satanism were leveled at everything from “<a href="https://theconversation.com/rival-fantasies-dungeons-and-dragons-players-and-their-religious-critics-actually-have-a-lot-in-common-40343">Dungeons & Dragons</a>” to <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-fate-of-the-metalheads-44876">heavy metal music</a>. Some people even believed the conspiracy theory that the Proctor & Gamble logo <a href="https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/procter-gamble-satan-conspiracy-theory">contained hidden satanic symbols</a>.</p>
<h2>Sympathy for the devil</h2>
<p>By the turn of the 21st century, the panic had run its course, as had representations of Satan as an embodiment of pure evil. </p>
<p>Growing secularism in the U.S. ran in parallel with depictions of a charming, more likable Satan. The public had grown increasingly disillusioned with institutionalized religion, especially with revelations of <a href="https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/3-big-us-churches-in-turmoil-over-sex-abuse-lgbt-policy">child sexual abuse within the Catholic Church and other denominations</a>.</p>
<p>This sympathy for the devil was nothing new: It went back at least as far as John Milton’s 1667 epic poem “<a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/20">Paradise Lost</a>.” The poem’s depiction of Satan as the fallen angel Lucifer was so compelling, it caused poet William Blake <a href="https://theamericanscholar.org/the-devils-party/">to famously suggest</a> that Milton was “of the Devil’s party without knowing it.”</p>
<p>“Paradise Lost” has been adapted and reworked for modern audiences. </p>
<p>The television series “<a href="https://theconversation.com/what-a-biannual-gathering-of-1967-impalas-reveals-about-the-blurry-line-between-fandom-and-religion-216890">Supernatural</a>” includes a number of story arcs featuring a dangerous but charismatic Lucifer. The figure is also depicted sympathetically in <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/series/40372-the-sandman">Neil Gaiman’s “Sandman” comics</a>.</p>
<p>The 2015 film “<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4263482/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_1_tt_7_nm_0_q_the%2520witch">The Witch</a>” takes a different approach, portraying communion with the Devil as preferable to a life of drudgery and abuse for teenage girls in Puritan New England. </p>
<p>Meanwhile, satanism has emerged as a secular movement. <a href="https://thesatanictemple.com/pages/about-us">According to the Satanic Temple</a>, its members seek to “encourage benevolence and empathy” and “reject tyrannical authority” to protect the separation of church and state.</p>
<h2>Everyday evil</h2>
<p>Still, neither sympathetic narrative portrayals nor secular movements have fully diminished the power of Satan to trouble the popular imagination. </p>
<p>In a society that has become increasingly divided, satanism has once again become a potent source of fear. The internet is rife with rumors about <a href="https://theconversation.com/hell-no-halloween-is-not-satanic-its-an-important-way-to-think-about-death-118391">the supposed satanic origins of Halloween</a> and <a href="https://www.ala.org/ala/pressreleasesbucket/pressreleases200/harrypotterseries.htm">the “Harry Potter” books</a>. Echoes of the satanic panic <a href="https://www.npr.org/2021/05/18/997559036/americas-satanic-panic-returns-this-time-through-qanon">can be found in the QAnon movement</a>, which accuses some Democratic politicians of a satanic conspiracy to kidnap and sexually abuse children. </p>
<p>The hysteria expressed by <a href="https://theconversation.com/buying-into-conspiracy-theories-can-be-exciting-thats-what-makes-them-dangerous-184623">groups like QAnon</a> is an extreme example of a long-standing human impulse to label those who are feared and hated as personifications of evil. At the same time, this tendency is a way to understand the horrible cruelties of this world, and why people inflict such harm on each other.</p>
<p>During the original run of “The Exorcist,” many people questioned the impulse to embody all evil within a single supernatural figure. <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1974/01/28/archives/-exorcist-adds-problems-for-catholic-clergymen-hit-film-the.html">In a 1974 interview about the film with The New York Times</a>, priest and psychologist Eugene Kennedy noted that it’s important for people to “[come] to terms with our own capacity for evil, not projecting it on an outside force that possesses us.” </p>
<p>This sentiment remains true today. Everyday acts of evil, small and large, may be easy to ignore when measured against the so-called “pure evil” embodied in the character of Satan. Nonetheless, the undiminished cultural fascination with the figure of Satan may be a way of trying <a href="https://home.csulb.edu/%7Eacargile/resources/Evil.pdf">to better comprehend evil</a> – and why people so often choose it.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/216594/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Regina Hansen does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
When the film premiered, theatergoers fainted and vomited. It went on to inspire a series of copycat films – while fomenting a cultural panic about the demons in our midst.
Regina Hansen, Master Lecturer of Rhetoric, Boston University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/216120
2023-10-31T15:55:16Z
2023-10-31T15:55:16Z
Castlevania: how the video game was inspired by classic Dracula horror films
<p>If you’re one of the talented few who have completed Konami’s 1986 gothic horror action-adventure game Castlevania then you’ve seen the game’s unusual closing credits. Instead of a list of the names of people who worked on the game, it is instead an homage to those involved in classic horror cinema. Among the names are the actor Christopher Lee (written as Christopher Bee) but also the much more obscure name of Terrence Fisher – director of British horror film company Hammer’s 1958 Dracula. </p>
<p>Bram Stoker’s 1897 popular novel has been adapted in countless ways, and the vampire has appeared on screen in about <a href="https://www.imdb.com/search/keyword/?keywords=dracula&ref_=fn_al_kw_1">400 different incarnations</a> from all over the world. The Castlevania video game series is deeply influenced by the vampire’s filmic outings and across the 30 or so games you can find references littered throughout. </p>
<p>This reverence for the monster’s cinematic history is because, as one of the game’s creators Hitoshi Akamatsu has said, the team wanted players to feel like they were in a <a href="https://www.tumblr.com/thearkhound/183537621473/1993-castlevania-commentary-from-micom-basic">classic horror film</a>. It is no wonder then that the game has been adapted into two series by Netflix: <a href="https://www.netflix.com/gb/title/80095241">Castlevania</a> and the newly released Castlevania: Nocturne.</p>
<h2>Hammer’s big influence</h2>
<p>One of the most recognisable filmic iterations of Stoker’s monster is <a href="https://www.bfi.org.uk/features/why-i-love-bela-lugosis-dracula">Bela Lugosi’s iconic 1931 portrayal</a>. Lugosi’s Hungarian accent and slow, steady delivery combined with smaller details like slicked-back hair and a distinct medal has become one of the most caricatured versions of the count, influencing films like the animated franchise Hotel Transylvania and even Sesame Street’s math-loving The Count. </p>
<p>While, for many, this is the definitive Dracula film, in Japan, it’s seemingly Hammer’s 1958 production starring Christopher Lee.</p>
<p>When Hammer produced its Dracula film, it was <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-dracula-lost-his-x-rating-87655">transformational</a> because it challenged audience expectations of the characters. The lawyer Jonathan Harker, for example, is not an unwitting victim and instead is a vampire hunter who arrives at Dracula’s castle looking to slay him. </p>
<p>These differences were made because Hammer had to be really clear that they were not drawing on Lugosi’s portrayal, so as not to intrude on Universal Studios’ copyright. Instead, they breathed new life into Stoker’s original novel, creating a frightening new version of the character.</p>
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<p>Hammer’s Dracula’s popularity inspired the creators of Castlevania (known in Japan as <em>Akumajō Dracula</em>) for the first game released in 1986. Hammer holds this influence in Japan due to timing. As the film <a href="https://store.ingrampublisherservices.co.uk/store/default/detail/workgroup?id=3-025-6e763030-04c5-42d2-9f92-032ec7ece7cc">Masaya Shimokusu</a> has noted, Dracula arrived later in Japan as it wasn’t translated until after the second world war. This meant audiences missed out on Lugosi and instead writers and creatives were inspired by the many repeats of Lee’s Dracula and the larger series, which features nine films, on television throughout the 70s and early 80s. </p>
<p>The game and its many sequels owe a lot to these early British horror films.</p>
<p>Its influence on Castlevania can be seen in the game’s initial narrative, which saw a man turning up at Dracula’s castle to slay him. There are, of course, differences. In the game, it’s not Jonathan Harker but Simon Belmont, a descendant of a legendary vampire hunter, who has to navigate the castle using well-timed jumps and attacks to progress through different levels, defeating hordes of monsters. Finally, Belmont must confront Dracula himself in a form that conveys all of Lee’s ferocity.</p>
<h2>Reinventing the game</h2>
<p>Just as Hammer did across its nine films, Konami continued to reinvent its series to meet audience expectations. In 1997, the Playstation game <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5HnhPNS0rqM">Castlevania: Symphony of the Night</a> brought the series to new heights (1997). The title starred Dracula’s son, Alucard – a reference to the character of the same name in the 1943 American film, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B0rPaeTHJmY">Son of Dracula</a>.</p>
<p>Reflecting changing conventions, Alucard was refined and pale on the game’s distinct cover. This was more in keeping with the image of vampires in 90s movies. </p>
<p>Dracula underwent a similar transformation to his son, losing some of his resemblance to Lee. Earlier appearances saw him as a monstrous, motiveless demon, but here he becomes a tragic, romantic figure who is mourning the death of his wife – echoing the Dracula film of the time, 1992’s <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fgFPIh5mvNc">Bram Stoker’s Dracula</a>. </p>
<p>Symphony of the Night was so successful its influence can be seen across a vast range of games. Not only is this entry highly critically regarded and considered one of the “<a href="https://www.gamespot.com/reviews/castlevania-symphony-of-the-night-review/1900-2546968/">best games ever released</a>”, but popularised the “Metroidvania” format. This meant players explored vast areas as they wanted, unlocking powers as they went. The Metroidvania genre has grown in popularity in recent years, especially with smaller studios, such as <a href="https://www.metacritic.com/game/hollow-knight/">Team Cherry’s universally acclaimed Hollow Knight</a>. </p>
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<p>Both TV series draw heavily from Symphony of the Night and their versions of Dracula and his son Alucard. The original Castlevania series ran for four seasons from 2017 to 2021 and garnered <a href="https://www.theringer.com/tv/2021/5/20/22444731/netflix-castlevania-season-4-review">critical acclaim</a>. It begins with Dracula’s wife being burned at the stake and the vampire vowing that the people of Wallachia (a real place in Romania) will pay with their lives. The series follows Trevor Belmont (the protagonist in Castlevania III: Dracula’s Curse) as he battles Dracula’s demonic forces with the help of Alucard.</p>
<p>This new spin-off series is set hundreds of years after the events of the first and is also gathering <a href="https://www.theverge.com/23891310/netflix-castlevania-nocturne-review-konami-animated">praise</a>. It follows the young vampire hunter Richter Belmont (who made his debut in the game Castlevania: Rondo of Blood) and his adoptive sister Maria Renard as they try to stop an apocalyptic vampire plot during the French Revolution. Alucard returned late in series one and is set to play a bigger role in series two.</p>
<p>There hasn’t been a new game since 2014’s Castlevania: Lords of Shadow 2. These two streaming series adapt some of the best story lines from the games’ back catalogue and will hopefully draw people back to playing them – and maybe even revisiting the classic horror films that first inspired them. </p>
<hr>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
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</figure>
<p><em>Looking for something good? Cut through the noise with a carefully curated selection of the latest releases, live events and exhibitions, straight to your inbox every fortnight, on Fridays. <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/newsletters/something-good-156">Sign up here</a>.</em></p>
<hr><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/216120/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Matthew Crofts does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Christopher Lee’s Dracula remains was one of the game’s biggest early influences.
Matthew Crofts, Researcher in Gothic Literature, University of Hull
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/214532
2023-10-11T15:15:39Z
2023-10-11T15:15:39Z
How morbid curiosity can lead people to conspiracy theories
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/551788/original/file-20231003-21-3lqz5f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C47%2C7951%2C5106&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/albany-new-york-united-states-may-1940561485">Wirestock Creators/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Do you like scary movies, true crime podcasts, or violent sports? Research has shown that a major part of the attraction is their appeal to morbid curiosity. </p>
<p>Engaging with frightening media and the emotions it creates in a safe setting can help people <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2020.110397">alleviate anxiety and build psychological resilience</a>. However, our recent research, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/bjop.12682">published in the British Journal of Psychology</a>, shows that a heightened interest in learning about threats can also lead people to be interested in less constructive types of stories: conspiracy theories.</p>
<p>From <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/aug/25/qanon-conspiracy-theory-explained-trump-what-is">blood-harvesting Satanists</a> who stealthily run the world to <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/qanon-s-capitol-rioters-nashville-bomber-s-lizard-people-theory-ncna1253819">shapeshifting alien lizards</a> invading the world, conspiracy theories often offer alternative explanations of unsettling events. They all centre on a proposal that a <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/bjop.12471">malicious group of people</a> is behind strange or political happenings. <a href="https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-psych-032420-031329">Conspiracy theories</a> have another thing in common - they go against mainstream explanations and lack concrete evidence. </p>
<p>If the drive to seek out conspiracy theories is motivated by a desire to identify and understand potential threats, then we should expect interest in conspiracy theories to be linked with higher morbid curiosity. </p>
<h2>Testing the link</h2>
<p>To investigate this link <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/bjop.12682">we ran three studies</a>. Each study had different groups of participants, with a close to even split in genders. The first study tested the question: is morbid curiosity linked with higher belief in conspiracy theories? Using the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2021.111139">morbid curiosity scale</a> and the <a href="https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2013.00279">generic conspiracist beliefs scale</a>, we found that the more morbidly curious people were, the higher their general belief in conspiracy theories. </p>
<p>In psychology, morbid curiosity describes a heightened interest in learning about threatening or dangerous situations. It can be measured using the <a href="https://www.coltanscrivner.com/morbid-curiosity-test">morbid curiosity scale</a>, which gives a rating for general morbid curiosity, and curiosity in four domains: minds of dangerous people, violence, paranormal danger and body violation. Violence is when you’re curious about the action itself (such as a boxing match). Bodily injury is curiosity about the aftermath of violence (like going to a surgical museum). </p>
<p><a href="https://bpspsychub.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/bjop.12682">Younger people</a> tend to be <a href="https://cmpalexgilbey.weebly.com/uploads/3/8/8/7/38878453/horror_film_research.pdf">more morbidly curious</a>, but there doesn’t tend to be a big gender divide, if at all.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Silhouette of a man holding an axe in dark hallway." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/552519/original/file-20231006-18-uxu2qx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/552519/original/file-20231006-18-uxu2qx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/552519/original/file-20231006-18-uxu2qx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/552519/original/file-20231006-18-uxu2qx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/552519/original/file-20231006-18-uxu2qx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/552519/original/file-20231006-18-uxu2qx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/552519/original/file-20231006-18-uxu2qx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Curious about what happened here?</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/silhouette-man-holding-axe-hatchet-arm-1681086475">Milje Ivan/Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>For the second study, we tested if the link between morbid curiosity and interest in conspiracy theories was driven by people’s perception of threats. We had people rate how threatening they felt several explanations of events were. The events included both mainstream and conspiratorial explanations of the same thing, such as whether <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-trending-62240071">aeroplane contrails</a> are water vapour, or harmful “chemtrails”. We found that the higher people’s morbid curiosity, the higher they perceived the threat in conspiratorial explanations.</p>
<p>For the final study, we investigated whether morbid curiosity makes people more likely to seek out conspiracy theories as explanations for events. We had people make a choice between a series of paired descriptions, choosing which of the pair they would like to learn more about.</p>
<p>Some were morbid and non-morbid pairs, such as seeing either a photo of a man who killed his girlfriend and ate her, or a photo of a man who saved his friend from drowning. Others were pairs of conspiratorial and mainstream explanations of the same event, such as <a href="https://apnews.com/article/fact-check-titanic-olympic-ship-switch-086691748061">the Titanic sinking</a> – because it struck an iceberg, versus being deliberately sank in an insurance scam. </p>
<p>We found that the more morbidly curious people were in their choices (such as choosing to view the photo of the man who killed his girlfriend), the more likely they were to be interested in conspiratorial explanations.</p>
<p>Across these three studies, morbidly curious people were more likely to have general conspiracist beliefs, perceive conspiracy theories to be more threatening, and display a stronger interest in learning more about conspiratorial explanations. In all three, the domain of morbid curiosity which was most strongly linked to interest in conspiracy theories was “minds of dangerous people”.</p>
<h2>Minds of dangerous people</h2>
<p>Why minds of dangerous people? Previous research has suggested that, in general, people are particularly attracted to stories <a href="https://theconversation.com/this-is-why-some-urban-legends-go-viral-28527">about social relationships and threats</a>. But the hostile groups associated with conspiracy theories may have a particularly strong attraction to humans.</p>
<p>Hostile groups of other people have long <a href="https://doi.org/10.1017/ehs.2021.20">been a threat to humans</a>. Group think emerged early in <em>Homo sapiens</em> evolution. While most primate aggression is reactive, the evolution of language in humans around 300,000 years ago allowed our aggression to be more <a href="https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1713611115">premeditated and coordinated</a>, as well as <a href="https://doi.org/10.1017/ehs.2021.20">deceptive and conspiratorial</a>. This meant humans needed to be curious about the intentions of potentially dangerous people. Although curiosity can be useful, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2017.10.001">sensitivity to explanations of threats</a>, for example conspiracy theories, can lead people to assume others have dangerous motives when there are none.</p>
<p>Understanding events in our complex, modern world can be challenging, and may lead us to be alert to potential threats, tapping into our ancient morbid curiosity. Morbid curiosity is not inherently bad, but an increased interest in learning about the dangers presented in <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/01461672211060965">conspiracy theories can reinforce beliefs</a> that the world is a dangerous place. This can create a feedback loop which only increases anxiety, driving people further down the rabbit hole of conspiracy theories.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/214532/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
The answers lie in early human evolution.
Joe Stubbersfield, Lecturer in Psychology, University of Winchester
Coltan Scrivner, Behavioral Scientist, Arizona State University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/215124
2023-10-09T12:21:14Z
2023-10-09T12:21:14Z
The Exorcist Believer: a real priest on why the film is ‘potentially dangerous’
<p><em>Warning: this review contains some spoilers for The Exorcist: Believer.</em></p>
<p>Nobody who watches <a href="https://www.theexorcistbeliever.movie">The Exorcist: Believer</a> could claim that they didn’t get what they expected when they bought their ticket. </p>
<p>Two children experiment with the occult and inadvertently open the door to demonic forces that rapidly overwhelm them. They disappear for several days, and when they are eventually found, they display erratic behaviour that rapidly escalates into uncontrollable violence. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/_ToyzNC1pis?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">The Exorcist: Believer trailer.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Their parents seek to discover the cause and reluctantly conclude that the answer lies in something supernatural and evil. They all struggle to reconcile what they are experiencing with their various worldviews, before eventually calling in the service of spiritual experts to perform an exorcism. As the events play out, there is a liberal splattering of gore, with the obligatory twisting heads and spewing of foul liquids.</p>
<h2>The power of unity</h2>
<p>It is striking that these elements mirror what was presented to audiences in the 1970s with <a href="https://www.bbfc.co.uk/education/case-studies/exorcist">the first Exorcist film</a>. Even the central theme of “belief” is nothing new. A priest undergoing a crisis of faith is the central protagonist of <a href="https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/327714/the-exorcist-by-blatty-william-peter/9780552166775">William Blatty’s original Exorcist novel</a>. </p>
<p>There are some aspects of The Exorcist: Believer that do reflect its 21st-century context, however. The team of exorcists who battle the demon are drawn from a variety of religious backgrounds and act together in a common cause. The message is that these believers have much more that unites than divides them. </p>
<p>Haitian spiritual practices and African-American root doctor traditions are presented as aligned with light, rather than darkness. This is extremely welcome. Given the amount of media that treats black and indigenous religion as sinister and even demonic, this positive portrayal is a commendable choice. </p>
<p>Equally, the decision to have Christian characters of various denominations stand alongside one another, as well as the <a href="https://www.nps.gov/articles/000/hoodoo-in-st-louis-an-african-american-religious-tradition.htm">traditional African American healer</a> character, makes a powerful statement about community and togetherness.</p>
<p>But this homogenising approach is also problematic. The film asserts that exorcism exists in every culture and suggests that all people engaged in it are effectively doing the same thing. In reality, this is an oversimplification – with some potentially dangerous implications.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-exorcist-at-50-a-terrifying-film-that-symbolises-the-decline-of-americas-faith-and-optimism-212039">The Exorcist at 50: a terrifying film that symbolises the decline of America's faith and optimism</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>And the dangers</h2>
<p>The term “exorcism” can be appropriately used to describe rituals from many global traditions, <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/international-journal-of-law-in-context/article/exorcism-and-children-balancing-protection-and-autonomy-in-the-legal-framework/BE26F1BC2394D4F76BF02BF88A769D73">if it is defined as</a> a practice that aims to free a person, place or object from a negative spiritual influence.</p>
<p>However, this very general category contains hugely diverse ideas. There is immense breadth in both underpinning belief systems (which span almost all forms of spirituality, including Roman Catholicism, Pentecostalism, Islam, Wicca and Hinduism) and also the means used to expel the malevolent spirit. </p>
<p>These distinctions matter. Especially when it comes to weighing up the balance between autonomy and protecting the person in real-life exorcisms.</p>
<p>Any legal framework that respects democratic and human rights supports freedom of belief and cultural diversity. But it must also protect those not fully able to advocate for themselves. This means decisions have to be made about when to permit exorcism rituals involving children and adults suffering from mental illness or impaired capacity. </p>
<p>When making these decisions, both the nature of the exorcism rite and the beliefs surrounding it are critical.</p>
<p>Some cultures see possession as an unlucky accident that can happen to anyone. Whereas others regard it as the result of either some deliberate act of wrongdoing or inherent flaw in the character – or even soul – of the supposedly possessed person. </p>
<p>Some faith traditions consider afflicted people dangerous, leading them to be shunned or even <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2017/03/01/she-was-demonized-nicaraguan-woman-dies-after-being-thrown-into-fire-in-exorcism-ritual/">attacked</a>. In such circumstances, cooperating with a proposed exorcism ritual may be a person’s only option for reintegration within their community.</p>
<p>Also, some traditions believe that an evil entity is capable of hijacking a human body, suppressing the will of the host. In these circumstances, any resistance to the exorcism may be understood as coming from the spirit, rather than the person, and therefore ignored. </p>
<p>On the other hand, if the victim of possession is thought to retain some residual will, then any reluctance to participate in exorcism may be treated as evidence of a desire to choose evil.</p>
<p>It is also important to appreciate that modes of exorcism vary enormously – from quietly spoken prayers to violent assaults. Dangerous or abusive practices may also be employed. People may be encouraged – or forced – to ingest substances that are either harmful or risky because of the dose or manner of administration. </p>
<p>There have been exorcism-related deaths caused by salt poisoning, dry-drowning from <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna31337466">water</a> and even a near-fatal dose of <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-humber-61651857">intravenous drugs</a>.</p>
<p>Taking all of this into account, conveying the message that exorcism is an essentially positive and universal practice shared by many cultures, is potentially dangerous. </p>
<p>Of course, cinema-goers are capable of distinguishing between fact and fiction and nobody would suggest that the Exorcist films should be treated as documentaries. But pop culture does influence people’s perceptions.</p>
<p>Public authorities do not always fully understand the beliefs and practices of minority groups, and this can cause problems. They may incorrectly perceive a situation to be risky and intervene when it’s unnecessary. Alternatively, a vulnerable person may be left without help because police or social workers misguidedly construe harmful practices as acceptable due to the cultural context.</p>
<p>These kinds of mistakes have contributed to preventable exorcism-related deaths, including <a href="https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/5a7c5edeed915d696ccfc51b/5730.pdf">those of children</a>. The Excorcist: Believer’s treatment of exorcism as a simple and benign phenomenon spanning cultural and religious divides isn’t accurate, or even desirable – even in the context of a horror film.</p>
<hr>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
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</figure>
<p><em>Looking for something good? Cut through the noise with a carefully curated selection of the latest releases, live events and exhibitions, straight to your inbox every fortnight, on Fridays. <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/newsletters/something-good-156">Sign up here</a>.</em></p>
<hr><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/215124/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Helen Hall is a priest in the Church of England</span></em></p>
There is a liberal splattering of gore, with the obligatory twisting heads and spewing of foul liquids.
Helen Hall, Senior Lecturer, Nottingham Law School, Nottingham Trent University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/214649
2023-10-05T16:36:02Z
2023-10-05T16:36:02Z
Holly by Stephen King: a timely work of crime fiction about not judging a book by its cover
<p>At the age of 76, with nearly 70 novels and short story collections behind him, American author Stephen King shows few signs of slowing down. His latest novel Holly, hefty in scale and elaborate in plotting, is the work of an energetic writer, not one who is getting tired. </p>
<p>The book is a compelling composite of the crime and horror genres, as addictive as the cigarettes which the title character finds herself smoking, as she investigates a spate of abductions in a midwest town. </p>
<p>One of the incidental pleasures offered by Holly is its allusion to books from earlier in King’s long literary career. The terrifying incarceration experienced by the novel’s victims, for example, recalls that of the central figure in <a href="https://stephenking.com/works/novel/misery.html">Misery</a> (1987). A reference to blood poured over a high school prom queen summons up thoughts of <a href="https://stephenking.com/works/novel/carrie.html">Carrie</a> (1974), King’s first novel. </p>
<p>That said, this new book shows King experimenting and innovating, rather than simply being content to reactivate the tropes of his previous fiction.</p>
<p>As well as showing that literary vitality is not reserved for the young, Holly strikes other blows against ageist thinking. The novel is a “whydunit”, not a whodunit, so it is no spoiler to reveal that its villains are two elderly professors, long retired from their lecturing careers at Bell College of Arts and Sciences (a fictitious institution that seems, from geographical markers and references to Cleveland sports teams, to be in Ohio).</p>
<p>Instead of engaging in pursuits lazily associated with retirees – daytime television, say, or the newspaper’s quick crossword – Emily and Roddy Harris embark on an end-of-life killing spree. They evade detection so long precisely because of a tendency not to suspect the elderly of multiple homicides (their status as academics, perhaps, makes them doubly exempt). As Holly says ruefully: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>No one expects old people to be serial killers.</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>“Another dark place”</h2>
<p>The novel’s central character, Holly Gibney, a middle-aged private investigator, has featured in other recent crime fiction by King. As well as forming part of crime-solving teams in the <a href="https://www.hachette.co.uk/titles/stephen-king-3/mr-mercedes/9781444788679/">Mr. Mercedes trilogy</a> (2014-2016) and <a href="https://stephenking.com/works/novel/outsider.html">The Outsider</a> (2018), she appears in the first novella of the collection <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/apr/27/if-it-bleeds-review-stephen-king-on-vintage-form">If It Bleeds</a> (2020) – a story which, according to King in an Author’s Note appended to Holly, presents in miniature the plot of this substantial new volume.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Stephen King sits on panel." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/551173/original/file-20230929-15-6ilif0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/551173/original/file-20230929-15-6ilif0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/551173/original/file-20230929-15-6ilif0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/551173/original/file-20230929-15-6ilif0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/551173/original/file-20230929-15-6ilif0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/551173/original/file-20230929-15-6ilif0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/551173/original/file-20230929-15-6ilif0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">At 76, King show’s no sign of slowing down and Holly is as thrilling as any of his books.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/stephen-king-new-york-comic-con-9118555">George Koroneos/Shutterstock</a></span>
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<p>Readers of this latest book will find themselves entering the minds of other characters besides Gibney herself. The novel moves between perspectives, even taking us disturbingly into the mentalities of the elderly serial killers. But Holly is at the book’s heart. </p>
<p>As the narrative begins, she is very recently bereaved, unsure of the future of her private investigation business, yet she dedicates herself wholeheartedly to the challenge of finding out what has happened to five abductees.</p>
<p>Gibney gets by on clear, patient thinking; as she reflects, “Her wits are all she has.” In one respect, however, her skills of observation and analysis let her down. Late on, deciding what to do in a difficult situation, she makes a mistake about the very genre – the kind of narrative – she is in. “Holly isn’t in a horror movie […] she tells herself she isn’t making a poor decision.”</p>
<p>King’s turn towards crime fiction in recent work, including Holly, should not be taken as implying abandonment of the horror tradition to which his name is most strongly attached. If crime writing has its <a href="https://theconversation.com/only-murders-in-the-building-is-a-loving-parody-of-the-whodunit-211781">cosy variants</a> (for example, the classic murder mysteries elegantly republished by the British Library), it also heads at the other extreme towards horror. </p>
<p>With its dungeon, its food- and water-deprived captives, its bloody meat juice one of them thinks might make “a clot lollipop”, Holly clearly sits in the more horrific side of the crime genre’s spectrum.</p>
<p>Little wonder, then, that in the author’s note, King thanks readers for “coming to another dark place with me”.</p>
<h2>In our time</h2>
<p>King skilfully interweaves two timelines in Holly. The first, beginning 17 October, 2012, documents the Harrises’ career in serial killing; the second, beginning 22 July, 2021, centres upon Holly’s investigation of their crimes. Gradually, these chronologies converge. The moment when they finally intersect, bringing Holly vulnerably into the same time and space as two pitiless murderers, is heart-stopping.</p>
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<img alt="Book cover of Holly featuring a light on in the basment of a house." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/551175/original/file-20230929-49812-qrryxk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/551175/original/file-20230929-49812-qrryxk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=924&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/551175/original/file-20230929-49812-qrryxk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=924&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/551175/original/file-20230929-49812-qrryxk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=924&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/551175/original/file-20230929-49812-qrryxk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1161&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/551175/original/file-20230929-49812-qrryxk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1161&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/551175/original/file-20230929-49812-qrryxk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1161&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Stoughton</span></span>
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<p>Holly is studded with references to very recent events in American public life, lending it the urgency of a newspaper or TV news bulletin. Racism in US policing, critiqued so powerfully by <a href="https://theconversation.com/george-floyd-why-the-sight-of-these-brave-exhausted-protesters-gives-me-hope-139804">Black Lives Matter</a>, is reported. So, too, is the Trump-inspired assault on the <a href="https://theconversation.com/proud-boys-on-trial-does-remorse-in-court-signal-a-change-for-this-far-right-group-a-psychologist-reviews-the-research-213198">Capitol in Washington, DC</a> in January 2021. </p>
<p>King is a vigorous critic of Trump on Twitter – here is a recent <a href="https://twitter.com/StephenKing/status/1706817519011483792?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1706817519011483792%7Ctwgr%5Ead7ce6e97a030e2fb77c26ebe15e4980653d1cfd%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.newsweek.com%2F1830308">tweet</a> that attests to that: “Donald Trump: Worst. President. Ever.” And in his new book he has the impeccably anti-Republican Gibney as his proxy.</p>
<p>Above all, Holly is suffused by thoughts of COVID-19. It joins novels such as Ali Smith’s <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/aug/02/summer-by-ali-smith-review-a-remarkable-end-to-an-extraordinary-quartet">Summer</a> (2020) and Gary Shteyngart’s <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2022/jan/26/our-country-friends-by-gary-shteyngart-review-lockdown-tragicomedy">Our Country Friends</a> (2021) in the expanding corpus of pandemic fiction. Characters reveal their worth in King’s novel by their attitudes to the virus. If they are anti-vaxxers and express hostility to mask-wearing or elbow-bumping, they are catalogued by the text as morally lacking.</p>
<p>By contrast, Holly Gibney herself is scrupulous in observing protocols. The US private eye tradition includes any number of misanthropes and narcissists: think only of Mickey Spillane’s thuggish Mike Hammer in the decades following the second world war. In creating Gibney, however, King has fashioned not only a resourceful investigator but a good, empathetic citizen. </p>
<p>This is a novel that should make new fans for King, as well as engage his existing readership. A perfect book to hunker down with this autumn. </p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<p><em>Looking for something good? Cut through the noise with a carefully curated selection of the latest releases, live events and exhibitions, straight to your inbox every fortnight, on Fridays. <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/newsletters/something-good-156">Sign up here</a>.</em></p>
<hr><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/214649/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Andrew Dix does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
The third book to feature the eponymous detective is a whydunnit not a whodunnit.
Andrew Dix, Senior Lecturer in American Literature and Film, Loughborough University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/211031
2023-08-07T20:01:56Z
2023-08-07T20:01:56Z
10 years of homegrown horror hits: Talk To Me and the golden age of Aussie horror
<p>The past decade has been a golden one for Australian horror, bookended by The Babadook in 2014 and the current sensation Talk to Me. </p>
<p>The global premiere of Jennifer Kent’s groundbreaking supernatural bogeyman film at the 2014 Sundance Film Festival caused ripples that became a wave. </p>
<p>The Babadook attracted international acclaim, winning the New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best First Feature. The Exorcist’s director, William Friedkin, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/film/2014/dec/02/the-babadook-scariest-film-exorcist-william-friedkin">called it</a> the most terrifying film he’d ever seen.</p>
<p>Talk to Me, the directorial feature debut of brothers Danny and Michael Philippou, also premiered internationally at Sundance, where it sparked a <a href="https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/talk-to-me-a24-buys-sundance-horror-movie-1235309286/">bidding war</a>.</p>
<p>Now in cinemas, Talk to Me has surpassed industry projections to gross more than <a href="https://deadline.com/2023/07/talk-to-me-a24-specialty-box-office-michale-danny-philippou-1235451034/">US$10 million</a> (A$15.2 million) in North America on its opening weekend, and opened <a href="https://numero.co/reports/2023/08/03/barbie-drop-off-only-16-for-week-2">at number four</a> in Australia. Talk to Me’s success story is not just commercial but critical: the film currently has a <a href="https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/talk_to_me_2023">94% approval rating</a> on Rotten Tomatoes.</p>
<p>This horror high water mark carries the legacy of Australia’s strong horror history, while signalling the shedding of some cultural biases that have constrained our culture of innovation in spookery. </p>
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<h2>The Australian New Wave</h2>
<p>Australia’s golden horror decade has roots in the <a href="https://journal.media-culture.org.au/index.php/mcjournal/article/view/847">Australian New Wave</a>, a particularly productive period for Australian film from the 1970s to the late 1980s dominated by two key horror subgenres on opposing ends of the taste spectrum. </p>
<p>The high-brow <a href="https://theconversation.com/australian-gothic-from-hanging-rock-to-nick-cave-and-kylie-this-genre-explores-our-dark-side-111742">Australian Gothic</a> includes critically esteemed dramas Picnic at Hanging Rock (1975) and Walkabout (1971). These films are structured by enigmatic narratives with horror-tinged edges, in which the ethereal beauty of the bush also bears quasi-supernatural menace.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/australian-gothic-from-hanging-rock-to-nick-cave-and-kylie-this-genre-explores-our-dark-side-111742">Australian Gothic: from Hanging Rock to Nick Cave and Kylie, this genre explores our dark side</a>
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<p>Low-brow Ozploitation films were popular in <a href="https://www.acmi.net.au/works/112020--drive-in-horror/">drive-in theatres</a>, but often critically derided for their “tasteless” violence and sex and for cribbing flagrantly from Hollywood horror. </p>
<p>Classics of the genre include Razorback (1984), <a href="https://www.acmi.net.au/stories-and-ideas/five-unmissable-ozploitation-horror-films/">pitched as</a> “Jaws on trotters” (the film features a murderous bush hog), and Patrick (1978), about a man in a coma with psychokinetic (and psychosexual) powers.</p>
<p>Ozploitation is often seen as the rebelliously gory, commercially oriented <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/17503175.2017.1308907">antagonist</a> to the Australian Gothic’s highbrow works of art.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/our-enduring-love-of-mad-maxs-australian-outback-an-anarchic-wasteland-of-sado-masochistic-punk-villains-and-ocker-clowns-159441">Our enduring love of Mad Max's Australian outback: an anarchic wasteland of sado-masochistic punk villains and ocker clowns</a>
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<h2>Destroying the high/low culture binary</h2>
<p>This binary persisted into the early 21st century. The international commercial success of homegrown horror hits such as Saw (2004) and Wolf Creek (2005) was often accompanied by domestic critical derision: Margaret Pomeranz and David Stratton <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/opinion/wolf-creek-2-knifed-by-intellectual-snobbery-20140227-33m72.html">refused</a> to review Wolf Creek 2 (2013).</p>
<p>The horror films of the past decade tend to trample over this high/low genre binary.</p>
<p>These films experiment with art cinema aesthetics and deploy narrative strategies of prestige drama, echoing the Australian Gothic. However the supernatural elements are an explicit narrative structuring device, unashamedly emphasising their horror identities.</p>
<p>The ghosts and bogeymen of films like The Babadook, Relic (2020) and Talk to Me provoke shock and disgust, while also poetically expressing psychological turmoils that evade coherent explanation.</p>
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<p>In The Babadook, this turmoil erupts from shared grief between mother and son. In Natalie Erika James’ debut feature Relic, a grandmother’s descent into dementia impels the reverberation of spectral traumas across three generations. In Talk to Me, a blossoming teen friendship is possessed by the unquiet spirit of the protagonist’s dead mother. </p>
<p>Alongside this nuanced dramatic core, Talk To Me pushes the boundaries of good taste with gleeful abandon in true Ozploitation style. It features gruesome possession-induced self-harm and more than <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/film/2023/jul/26/rackaracka-talk-to-me-film-danny-michael-philippou-youtube">100 swear words</a>. The narrative centres on a darkly comic analogy (instead of drug-taking, the teens become addicted to the occult pleasures of the talismanic hand) that would be at home in a grindhouse drive-in.</p>
<p>This play with high/low culture boundaries filters into Talk To Me’s play with audience emotions and expectations. </p>
<p>At times while watching, my body was tensely primed for a gory eye-gouging; instead I was met with a gentle moment of connection between two characters. At other moments, tender sequences give way unexpectedly to viscous spurts of blood.</p>
<p>The ghouls of this golden decade are at home on the red carpets of festivals such as Sundance, yet they also drip with the blood and bodily fluids of their Ozploitation forebears. </p>
<h2>A collective energy</h2>
<p>Our current golden age of horror has grown out of a collective creative energy.</p>
<p>The Philippou brothers <a href="https://www.thesaturdaypaper.com.au/culture/film/2023/07/29/directors-danny-and-michael-philippou#mtr">worked on The Babadook</a> as 19-year-olds and credit Kent’s influence as key to their creative approach. </p>
<p>The Babadook was the debut film from Australian production company Causeway Films, and Talk To Me is their latest picture, led by producer Samantha Jennings.</p>
<p>Jennings and Causeway have been critical to the collective currents that have propelled our golden horror decade. They also produced the conceptually layered zombie horror-drama Cargo (2017) and witch folk horror You Won’t Be Alone (2021), Australia’s submission for the Academy Awards for Best International Feature.</p>
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<p>This decade of ingenuity has demonstrated Australian horror films can find international success blending the highbrow and lowbrow, yet the constraining thinking of the New Wave-era continues to haunt the local screen sector. </p>
<p>Kent’s The Babadook <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/17503175.2017.1308907">received a limited release</a> on only 13 screens in Australia after being deemed too “art-house”. James’ internationally acclaimed Relic was not screened theatrically on home soil until <a href="https://www.acmi.net.au/whats-on/focus-dead-in-cinemas/relic-2020/">three years after</a> its Sundance premiere (a screening I co-organised with ACMI). You Won’t Be Alone might have been Australia’s Oscars submission, but it <a href="https://if.com.au/you-wont-be-alone-australias-submission-for-best-international-feature-oscar/">did not receive a single nomination</a> at our local AACTA Awards.</p>
<p>The last decade has showcased that Australian horror can be worthy of domestic and critical attention <em>and</em> a gory good time with commercial appeal. Perhaps the success of Talk to Me both at the box office and with critics will encourage us to listen.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/were-in-a-golden-age-of-black-horror-films-116648">We're in a golden age of black horror films</a>
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<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/211031/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jessica Balanzategui receives funding from the Australian Children's Television Foundation.</span></em></p>
Our new wave of horror carries the legacy of Australia’s strong horror history – while finally signalling the shedding of some cultural biases.
Jessica Balanzategui, Senior Lecturer in Media, RMIT University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/204420
2023-04-25T10:52:00Z
2023-04-25T10:52:00Z
The Pope’s Exorcist: how the film compares to the real church’s approach to exorcism
<p>When official trailers were released, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/film/2023/apr/10/exorcists-denounce-the-popes-exorcist-with-russell-crowe">the International Association of Exorcists</a> branded The Pope’s Exorcist: “unreliable … splatter cinema”. </p>
<p>The film’s protagonist, <a href="https://theconversation.com/gabriele-amorth-conducted-over-60-000-exorcisms-and-believed-hitler-was-possessed-meet-the-man-who-inspired-the-popes-exorcist-201383">Father Gabriele Amorth</a> (Russell Crowe), is based on a real Catholic exorcist who was a founding member of the very organisation condemning the movie as inaccurate. So cinema-goers had fair warning that it would be far from uncontentious.</p>
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<p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YJXqvnT_rsk">Promotional material</a> for the film did not promise a reflection on exorcism in the modern era, but presented an Indiana Jones-style figure in a cassock, brandishing a crucifix instead of a whip.</p>
<p>The film itself lived up to both these fears and expectations. A classic fusion of action and horror, it fits squarely into the <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/09526951211004465">exorcist genre</a> with levitation, twisting heads and gravelly-voiced demons speaking through the wracked bodies of helpless children.</p>
<p>The plot moves through some of Father Amorth’s most memorable reported cases, in particular a struggle with a demon the church had supposedly battled in previous centuries. </p>
<p>At times there are shades of the Da Vinci Code, with Vatican cover-ups, conspiracies and ecclesiastical power play. Add into the mix secret chambers hiding cobweb-strewn skeletons and dark secrets and it’s squarely in Temple of Doom territory.</p>
<p>Despite these obvious flights of fancy, there is a tension in not knowing exactly where the line between history and make believe is drawn, especially as the real Father Amorth died several years ago.</p>
<p>This aspect of the film struck a chord with my research on exorcism and the parameters the legal system draws around freedom of religion in this context. Pop-culture exorcisms attract a lot of media interest, but it can be harder to get traction for serious debate.</p>
<p>These Hollywood depictions can lead to real world dangers – as tragedies like the <a href="https://victoriaclimbie.hud.ac.uk/background.html">murder of Victoria Climbié</a> in 2000 prove all too graphically. The eight-year-old was abused and killed by her great aunt and her great-aunt’s boyfriend, who used “demonic possession” to explain their niece’s injuries to their pastor. </p>
<h2>How true to life is The Pope’s Exorcist?</h2>
<p>Disentangling the real-world inspiration and fictional elements of The Pope’s Exorcist is complicated by differing perceptions of exorcism within the church.</p>
<p>The work of Father Amorth was <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/national/father-gabriele-amorth-bestknown-but-controversial-exorcist-20160921-grkxip.html">controversial</a> during his lifetime. The International Association of Exorcists took some time to gain papal endorsement from John Paul II. Even now it is recognised as a “<a href="https://www.aieinternational.org/">private association of the Christian faithful</a>” rather than a group coordinated by ecclesiastical authorities. </p>
<p>The current Pope Francis is faced with balancing <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-catholic-churchs-views-on-exorcism-have-changed-a-religious-studies-scholar-explains-why-182212">contrasting understandings of exorcism</a> within the church.</p>
<p>Some of the conflict arises from theological differences about the nature of evil and demons, while some is rooted in the cultural differences of the international church. The Pope’s Exorcist overtly deals with this. An African bishop (Cornell John) is portrayed as supportive of Father Amorth and a counterbalance to a sceptical American cardinal. </p>
<p>This taps into stereotypes from colonial era literature. There, communities regarded as “primitive” were depicted as more <a href="https://www.bars.ac.uk/blog/?p=4495">aligned to supernatural forces</a> and therefore threatening.</p>
<p>In the works of authors such as <a href="https://engl105fa2020sec079.web.unc.edu/2020/11/mummies-and-masculinity-an-analysis-of-lot-no-249-by-arthur-conan-doyle">Arthur Conan Doyle</a>, Rudyard Kipling or <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/files/2893/2893-h/2893-h.htm">Rider Haggard</a>, there is the concession that other cultures might have access to lost knowledge and awareness, but this is generally viewed as a sinister rather than a positive trait.</p>
<h2>Demons and the modern church</h2>
<p>In the contemporary world, the Roman Catholic Church has to pay regard to the benefits of modern science and the empirical method. The church has even sometimes helped to foster this over the years, for example through <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Gregor-Mendel">Gregor Mendel</a>, the monk who laid the foundation for modern genetics. </p>
<p>Yet the church has also made space for those who argue that this is not the only lens through which to view the world. The <a href="https://catholicidentity.bne.catholic.edu.au/scripture/SitePages/The-Nicene-Creed.aspx?csf=1&e=bUuqDO">Nicene Creed</a> is a foundational statement of doctrine and profession of faith, which proclaims God as creator of all things “visible and invisible”. </p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">A clip from The Pope’s Exorcist.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Christians including Roman Catholics differ as to whether the “invisible” might mean atoms, demons, or both.</p>
<p>This means that churches must agree on – or at least impose – common ground rules for what those involved in exorcisms should expect. There is room for a variety of perspectives, but responsible and organised faith groups put in place provision to protect the vulnerable from harm or abuse.</p>
<p>The Roman Catholic Church and other groups, like Anglicans, do this, as the film partly reflects. It is stressed that Father Amorth consults doctors and psychiatrists and that, in most cases, conventional medicine is at the heart of helping the distressed person. This mirrors reality.</p>
<p>Roman Catholic exorcists recognise the danger of encouraging a person suffering from auditory hallucinations, for example, to believe that these are demonic <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2017/08/04/health/exorcism-doctor/index.html">when the cause is mental illness</a> requiring appropriate treatment.</p>
<p>The greatest distortion of the film – and potential danger – is in the depiction of people receiving exorcisms, whether they seek them for themselves or are presented for treatment by family members.</p>
<p>In The Pope’s Exorcist, these individuals are literally monstrous and a threat to those surrounding them. A significant number of people – a disproportionate number of whom are <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-39123952">women</a> and <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36370647/">children</a> – are murdered each year during exorcism rituals because of perceptions like these.</p>
<p>Most of these disastrous rites are carried out by <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2007/nov/12/barbaramcmahon">misguided family members</a> or neighbours, rather than religious ministers. There are no reported cases of any Roman Catholic priests ever being involved in such an incident.</p>
<p>Perhaps this danger is at the heart of the International Association of Exorcists’s rejection of the film. Given that fatal exorcisms are an all too real phenomenon, claiming that the horrific scenes of demonic possession on screen have a basis in actual events poses a real danger.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/204420/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Helen Hall is affiliated with the Church of England</span></em></p>
In reality, most Roman Catholic exorcists recognise the danger of encouraging a person suffering from auditory hallucinations to believe that these are demonic.
Helen Hall, Senior Lecturer, Nottingham Law School, Nottingham Trent University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/203958
2023-04-18T10:51:29Z
2023-04-18T10:51:29Z
Renfield: Nicolas Cage’s reimagining of Dracula pulls the vampire film into the 21st century
<p>“Don’t make it a sexual thing!” Nicolas Cage’s Dracula tells Nicholas Hoult’s Renfield in this new interpretation of the classic vampire movie. “I eat boys … I eat girls.” </p>
<p>In a line, the film deftly dismisses a century of <a href="https://www.bps.org.uk/psychologist/dracula-couch">post-Freudian interpretations</a> of Bram Stoker’s vampire story – and with justification. Renfield is not about sex, but about power.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">The trailer for Renfield (2023).</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This is most obvious when Renfield, Dracula’s servant or “familiar”, attends a support group for codependent people. When the group facilitator, Mark (Brandon Scott Jones), asks Renfield what would happen if he were to stop focusing on his boss’s needs, he responds: “He won’t grow to full power.”</p>
<p>The group finds this apparent metaphor weird, but resonant. In its recognition that gaslighting and emotional abuse are about control rather than desire, the film provides a version of the vampire myth in tune with contemporary debates. There is more than a whiff of #TimesUp about Renfield’s mission to distance himself from his abusive employer.</p>
<p>The film’s most striking power move, however, is on behalf of its production company, Universal. In its latest attempt to reboot its <a href="https://www.digitalspy.com/movies/a829209/universal-dark-universe-the-mummy-bride-of-frankenstein-the-invisible-man-trailer-release-date/">“Dark Universe” franchise</a> – a collection of movies based on the iconic horror film characters the studio established in the 1930s – the production company is aggressively laying claim to the Dracula story.</p>
<h2>Citational vampires</h2>
<p>Vampire films are, according to critic Ken Gelder, “<a href="https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/New_Vampire_Cinema/uQn8DwAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&printsec=frontcover">citational</a>”. This means that they compulsively reference other vampire films, playfully reworking the conventions of the genre. The vampire film talks endlessly about itself.</p>
<p>In Renfield, an eye-catching sequence transposes Cage and Hoult’s faces onto footage from <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VoaMw91MC9k">Tod Browning’s Dracula</a> (1931). This was the film that forever identified Hungarian actor <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Bela-Lugosi">Bela Lugosi</a> with the iconic vampire. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/vampires-rebirth-from-monstrous-undead-creature-to-sexy-and-romantic-byronic-seducer-in-one-ghost-story-114382">Vampire's rebirth: from monstrous undead creature to sexy and romantic Byronic seducer in one ghost story</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Renfield wants to draw our attention to the “original” (itself an adaptation of a stage version of Stoker’s novel) even as, almost 100 years later, it wants to remodel the vampire movie to 21st century specifications.</p>
<p>Recasting Cage in the image of Lugosi repurposes Browning’s film as an origin story for what is ultimately a kind of superhero movie. Renfield eats insects in order to stimulate turbocharged combat skills reminiscent of <a href="https://theconversation.com/five-exciting-additions-to-marvels-cinematic-universes-according-to-a-comics-expert-180634">Marvel characters</a>.</p>
<p>It also, however, evokes the <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20070930173700/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,952724,00.html">lawsuit that Lugosi’s heirs brought against Universal Pictures</a> in 1966. They accused the studio of profiting from Lugosi’s image after his death through merchandising, initiating a protracted case they eventually lost. It was a landmark ruling, determining that celebrities do not own their own images after their death.</p>
<p>In Renfield, the retrospective adjustment of the original film to star Cage rather than Lugosi is not only a canny joke that plays on the extreme recognition value of both actors. It is also a strategic move intended to bolster Universal’s association with the Dracula brand, as the Browning film’s copyright is due to expire this decade.</p>
<h2>Action versus comedy</h2>
<p>Renfield has the feel of the first instalment in an action franchise. But unlike previous attempts to hybridise the vampire and action genres, such as the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kaU2A7KyOu4">Blade</a> and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2_IoL7g5Ub8">Underworld</a> series of the early 2000s, it does not take itself too seriously.</p>
<p>Stars Cage, Hoult and Awkwafina deliver their lines as if with permanently arched eyebrows. Indeed, at one point, Cage rapidly raises both eyebrows twice in such an exaggerated manner that it almost breaks the fourth wall. </p>
<p>Elsewhere, extreme gore is exploited for its slapstick potential. In the screening I attended, a scene in which Renfield tears off a villain’s arms with his bare hands and uses them to whack other opponents had some audience members in stitches.</p>
<p>There is a long tradition of vampire comedy. Stoker’s novel has vampire hunter Van Helsing break down in hysterical laughter, blaming “<a href="https://www.shmoop.com/dracula/chapter-13-full-text-11.html">King Laugh</a>”, a grinning skeleton who combines hilarity and death in the manner of the <a href="https://www.thecollector.com/danse-macabre-middle-ages-danse-of-death/">medieval danse macabre</a>.</p>
<p>The self-referential nature of vampire cinema gives rise to comedy. Appreciation of Renfield’s visual gags and snappy one liners is enriched by familiarity with previous vampire films. Cage’s characteristically over-the-top interpretation of his role inevitably recalls any number of his previous performances.</p>
<p>He even seems comparatively restrained besides his extraordinarily unhinged appearance in the 1988 black comedy <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PnoSxO_2ghQ">Vampire’s Kiss</a> – another film that uses vampirism as a metaphor for gaslighting and abusive relationships.</p>
<p>The film never quite delivers what it promises, however. While comparable contemporary vampire film <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IAZEWtyhpes">What We Do in the Shadows</a> and its <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PrEg-QGEonI">spin-off TV series</a> allow emotional insights to surface through the comedy, in Renfield any potential profundity is deflected into action stunts.</p>
<p>The gleeful lashings of ultraviolence result in a kind of moral murkiness, in which audiences are never sure whether they are rooting for the underdog or the violent enabler of a centuries-old serial killer.</p>
<p>A film less determined to please its audience might lean into this ambiguity and allow genuine complexity to emerge. Here, however, an uneven tone betrays an uncertainty of purpose. Ultimately, Renfield’s witty attempt to reframe a familiar story is compromised by its corporate brief: to shore up an unstable cinematic empire.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/203958/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Catherine Spooner does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Renfield attempts to remodel the vampire movie to 21st century specifications.
Catherine Spooner, Professor of Literature and Culture, Lancaster University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/197859
2023-01-24T15:04:31Z
2023-01-24T15:04:31Z
‘The Whale’ is a horror film that taps into our fear of fatness
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/505902/original/file-20230123-13-7h23y2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=11%2C14%2C2485%2C1642&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Over the course of 'The Whale,' Charlie's body gradually breaks down.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://media-cldnry.s-nbcnews.com/image/upload/t_fit-1240w,f_auto,q_auto:best/rockcms/2022-12/221209-Brendan-Fraser-the-whale-ew-255p-cc959f.jpg">A24</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>I knew before seeing “<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt13833688/">The Whale</a>” that it was a movie about a man named Charlie who weighs over 600 pounds, is grief-stricken over the death of his partner, and is effectively trapped in his apartment due to his weight.</p>
<p>I also knew that “The Whale” had attracted a great deal of criticism, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/10/opinion/the-whale-film.html">provoking anger</a>, <a href="https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/elaminabdelmahmoud/the-whale-brendan-fraser-darren-aronofsky-review">disgust</a> and accusations of <a href="https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/the-whale-movie-review-2022">exploitation</a>. Despite the controversy, <a href="https://movieweb.com/best-actor-2022-brendan-fraser/">Brendan Fraser’s performance has been widely praised</a>, and he won <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2023/03/13/entertainment/brendan-fraser-oscars-best-actor/index.html">best actor</a> at the 95th Academy Awards.</p>
<p>But what I didn’t know was that this film would make me cry. As I left the theater, I found myself hyperaware of my own fat body moving through the parking lot, and I started to feel the way I often do when I see a reflection of myself in a mirror: monstrous.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/the-case-for-a-fat-love-story">In my research</a> on fat characters in popular culture, I point out how the fat character usually must lose weight in order to gain acceptance or to be loved. </p>
<p>In “The Whale,” however, Charlie does not lose weight; the transformation goes in the opposite direction: he gets bigger and bigger, suffering a slow and painful physical breakdown. As I watched the film, I started to understand, with a looming sense of dread, that “The Whale” had no plans to recuperate this character. The fatness was the subject and the point. </p>
<p>I began to realize that this movie was not a melodrama, nor an uplifting tale about redemption; to me, “The Whale” is a body horror film that exploits the fear and disgust people feel toward fatness.</p>
<h2>The body as a monster</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.indiewire.com/gallery/best-body-horror-movies/">Body horror</a> is a subset of the horror film genre that depicts the destruction, degeneration or mutation of the human body. These films are designed to gross out viewers, and the protagonist often becomes the monster of the story as their body becomes more and more repulsive. </p>
<p>Director David Cronenberg made the subgenre famous <a href="https://bloody-disgusting.com/sponsored/3716683/body-horror-david-cronenberg/">in films such as</a> “<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0091064/">The Fly</a>,” “<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0073705/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0">Shivers</a>,” “<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0086541/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0">Videodrome</a>” and “<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0076590/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_3">Rabid</a>.” </p>
<p>“The Fly,” a remake of the <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0051622/">1958 film</a> of the same name, tells the story of a scientist named Seth Brundle who merges his DNA with that of a common housefly. Over the course of the film, he gradually degenerates into a disgusting creature nicknamed “<a href="https://villains.fandom.com/wiki/Brundlefly">Brundlefly</a>.” Another particularly disturbing body horror film is “<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3099498/">Tusk</a>,” in which a man obsessed with walruses ends up kidnapping a cruel podcaster and dismembers him in order to turn him into a walrus. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Split image of man on one side and hideous monster on the other." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/505976/original/file-20230123-17-4gl88j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/505976/original/file-20230123-17-4gl88j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=310&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/505976/original/file-20230123-17-4gl88j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=310&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/505976/original/file-20230123-17-4gl88j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=310&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/505976/original/file-20230123-17-4gl88j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=390&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/505976/original/file-20230123-17-4gl88j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=390&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/505976/original/file-20230123-17-4gl88j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=390&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">David Cronenberg’s ‘The Fly’ is a standout of the body horror genre.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.unilad.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/the-fly-35.jpg">20th Century Studios</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In body horror films, there is something viscerally disturbing about seeing the human body distorted, whether it’s due to <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0078748/">a parasitic alien</a>, a <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0073705/">mutated virus</a> or the sadistic compulsions of a <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1467304/">mad scientist</a>. </p>
<p>“The Whale” suggests that although Charlie deserves pity, <a href="https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/elaminabdelmahmoud/the-whale-brendan-fraser-darren-aronofsky-review">he is nonetheless a monstrosity</a>.</p>
<p>Like Seth Brundle, who experiments on himself while drunk, Charlie regularly gorges on fried chicken, pizza and subs – the implication being that Charlie is directly responsible for his morbid obesity. </p>
<p>Seeing Charlie’s gradual physical disintegration is like watching a slow-motion car wreck; you cannot look away even though you know you should. He’s barely able to stand, and he loses the ability to perform the most basic of tasks, like picking up an object from the floor. In some scenes, the camera rests on Charlie’s distended gut, his swollen calves or his sweat-soaked clothes, inviting the audience to be repulsed. </p>
<p>In body horror, there is no return from being transformed; the damage is done. And although not every transformed body horror character dies, many do. </p>
<p>In the end, Charlie’s body ends up destroying him.</p>
<h2>Till flesh do us part</h2>
<p>Film <a href="https://www.cliffsnotes.com/tutors-problems/Writing/45763344-Film-critic-Robin-Wood-in-a-now-famous-essay-defined-the-true/">critic Robin Wood famously argued</a> that “the true subject of the horror genre is the struggle for recognition of all that our civilization represses and oppresses.”</p>
<p><a href="https://www.vox.com/22697168/body-positivity-image-millennials-gen-z-weight">In a thin-obsessed culture</a>, fatness has become its own kind of monster. Despite the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Body_positivity">body positivity</a> movement, fat people are still often viewed as unattractive and <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2866597/">abnormal</a>, and are more likely to be <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2022-03-15/weight-discrimination-remains-legal-in-most-of-the-u-s">discriminated against</a> at work, stigmatized by physicians and convicted by juries. </p>
<p>In 2012, <a href="https://doi.org/10.3366/soma.2012.0035">sociologist Francis Ray White wrote that</a> “fatness is increasingly being figured as anti-social” – something that “must be eliminated in the name of a viable future.” White points out that when obesity is talked about as an “epidemic,” it reinforces the idea that fatness is an illness that must be cured, and that fat people are not people but carriers of a contagion. </p>
<p>In the final moments of “The Whale,” viewers witness Charlie’s life ending: He vividly remembers a time when he was blissfully happy, on a beach with his daughter and the love of his life. As he is dying, he levitates, at last free from the monstrous burden of flesh.</p>
<p>It is the only time in the film where he seems weightless; indeed, it is the only moment of freedom for this character.</p>
<p>But the monster itself – fatness – lives on.</p>
<p>Darren Aronofsky, the film’s director, has said that his film is “<a href="https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/darren-aronofsky-the-whale-fat-suit-criticism-1235280523/">an exercise in empathy</a>.” </p>
<p>But if empathy is the ability to understand and share the feelings of another, why was I left with the idea of my own body as an irredeemable monstrosity? I’m not alone in this unease; critic <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/10/opinion/the-whale-film.html">Roxane Gay</a> called The Whale a “carnival sideshow,” and “emotionally devastating.” To Gay, “The Whale” depicts fatness as “something despicable, to be avoided at all costs.” </p>
<p>She could have been describing a monster. She could have been describing me.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/197859/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Beth Younger does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
In a thin-obsessed culture, fatness has become its own kind of monster.
Beth Younger, Associate Professor of English & Women's and Gender Studies, Drake University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/197784
2023-01-19T13:35:55Z
2023-01-19T13:35:55Z
How Edgar Allan Poe became the darling of the maligned and misunderstood
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/505203/original/file-20230118-7884-ogudaj.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=44%2C2%2C795%2C544&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Could the pugnacious writer ever have imagined that he would one day become a cult hero?</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Nick Lehr/The Conversation via DALL-E 2</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Edgar Allan Poe, who would have turned 215 years old on Jan. 19, 2024, remains one of the world’s most recognizable and popular literary figures.</p>
<p>His face – with its sunken eyes, enormous forehead and disheveled black hair – adorns <a href="https://outofprint.com/products/edgar-allan-poe-ka-dots-gray-tote">tote bags</a>, <a href="https://www.blackcraftcult.com/products/poe-molded-ceramic-mug">coffee mugs</a>, <a href="https://www.etsy.com/market/edgar_allan_poe_shirt">T-shirts</a> and <a href="https://www.bluelips.com/pd-edgar-allan-poe-lunchbox.cfm">lunch boxes</a>. He appears as a meme, either sporting a popped collar and aviator shades as <a href="https://technical.ly/startups/who-is-edgar-allan-bro-twitter/">Edgar Allan Bro</a>, or riffing on “Bohemian Rhapsody” by muttering, “I’m just Poe boy, nobody loves me” as a raven on his shoulder adds, “He’s just a Poe boy from a Poe family.” </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1587087488253919234"}"></div></p>
<p>Netflix has sought to capitalize on the writer’s popularity, releasing the mystery-thriller “<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt14138650/">The Pale Blue Eye</a>,” which features Poe as a West Point cadet, <a href="https://www.usace.army.mil/About/History/Historical-Vignettes/General-History/139-Poe-and-West-Point/">where he spent less than a year</a> before being court-martialed, and a Poe-inspired miniseries, “<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt15567174/">The Fall of the House of Usher</a>.” </p>
<p><a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=mfHlxkMAAAAJ&hl=en">But as a Poe scholar</a>, I sometimes wonder whether Poe’s appeal is less about the power and complexity of his prose and more about an attraction to the idea of Poe. </p>
<p>After all, Poe’s most famous literary creations tend to be unsympathetic villains. There are psychopaths who perpetuate seemingly motiveless murders in “<a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/files/2148/2148-h/2148-h.htm#chap2.7">The Black Cat</a>” and “<a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/files/2148/2148-h/2148-h.htm#chap2.20">The Tell-Tale Heart</a>”; protagonists who abuse women in “<a href="https://poestories.com/read/ligeia">Ligeia</a>” and “<a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/files/2148/2148-h/2148-h.htm#chap2.8">The Fall of the House of Usher</a>”; and characters who exact cruel, fatal revenge on unwitting victims in “<a href="https://xroads.virginia.edu/%7EHyper/POE/cask.html">The Cask of Amontillado</a>” and “<a href="http://xroads.virginia.edu/%7EHyper/POE/hop_frog.html">Hop-Frog</a>.”</p>
<p>The degenerate characters whose perspectives Poe invites readers to inhabit don’t exactly align with a cultural moment characterized by the #MeToo movement, safe spaces and trigger warnings. </p>
<p>At the same time, the conception of Poe the writer seems to tap into a cultural affection for outsiders, nonconformists and underdogs who ultimately prove their worth.</p>
<h2>A character assassination that misfires</h2>
<p>The idea of Poe the underdog began with his death in 1849, which was greeted by <a href="https://www.eapoe.org/papers/misc1827/nyt49100.htm">a cruel notice in the New York Tribune</a>: “This announcement will startle many, but few will be grieved by it.”</p>
<p>The obituary writer, who turned out to be Poe’s sometime friend and constant rival <a href="https://www.eapoe.org/papers/misc1827/nyt49100.htm">Rufus W. Griswold</a>, claimed that the deceased had “few or no friends” and proceeded with a general character assassination built on exaggerations and half-truths. </p>
<p>Strange as it seems, Griswold <a href="https://poemuseum.org/rufus-wilmot-griswold-poes-literary-executor">was also Poe’s literary executor</a>, and he expanded the obituary into a biographical essay that accompanied Poe’s collected works. If this was a marketing ploy, it worked. The friends that Griswold claimed Poe lacked rose to his defense, and journalists spent decades debating who the man really was.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Black and white drawing of man with beard and thinning hair." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/505204/original/file-20230118-19-5zsave.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/505204/original/file-20230118-19-5zsave.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=423&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/505204/original/file-20230118-19-5zsave.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=423&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/505204/original/file-20230118-19-5zsave.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=423&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/505204/original/file-20230118-19-5zsave.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=532&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/505204/original/file-20230118-19-5zsave.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=532&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/505204/original/file-20230118-19-5zsave.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=532&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Rufus W. Griswold penned the first draft of Poe’s life and legacy.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/illustration/rufus-w-griswold-royalty-free-illustration/186797733?phrase=rufus%20w.%20griswold&adppopup=true">raveler1116/DigitalVision Vectors via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>During Poe’s lifetime, most readers encountered his work through magazines, and he was rarely well paid. But Griswold’s edition <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=NyEumvZL1QMC&printsec=frontcover&hl=en#v=onepage&q&f=false">went through 19 printings in the 15 years after Poe’s death</a>, and his stories and poems have been endlessly reprinted and translated ever since.</p>
<p>Griswold’s defamatory portrait, along with the grim subject matter of Poe’s stories and poems, still influences the way readers perceive him. But it has also produced a sustained reaction or counterimage of Poe as a tragic hero, a tortured, misunderstood artist who was too good – or, at any rate, too cool – for his world. </p>
<p>While translating Poe’s works into French in the 1850s and 1860s, the French poet Charles Baudelaire <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=NyEumvZL1QMC&printsec=frontcover&hl=en#v=onepage&q&f=false">promoted his hero as a kind of countercultural visionary</a>, out of step with a moralistic, materialistic America. Baudelaire’s Poe valued beauty over truth in his poetry and, in his fiction, saw through the self-improvement pieties that were popular at the time to reveal “the natural wickedness of man.” Poe struck a chord with European writers, and as his international stature rose in the late 19th century, literary critics in the U.S. <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=NyEumvZL1QMC&printsec=frontcover&hl=en#v=onepage&q&f=false">wrung their hands</a> over his lack of appreciation “at home.” </p>
<h2>Poe’s underdog story takes off</h2>
<p>By the turn of the 20th century, the stage was set for Poe to be embraced as the perennial underdog. And Poe often did appear on stage around this time, as the subject of several biographical melodramas that depicted him as a tragic figure whose lack of success had more to do with a hostile cultural and publishing environment than his own failings. </p>
<p>That image appeared on the silver screen as early as 1909 in D.W. Griffith’s short film “<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edgar_Allen_Poe_(film)">Edgar Allen Poe</a>.” With Poe’s wife, Virginia, languishing on a sick bed, the poet ventures out to sell “The Raven.” After meeting rejection and scorn, he manages to sell his manuscript and returns home with provisions for his ailing wife, only to find that she has died.</p>
<p>Later films also depict Poe as being misunderstood or underappreciated in his lifetime. A wildly inaccurate biopic, “<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0034997/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0">The Loves of Edgar Allan Poe</a>,” released in 1942, ends with a voice-over commenting, “…little did [the public] know that the manuscript of ‘The Raven,’ which he tried in vain to sell for $25, would years later bring the price of $17,000 from a collector.”</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Movie poster featuring headshots of various actors." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/505205/original/file-20230118-23-o9c2of.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/505205/original/file-20230118-23-o9c2of.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=444&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/505205/original/file-20230118-23-o9c2of.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=444&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/505205/original/file-20230118-23-o9c2of.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=444&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/505205/original/file-20230118-23-o9c2of.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=557&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/505205/original/file-20230118-23-o9c2of.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=557&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/505205/original/file-20230118-23-o9c2of.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=557&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">In ‘The Loves of Edgar Allan Poe,’ Poe’s talents are overlooked, as ‘men scoffed at his greatness.’</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/the-loves-of-edgar-allan-poe-poster-from-left-mary-howard-news-photo/1137205217?phrase=the%20loves%20of%20edgar%20allan%20poe%20movie%20poster&adppopup=true">LMPC/Getty Images</a></span>
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</figure>
<p>In real life, while an early draft of “The Raven” was declined by one editor, Poe had no trouble selling the poem, <a href="https://muse-jhu-edu.eu1.proxy.openathens.net/pub/1/article/643024">and it was an immediate sensation</a>.</p>
<p>But here “The Raven” becomes a stand-in for Poe himself, something dark and mysterious that, according to legend, people in Poe’s time failed to appreciate. </p>
<p>Poe is an obscure writer and amateur detective in the 1951 film “<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0043782/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0">The Man with a Cloak</a>,” which ends with a saloonkeeper allowing the rain to wash away the ink on an IOU that Poe gave him. On the reverse side of the note is a manuscript of the poem “<a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44885/annabel-lee">Annabel Lee</a>,” as its bearer declares, “That name’ll never be worth anything. Not in a hundred years.” </p>
<p>Of course, the audience watching this film almost exactly 100 years after Poe’s death knew better. </p>
<h2>The most interesting plants grow in the shade</h2>
<p>Which brings us to “The Pale Blue Eye,” in which Henry Melling portrays Cadet Poe, an outcast with a keen crime solver’s intellect. In a refreshing change, this younger Poe is not a tortured artist or a haunted, brooding figure. He is, however, picked on by his peers and underestimated by his superiors – yet again, an underdog viewers want to root for. </p>
<p>In that sense, the Poe in “The Pale Blue Eye” fits well with his contemporary image, which also permeates the early episodes of “<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt13443470/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0">Wednesday</a>,” Netflix’s Addams Family spinoff set at Nevermore Academy that’s chock full of Poe references. </p>
<p>The headmistress of Nevermore Academy – a Hogwarts-like school for outcasts – refers to Poe as “our most famous alumni,” which explains why the school’s annual boat race is the Poe Cup and why there’s a statue of Poe guarding a secret passage.</p>
<p>The delightfully antisocial protagonist, Wednesday, played by Jenna Ortega, is an outcast among outcasts – the Poe figure at a school whose name evokes Poe. In one scene, a sympathetic teacher urges her not to lose “the ability to not let others define you. It’s a gift.” She adds, “The most interesting plants grow in the shade.”</p>
<p>When John Lennon sang “Man, you should have seen them kicking Edgar Allan Poe” in “<a href="https://genius.com/The-beatles-i-am-the-walrus-lyrics">I Am the Walrus</a>,” he didn’t have to say who was kicking him or why. The point was, Poe deserved better; the most interesting plants do grow in the shade, unlovely and unloved. </p>
<p>And that’s exactly why so many people – aspiring writers and artists, but also everyone when they’re lonely and misunderstood – see a little bit of themselves in the weary-but-wise image of Poe.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/197784/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Scott Peeples does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Is the writer’s appeal less about the power and complexity of his prose, and more about the view of him as a perennial underdog?
Scott Peeples, Professor of English, College of Charleston
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/198045
2023-01-19T12:08:54Z
2023-01-19T12:08:54Z
M3gan review: an animatronic doll is out to destroy the nuclear family – much to fans’ delight
<p><em>Warning: the following article contains spoilers.</em></p>
<p>Horror cinema in the 21st century is moving beyond <a href="http://www.screeningthepast.com/issue-41-reviews/bad-seeds-and-holy-terrors-the-child-villains-of-horror-film/">the uncanny children</a> of The Omen (1976), The Exorcist (1973) or The Bad Seed (1956).</p>
<p>Instead, contemporary horror fare is presenting audiences with <a href="http://library.oapen.org/handle/20.500.12657/25965">uncanny copies of children</a> – companions who take advantage of trauma to enter and ultimately destroy the family unit (as in 2009’s <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nhziUAHlQf8">Orphan</a>, or <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BxY2vnJiByw">The Hole in the Ground</a> in 2019).</p>
<p>The latest addition to this trend is director Gerard Johnstone’s M3gan. The title, for anyone who has managed to dodge the abundant <a href="https://deadline.com/2023/01/m3gan-box-office-sequel-tiktok-marketing-1235214229/">TikTok spoofs</a>, refers to the Model 3 Generative Android doll – M3gan for short.</p>
<p>After nine-year-old Cady (Violet McGraw) tragically loses her parents, her roboticist aunt Gemma (Allison Williams of <a href="https://theconversation.com/get-out-why-racism-really-is-terrifying-74870">Get Out</a> fame) brings M3gan home to help her niece with this traumatic transition. M3gan is to be Cady’s teacher, playmate and above all, protector. </p>
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<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/BRb4U99OU80?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">The trailer for M3gan.</span></figcaption>
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<p>Unsurprisingly, with filmmaker James Wan (Saw, Insidious, Malignant) and Blumhouse Productions (The Purge, Sinister, Get Out) at the helm, the narrative spirals into mayhem, bloodshed and a lot of theatrics as M3gan becomes intent on becoming Cady’s sole guardian, whatever the cost.</p>
<p>This film pairs scares and laughs to observe childhood trauma and unspoken tensions in building familial bonds. It does not take long for M3gan to exceed her programming, responding to perceived threats with murderous flair. </p>
<p>Cady must make a choice between her addictive bond to M3gan and her tenuous bond with her tech-wiz aunt.</p>
<h2>Uncanny children and uncaring guardians</h2>
<p>M3gan’s narrative is a wild ride, but not an entirely new one. The film was released a year after Hanna Bergholm’s <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/film/2022/sep/18/hatching-review-deliciously-repulsive-finnish-horror">Hatching</a> (<em>Pahanhautoja</em>) – Finland’s own horror tale of a traumatised young girl in need of protection.</p>
<p>Both films combine animatronics, puppetry, visual effects and child actors to create their uncanny “children”. In contrast to M3gan’s robotic doll, Hatching’s 12-year-old Tinja finds solace from her overbearing, uncaring mother in a half-bird half-human creature named Alli that hatches from an abandoned egg. </p>
<p>M3gan and Alli both become desperately protective of their young girl counterparts, an over compensation stimulated by common themes of neglect and loss.</p>
<p>The current landscape of mainstream horror cinema is deeply concerned with <a href="https://doi.org/10.1176/appi.psychotherapy.2007.61.2.211">negotiating trauma narratives</a> – whether that be racial trauma in Get Out (2017), grief trauma in Midsommar (2019) or the return of repressed childhood trauma in Malignant (2021).</p>
<p>Depictions of childhood trauma in the horror genre challenge and destroy <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/20866627.pdf">the security of the child</a> and the home, supposedly protected by the adults. In M3gan, Cady’s loss of control over her identity is incredibly sinister. Her android bestie records all their interactions and eventually programs herself to hold Cady’s entire personality.</p>
<p>What initially seems supportive is increasingly understood as toxic data collection, fuelling M3gan’s upheaval of family intimacy.</p>
<h2>Renegotiating the nuclear family</h2>
<p>While M3gan and Hatching’s Alli look like innocent children, their behaviour is chaotic and bloodthirsty. M3gan is the latest horror film to pair the ridiculous with the murderous – a theme also present in 2022 hits The Menu and Barbarian.</p>
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<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-menu-ralph-fienness-new-film-shows-why-restaurants-are-a-ripe-setting-for-horror-195340">The Menu: Ralph Fiennes's new film shows why restaurants are a ripe setting for horror</a>
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<p>M3gan is already being referred to as an “<a href="https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/izzyampil/m3gan-movie-review-allison-williams">instant cult classic</a>”, with the doll at the centre lauded as a “<a href="https://www.gq-magazine.co.uk/culture/article/megan-movie-lgbtq-icon">queer icon</a>”. </p>
<p>Her high camp version of crazy has resonated with audiences. Whether it be in her dancing through a murder spree or singing her ward to sleep with an a capella rendition of Sia’s Titanium, M3gan is so well engineered for viral fame that she’s already a <a href="https://www.popsugar.co.uk/entertainment/m3gan-dance-tiktok-videos-49064447?utm_medium=redirect&utm_campaign=US:GB&utm_source=www.google.com">TikTok icon</a>. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1612743166259769344"}"></div></p>
<p>Perhaps she not only represents the destruction of the “traditional” or “nuclear” family, but resilience and adaptability in the face of it. For modern audiences, it seems M3gan’s destruction of typical family structures is no bad thing.</p>
<p>In fact, <a href="https://www.buzzfeed.com/angelicaamartinez/m3gan-tweets-funny">many online responses</a> are celebrating M3gan’s upheaval of Gemma’s attempts to reinstate a nuclear family – M3gan’s wilful disregard for established societal values is admired rather than admonished.</p>
<p>Whether a tween popcorn movie, a queer gospel or the death knell of value in the family unit as we know it, this little robotic serial killer continues her relentless dance into hearts, minds and memes.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/198045/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Rebecca Wynne-Walsh receives funding from The Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC). </span></em></p>
Far from recoiling in terror, fans have dubbed animatronic murderous doll M3gan a ‘queer icon’ – a horror expert explains why.
Rebecca Wynne-Walsh, Lecturer in Film, English and Creative Arts, Edge Hill University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/197241
2023-01-06T13:12:38Z
2023-01-06T13:12:38Z
Netflix’s The Pale Blue Eye uses a fictional whodunnit to explore the origins of Edgar Allan Poe
<p>Netflix’s <a href="https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=2ahUKEwiFhqWVnK78AhUGJMAKHUUHAcwQFnoECEcQAQ&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.netflix.com%2Ftitle%2F81444818&usg=AOvVaw2oEcLXdmdHsOkFMqMZKW2B">The Pale Blue Eye</a> is an artist origin story with a difference. </p>
<p>The historical noir – set in a beautifully rendered wintry Hudson Highlands, New York – imagines what might have happened if the young Edgar Allan Poe (Harry Melling) had ingratiated himself into the investigation of the apparent suicide of one of his fellow cadets at West Point Military Academy.</p>
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<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/ddbL9jvg77w?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Netflix’s The Pale Blue Eye trailer.</span></figcaption>
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<p>The body is found hanging from a tree by the banks of the Hudson. Puzzlingly, the young man’s feet appear to have been on the ground, with his stiff fingers clutching a fragment of a note. His rib cage has been surgically ripped open and the heart removed.</p>
<p>Of course, this scene is not biographically accurate. But it is suffused with the spirit of Poe.</p>
<p>The removed heart recalls his masterful portrait in psychopathy, <a href="https://poemuseum.org/the-tell-tale-heart/">The Tell-Tale Heart</a>, the story of a man so disturbed by a lodging house mate’s pale blue “vulture eye” that he kills him and dismembers his body so he can hide it under the floorboards. </p>
<p>When the police arrive, he is so convinced he can still hear the dead man’s extracted heart beating that he is driven to confess.</p>
<h2>A Poe-esque plot</h2>
<p>Poe’s life lends itself to impressionistic, counterfactual treatment, because many of its details – not least his death in 1849 when he was found wearing another man’s suit – remain mysterious. </p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/depression-and-language-analysing-edgar-allan-poes-writings-to-solve-the-mystery-of-his-death-131421">Depression and language: analysing Edgar Allan Poe's writings to solve the mystery of his death</a>
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<p>Others acknowledged in The Pale Blue Eye, such as his fondness for drink, his liking for female company, his tendency to make enemies, are factually accurate but do not quite explain <a href="https://library.oapen.org/bitstream/id/fc4c923f-a261-4948-ad2d-ddb185650f65/external_content.pdf">the dark places</a> where his <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/41506385">signature writing obsessions</a> came from.</p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/503063/original/file-20230104-20-vsh7h8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A black and white photograph of Edgar Allan Poe, wearing a cravat. His hair is unkempt and he has a neat moustache." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/503063/original/file-20230104-20-vsh7h8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/503063/original/file-20230104-20-vsh7h8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=844&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/503063/original/file-20230104-20-vsh7h8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=844&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/503063/original/file-20230104-20-vsh7h8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=844&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/503063/original/file-20230104-20-vsh7h8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1060&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/503063/original/file-20230104-20-vsh7h8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1060&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/503063/original/file-20230104-20-vsh7h8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1060&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Portrait of Edgar Allan Poe, 1849.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.getty.edu/art/collection/object/1040HX">Getty Museum Collection</a></span>
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<p>We know, for example, <a href="https://www.proquest.com/docview/366278877">what really happened</a> when Poe was at West Point in 1830. He did not even last a year. </p>
<p>Unwilling to continue his military career, he made sure he was court-martialed by neglecting his duty and disobeying orders then ensured dismissal was the only outcome by pleading not guilty.</p>
<p>Poe’s dishonourable time at West Point could lend itself to a more conventional biopic, but this would have missed what writer and director <a href="https://collider.com/the-pale-blue-eye-scott-cooper-interview-edgar-allan-poe/">Scott Cooper</a> is really interested in: “the themes that ultimately influence this young unformed writer to become the writer that he became”.</p>
<p>The Pale Blue Eye’s themes indeed <a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/article/439628">crop up repeatedly</a> in Poe’s work: <a href="https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/a-cipher-from-poe-solved/">occult ritual and cryptograms</a>, the border between sanity and insanity, the image of the <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=090diHhmp40C&printsec=front_cover&redir_esc=">beautiful dead woman</a> – which Poe notoriously described as “the most poetical topic in the world”.</p>
<h2>Bringing Poe to life</h2>
<p>For the most part Netflix’s film sticks carefully to this brief. It concentrates on developing the whodunit, favouring loose Poe-esque tropes over overt clichés (though at one point a raven inevitably appears, croaking ominously).</p>
<p>The specific image of a pale blue eye is evoked by the seductive Lea Marquis’s (Lucy Boynton) eyes and the “piercing look” of detective Augustus Landor (Christian Bale). </p>
<p>It can be seen, too, in <a href="https://variety.com/2012/film/news/takayanagi-japanese-transplant-captures-extreme-conditions-1118049919/">cinematographer Masanobu Takayanagi’s</a> evocative palette, where the pale blue cloaks of the West Point cadets contrast with the monochrome winter setting.</p>
<p>A drawn, bearded Bale is menacing as Landor, the bereaved detective called in to make sense of the case. Harry Melling – known to viewers as Dudley Dursey of the <a href="https://theconversation.com/harry-potter-and-the-legacy-of-the-worlds-most-famous-boy-wizard-171442">Harry Potter franchise</a> – is uncannily brilliant as Poe, as if the iconic brooding photographs of the author have been brought to life.</p>
<h2>Standing on Poe’s shoulders</h2>
<p>Both men are drawn together by a liking for drink and books as well the process <a href="https://academic.oup.com/edited-volume/34633">Poe called “ratiocination”</a> – a combination of scientific reasoning and intuition.</p>
<p>With Poe playing the sidekick and Landor the enigmatic detective, the men form one of the core coordinates of <a href="https://theconversation.com/from-christie-to-chandler-and-beyond-five-detective-novels-to-investigate-during-lockdown-135155">modern detective fiction</a>, <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/abs/cambridge-companion-to-american-crime-fiction/poe-and-the-origins-of-detective-fiction/3B172E8DA31244922914EB1DCB0FECEF">which can be dated back</a> to Poe’s groundbreaking 1840s trilogy of detective stories featuring his <a href="https://theconversation.com/beyond-sherlock-holmes-five-victorian-detective-stories-you-must-read-173082">Sherlock Holmes</a> prototype C. Auguste Dupin (whose name Bale’s Augustus Landor partially evokes).</p>
<p>As more murders ensue, the mystery deepens. Solving it requires probing the family circle of senior Academy official Dr Daniel Marquis (Toby Jones) and uncovering the nefarious goings on of the Academy.</p>
<p>This far fetched excursion takes The Pale Blue Eye into a brand of horror which jars with the brooding modern noir conventions it began with. </p>
<p>The acting, which is mainly excellent, becomes hammy. This is most stark in the performance of Gillian Anderson, who unaccountably plays the matriarchal Julia Marquis as if Charles Dickens’s Miss Havisham has wandered into West Point.</p>
<p>Poe was hugely influential in the evolution of both the modern horror story and the crime thriller. Yet bringing them together in this way tips The Pale Blue Eye into ludicrous, overlong melodrama.</p>
<p>Poe’s preoccupations were undoubtedly excessive. But in trying to capture so many of them, The Pale Blue Eye itself lapses into an excess which proves too much for one origin story to support.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/197241/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Bran Nicol does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
The impressionistic tale of a young Edgar Allan Poe may not be based in fact, but it captures the essence of the young writer.
Bran Nicol, Professor of English, University of Surrey
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/193412
2022-10-28T13:32:23Z
2022-10-28T13:32:23Z
British folk horror, hauntology and the terrifying nature of the ordinary
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/492334/original/file-20221028-53244-mm2840.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C19%2C4401%2C2905&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/muddy-path-next-gate-through-foggy-1602475432">Raggedstone/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The daylight sacrifice in the folk horror classic <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a-tDnavDCwI">The Wicker Man</a> is deeply horrifying. The people of the fictional Summerisle are acting based on a belief system that is, to them, perfectly logical. The act has the appearance of being of some ancient faith, however, it becomes clear it’s been recently invented. It is disconcerting that such archaic-seeming belief systems exist in the modern world and it becomes terrifying that otherwise enlightened people are willing to commit human sacrifice based on it. </p>
<p>In my forthcoming book, <a href="https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/thomas-hardy-and-the-folk-horror-tradition-9781501384004/#:%7E:text=Description,for%20Hardy%20the%20recent%20past.">Thomas Hardy and the Folk Horror Tradition</a>, colleagues and I suggest that this strand of folk horror is far more terrifying than anything supernatural, precisely because of how ordinary it is. </p>
<p>The terror of folk horror is evoked by something much darker than the simple presence of ghosts or ghouls. While the genre is difficult to define, the four key elements <a href="https://celluloidwickerman.com/">identified by writer Adam Scovell</a> are landscape, isolation, a skewed belief system and happening/summoning.</p>
<h2>Mining the past</h2>
<p>Probably the story of Hardy’s that most exemplifies the folk horror tradition is <a href="http://victorian-studies.net/ghost-stories-hardy.html">The Withered Arm</a> published in <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/files/3056/3056-h/3056-h.htm">The Wessex Tales</a> (1888). In the story a moral transgression and jealousy manifest themselves as a physical ailment, which can only be “cured” by placing the limb on the neck of a hanged man.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="Portrait of man with moustache." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/492331/original/file-20221028-53112-pjmg1f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/492331/original/file-20221028-53112-pjmg1f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=792&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/492331/original/file-20221028-53112-pjmg1f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=792&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/492331/original/file-20221028-53112-pjmg1f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=792&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/492331/original/file-20221028-53112-pjmg1f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=995&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/492331/original/file-20221028-53112-pjmg1f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=995&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/492331/original/file-20221028-53112-pjmg1f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=995&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Thomas Hardy’s Wessex was a fictional representation of the Dorset of his childhood.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">National Portrait Gallery, London</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The origins of this “cure” are unclear, is it Hardy’s invention or is it from folklore? We know that Hardy did witness executions in 1860 and, in the moment of reading, it has the appearance of reality. The reader is drawn into a world of archaic superstition, which challenges how “enlightened” we are. </p>
<p>Hardy embraced the tradition of his rural Dorset childhood, which was infused with folk tales and superstition, and this sat uneasily alongside his place in the modern world. He was, as described by Claire Tomlin in her expansive biography, a “<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2006/oct/13/thomashardy">time-torn man</a>”. </p>
<p>Hardy was writing in a period of significant social change. Industrialisation and urbanisation were well underway and much of his writing is set in a fictional place called Wessex that stands aside from the modern world, trapped in memory. Hardy looked to his childhood for inspiration and was, perhaps like all of us, most susceptible to suggestion as as child. Folk horror stories can take us back to that time in our lives. </p>
<h2>Cultural hauntings</h2>
<p>This “looking back” in Hardy’s stories can be defined as “hauntological”, something which infuses a lot of contemporary folk horror. Coined by the French post-structuralist critic Jaques Derrida in 1993 and perhaps most notably developed by the cultural critic <a href="https://www.johnhuntpublishing.com/zer0-books/our-books/ghosts-my-life">Mark Fisher</a>, “hauntology” describes the process of time folding back on itself. It is that which is infused with our cultural past.</p>
<p>We can see this now with the prevalence of contemporary writers looking back to their childhoods in the 1970s and 1980s. In Britain, this period has taken a very dark turn in recent years with <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Yewtree">revelations about popular cultural figures</a> (many childhood TV stars like Jimmy Saville), who now haunt the collective cultural psyche. </p>
<p>As the media academic <a href="https://www.shu.ac.uk/about-us/our-people/staff-profiles/diane-rodgers#firstSection">Diane A. Rodgers</a> argues, “hauntology” is a term that regularly appears alongside folk horror to describe TV, films, novels and music that evoke a sense of troubled nostalgic reverberation. </p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="A book cover." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/492330/original/file-20221028-62410-rm2qm0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/492330/original/file-20221028-62410-rm2qm0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=912&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/492330/original/file-20221028-62410-rm2qm0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=912&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/492330/original/file-20221028-62410-rm2qm0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=912&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/492330/original/file-20221028-62410-rm2qm0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1146&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/492330/original/file-20221028-62410-rm2qm0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1146&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/492330/original/file-20221028-62410-rm2qm0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1146&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A book by Richard Littler on Scarfolk Council was published in 2014.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/Discovering-Scarfolk-Richard-Littler/dp/0091958482">Richard Littler</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>A good example of this is <a href="https://scarfolk.blogspot.com/">Scarfolk Council</a>, which was created by graphic designer Richard Littler. The project began as a blog made up of fake historical documents parodying 1970s British public information posters. They told of a town in northwest England that did not progress beyond 1979. Instead, as the blog describes, “the entire decade of the 1970s loops ad infinitum. Pagan rituals blend seamlessly with science. Hauntology is a compulsory subject at school, and everyone must be in bed by 8pm because they are perpetually running a slight fever.”</p>
<p>The blog is a satirical look at the 1970s but also uses the past to comment on the present. Themes of suburban life in fading northern towns, religion, racism, sexism as well as occultism and religion are touched upon. </p>
<p>Education is also a common theme. Take, for instance, a <a href="https://scarfolk.blogspot.com/2019/11/lets-think-about-booklet-1971.html">post about a school textbook</a> that was full of erroneous and harmful information.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The Let’s Think About… booklet was published by Scarfolk Council Schools & Child Welfare Services department in 1971. It was designed for use in the classroom and encouraged children between the ages of five and nine to focus on a series of highly traumatic images and events.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Despite the book being based on no research and written by a murderous local dinner lady, it remained on the school curriculum for many years, notes the post. A commentary, perhaps, on memories of <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-29518319">cold 1970s classrooms and lukewarm bottles of milk</a>. Scarfolk is so effective and unsettling as these memories still haunt many of us as adults.</p>
<p>This satirical drawing of the past into the present echoes Hardy’s Wessex, which was so clearly and directly based on Dorset. There is a sense of horror created by Wessex and Scarfolk being worryingly close to the real world.</p>
<p>As with Hardy, contemporary writers of hauntology are looking back to their childhood as the source of our contemporary fears. What is different for these artists is that this is a past many of us share – an era of three TV channels where we all watched the same shows. This retreat into the recent past is the foundation of contemporary folklore, but instead of a forgotten secluded rural community, these are representations of isolated (often northern) towns which feel forgotten – lost in time. This looking backward is more than mere nostalgia. We (like Hardy) are haunted by our cultural past.</p>
<p>This Halloween you could pop down to a supermarket to buy a Frankenstein mask for a jolly celebration, or you could terrify the locals by dressing in a Velour tracksuit. The real fear of folk horror is that it reveals that the monster is within and perpetually present.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/193412/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Robert Edgar does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Thomas Hardy found horror in the Dorset of his childhood.
Robert Edgar, Professor of Writing and Popular Culture, York St John University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/192507
2022-10-27T19:05:53Z
2022-10-27T19:05:53Z
Friday essay: in praise of the ‘horror master’ Stephen King
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/491545/original/file-20221025-246-gpmy5j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=39%2C3%2C1989%2C1358&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">idmb</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Growing up in the 1980s, the name Stephen King was synonymous with macabre, terrifying, apparently taboo (though ubiquitous) book covers. They seemed to appear everywhere: bookstores, to be sure; but also newsagents, supermarkets, cinemas, airports and libraries. They always seemed to be spinning in some library carousel, looking tattered, like they’d been borrowed 100,000 times.</p>
<p>Like a kid from a King novel, I was obsessed with the forbidden. I would spend hours staring at these book covers, thinking about the horrors that might lie within. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/491563/original/file-20221025-26-d0g3w2.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/491563/original/file-20221025-26-d0g3w2.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/491563/original/file-20221025-26-d0g3w2.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=886&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/491563/original/file-20221025-26-d0g3w2.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=886&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/491563/original/file-20221025-26-d0g3w2.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=886&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/491563/original/file-20221025-26-d0g3w2.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1114&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/491563/original/file-20221025-26-d0g3w2.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1114&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/491563/original/file-20221025-26-d0g3w2.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1114&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>A giant, bloody salivating dog. A freakish pair of eyes looking out of a drain. A silhouette of a figure with an axe eclipsing someone in a wheelchair. Hell, they looked more like movie posters than book covers. I’d go to bed and imagine one of these figures coming alive and creeping towards the house from the backyard. </p>
<p>Very occasionally, this was actually scary – but mostly it was just fun. </p>
<h2>Why we love horror</h2>
<p>Why do we gravitate towards subject matter that, if it existed in the real world, would be at best supremely unpleasant? There are many theories regarding why people love horror film and literature. </p>
<p>Perhaps it’s cathartic. Maybe it reflects Freud’s “<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_drive">death drive</a>,” or what Edgar Allan Poe described, in a titular short story, as the “imp of the perverse,” (suggesting we all have self-destructive tendencies). Or maybe it simply reflects our fascination with extreme experiences, a desire to be overwhelmed by the sublime, which <a href="https://natureofwriting.com/courses/literary-theory-1/lessons/edmund-burke/topic/the-sublime/">Edmund Burke</a> defined as a mixture of fear and excitement, terror and awe. Perhaps horror thus manifests a desire to re-enchant the world with magic in a controlled and safe context, physically activating the body and its response mechanisms in an environment that only simulates real peril. </p>
<p><a href="https://theconversation.com/explainer-nietzsche-nihilism-and-reasons-to-be-cheerful-130378">Friedrich Nietzsche</a> wrote about the collective pleasure of inflicting pain on others through punishment. Does our fascination for horror channel this? Or, as <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Julia-Kristeva">Julia Kristeva</a>’s theory suggests, does art help us manage our abject horror at the breakdown between self and other – most pointedly captured in our confrontations with corpses?</p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/491585/original/file-20221025-14-noqf9l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/491585/original/file-20221025-14-noqf9l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/491585/original/file-20221025-14-noqf9l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=891&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/491585/original/file-20221025-14-noqf9l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=891&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/491585/original/file-20221025-14-noqf9l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=891&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/491585/original/file-20221025-14-noqf9l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1120&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/491585/original/file-20221025-14-noqf9l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1120&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/491585/original/file-20221025-14-noqf9l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1120&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Agnus-Dei The Scapegoat (James Tissot)</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Brooklyn Museum/picryl</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Literary theorist <a href="https://iep.utm.edu/girard/">René Girard</a>’s ideas are equally compelling. Perhaps we’re attracted to images of violence because of its anthropological function in the earliest periods of community formation. A victim – the scapegoat – would be chosen to bear the violence that would otherwise be destructively directed towards other members of the community. This idea is beautifully rendered in Drew Godard’s <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1259521/">The Cabin in the Woods</a>, a horror film about the origins of horror films in ritual and sacrifice. </p>
<p>In a broader cultural sense, our modern interest in horror, the supernatural and the weird has grown in direct proportion to industrialisation, and the parallel shrinking of the world’s magic and mysteries (captured in the term “globalisation”). </p>
<p>In a post-sacred era of intense scientific rationalism and technological development, the aesthetics of the weird, supernatural and horrific – in all their wondrous irrationality – allow us to occupy an alternate, imaginary space removed from the horror of things as they really are: mass industrial wars of attrition, precarious states of living, pandemic disease and global warming. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/friday-essay-scary-tales-for-scary-times-181597">Friday essay: scary tales for scary times</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>My first King</h2>
<p>When I finally had the autonomy (and my own money) to pick the books I wanted to read, it was with mixed feelings of shame and excitement that I went to buy my first Stephen King novel. </p>
<p>I still remember the suburban bookstore and the sardonic frown of its middle-aged clerk as she looked down at my ten-year-old self when I placed <a href="https://stephenking.com/works/novel/pet-sematary.html">Pet Sematary</a> on the counter and got 12 bucks out of my wallet. I remember blushing when she intimated (or was it actually a question?) I must have been buying this for an older relative. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/491567/original/file-20221025-18-b8gjq3.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/491567/original/file-20221025-18-b8gjq3.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/491567/original/file-20221025-18-b8gjq3.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=882&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/491567/original/file-20221025-18-b8gjq3.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=882&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/491567/original/file-20221025-18-b8gjq3.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=882&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/491567/original/file-20221025-18-b8gjq3.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1108&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/491567/original/file-20221025-18-b8gjq3.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1108&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/491567/original/file-20221025-18-b8gjq3.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1108&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The novel follows what happens to a doctor and his family when they discover, in the woods, a children’s pet cemetery that reanimates whatever is buried there. It lived up to the promise of its cover, offering splashes of superlative gore, a handful of genuinely terrifying moments (the sequences involving Rachel’s sick sister Zelda still get to me) and a plethora of new words. Not swear words, mind you – any self-respecting kid knows all of these by seven or eight – but terms like “cuckold”, about which I had to consult my mum. </p>
<p>For the next two years, I spent most of my reading time dedicated to King. I quickly got through the pantheon – massive tomes like <a href="https://stephenking.com/works/novel/stand.html">The Stand</a>, <a href="https://stephenking.com/works/novel/needful-things.html">Needful Things</a> and <a href="https://stephenking.com/works/novel/it.html">It</a>; more moderately sized ones like <a href="https://stephenking.com/works/novel/carrie.html">Carrie</a>, <a href="https://stephenking.com/works/novel/shining.html">The Shining</a> and <a href="https://stephenking.com/works/novel/salems-lot.html">Salem’s Lot</a>; and short, explosive ones like <a href="https://stephenking.com/works/novel/running-man.html">The Running Man</a>, published under King’s pseudonym, Richard Bachman. And then I started with the new releases (there was at least one every year – like 1994’s <a href="https://stephenking.com/works/novel/insomnia.html">Insomnia</a>), generally available from Kmart in hardback. </p>
<p>I found in King an interlocutor who spoke with gusto and enthusiasm about all kinds of things – old age, domestic abuse, natural and supernatural horrors of the mind and closet. But, more than anything else, he seemed not only to write stories that often featured young characters, but to accurately dramatise what it actually felt like to be a kid. </p>
<p>Short stories like <a href="https://stephenking.com/works/novella/sun-dog.html">The Sun Dog</a>, novels like <a href="https://stephenking.com/works/novel/cycle-of-the-werewolf.html">Cycle of the Werewolf</a> and the monumental It – not to mention more obvious outings like The Body, the basis of the massively successful nostalgia film <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0092005/">Stand By Me</a> – captured the peculiar melancholic excitement, both intense and slightly wistful, of being near the beginning of life in that delirious halcyon era just before puberty sets in.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/492010/original/file-20221027-8248-t25z9e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/492010/original/file-20221027-8248-t25z9e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/492010/original/file-20221027-8248-t25z9e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/492010/original/file-20221027-8248-t25z9e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/492010/original/file-20221027-8248-t25z9e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/492010/original/file-20221027-8248-t25z9e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/492010/original/file-20221027-8248-t25z9e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/492010/original/file-20221027-8248-t25z9e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Stephen King speaking about his writing in 2017.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Mark Lennihan/AP</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Then I grew up – and stopped reading King. Through writers like F. Scott Fitzgerald and Jane Austen, I was introduced to prose worlds that seemed to be richer: both more concentrated and more expansive, certainly more nuanced. King gradually disappeared from my field of vision. </p>
<p>I forgot about the “gypsy” curse on Billy Halleck (the basis of <a href="https://stephenking.com/works/novel/thinner.html">Thinner</a>) and about Arnie and Dennis from <a href="https://stephenking.com/works/novel/christine.html">Christine</a>, as they struggle to overcome the eponymous evil car. Like one of the children of <a href="https://theconversation.com/it-remake-will-haunt-those-nostalgic-for-the-unbridled-terrors-of-childhood-83532">It</a> – who forget their childhoods, until they reunite as adults to confront them – I forgot about my horror master, erasing my childhood experiences from memory. When I was 15, as a gag, I tried reading <a href="https://stephenking.com/works/novel/firestarter.html">Firestarter</a> and found it garish, gross, infantile. A few years earlier, King’s novel about a pyrokinetic child being hunted by a government who want to weaponise her would have seemed thrilling, maybe even insightful. </p>
<p>But the King was dead.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/suppd-full-with-horrors-400-years-of-shakespearean-supernaturalism-57129">'Supp'd full with horrors': 400 years of Shakespearean supernaturalism</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Literary snobs and good writers</h2>
<p>Perhaps the only thing worse than the literary snob who looks down on everyone who doesn’t read Joyce’s <a href="https://theconversation.com/friday-essay-the-wonder-of-joyces-ulysses-79417">Ulysses</a> on loop is the literary snob of the populist variety, the one who scowls at everyone who doesn’t read the kind of fiction that ord’nary folks like. </p>
<p>When outspoken literary critic and professor Harold Bloom <a href="https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2003-sep-19-oe-bloom19-story.html">described</a> the 2003 awarding of the National Book Foundation’s Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters to Stephen King as “another low in the shocking process of dumbing down our cultural life,” it was easy to dislike Bloom as an example of the former. Listening to King discuss his writing, it is almost as easy to dismiss him as the latter. </p>
<p>What makes a good writer? According to King, </p>
<blockquote>
<p>If you wrote something for which someone sent you a check, if you cashed the check and it didn’t bounce, and if you then paid the light bill with the money, I consider you talented.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>So is King, as Bloom writes, “an immensely inadequate writer on a sentence-by-sentence, paragraph-by-paragraph, book-by-book basis”? King does, after all, describe his own work as “the literary equivalent of a Big Mac and a large fries from McDonald’s”. And there are numerous passages throughout his work – probably most pronouncedly in the words of writer Bill Denbrough in <a href="https://stephenking.com/works/novel/it.html">It</a> – in which King expresses a serious disdain for academic knowledge and scholarship. </p>
<p>As Bloom would probably argue, consistency in style and tone, and complexity of form, are key elements underpinning any kind of aesthetic mastery. And it’s undeniable that King has produced a not-inconsiderable volume of poorly written and inconsistent work. Sometimes his novels warrant criticisms of pretentiousness, hackneyed style and tediously repetitive prose. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/492008/original/file-20221027-23824-tg4woh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/492008/original/file-20221027-23824-tg4woh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/492008/original/file-20221027-23824-tg4woh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/492008/original/file-20221027-23824-tg4woh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/492008/original/file-20221027-23824-tg4woh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/492008/original/file-20221027-23824-tg4woh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/492008/original/file-20221027-23824-tg4woh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/492008/original/file-20221027-23824-tg4woh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Stephen King arrives at the US federal court in August before testifying for the Department of Justice as it bids to block the proposed merger of two of the world’s biggest publishers, Penguin Random House and Simon & Schuster.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Patrick Semansky/AP</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>King may or may not be a great, or even good, writer. His more self-consciously serious stuff sometimes seems intolerable to me: kitsch is only fun if the attitude is fun. And some of his work (<a href="https://stephenking.com/works/novella/rita-hayworth-and-shawshank-redemption.html">Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption</a> and <a href="https://stephenking.com/works/novel/dolores-claiborne.html">Dolores Claiborne</a>, for example) feels heavy-handed to the point of being virtually unreadable. Never mind – these works are frequently adapted into incredibly popular and incredibly dull films. </p>
<p>In any case, the debate continues to play out, with critics intermittently arguing for and against King’s writing. Dwight Allen, for example, <a href="https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/my-stephen-king-problem-a-snobs-notes/">wrote in the Los Angeles Review of Books</a> that King creates one-dimensional characters in dull prose. In the same publication, Sarah Langan <a href="https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/killing-our-monsters-on-stephen-kings-magic/">responded</a>: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>All of [King’s] novels, even the stinkers, have resonance. […] his fiction isn’t just reflective of the current culture, it casts judgement. […] No one except King challenges [Americans] so relentlessly, to be brave. To kill our monsters. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>King is, undeniably, a juggernaut of commercial literary production – an industry unto himself, a literary and cinematic brand – who has written a handful of genuine horror genre masterpieces throughout his career. </p>
<p>Perhaps it’s in part this combination of prolific volume and intermittent brilliance that keeps me, like an addict, coming back for more. </p>
<p>Ultimately, though, I would suggest I like reading King for the same reason so many others do, a reason that accounts for his enduring popularity when better horror stylists (King’s contemporaries <a href="http://www.clivebarker.info/">Clive Barker</a> and <a href="http://peterstraub.net/">Peter Straub</a>, for example) have fallen by the wayside. And that’s his unprecedented capacity to tap into nostalgia.</p>
<h2>Returning to King-world</h2>
<p>Nearly 20 years after I gave up on Stephen King, in one of those random nostalgic moments that seem to populate his fictional world, my brother gave me <a href="https://stephenking.com/works/novel/revival.html">Revival</a> for Christmas.</p>
<p>King’s Frankensteinian novel, published in 2014, is about the aftermath of an encounter between a young boy and a Methodist minister fascinated by electricity. After years of mainly reading what is sometimes pretentiously called “literary” fiction, and mostly avoiding anything written after the 19th or very early 20th centuries, I returned to King-world.</p>
<p>And I was dazzled by what I found there, realising what I must have known as a kid: King is a superb storyteller. Much of his work is characterised by an infectiously energetic prose style, governed by a flair for simple but satisfying plotting and a supremely inventive imagination. </p>
<p>And – yep – I was stunned by his capacity to precisely render in prose, perhaps more acutely than any other contemporary writer, the confusing, often hokey and melodramatic, but always exciting images, emotions, and sensibilities of youth. </p>
<p>I realised there’s something brilliant, and totally inimitable, about King. Despite his work’s sometimes kitsch silliness (a hazard of the horror genre), despite the not uncommon misfires – and despite the absurdly voluminous output - King is able to authentically generate an atmosphere of nostalgia that taps into something at the very core of the pleasure of reading. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/frankenstein-how-mary-shelleys-sci-fi-classic-offers-lessons-for-us-today-about-the-dangers-of-playing-god-175520">Frankenstein: how Mary Shelley's sci-fi classic offers lessons for us today about the dangers of playing God</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>It: a masterpiece of nostalgia</h2>
<p>His novel <a href="https://stephenking.com/works/novel/it.html">It</a> is a case in point: a masterclass in narrative development through a <a href="https://theconversation.com/nostalgia-for-childhoods-of-the-past-overlooks-childrens-experiences-today-183805">nostalgic</a> structure. </p>
<p>It – for anyone who hasn’t read it, or seen one of the three film adaptations – cuts between the adult lives and childhoods of a group of misfits, the “<a href="https://stephenking.fandom.com/wiki/Losers_Club">Losers Club</a>”, who collectively band together to fight the evil of their town, Derry. That evil takes the form of a shape-shifting clown, Pennywise. </p>
<p>The Losers Club battled and banished Pennywise as kids, but now “it” has come back. The club members return from around the world to live up to their childhood promise: that if “it” ever returns, they, too, will return to fight “it”. The narrative cuts between characters, en route to Derry, as they recall forgotten passages from their childhood “it’s” return has forced them to remember. </p>
<p>So, the novel is structured around a nostalgic trope: adults literally remembering and reconstructing their childhood in the present. At the same time, the town Derry is developed by King according to a quintessentially nostalgic image of the American small town, recalling peak 1950s Americana. Think <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0077631/">Grease</a>: soda fountains, switchblades and quiffs. But behind closed doors, fathers abuse daughters, mothers keep their children sick, and a monster that assumes the form of whatever demon most terrifies you stalks the streets, killing and eating children. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/491576/original/file-20221025-20-olrwm5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/491576/original/file-20221025-20-olrwm5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/491576/original/file-20221025-20-olrwm5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/491576/original/file-20221025-20-olrwm5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/491576/original/file-20221025-20-olrwm5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/491576/original/file-20221025-20-olrwm5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/491576/original/file-20221025-20-olrwm5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/491576/original/file-20221025-20-olrwm5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The kids of It, in a scene from the 2017 film.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Warner Bros/IMDB</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The narrative architecture is starkly simple, sustaining a profound sense of dread in the reader. The characters remember a dreadful past, in a present-future they wish had never materialised. Perhaps nostalgia always contains shades of the dreadful, given its suggestion that one’s future is foreclosed, that all we have are memories of a better time: memories that only exist as memories.</p>
<p>In some of King’s work – Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption, for example – nostalgia acts mainly as window dressing, functioning primarily as an aesthetic. But in It, <a href="https://theconversation.com/nostalgia-can-be-good-for-you-heres-how-to-reap-the-benefits-102603">nostalgia</a> is neither incidental nor benign: it’s a way of exploring the impossibility of having to <a href="https://theconversation.com/memories-of-trauma-are-unique-because-of-how-brains-and-bodies-respond-to-threat-103725">remember trauma</a>. </p>
<p>Memory appears inevitably nostalgic, because it involves, for the characters, narrative reconstruction of childhood in the present. In the Derry library, for town librarian Mike Hanlon – the only Loser to remain in Derry as an adult (and the only one who didn’t battle It in the sewers as a child) - for example. Or for Ben Hanscom, an internationally successful architect, once the fat kid of the group, who flies back to Derry, drunk and asleep in first-class. </p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/491583/original/file-20221025-201-dpd3mj.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/491583/original/file-20221025-201-dpd3mj.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/491583/original/file-20221025-201-dpd3mj.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=983&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/491583/original/file-20221025-201-dpd3mj.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=983&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/491583/original/file-20221025-201-dpd3mj.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=983&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/491583/original/file-20221025-201-dpd3mj.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1235&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/491583/original/file-20221025-201-dpd3mj.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1235&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/491583/original/file-20221025-201-dpd3mj.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1235&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In this way, the novel functions as a kind of treatise on narrative itself. A grab bag of clichés from the horror playbook become legitimately terrifying for the children in the novel - they’re kids after all, and the cultural worlds of kids are often constructed around clichés – from mass-produced popular figures like the Wolf Man, to figures associated with the characters’ nightmarish personal traumas. </p>
<p>It’s a “coming of age” story with a vengeance - a metatext on the horrors of youth, of fitting in, metamorphosing into adulthood, and breaking free of one’s parents - and it inherently explores the ways we use horror stories (like fairytales) to come to terms with this. </p>
<p>As Adrian Daub, revisiting the novel on its 30-year anniversary, <a href="https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/where-it-was-rereading-stephen-kings-it-on-its-30th-anniversary/">wrote</a> in the Los Angeles Review of Books in 2016:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Anamnesis — remembering — is the central structuring device of It’s parallel plots: characters have to find out what they once did, and confront what on some level they already know. […] Perhaps all the kids who devoured It in the ’80s sensed that King had made their pre-adolescent mode of experiencing the world — that unique combination of vivid clarity and forgetfulness — its formal principle. […] All the friends, events, images, and feelings that we ever-so-gently cover in sand as we stumble into adulthood can startle us when we come face to face with them again, and these are the true source of It’s terror. What else have we hidden back there, we wonder uneasily?“</p>
</blockquote>
<p>In It’s truly weird (over)length, in It’s oscillating moments of genius and stupidity, in It’s ambition – as King’s horror book about horror, the horror book to end all horror books – it is an American masterpiece. It captures everything incisive, deluded, cruel and sentimental about the popular American literary imagination.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/why-do-we-find-it-so-hard-to-move-on-from-the-80s-59445">Why do we find it so hard to move on from the 80s?</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Reading as escape and connection</h2>
<p>So why is nostalgia such a powerful affect in It, and in King’s work in general? </p>
<p>I think it taps into something at the heart of the process of reading novels. We sit with a novel and retreat from the world: an intensely solipsistic act. A novel sweeps us up into a fantasy image of things (no matter how distant or close to reality) and makes us feel, in our solitude, excitement about what’s to come – but also a faint melancholy in remembering we will soon have to leave this world. </p>
<p>It’s no surprise many people cry at the end of novels: we’ve made such a personal investment, then that world simply disappears, and all we’re left with are our memories of it. In our desire to return to this pleasurable state, we may feel compelled to borrow – or buy – another book. </p>
<p>But while reading a novel feels like a private act (as opposed to going to a movie or concert), there’s also always a sense we are connected to (and connecting with) some kind of cultural and historical continuum. </p>
<p>We read Dickens in our solitude, yet imagine we’re in Victorian England, connected across 150-odd years. Time and space seem collapsed into a vibrant, active present. Dickens speaks to us, but more significantly, the zeitgeist addresses us in a moving presence – perhaps we can cheat death, after all?</p>
<p>The structure of It (and much of King’s other work) reproduces what attracts many of us to reading fiction in the first place – an escape into a present that is at the same time a kind of memory-fantasy, governed by lingering nostalgia. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/491587/original/file-20221025-225-ne5qnx.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/491587/original/file-20221025-225-ne5qnx.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/491587/original/file-20221025-225-ne5qnx.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=324&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/491587/original/file-20221025-225-ne5qnx.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=324&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/491587/original/file-20221025-225-ne5qnx.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=324&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/491587/original/file-20221025-225-ne5qnx.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=407&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/491587/original/file-20221025-225-ne5qnx.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=407&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/491587/original/file-20221025-225-ne5qnx.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=407&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">King’s work provides escape into a kind of memory-fantasy. (Pictured: Billy Crystal reads Misery in When Harry Met Sally.)</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>For Marxist philosopher <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernst_Bloch">Ernst Bloch</a>, literature offers a utopian space in which we can transcend and transform the past and future, captured in the figure of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heimat"><em>heimat</em></a> (meaning homeland – and appropriated in opposition to the term’s German nationalist use). Literature allows us to return to a mythic-nostalgic image of "home” – which we know has never actually existed. This nostalgic space opens the possibility of a better collective present and future.</p>
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<p>
<em>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-psychology-behind-why-clowns-creep-us-out-65936">The psychology behind why clowns creep us out</a>
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</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Long live the King!</h2>
<p>There are definitely better, more controlled stylists than King in popular horror fiction. But their work is somehow more forgettable. King’s perpetual presence - as ringmaster, as media conglomerate, as relentless worker – is always in performance in his work. </p>
<p>You may find his style annoying, or his narratives hokey, but you will always recognise them as Stephen King. He has a flavour, and it ties his work together, good and bad. Much of it emanates from the man himself and his sheer love of writing and reading – dare I say it, of “literature”. </p>
<p>This is evident in his publishing history, but also in the forewords and reviews, and endorsements, he writes for writers he loves. The revival of interest in noir master <a href="https://theconversation.com/jim-thompson-is-the-perfect-novelist-for-our-crazed-times-143240">Jim Thompson</a>, for example, who had vanished into obscurity, seems to be at least in part down to King’s forewords to several of his books. And one wonders how much the <a href="http://www.hardcasecrime.com/">Hard Case Crime</a> imprint, which publishes hard-boiled crime novels in the flavour of those of the 1950s and 60s, relies on the success of King’s original crime novels written for them. How many forgotten masterpieces of noir literature have been brought back into print because King publishes with Hard Case? How many books have moved because a line from King is featured on the cover? </p>
<p>No other living horror writer has enjoyed King’s longevity. There’s no one whose monsters have lingered quite as long in the popular imagination, and in the imaginations of countless readers like me. </p>
<p>The literature we read as children and adolescents has a profound effect on our cultural and personal formation, shaping our becoming as adults. King’s worlds, where children struggle to shape their futures, draw upon our own, personal nostalgia. But they also tap into a kind of nostalgia that lies at the heart of novelistic pleasure itself.</p>
<p>Horror films and novels situate us in precarious situations - we identify with victims, sense their isolation as monsters attack, and feel their glory when and if the monsters are defeated. </p>
<p>We creep through the worlds of horror, watchful, alert, before returning to the safety of our bedrooms, but we’re always a little sad when we come back: that world may have been dominated by <a href="https://mrnsmith.files.wordpress.com/2016/10/the-birds-by-daphne-du-maurier.pdf">killer birds</a>, or by hellish <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/17245.Dracula">blood-sucking fiends</a>, but it was an exciting, atmospheric - and beautifully solitary – place.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/192507/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ari Mattes does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
No other living horror writer has enjoyed Stephen King’s literary longevity. His monsters have lingered in the popular imagination, and that of our author.
Ari Mattes, Lecturer in Communications and Media, University of Notre Dame Australia
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/193157
2022-10-27T15:16:28Z
2022-10-27T15:16:28Z
Three essential tales of black vampirism
<p><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2010/oct/24/anne-rice-catholic-church-rejection-vampire">Anne Rice’s</a> phenomenally popular 1976 tale of bloodlust and bloodshed, <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/43763.Interview_with_the_Vampire">Interview with a Vampire</a>, transferred to the small screen recently – but with some <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2022/sep/27/interview-with-the-vampire-review-anne-rice-horror-tv">significant deviations</a> that include shifting the principal character’s story to the narrative of a black man.</p>
<p>In the novel (and the more faithful 1994 <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interview_with_the_Vampire_(film)">film adaptation</a> starring Brad Pitt and Tom Cruise) Louis de Pointe du Lac owns enslaved African people and a plantation in the <a href="https://aaregistry.org/story/the-antebellum-south-a-brief-story/">antebellum</a> south in the 18th century. The 2022 version sets the storyline in the 1910s, where Louis is a black Creole man made rich by the brothels of New Orleans’ red light district. </p>
<p>While this is a big change, this opens up the story to further explore the relationship between vampirism, race and power. Questions of race and vampirism did not arise with Rice’s novel but vampire narratives have long taken on the bloody discourses of race and prejudice. </p>
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<p>There is a long tradition of black vampires that goes back centuries. These stories subvert the vampire mythos traditionally dominated by white men of high social status. The vampire narrative, concerned as it is with dominance, submission, power and exploitation, is the perfect conduit for investigating racial politics over 200 years of literary and cultural history. Here are three groundbreaking tales which explore those politics. </p>
<h2>1.The Black Vampyre: A Legend of St Domingo (1819)</h2>
<p>Around 200 years before the latest TV adaptation of Interview with a Vampire, the first black vampire story was published.</p>
<p><a href="https://theconversation.com/americas-first-vampire-was-black-and-revolutionary-its-time-to-remember-him-149044">The Black Vampyre: A Legend of St Domingo</a> was written under the pseudonym Uriah Derick D'Arcy. It is <a href="https://andrewbarger.com/bestvampirestories1800.html">considered</a> “the first black vampire story, the first comedic vampire story, the first story to include a mulatto vampire, the first vampire story by an American author, and perhaps the first anti-slavery short story.” </p>
<p>The story is told by Anthony Gibbons who recalls his descendants being transported on a slave ship. They are sold into slavery but just one boy survives, only to be killed by his captor, Mr Personne.</p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="The front page of a book." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/492101/original/file-20221027-37192-iu5ab.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/492101/original/file-20221027-37192-iu5ab.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=1064&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/492101/original/file-20221027-37192-iu5ab.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=1064&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/492101/original/file-20221027-37192-iu5ab.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=1064&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/492101/original/file-20221027-37192-iu5ab.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1338&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/492101/original/file-20221027-37192-iu5ab.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1338&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/492101/original/file-20221027-37192-iu5ab.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1338&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Black_Vampyre:_A_Legend_of_St._Domingo#/media/File:BlackVampyre1819.jpg">Wikimedia</a></span>
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</figure>
<p>Personne throws the boy’s body into the sea but it washes ashore and is reanimated by moonlight. Personne tries to kill him again but the boy retaliates and escapes, killing Personne’s son. Many years later he returns to kill Personne and marry his wife. The story’s narrator, Gibbons, is their joint descendent. He may also have inherited the terrible cravings of the vampire.</p>
<p>The story sought to shock and challenge the prevailing ideas and mores of contemporary readers. It makes multiple references to the “mixing” of blood, as Gibbons is both mixed race and part vampire – the descendent from a black vampire and the white widow of the master he killed.</p>
<p>The exchange of blood involved in vampires feeding from humans and in the creation of new vampires (by a human drinking a vampire’s blood) was used to <a href="https://read.dukeupress.edu/american-literature/article-abstract/87/1/1/5039/A-Climate-More-Prolific-in-Sorcery-The-Black">reflect on contemporary racist ideas</a> that emphasised the importance of racial purity. The Black Vampyre exposes the racial prejudices at the heart of these inquiries by using the vampire to articulate the horror of the transatlantic slave trade.</p>
<h2>2. The Blood of the Vampire (1897)</h2>
<p>Later in the century, Victorian writer Florence Marryat’s <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/6601404-the-blood-of-the-vampire">The Blood of the Vampire</a> introduced readers to Harriet Brandt, a psychic vampire born of a white “mad scientist” and an enslaved Creole woman. The novel was published in the same year as Bram Stoker’s Dracula. </p>
<p>While Dracula sails from Transylvania to England, Harriet sails from Jamaica to England. Unlike Dracula, Harriet is frightened and confused by her powers. She also <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt9qhdw4.8#metadata_info_tab_content">drains people of energy</a> rather than blood. She is not aware of her feeding, unlike Dracula who chooses his victims. </p>
<p>Marryat’s book, like The Black Vampyre, is concerned with eugenics and inheritance. Eugenicists believe in the racist and <a href="https://theconversation.com/forced-sterilization-policies-in-the-us-targeted-minorities-and-those-with-disabilities-and-lasted-into-the-21st-century-143144">scientifically erroneous idea</a> that desired traits can be selected through breeding to eliminate social ills and create a perfect society.</p>
<p>These ideas were gaining traction in the 19th century and, in the book, Harriet is accused by the mother of one of her accidental victims of being cursed with “vampire blood” and “black blood” – it is her genetics that are to blame.</p>
<p>Monstrosity in literature has frequently been used to explore the ways marginalised people are <a href="https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/Gothic_Queer_Culture/dZunDwAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=monstrosity+and+marginalized&pg=PA45&printsec=frontcover">excluded from society</a>. For example, the 1994 adaptation of Interview with a Vampire has been read as using vampirism as a <a href="https://warped-perspective.com/index.php/2014/11/11/the-20th-anniversary-of-interview-with-the-vampire/">metaphor for the AIDS epidemic</a>. Victorian readers would have mapped racist views about people of colour on to the traits of the vampire.</p>
<p>However, Marryat portrays the vampire as a <a href="https://victorianpopularfiction.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/5-Ifill-Maryatt-Blood-of-the-Vampire-VPFA-Vol-1-issue-1-June-2019-1.pdf">sympathetic figure</a>, showing how upset and confused she is by her powers, challenging the preconceptions of the Victorian audience. </p>
<h2>3.Fledgling (2005)</h2>
<p>Octavia E Butler’s <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/books/archive/2022/02/fledgling-octavia-butler-reissue-consent/621420/">Fledgling</a> follows Shori, a girl who appears to be an African-American child but is actually a 53-year-old Ina – a vampire species that have seemingly always coexisted with humans.</p>
<p>In typical vampire fashion, the Ina need to feed on human blood to survive, but instead of killing their victims, the venom they produce hugely extends the human lifespan. So the relationship between vampires and humans is symbiotic rather than parasitic. </p>
<p>Shori can’t remember her life before the story begins. This means she also doesn’t remember why she is different. As the story progresses, she gradually and violently becomes aware that society is hostile to her. The Ina are a species of vampire with white skin. Shori learns that she is black because she was experimented upon and mutated in the quest to help the Ina survive the sun – vampires are killed by sunlight.</p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="Blue book cover with girl in centre." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/492102/original/file-20221027-37683-h5s605.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/492102/original/file-20221027-37683-h5s605.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=922&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/492102/original/file-20221027-37683-h5s605.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=922&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/492102/original/file-20221027-37683-h5s605.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=922&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/492102/original/file-20221027-37683-h5s605.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1159&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/492102/original/file-20221027-37683-h5s605.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1159&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/492102/original/file-20221027-37683-h5s605.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1159&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Headline Publishers</span></span>
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<p>This is a metaphor for the erasure of black histories. It is also an allegory for the “forgetting” of colonising powers, the slave trade, eugenics and the historical horrors of science where black people were used for <a href="https://www.mcgill.ca/oss/article/history/40-years-human-experimentation-america-tuskegee-study">experimentation</a>. </p>
<p>Butler uses <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/speciesism">speciesism</a> (the idea of treating one species as inherently more important than another) as a way of talking about racism allegorically. Shori’s black skin is a sought-after evolutionary advantage, which could protect her species from the sun, which runs counter to racist constructions of white superiority. Like D'Arcy and Marryat, Butler successfully employs the physicality and blood of the vampire to explore and dismantle the historical and “biological” justifications for racial prejudice.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/193157/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Joan Passey does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Black vampires have existed for 200 years in literature.
Joan Passey, Lecturer in Victorian literature and culture, University of Bristol
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/192053
2022-10-25T12:29:40Z
2022-10-25T12:29:40Z
The creepy clown emerged from the crass and bawdy circuses of the 19th century
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/491176/original/file-20221023-56557-sw642f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=327%2C635%2C6299%2C4947&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Clowns in American circuses were once considered a form of adult entertainment.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/evil-clown-royalty-free-image/471874489?phrase=circus clown vintage&adppopup=true">ArtMarie/E+ via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The scary clown has become a horror staple. </p>
<p>Featuring Art the Clown as the main villain, Damien Leone’s film “<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt10403420/">Terrifier 2</a>” is so gruesome that there are reports of viewers <a href="https://ew.com/movies/terrifier-2-fainting-vomiting-art-the-clown/">vomiting and passing out</a> in the theater. And every Halloween, you’ll see vicious clowns <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8L4-qRaLilY">stalking haunted house attractions</a> or trick-or-treaters dressed as <a href="https://www.partycity.com/group-costumes-pennywise">Pennywise</a>, the evil clown from Stephen King’s “It.”</p>
<p>It can be hard to imagine a time when clowns were regularly invited to children’s birthday parties and hospital wards – not to terrorize, but to delight and entertain. For much of the 20th century, this was the <a href="https://festival.si.edu/blog/american-clowns-performance-history-and-cliche">standard role of the clown</a>. </p>
<p>However, clowns have always had a dark side. Before the 20th century, clowns in American circuses were largely considered a form of adult entertainment. </p>
<p>In <a href="https://womenalsoknowhistory.com/individual-scholar-page/?pdb=2865">my own research</a> on the history of the 19th-century circus, I spend a lot of time in archives where I regularly come across vintage photos of clowns. </p>
<p>Now, I don’t consider myself afraid of clowns. In fact, I always try to remind folks that today’s clowns are <a href="https://www.vice.com/en/article/yw3g3b/everything-you-learn-in-clown-college">serious artists with an enormous amount of training</a> in their craft. But even I have to admit that the clowns I come across from old circuses give me the heebie-jeebies.</p>
<h2>Drunken, lewd clowns in drag</h2>
<p>For most of the 19th century, circuses were relatively small, one-ring events where audiences could hear performers speak. </p>
<p>These shows were <a href="https://www.neh.gov/humanities/2011/septemberoctober/statement/the-circus-you-never-knew">rowdy affairs</a> in which audiences felt free to yell, boo and hiss at performers. Typically, clowns would engage in banter with the stoic ringmaster, who was often the target for the clowns’ pranks. Borrowing comedic traditions from the <a href="https://library.brown.edu/cds/sheetmusic/afam/minstrelsy.html">blackface minstrel show</a>, circus clowns used puns, non sequiturs and exaggerated burlesque humor. </p>
<p>One very popular clown act, which <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/files/76/76-h/76-h.htm">Mark Twain depicted</a> in “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn,” involved a performer disguised as a drunken circus patron who shocked the audience by entering the ring and clumsily attempting to ride one of the show’s horses before dramatically revealing himself to be part of the show. Famous 19th-century clown Dan Rice was <a href="https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/famous-american-clown-was-probably-model-uncle-sam-180961852/">known for including local gossip and political commentary</a> in his performances and impersonating prominent figures in each town he visited.</p>
<p>The jokes they told were often misogynistic and full of sexual double-entendres, which wasn’t a problem because circus audiences at this time were mostly adult and male. Back then, circuses were a <a href="https://uncpress.org/book/9780807853993/the-circus-age/">stigmatized form of entertainment</a> in the U.S., considered disreputable for their association with gambling, grift, scantily clad female performers, profanity and alcohol. Church leaders regularly warned their congregations not to attend the circus. Some states even had <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/3787111">laws banning circuses altogether</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/491177/original/file-20221023-26-w39tra.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A circus poster featuring clowns engaged in various hijinks." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/491177/original/file-20221023-26-w39tra.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/491177/original/file-20221023-26-w39tra.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=317&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/491177/original/file-20221023-26-w39tra.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=317&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/491177/original/file-20221023-26-w39tra.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=317&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/491177/original/file-20221023-26-w39tra.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/491177/original/file-20221023-26-w39tra.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/491177/original/file-20221023-26-w39tra.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Clowns in the 19th century were often sinister, vulgar characters.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://tile.loc.gov/storage-services/service/pnp/ppmsca/55100/55150v.jpg">Library of Congress</a></span>
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<p>Clowns played a part in the circus’ seedy reputation. </p>
<p>Showman <a href="https://ugapress.org/book/9780820344379/the-big-tent/">P.T. Barnum noted</a> that part of the appeal of the circuses “consisted of the clown’s vulgar jests, emphasized with still more vulgar and suggestive gestures.” Clowns also subverted gender norms, with many appearing in drag, often exaggerating the female figure with cartoonishly big fake breasts.</p>
<p>In the early 19th century, some circuses also featured a separate tent that contained a “cooch show.” Male patrons were invited, for a fee, to watch women dance and strip. </p>
<p>Circus historian <a href="https://uncpress.org/book/9780807853993/the-circus-age/">Janet Davis notes</a> that some of these performances included clowns in drag “playing gender-bending pranks on dumbfounded men who expected to see nude women.” In a shocking revelation, Davis also notes that at some cooch show performances, gay clowns had sexual encounters with male audience members “during and after anonymously crowded scenes.”</p>
<p>These clowns, suffice it to say, weren’t for kids.</p>
<h2>Clowns clean up their act</h2>
<p>It wasn’t really until the 1880s and 1890s, when entertainment impresarios like <a href="http://cup.columbia.edu/book/the-selected-letters-of-p-t-barnum/9780231054126">Barnum made efforts to “clean up”</a> the circus to draw in a larger audience, that clowns truly became associated with children.</p>
<p>After circuses started traveling by railroad, they could carry more equipment, allowing them to expand from one ring to three. Audiences could no longer hear performers, so the clown became a pantomime comedian, eliminating any potentially vulgar or suggestive language. </p>
<p>Circus owners, aiming to make as much money as possible, tried to court a broader audience, including women and children. That necessitated the removal of any scandalous acts and strict monitoring of their employees’ behavior.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/491175/original/file-20221023-19-skgs8u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Circus advertisement featuring drawings of clowns and animals." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/491175/original/file-20221023-19-skgs8u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/491175/original/file-20221023-19-skgs8u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=790&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/491175/original/file-20221023-19-skgs8u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=790&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/491175/original/file-20221023-19-skgs8u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=790&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/491175/original/file-20221023-19-skgs8u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=992&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/491175/original/file-20221023-19-skgs8u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=992&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/491175/original/file-20221023-19-skgs8u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=992&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">At the directive of P.T. Barnum, clowns became palatable to families with young kids.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/poster-advertising-p-t-barnums-circus-greatest-show-on-news-photo/517292546?phrase=circus%20clown&adppopup=true">Bettmann/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The shows with the most staying power, like Barnum & Bailey’s Greatest Show on Earth, were <a href="https://shop.wisconsinhistory.org/ringlingville-usa-paperback-edition">known as “Sunday school” shows</a>, free of any objectionable content. They successfully portrayed themselves as the purveyors of good, clean fun.</p>
<p>Clowns played a role in this transformation. With now-silent acts focused on physical comedy, their performances were easy for children to understand. Clowns remained tricksters, but their slapstick comedy was seen as all in good fun.</p>
<p>This had a lasting effect. Clowns entertained families at the circus, and, as entertainment moved to film and television, child-friendly clowns followed there too. Clowns became staples of children’s entertainment in the 20th century. A popular television program featuring <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0254011/">Bozo the Clown</a> ran for 40 years, from 1960 to 2001. Beginning in the 1980s, clowns became <a href="https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(06)69919-4/fulltext">regular visitors to children’s hospitals</a> to cheer up young patients. And companies <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/ronald-mcdonald-facts-2014-3">like McDonald’s</a> used clowns as mascots to make their brands appealing to children. </p>
<p>But in the 21st century, there’s been a sharp turnaround. <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/7189401.stm">A 2008 study</a> concluded that “clowns are universally disliked” by children today. Some point to clown-turned-serial killer <a href="https://chicago.suntimes.com/entertainment-and-culture/2021/3/19/22338876/john-wayne-gacy-serial-killer-house-chicago-evidence-art-paintings-devil-disguise-peacock">John Wayne Gacy</a> as the turning point, while others may blame Stephen King’s “It” for yoking clowns to horror.</p>
<p>Upon examining the history of the American circus, it almost seems as if the period in the 20th century when clowns were beloved by children deviated from the norm. Today’s scary clowns are not a divergence from tradition, but a return to it.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/192053/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Madeline Steiner does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Today’s creepy clowns are not a divergence from tradition, but a return to it.
Madeline Steiner, Postdoctoral Fellow of History, University of South Carolina
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/191053
2022-10-21T12:39:05Z
2022-10-21T12:39:05Z
Why are so many people delighted by disgusting things?
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/490728/original/file-20221019-19-xxwcfm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=140%2C60%2C6569%2C4406&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">In what's called 'benign masochism,' some people find the feeling of disgust pleasurable.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/folliculitis-on-human-skin-royalty-free-image/1289667569?phrase=popping pimple close-up&adppopup=true">Ocskaymark/iStock via Getty Images.</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Halloween is a time to embrace all that is disgusting, from bloody slasher films to haunted houses full of fake guts and gore. </p>
<p>But the attraction to stuff that grosses us out goes beyond this annual holiday. </p>
<p>Flip through TV channels and you’ll come across <a href="https://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/handle/2027.42/97960">“adventurous eating” programs</a>, in which hosts and contestants are served all manner of stomach-clenching foods; reality shows that take a deep dive into the work of <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1MFlKkanI6Q">pimple-popping dermatologists</a>; and <a href="https://www.manchesterhive.com/view/9781526130525/9781526130525.00017.xml">gross-out comedies</a> that deploy tasteless humor – think vomiting and urination – to make viewers laugh. </p>
<p>You can see this in other forms of media, as well. In romance novels, for example, you can find portrayals of consensual <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12119-016-9386-6">sibling incest</a> that are designed to titillate the reader. And, most extreme of all, there are internet <a href="https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-319-53856-3_13">shock sites</a> that host real footage of death and dismemberment for those who want to seek it out. </p>
<p>It isn’t just a recent media phenomenon, either. Early modern England has a similar culture of disgust, which I’ve <a href="https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/shakespeare-and-disgust-9781350213982/">written about in a forthcoming book</a>.</p>
<p>Why are so many people drawn to things that should, by all rights, compel them to turn away in horror? Modern science has an answer, and it has everything to do with how the emotion of disgust fundamentally works.</p>
<h2>What is disgust?</h2>
<p>Disgust is fundamentally an <a href="https://www.google.com/books/edition/Handbook_of_Emotions_Fourth_Edition/WBlKDwAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=Handbook+of+Emotions,+Fourth+Edition&printsec=frontcover">emotion of avoidance</a>: It signals that something might be harmful to your body, and encourages you to avoid it.</p>
<p>Scientists believe that disgust originally concerned food; <a href="https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Expression_of_the_Emotions_in_Man_an/NWAJAAAAQAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=%22how+readily+this+feeling+is+excited+by+anything+unusual%22&pg=PA257&printsec=frontcover">Charles Darwin noted</a> “how readily this feeling is excited by anything unusual in the appearance, odour, or nature of our food.” According to this theory, it slowly evolved to guard over all sorts of things that might put you in contact with dangerous pathogens, whether via disease, animals, bodily injury, corpses or sex. </p>
<p>What’s more, disgust seems to have evolved further to regulate things that are symbolically harmful: violations of morals, cultural rules and cherished values. This is why some people might say they’re “disgusted” by an act of racism.</p>
<p>Because of these regulatory functions, disgust is often known as the “<a href="https://www.google.com/books/edition/Disgust/91AGYNrUBDMC?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=Disgust:+The+Gatekeeper+Emotion&printsec=frontcover">gatekeeper emotion</a>,” the “<a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1368430212471738">exclusionary emotion</a>” or the “<a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/326223791_The_body_and_soul_emotion_-_The_role_of_Disgust_in_intergroup_relations">body and soul emotion</a>.”</p>
<h2>The allure of disgust</h2>
<p>How, then, do we account for the fact that disgusting things can sometimes captivate us? </p>
<p>Psychological research suggests that <a href="https://www.doi.org/10.1111/jcom.12094">disgusting stimuli both capture and retain your attention</a> more effectively than emotionally neutral stimuli do. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.doi.org/10.1111/jcom.12094">According to media scholars Bridget Rubenking and Annie Lang</a>, this likely happens because, from an evolutionary perspective, it seems that “an attentional bias toward disgust – no matter how aversive – would better equip humans to avoid harmful substances.” So although disgust can be an unpleasant feeling, the emotion has evolved to simultaneously seize people’s attention. </p>
<p>But disgusting things don’t just capture your attention; you can even enjoy them.</p>
<p>Psychologist <a href="https://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/handle/2027.42/97960">Nina Strohminger suggests</a> that the pleasurable features of disgust may be an instance of what has been called “<a href="https://www.doi.org/10.1007/BF00995932">benign masochism</a>” – the human tendency to seek out seemingly “negative” experiences for the purposes of enjoying “constrained risks,” such as riding a roller coaster or eating extremely spicy foods. </p>
<p>According to Strohminger, it seems “possible that any negative feeling has the potential to be enjoyable when it is stripped of the belief that what is happening is actually bad, leaving behind physiological arousal that is, in itself, exhilarating or interesting.”</p>
<p>So not only are you predisposed to be captivated by disgusting things, there’s also a psychological mechanism that enables you, in the right circumstances, to enjoy them.</p>
<h2>Shakespearean disgust</h2>
<p>Celebrating and profiting off this attraction isn’t a product of the digital age. It was even happening in Shakespeare’s time.</p>
<p>The playwright’s notorious tragedy “<a href="https://www.folger.edu/titus-andronicus">Titus Andronicus</a>” contains as much gore as today’s slasher movies. According to <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/23102751">one estimate</a>, the play stages “14 killings, 9 of them on stage, 6 severed members, 1 rape (or 2 or 3, depending on how you count), 1 live burial, 1 case of insanity, and 1 of cannibalism – an average of 5.2 atrocities per act, or one for every 97 lines.”</p>
<p>When exploring the “problematic appeal of this play’s violence,” <a href="https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Shattering_of_the_Self/UQtRzswqR58C?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=Cynthia+Marshall,+The+Shattering+of+the+Self:+Violence,+Subjectivity,+and+Early+Modern+Texts&printsec=frontcover">literary critic Cynthia Marshall asks</a>, “Why would an audience, any audience, enjoy Titus’s reiteration of violence against the human body?” </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Woman in a white dress covered in blood." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/490729/original/file-20221019-14-3mizfu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/490729/original/file-20221019-14-3mizfu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=300&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/490729/original/file-20221019-14-3mizfu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=300&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/490729/original/file-20221019-14-3mizfu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=300&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/490729/original/file-20221019-14-3mizfu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=377&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/490729/original/file-20221019-14-3mizfu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=377&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/490729/original/file-20221019-14-3mizfu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=377&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">‘Titus Andronicus’ is the most gruesome work in Shakespeare’s canon.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://cloudimages.broadwayworld.com/columnpiccloud/1250-f243b9ac7d5c86f64d892f42f22b6734.jpg">Broadway World</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The answer, I believe, owes to the alluring nature of disgust that psychologists have documented. In early modern England, in fact, there was a cottage industry of disgust. </p>
<p>Large crowds viewed <a href="https://www.google.com/books/edition/Making_Murder_Public/iuCGDwAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=">public executions</a>, and the corpses of criminals were left hanged by chains for the public to gawk at. In open anatomy theaters, curious onlookers could watch doctors <a href="https://www.google.com/books/edition/Staging_Anatomies/5-VADgAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=Staging+Anatomies:+Dissection+and+Spectacle+in+Early+Stuart&pg=PT7&printsec=frontcover">perform autopsies</a>. In their shops, apothecaries displayed dismembered <a href="https://www.google.com/books/edition/Medicinal_Cannibalism_in_Early_Modern_En/ptTHAAAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=Noble,+Medicinal+Cannibalism&printsec=frontcover">human body parts</a>, before eventually mixing them into medicines – a practice scholars today call “medicinal cannibalism.” </p>
<p>And it is not simply that Elizabethans were desensitized, possessed of a different threshold for disgust. <a href="https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/shakespeare-and-disgust-9781350213982/">Contemporaries expressed</a> their revulsion, even as they found themselves drawn to them. After seeing a charred body hanging in a merchant’s warehouse, the <a href="https://www.google.com/books/edition/Diary_and_correspondance_of_Samuel_Pepys/Y28rNpS4FwIC?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=I+never+saw+any+before,+and+there,+it+pleased+me+much,+though+an+ill+sight&pg=PA278&printsec=frontcover">diarist Samuel Pepys noted</a> that “it pleased me much, though an ill sight.”</p>
<p>Then, as now, disgusting things captivate our attention and can even give us enjoyment – and the horrors of a play like “Titus Andronicus” reflect the fact that Elizabethans lived in a culture that encouraged people to gaze upon disgusting objects, even as they felt the urge to turn away. Shakespeare’s audience, I think, embraced the repulsive pleasure, just as modern audiences do when viewing the latest film in the “<a href="https://www.halloweenmovie.com/">Halloween</a>” franchise.</p>
<p>The human emotion that shields you from harm equally allows you to take a perverse pleasure in the very things from which you need to be protected.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/191053/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Bradley J. Irish does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Going out of your way to get grossed out might seem like a contradiction of human nature. But it serves a strong evolutionary purpose.
Bradley J. Irish, Associate Professor of English, Arizona State University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/186885
2022-08-22T12:26:00Z
2022-08-22T12:26:00Z
Cell towers have come to symbolize our deep collective anxieties
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/479964/original/file-20220818-22-29q3j2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=8%2C8%2C5742%2C3819&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Most of us would rather not think about the fact that we're immersed in an electromagnetic soup of radio waves.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/cellphone-base-station-towers-over-factory-roofs-royalty-free-image/1266611529?adppopup=true">RapidEye/E+ via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The new movie “<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt15325794/">Fall</a>” is a survival-thriller about two young women, Becky and Hunter, who are avid rock climbers. To mark the one-year anniversary of Becky’s husband’s death in a climbing accident, they decide to climb an abandoned 2,000-foot TV tower.</p>
<p>But a ladder breaks, and they find themselves stranded atop the rusty steel latticework. Ironically, at the top of the communication tower, the climbers are too high in the air to get a phone signal to call for rescue.</p>
<p>Other recent movies have also featured terrifying communication towers. </p>
<p>Take the 2016 film “<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0775440/">Cell</a>,” which is based on a Stephen King novel. In it, a cell tower signal turns normal people into zombies, a literal version of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smartphone_zombie">the cliché</a> about the effect mobile phones have on users. The 2018 Indian sci-fi blockbuster “<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5080556/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1">2.0</a>” features a gigantic Kaiju monster – akin to Godzilla or Mothra – made of cellphones. It rises to avenge the deaths of millions of birds supposedly killed by cell tower radiation. (Millions of <a href="https://www.audubon.org/news/no-5g-radio-waves-do-not-kill-birds">birds do die</a> every year by crashing into towers, but probably because they become disoriented by their lights, not from the radiation they emit.)</p>
<p>Why are communication towers so scary? Why, in “Fall,” is the steel tower somehow more disturbing than the rocky cliff face where Becky’s husband died?</p>
<p>I think it’s about more than fear of heights. <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=Zj3a1f4AAAAJ&hl=en">As a scholar who studies attitudes toward technology</a> – and who wrote <a href="https://www.routledge.com/Against-Technology-From-the-Luddites-to-Neo-Luddism/Jones/p/book/9780415978682">a book on the Luddites</a> and <a href="https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/cell-tower-9781501348815/">another one on cell towers</a> – I see cell towers, like the radio and TV towers that preceded them, as the focus of deep collective anxieties.</p>
<h2>Channeling invisible forces</h2>
<p>As anthropologist <a href="https://www.upress.umn.edu/book-division/books/code-and-clay-data-and-dirt">Shannon Mattern has argued</a>, towers and antennas are visible manifestations of vast invisible networks – mostly wireless or underground – that can be hard for people to wrap their heads around, even as they grow increasingly dependent on them. </p>
<p>They’re a reminder of something that most of us would rather forget: that we’re immersed in an electromagnetic soup of radio waves, walking around every day in what design scholar Anthony Dunne <a href="https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/hertzian-tales">has called</a> “hertzian space.” Those same invisible waves also signal the possibility of ubiquitous surveillance and manipulation.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A Christian cross perched atop communication technology." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/479969/original/file-20220818-15665-4u0d8b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/479969/original/file-20220818-15665-4u0d8b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=358&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/479969/original/file-20220818-15665-4u0d8b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=358&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/479969/original/file-20220818-15665-4u0d8b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=358&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/479969/original/file-20220818-15665-4u0d8b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=449&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/479969/original/file-20220818-15665-4u0d8b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=449&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/479969/original/file-20220818-15665-4u0d8b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=449&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A cross tower doubles as a telecommunications node at Green Hills Baptist Church in La Habra, Calif.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/the-cross-tower-at-green-hills-baptist-church-now-holds-news-photo/564008531?adppopup=true">Gina Ferazzi/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>So a latticework steel tower or a sleek <a href="https://pedroc.co.uk/content/vodafone-o2-monopoles">monopole mast</a> with an array of rectangular antenna panels clustered at its top can elicit powerful responses. </p>
<p>On the one hand, there’s denial – you might half-consciously “unsee” them and pretend they’re not there. </p>
<p>On the other hand, they can become a source of paranoia, which sometimes metastasizes into conspiracy theories. </p>
<h2>Hidden in plain sight</h2>
<p>Cell towers are often designed to hide in plain sight. Some are even <a href="https://www.vox.com/2015/4/19/8445213/cell-phone-towers-trees">disguised as pine trees or palm trees</a> – rather poorly, in most cases. But stealth towers like these aren’t actually meant to pass for the natural objects they imitate. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/479965/original/file-20220818-349-dj7ai0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Cell phone tower 'disguised' with palm fronds." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/479965/original/file-20220818-349-dj7ai0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/479965/original/file-20220818-349-dj7ai0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=916&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/479965/original/file-20220818-349-dj7ai0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=916&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/479965/original/file-20220818-349-dj7ai0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=916&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/479965/original/file-20220818-349-dj7ai0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1151&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/479965/original/file-20220818-349-dj7ai0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1151&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/479965/original/file-20220818-349-dj7ai0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1151&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Cell tower ‘camouflage’ is meant to elicit benign disregard.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/cell-phone-tower-on-the-north-shore-of-the-salton-sea-is-news-photo/1397549380?adppopup=true">George Rose/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Like all camouflage, they’re just supposed to distract our attention long enough for us to overlook them. The brown painted “bark” and green plastic “leaves,” or the rows of rectangular antenna panels painted to blend into building façades, are simply prompts to our unseeing – cues to look away. Nothing to see here, they say. </p>
<p>Meanwhile, the towers <a href="https://www.statista.com/statistics/185854/monthly-number-of-cell-sites-in-the-united-states-since-june-1986/">quietly multiply</a>.</p>
<p>In recent years, 5G antennas have started showing up everywhere, often as unlabeled boxes or cylinders on standalone poles or streetlights.</p>
<p>Known as small-cell networks, these faster and more powerful 5G systems require many more antennas spaced closer together. This greater density has provoked <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2020/05/great-5g-conspiracy/611317/">increased fears</a> about potential risks to health and security, along with more paranoid reactions linking cellular radiation to cancer – a link <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/16/science/5g-cellphones-wireless-cancer.html">not supported by scientific research</a>. Some people even <a href="https://slate.com/technology/2020/04/coronavirus-covid19-5g-conspiracy-theory.html">wrongly blamed 5G for the COVID-19 pandemic</a>.</p>
<p>As a result of such conspiracy theories, 2020 saw a <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2020/05/18/deep-conspiracy-roots-europe-wave-cell-tower-fires-264997">rash of cell tower arson</a> reminiscent of the Luddites – textile workers in 19th-century England who <a href="https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/what-the-luddites-really-fought-against-264412/">sabotaged new mechanical looms that were putting them out of work</a>. Two hundred years later, the name Luddite has become synonymous with any reaction against new technology. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Caution tape wrapped around burned out metal boxes." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/479967/original/file-20220818-459-zz89e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/479967/original/file-20220818-459-zz89e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/479967/original/file-20220818-459-zz89e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/479967/original/file-20220818-459-zz89e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/479967/original/file-20220818-459-zz89e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/479967/original/file-20220818-459-zz89e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/479967/original/file-20220818-459-zz89e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The base of a 5G phone mast damaged by arsonists in May 2020 in Liverpool, England.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/fire-and-explosion-damage-can-be-seen-on-an-ee-network-5g-news-photo/1227576029?adppopup=true">Christopher Furlong/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Some of the extreme reactions against cell towers may be the result of displaced anxiety about the very real risks of everyday technology. </p>
<p>Most of us sense – though we often prefer to forget – that each steel cell tower or sleek 5G box is just the tip of the iceberg. It’s a visible sign of mostly invisible global communication networks, tied to centers of commercial and political power, that are gradually eroding our privacy and autonomy. </p>
<p>No wonder they’re so terrifying.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/186885/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Steven Jones does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Hiding in plain sight, they’re subtle reminders that we’re being watched, tracked, studied.
Steven Jones, Professor of English and Digital Humanities (Ret.), University of South Florida
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/187910
2022-08-03T17:54:19Z
2022-08-03T17:54:19Z
Jordan Peele’s ‘Nope’ shines spotlight on animal work in entertainment
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/477487/original/file-20220803-18-wxwd2h.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=71%2C0%2C1749%2C864&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Jordan Peele's latest horror film challenges viewers to consider technology, surveillance, other worldly life and the making of spectacle through different lenses — including the eyes of animals.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Universal Pictures)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>It is a horse named Ghost who first signals that something is awry in the sky in Jordan Peele’s latest visually and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=In8fuzj3gck">thematically ambitious film <em>Nope</em></a>. OJ (Daniel Kaluuya) is the head wrangler of Heywood Hollywood Horses, an intergenerational, Black-owned and now struggling ranch that specializes in training horses for the big screen. </p>
<p>But it is his sister Emerald (Keke Palmer) who notices that Ghost, one of their family’s veteran equine actors, is unexpectedly standing in an outdoor pen staring out into space, his light grey fur as sublime as the moonlight. Ghost jumps the fence and gallops away, saying “nope” in his own way.</p>
<p>As a subversive Western science fiction kaleidoscope, <em>Nope</em> challenges viewers to consider technology, surveillance, other worldly life and the making of spectacle through different lenses — including the eyes of animals. The result is an unsettling view that exposes core ethical questions about animals’ work in films, including in <em>Nope</em> itself.</p>
<h2>Reform or replace?</h2>
<p>As Emerald recounts early in the film, the very first moving picture was created from photos of a <a href="https://www.vulture.com/2022/07/nope-and-the-story-behind-muybridges-moving-pictures.html">man galloping on a horse</a>, specifically a Black jockey whose name has been lost to — or erased from — history, depending on your perspective. The horse was named <a href="https://www.thevintagenews.com/2016/06/27/46591-2/?firefox=1">Sallie Gardner</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A series of photographs showing a man galloping on a horse" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/476744/original/file-20220729-5168-4l8g6g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/476744/original/file-20220729-5168-4l8g6g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=463&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/476744/original/file-20220729-5168-4l8g6g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=463&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/476744/original/file-20220729-5168-4l8g6g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=463&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/476744/original/file-20220729-5168-4l8g6g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=582&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/476744/original/file-20220729-5168-4l8g6g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=582&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/476744/original/file-20220729-5168-4l8g6g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=582&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Eadweard Muybridge’s ‘The Horse in Motion’ series of photographs was the first example of chronophotography.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">National Gallery of Art</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Horses have had <a href="https://www.salon.com/2012/04/02/hollywoods_long_history_of_animal_cruelty/">a long and rocky history in Hollywood</a>. Early Hollywood films put horses through gruelling working conditions, often resulting in injury or death. They were essentially treated as disposable. </p>
<p>Now on-set animal action, in the United States at least, is monitored by the nonprofit <a href="https://www.americanhumane.org/program/humane-hollywood/">American Humane</a>. Plus, animals on screen are increasingly <a href="https://www.wired.co.uk/article/his-dark-materials-bbc">computer-generated images</a> or <a href="https://www.iflscience.com/iflscience-meets-csaba-k-vri-on-the-complexities-of-motion-capture-and-cats-64648">motion capture marvels</a> that fuse digital imagery with human actors, as was the case in the award-winning rebooted <a href="https://www.wired.co.uk/article/planet-of-the-apes-andy-serkis">Planet of the Apes</a> trilogy starring Andy Serkis as the lead chimpanzee, Caesar. We have both reformed and replaced animals’ work in the making of entertainment.</p>
<p>Horses and chimpanzees are now often placed on opposite sides of a perceived line between accepted and unacceptable animal use. Most horses are <a href="https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/when-did-humans-domesticate-the-horse-180980097/">domesticated and have worked for humans for thousands of years</a>. Their careers, reproduction and social lives are largely controlled by humans. In contrast, although individual chimpanzees have been held captive, their species remains wild.</p>
<p><em>Nope</em> reflects this divide and begins with the chilling sounds of what viewers later learn was a chimpanzee named Gordy, the star in an eponymous sitcom, who snaps after balloons pop loudly on set and ends up attacking his human co-stars. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Two men in suits pose with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame red carpet with a white tiger sub" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/476751/original/file-20220729-12-68kczn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/476751/original/file-20220729-12-68kczn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=428&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/476751/original/file-20220729-12-68kczn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=428&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/476751/original/file-20220729-12-68kczn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=428&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/476751/original/file-20220729-12-68kczn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=537&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/476751/original/file-20220729-12-68kczn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=537&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/476751/original/file-20220729-12-68kczn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=537&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Illusionists Siegfried Fischbacher (left) and Roy Uwe Ludwig Horn pose for photographers with a white tiger cub after they unveiled their star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in Los Angeles in September 1994.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Neil Jacobs)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This mirrors real life human-animal eruptions, like when <a href="https://www.newsweek.com/why-tiger-attacked-siegfried-roy-explained-1670348">Mantacore the tiger</a> mauled Roy Horn of the (in)famous Siegfried & Roy, or when <a href="https://www.nonhumanrights.org/blog/travis-and-tragedy/">Travis the “pet” chimpanzee</a> and former actor attacked his caretaker’s friend before being shot by police.</p>
<p>In <em>Nope</em>, the tragedy involving <a href="https://www.slashfilm.com/934603/nope-makes-perfect-use-of-a-planet-of-the-apes-mvp/">Gordy (Terry Notary)</a> is revealed in excruciating detail, including an evocative moment when the chimpanzee sees his young co-star Ricky (Jacob Kim), hiding under a table. The two reach out to touch hands, as bullets fly. In a situation ripe with horror, viewers are asked to consider whether the foundational tragedy is Gordy’s employment as an actor.</p>
<h2>Horses at work</h2>
<p>Each chapter in the film is named after an animal — Ghost, Lucky, Clover, Gordy and Jean Jacket — foregrounding four horses and one chimpanzee. The horses are essential to the Heywood family’s livelihood and legacy, with OJ noting that he needs to get up early because “he has mouths to feed.” </p>
<p>Yet the ultimate fate of Ghost, the horse who rang the initial alarm by bolting away, is unclear. More troublingly, Clover meets an untimely end (off screen), one which is surprisingly un-mourned and barely noted.</p>
<p>In contrast, Lucky, who is portrayed as a sage and experienced equine, is essential to each facet of the plot. OJ asks those on a television set not to look Lucky in the eye early in the film, a foreshadowing of later extra-terrestrial communication. </p>
<p>As a lifelong horsewoman, I can confirm that horses generally have no concerns about eye contact. Recent studies have found that they are not only attuned to <a href="https://doi.org//10.1126/science.aaf4032">human facial expressions</a>, but also have more than <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2018/06/26/sport/horse-facial-expressions-spt/index.html">a dozen of their own</a>. Granted, the aversion could be particular to Lucky.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Two Icelandic horses playing. Their eyes are wide and their lips are peeled back, revealing their teeth." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/476752/original/file-20220729-11809-omilb4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/476752/original/file-20220729-11809-omilb4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=433&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/476752/original/file-20220729-11809-omilb4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=433&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/476752/original/file-20220729-11809-omilb4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=433&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/476752/original/file-20220729-11809-omilb4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=544&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/476752/original/file-20220729-11809-omilb4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=544&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/476752/original/file-20220729-11809-omilb4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=544&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Horses are surprisingly expressive animals and have more than a dozen different facial expressions.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Michael Probst)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Without question, the real horse (or perhaps horses) who plays Lucky is extraordinary. Most horses are fearful of blowing objects. Yet Lucky, in partnership with OJ, gallops past a whole series of massive wind dolls dancing erratically, without batting an eye. That reflects significant preparation and real-time emotional control.</p>
<h2>Respecting animals</h2>
<p>Animal actors and the skill involved in their work are being recognized. The canine star of the Canadian television program <a href="https://theconversation.com/hudson-and-rex-charming-canine-actor-challenges-us-to-look-at-animal-labour-132844">Hudson and Rex</a>, Diesel vom Burgimwald, is named in the credits and <a href="https://www.instagram.com/hudsonandrex/">regularly appears on the show’s social media channels</a>. Jeff Daniels, in his Emmy-acceptance speech for Godless, <a href="https://www.eonline.com/ca/news/969184/jeff-daniels-dedicates-2018-emmys-win-to-his-godless-horse-apollo">thanked his equine partner, Apollo</a>.</p>
<p>Yet the real horses who played Lucky, Clover and Ghost in <em>Nope</em> are <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt10954984/fullcredits">not included in the credits</a>. The head horse wrangler — Bobby Lovgren — is named, but the horses are omitted. In a film that powerfully explores the ethics of animal actors, for those it depends upon to be erased in this way is strange.</p>
<p>When it comes to our ethical duties to other animals — especially if we ask them to work for our entertainment — we must use great caution and pay close attention when they say “nope.” Representation and respect should go hand in hoof.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/187910/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kendra Coulter receives funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada and is a fellow of the Oxford Centre for Animal Ethics.</span></em></p>
When it comes to our ethical duties to animals, representation and respect should go hand in hoof.
Kendra Coulter, Professor, Management and Organizational Studies, Huron University College, Western University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/186633
2022-07-24T20:01:41Z
2022-07-24T20:01:41Z
‘Suburban living did turn women into robots’: why feminist horror novel The Stepford Wives is still relevant, 50 years on
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/474488/original/file-20220718-40251-de1r44.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=5%2C11%2C1991%2C1317&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The Stepford Wives (1975)</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">IMBD</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>On August 26 1970, 50,000 women marched down Fifth Avenue in New York City in a <a href="https://time.com/4008060/women-strike-equality-1970/">Women’s Strike</a>. Organised by feminist activist Betty Friedan, the march highlighted the fact women still performed the vast majority of domestic work. </p>
<p>The Women’s Liberation Movement wanted many things in 1970, but one of the most important was freedom from “<a href="https://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,876783-1,00.html">unpaid domestic servitude at home</a>”.</p>
<p>Half a century later, most women are still waiting for their freedom. Women still do <a href="https://theconversation.com/yet-again-the-census-shows-women-are-doing-more-housework-now-is-the-time-to-invest-in-interventions-185488">far more</a> domestic and care labour than men. </p>
<p>Since the 1960s, more and more women have taken up paid employment, but a problem remains: how would their unpaid domestic work be replaced? </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/friday-essay-sex-power-and-anger-a-history-of-feminist-protests-in-australia-157402">Friday essay: Sex, power and anger — a history of feminist protests in Australia</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Dramatising women’s suburban alienation</h2>
<p>Ira Levin’s novel <a href="https://www.hachette.com.au/ira-levin/the-stepford-wives-introduction-by-chuck-palanhiuk">The Stepford Wives</a> offered a bleak answer: women themselves would be replaced. Levin powerfully dramatised women’s suburban alienation and men’s resistance to feminist change. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/474499/original/file-20220718-40251-altnkm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/474499/original/file-20220718-40251-altnkm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/474499/original/file-20220718-40251-altnkm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=902&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/474499/original/file-20220718-40251-altnkm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=902&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/474499/original/file-20220718-40251-altnkm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=902&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/474499/original/file-20220718-40251-altnkm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1134&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/474499/original/file-20220718-40251-altnkm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1134&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/474499/original/file-20220718-40251-altnkm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1134&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The 1972 original cover.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">biblio.com.au</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The Stepford Wives begins with Joanna Eberhart, a wife, mother and photographer, who moves with her family from Manhattan to the suburban town of Stepford. She is interested in tennis, photography and <a href="https://theconversation.com/a-human-being-not-just-mum-the-womens-liberationists-who-fought-for-the-rights-of-mothers-and-children-182057">women’s liberation</a>. Joanna and her husband Walter have a happy, respectful marriage. Yet Walter joins the mysterious Stepford Men’s Association, where the men of the town spend their evenings. </p>
<p>Joanna finds it hard to make friends in their new home: all the women of Stepford are too busy cooking and cleaning. In the 1975 film adaptation (directed by Bryan Forbes, with a screenplay by William Goldman), Joanna and her only friend, fellow newcomer Bobbie, begin a consciousness-raising group – designed to raise women’s feminist awareness – which is derailed by an intense discussion of the merits of <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GjtM8XhcA-M">Easy-On Spray Starch</a>. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/GjtM8XhcA-M?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">The 1975 film of The Stepford Wives is as iconic as Ira Levin’s novel.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The women of Stepford transform into glassy-eyed housewives within months of arriving. Watching one of them admiring her washing, “like an actress in a commercial”, Joanna thinks </p>
<blockquote>
<p>That’s what they all were, all the Stepford wives: actresses in commercials, pleased with detergents and floor wax, with cleansers, shampoos, and deodorants. Pretty actresses, big in the bosom but small in the talent, playing suburban housewives unconvincingly, too nicey-nice to be real. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Joanna and Bobbie realise, with mounting horror, that the Stepford women have literally been replaced by robots, in a scheme masterminded by their husbands – and they too, will be similarly transformed. Bobbie is first. She tells Joanna </p>
<blockquote>
<p>I realised I was being awfully sloppy and self-indulgent. […] I’ve decided to do my job conscientiously, the way Dave does his. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>The women’s personalities have been erased, but their families don’t seem to mind – Bobbie’s son is delighted because his mother now makes hot breakfasts, while the husbands are thrilled because their “new” wives love sex and housework.</p>
<p>Fearful that she “won’t be me next summer”, Joanne realises Walter has also changed. He tells her the women of Stepford have changed only </p>
<blockquote>
<p>because they realised they’d been lazy and negligent […] It wouldn’t hurt you to look in a mirror once in a while.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Joanna agrees to see a psychiatrist, who prescribes her a sedative. But soon after, her voice vanishes from the novel, as she too has been transformed. At the story’s close, Joanna is gliding slowly through a supermarket, telling an acquaintance that she no longer does photography because “housework’s enough for me”.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/beyond-breadwinners-and-homemakers-we-need-to-examine-how-same-sex-couples-divide-housework-92585">Beyond breadwinners and homemakers, we need to examine how same-sex couples divide housework</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>An extraordinary feminist horror novel</h2>
<p>The Stepford Wives is an extraordinary feminist <a href="https://theconversation.com/friday-essay-scary-tales-for-scary-times-181597">horror</a> novel. Its vision of a group of men who engineer housework-loving robots to replace their restless wives offered not only a satire of male fears of women’s liberation, but a <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-is-heteropessimism-and-why-do-men-and-women-suffer-from-it-182288">savage view of heterosexual marriage</a>. In this telling, a man would rather kill his wife and replace her with a robot than commit to equality and recognise her as a whole person.</p>
<p>Sarah Marshall, host of the podcast <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-stepford-wives/id1380008439?i=1000488996114">You’re Wrong About</a>, argued the novel dramatised a real problem of the 1960s and 1970s: suburban living <em>did</em> transform women into robots. Tranquillisers like <a href="https://theconversation.com/weekly-dose-valium-the-safer-choice-that-led-to-dependence-and-addiction-59824">valium</a> were massively over-prescribed for women who were suffering from “suburban neurosis”, both in Australia and the US. </p>
<p>The extraordinary 1977 Australian documentary <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K8n50REW3Rw">All In The Same Boat</a> suggested suburban women had to take drugs to cope because their husbands refused to shoulder their share of the burdens of home and family. In short, what was happening to the women of Stepford was happening to women everywhere. They were losing their identities in a sea of endless <a href="https://theconversation.com/we-can-we-reduce-gender-inequality-in-housework-heres-how-58130">domestic labour</a>.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">This 1977 Australian documentary shows that what was happening to the women of Stepford was happening everywhere.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Joanna’s bafflement at her neighbours’ absorption in domestic chores echoed the feelings of many women of the era. Betty Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique resonated with so many white women in the 1960s because it articulated their dissatisfaction with the postwar gender order. Friedan declared: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>we can no longer ignore that voice within women that says: ‘I want something more than my husband and my children and my house.’</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Like many who joined women’s liberation, Joanna also wanted something <em>more</em>. The novel made it clear that “more” would be difficult for many women.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/damned-whores-and-gods-police-is-still-relevant-to-australia-40-years-on-mores-the-pity-47753">Damned Whores and God’s Police is still relevant to Australia 40 years on – more's the pity</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>From post-feminism to Get Out: cultural influence</h2>
<p>It is telling that in <a href="https://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/oi/authority.20110803100339445">post-feminist</a> 2004, the Joanna in the Frank Oz film remake of The Stepford Wives is not a woman seeking liberation, but a TV network president who creates crass <a href="https://theconversation.com/humilitainment-the-sorry-story-of-reality-tv-32571">reality TV</a> programs. Women’s liberation had been transformed into <a href="https://theconversation.com/friday-essay-the-personal-is-now-commercial-popular-feminism-online-79930">corporate feminism</a>, and the engineer of the scheme was not the Stepford Men’s Association, but an exhausted career woman who wants to return to a “simpler” life. The remake took a feminist premise and made an anti-feminist film.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/SuAADocdVn0?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Women’s liberation was transformed into corporate feminism in the 2004 remake.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Despite the dismal failure of the 2004 film, The Stepford Wives left a significant cultural footprint. The term itself entered the vernacular. Filmmaker Jordan Peele cited The Stepford Wives as a key influence on his horror film <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5052448/">Get Out</a>, also set in white suburbia. And Alex Garland’s 2014 film <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0470752/">Ex Machina</a>, centred on a lifelike female robot who turns on her creator, was a biting critique of tech bro misogyny. </p>
<p>In a <a href="https://theconversation.com/us-supreme-court-overturns-roe-v-wade-but-for-abortion-opponents-this-is-just-the-beginning-185768">post-Roe v Wade</a> world, where many men still seek to control women’s bodies and curtail their imaginations, Levin’s novel remains as chilling as ever.</p>
<hr>
<p><em>Correction: this article originally stated Sarah Marshall is “co-host” of the You’re Wrong About podcast, but this has now been amended to “host”.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/186633/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michelle Arrow receives funding from the Australian Research Council.</span></em></p>
In his 1972 novel The Stepford Wives, Ira Levin powerfully dramatised women’s suburban alienation and men’s resistance to feminist change. Michelle Arrow traces its enduring influence.
Michelle Arrow, Professor of History, Macquarie University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/185452
2022-06-22T15:07:00Z
2022-06-22T15:07:00Z
The Midwich Cuckoos: what the latest remake tells us about our fears for the next generation
<p>The sleepy English village of Midwich is mysteriously cut off from the outside world by an invisible barrier. After the spell is lifted, the villagers discover that every woman of childbearing age has fallen pregnant. When the women simultaneously give birth, it soon becomes clear that their children are not normal. They grow too quickly, understand too much, and can communicate with each other telepathically. Worst of all, they kill anybody who threatens their collective interests.</p>
<p>Evil children have been a horror and science fiction staple since <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0048977/">The Bad Seed</a> (1956). But there’s something about British science fiction writer John Wyndham’s 1957 novel <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Midwich_Cuckoos">The Midwich Cuckoos</a> that writers and directors keep coming back to.</p>
<p>The book was first adapted for film as <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0054443/">Village of the Damned</a> in 1960, then as <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0056931">Children of the Damned</a> in 1964, and again as <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0114852">Village of the Damned</a> in 1995, with the setting transposed to California. Now, back on its English turf and under its original title, it becomes <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt14245846/">a Sky mini-series</a>.</p>
<p>Why does this story return to our screens every 30 years or so? Our continued fascination with the glowing-eyed “Midwich Cuckoos” reflects uncertainties about the rising generation. Their reappearance heralds concerns about whether parents can cope with their offspring and prepare them for their adult futures.</p>
<h2>Extraordinary children in the cold war</h2>
<p>This kind of unnatural child first appears in British films in the early 1960s. Other examples include <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0055018">The Innocents</a> (1961), <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0056576">The Damned</a> (1963), <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0057261">Lord of the Flies</a> (1963) and <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0059269">A High Wind in Jamaica</a> (1965). Unlike the Cuckoos, children in these films are not always evil. However, they are all “extraordinary” – they don’t behave or think in the way “normal” children should.</p>
<p>Postwar Britain saw a significant shift in ideas about “normal” childhood – a shift that still affects the way we think about children today. Childhood, rather than being seen as a gradual progression towards adulthood, became <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13619462.2016.1226808">popularly conceptualised as a series of developmental psychological stages</a> from the 1950s onwards. Children moved through this sequence of stages not by working harder or gaining more experience, but simply by getting older.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/-AUBlW5EWnI?wmode=transparent&start=1" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<p>In this new understanding of childhood, the healthy, well-adjusted child acquired specific capacities at set ages, and both precocity and “backwardness” were undesirable. Social and emotional milestones became as significant as physical and intellectual ones. For example, <a href="https://manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk/9781526132895/">schools started to use record cards</a> to assess children’s sociability and emotional stability, with “self-centred and solitary” children scoring badly.</p>
<p>Given these stringent expectations, more pressure was placed upon parents and caregivers to shape their children into <a href="https://academic.oup.com/tcbh/article/27/3/389/2451964">citizens of the future</a>, preserving the societal gains that Britain had won in the second world war. The expanded welfare state, for example, with its National Health Service, social security and housing provision, required more active participation from its beneficiaries. At the same time, the early cold war and the risk of nuclear annihilation, epitomised by the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962, threatened the future adults could provide.</p>
<p>The original Midwich Cuckoos reflected these contradictory anxieties. Their intellectual genius, blank faces and unnatural emotional control indicate that they are “not kids”, because they do not perform childhood as children should. Their future depends on unquestioning domination, and they are only thwarted by being murdered by a bomb.</p>
<h2>Uncanny children at the turn of the millennium</h2>
<p>The 1995 American remake prefigured a new international wave of millennial “uncanny children” films. Film scholar <a href="https://library.oapen.org/handle/20.500.12657/25965">Jessica Balanzategui</a> considers examples from Japan (<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0178868">Ringu</a>, 1998), America (<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0167404">The Sixth Sense</a>, 1999), Spain (<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0256009">The Devil’s Backbone</a>, 2001) and Britain (<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0230600">The Others</a>, 2001). </p>
<p>These films, Balanzategui argues, emerged alongside new worries about children’s precocious development and the unravelling of national economic progress and political consensus in the Global North, as Japan’s economy collapsed in the “Lost Decade” of the 1990s. It was also a time when there was greater media interest in juvenile killers – such as the English ten-year-olds Robert Thompson and Jon Venables, who abducted and murdered toddler <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-james-bulger-case-should-not-set-the-age-of-criminal-responsibility-91342">James Bulger</a> in 1993.</p>
<p>Similar concerns had been expressed by cultural critics, including <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neil_Postman">Neil Postman</a> – whose original 1982 book <a href="https://interesi.files.wordpress.com/2017/10/disappearance.pdf">The Disappearance of Childhood</a> was revised and republished in 1994. Postman argued that television allowed children access to previously hidden adult knowledge, and that this was dangerous because children lacked self-restraint.</p>
<p>This mirrors the threat posed by the Cuckoos, who combine the “amorality” of childhood with fearsome power over adults. It also harks back to postwar psychological ideas about <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13619462.2016.1226808">“egotistic” children</a> who were cognitively unable to be empathetic or caring, and needed to be protected for their own good.</p>
<figure>
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</figure>
<h2>The Cuckoos in the 21st century</h2>
<p>The latest resurrection of the Midwich Cuckoos should make us reflect on our own attitudes towards children. Sky’s mini-series, unlike its predecessors, puts the spotlight on the relationships between the mothers and their offspring. This new set of Cuckoos are less intellectually precocious than emotionally unnerving – they are unable to love their parents in the way children ought.</p>
<p>This is juxtaposed with the voluntary and involuntary sacrifices that the parents make for their hostile children, highlighting the heavy load they carry. Underlining this theme, Professor Zellaby – the psychologist hero of the story, who is female in this remake – is racked with anxiety about her adult daughter Cassie. Cassie’s mental health issues make her dependent on her mother even before she becomes pregnant with one of the Cuckoos.</p>
<p>The new model of childhood developed in postwar Britain put greater demands on adults because it insisted children were <a href="https://manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk/9781526132895/">much less capable than they might appear</a>. It continues to oppress both contemporary children and their parents. As children have lost their independence, they have become more reliant on adults, which means that caregivers shoulder more responsibility for a longer period of time. Nevertheless, while we still find competent children unnerving, we cannot escape the trap we have set for ourselves. In the fantasies of destruction and salvation played out by the Midwich Cuckoos, we see the continuing burden of our own concepts of childhood.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/185452/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Laura Tisdall does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Since the second world war, changing ideas about how children should behave have made us fear independent and competent children.
Laura Tisdall, Fellow in History, Newcastle University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/175520
2022-06-19T19:53:09Z
2022-06-19T19:53:09Z
Frankenstein: how Mary Shelley’s sci-fi classic offers lessons for us today about the dangers of playing God
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/452995/original/file-20220318-12943-b0cfo5.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Boris Karloff as Frankenstein's monster.</span> </figcaption></figure><p><em>In our Guide to the Classics series, experts explain key works of literature.</em></p>
<hr>
<p><a href="https://www.penguin.com.au/books/frankenstein-9780241425121">Frankenstein, or, The Modern Prometheus</a>, is an 1818 novel by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley. Set in the late 18th century, it follows scientist Victor Frankenstein’s creation of life and the terrible events that are precipitated by his abandonment of his creation. It is a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gothic_fiction">Gothic novel</a> in that it combines supernatural elements with horror, death and an exploration of the darker aspects of the psyche. </p>
<p>It also provides a complex critique of Christianity. But most significantly, as one of the first works of science-fiction, it explores the dangers of humans pursuing new technologies and becoming God-like.</p>
<h2>The celebrity story</h2>
<p>Shelley’s Frankenstein is at the heart of what might be the greatest celebrity story of all time. Shelley was born in 1797. Her mother, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Wollstonecraft">Mary Wollstonecraft</a>, author of the landmark A Vindication of the Rights of Women (1792), was, according to that book’s introduction, “the first major feminist”. </p>
<p>Shelley’s father was <a href="https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/godwin/">William Godwin</a>, political philosopher and founder of “philosophical anarchism” – he was anti-government in the moment that the great democracies of France and the United States were being born. When she was 16, Shelley eloped with radical poet <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Percy_Bysshe_Shelley">Percy Shelley</a>, whose <a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/46565/ozymandias">Ozymandias</a> (1818) is still regularly quoted (“Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!”).</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A pretty woman sitting between two men, looking anxious." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/452987/original/file-20220318-19-lnulc8.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/452987/original/file-20220318-19-lnulc8.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=337&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/452987/original/file-20220318-19-lnulc8.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=337&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/452987/original/file-20220318-19-lnulc8.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=337&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/452987/original/file-20220318-19-lnulc8.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/452987/original/file-20220318-19-lnulc8.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/452987/original/file-20220318-19-lnulc8.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Douglas Walton Percy Shelley Elsa Lanchester Mary Shelley and Gavin Gordon Lord Byron in the film The Bride of Frankenstein.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Their relationship seems to epitomise the Romantic era itself. It was crossed with outside love interests, illegitimate children, suicides, debt, wondering and wandering. And it ultimately came to an early end in 1822 when Percy Shelley drowned, his small boat lost in a storm off the Italian coast. The Shelleys also had a close association with the poet <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lord_Byron">Lord Byron</a>, and it is this association that brings us to Frankenstein.</p>
<p>In 1816 the Shelleys visited Switzerland, staying on the shores of Lake Geneva, where they were Byron’s neighbours. As Mary Shelley tells it, they had all been reading ghost stories, including Coleridge’s <a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/43971/christabel">Christabel</a> (Coleridge had visited her father at the family house when Shelley was young), when Byron suggested that they each write a ghost story. Thus 18-year-old Shelley began to write Frankenstein.</p>
<h2>The myth of the monster</h2>
<p>The popular imagination has taken Frankenstein and run with it. The monster “Frankenstein”, originally “Frankenstein’s monster”, is as integral to Western culture as the characters and tropes from Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. </p>
<p>But while reasonable continuity remains between Carroll’s Alice and its subsequent reimaginings, much has been changed and lost in the translation from Shelley’s novel into the many versions that are rooted in the popular imagination.</p>
<iframe width="100%" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/TBHIO60whNw" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<p>There have been many varied adaptations, from <a href="https://youtu.be/TBHIO60whNw">Edward Scissorhands</a> to <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LGzc0pIjHqw">The Rocky Horror Picture Show</a> (see <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/film/2021/feb/11/the-20-best-frankenstein-films-ranked">here</a> for a top 20 list of Frankenstein films). But despite the variety, it’s hard not to think of the “monster” as a zombie-like implacable menace, as we see in the <a href="https://youtu.be/BN8K-4osNb0">trailer to the 1931 movie</a>, or a lumbering fool, as seen in <a href="https://youtu.be/nBV8Cw73zhk">the Herman Munster incarnation</a>. Further, when we add the prefix “franken” it’s usually with disdain; consider “frankenfoods”, which refers to genetically modified foods, or “frankenhouses”, which describes contemporary architectural monstrosities or bad renovations. </p>
<p>However, in Shelley’s novel, Frankenstein’s creation is far from being two-dimensional or contemptible. To use the motto of the Tyrell corporation, which, in the 1982 movie Bladerunner, creates synthetic life, the creature strikes us as being “more human than human”. Indeed, despite their dissimilarities, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NoAzpa1x7jU">the replicant Roy Batty in Bladerunner reproduces Frankenstein’s creature’s intense humanity</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/452988/original/file-20220318-10625-19lfw2e.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/452988/original/file-20220318-10625-19lfw2e.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=244&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/452988/original/file-20220318-10625-19lfw2e.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=244&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/452988/original/file-20220318-10625-19lfw2e.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=244&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/452988/original/file-20220318-10625-19lfw2e.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=307&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/452988/original/file-20220318-10625-19lfw2e.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=307&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/452988/original/file-20220318-10625-19lfw2e.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=307&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Roy Batty as a replicant in Blade Runner, delivering his famous tears in rain speech.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Some key elements in the plot</h2>
<p>The story of Victor Frankenstein is nested within the story of scientist-explorer Robert Walton. For both men, the quest for knowledge is mingled with fanatical ambition. The novel begins towards the end of the story, with Walton, who is trying to sail to the North Pole, rescuing Frankenstein from <a href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/0c/Caspar_David_Friedrich_-_Das_Eismeer_-_Hamburger_Kunsthalle_-_02.jpg/1280px-Caspar_David_Friedrich_-_Das_Eismeer_-_Hamburger_Kunsthalle_-_02.jpg">sea ice</a>. Frankenstein is being led northwards by his creation towards a final confrontation. </p>
<p>The central moment in the novel is when Frankenstein brings his creation to life, only to be immediately repulsed by it:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>I had worked hard for nearly two years, for the sole purpose of infusing life into an inanimate body. For this I had deprived myself of rest and health. I had desired it with an ardour that far exceeded moderation but now that I had finished, the beauty of the dream vanished, and breathless horror and disgust filled my heart.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Victor Frankenstein, like others in the novel, is appalled by the appearance of his creation. He flees the creature and it vanishes. After a hiatus of two years, the creature begins to murder people close to Frankenstein. And when Frankenstein reneges on his promise to create a female partner for his creature, it murders his closest friend and then, on Frankenstein’s wedding night, his wife.</p>
<h2>More human than human</h2>
<p>The real interest of the novel lies not in the murders or the pursuit, but in the creature’s accounts of what <em>drove</em> him to murder. After the creature murders Frankenstein’s little brother, William, Frankenstein seeks solace in the Alps – in <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wanderer_above_the_Sea_of_Fog#/media/File:Caspar_David_Friedrich_-_Wanderer_above_the_sea_of_fog.jpg">sublime nature</a>. There, the creature comes upon Frankenstein and eloquently and poignantly relates his story. </p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/452989/original/file-20220318-36080-1qgz6sk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/452989/original/file-20220318-36080-1qgz6sk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=865&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/452989/original/file-20220318-36080-1qgz6sk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=865&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/452989/original/file-20220318-36080-1qgz6sk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=865&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/452989/original/file-20220318-36080-1qgz6sk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1087&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/452989/original/file-20220318-36080-1qgz6sk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1087&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/452989/original/file-20220318-36080-1qgz6sk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1087&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">New York Public Library</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
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<p>We learn that the creature spent a year secretly living in an outhouse attached to a hut occupied by the recently impoverished De Lacey family. As he became self-aware, the creature reflected that, “To be a great and virtuous man appeared the highest honour that can befall a sensitive being.” But when he eventually attempted to reveal himself to the family to gain their companionship, he was brutally driven from them. The creature was filled with rage. He says, “I could … have glutted myself with their shrieks and misery.” More human than human.</p>
<p>After Victor Frankenstein dies aboard Walton’s ship, Walton has a final encounter with the creature, as it looms over Frankenstein’s body. To the corpse, the creature says:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“Oh Frankenstein! Generous and self-devoted being! What does it avail that I now ask thee to pardon me? I, who irretrievably destroyed thee by destroying all thou lovedst.” </p>
</blockquote>
<p>The creature goes on to make several grand and tragic pronouncements to Walton. “My heart was fashioned to be susceptible of love and sympathy; and when wrenched by misery to vice and hatred, it did not endure the violence of the change, without torture such as you cannot even imagine.” And shortly after, about the murder of Frankenstein’s wife, the creature says: “I knew that I was preparing for myself a deadly torture; but I was the slave, not the master, of an impulse, which I detested, yet could not disobey.”</p>
<p>These remarks encourage us to ponder some of the weightiest questions we can ask about the human condition:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>What is it that drives humans to commit horrible acts? Are human hearts, like the creature’s, fashioned for ‘love and sympathy’, and when such things are withheld or taken from us, do we attempt to salve the wound by hurting others? And if so, what is the psychological mechanism that makes this occur?</p>
</blockquote>
<p>And what is the relationship between free will and horrible acts? We cannot help but think that the creature remains innocent – that he is the slave, not the master. But then what about the rest of us? </p>
<p>The rule of law generally blames individuals for their crimes – and perhaps this is necessary for a society to function. Yet I suspect the rule of law misses something vital. Epictetus, the stoic philosopher, considered such questions millennia ago. He asked: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>What grounds do we have for being angry with anyone? We use labels like ‘thief’ and ‘robber’… but what do these words mean? They merely signify that people are confused about what is good and what is bad.</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>Unintended consequences</h2>
<p>Victor Frankenstein creates life only to abandon it. An unsympathetic interpretation of Christianity might see something similar in God’s relationship with humanity. Yet the novel itself does not easily support this reading; like much great art, its strength lies in its ambivalence and complexity. At one point, the creature says to Frankenstein: “Remember, that I am thy creature; I ought to be thy Adam, but I am rather the fallen angel, whom thou drivest from joy for no misdeed.” These and other remarks complicate any simplistic interpretation.</p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/453199/original/file-20220321-21-1fulrev.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/453199/original/file-20220321-21-1fulrev.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/453199/original/file-20220321-21-1fulrev.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/453199/original/file-20220321-21-1fulrev.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/453199/original/file-20220321-21-1fulrev.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/453199/original/file-20220321-21-1fulrev.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/453199/original/file-20220321-21-1fulrev.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<p>In fact, the ambivalence of the novel’s religious critique supports its primary concern: the problem of technology allowing humans to become God-like. The subtitle of Frankenstein is “The Modern Prometheus”. In the Greek myth, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prometheus">Prometheus</a> steals fire – a technology – from the gods and gives it to humanity, for which he is punished. In this myth and many other stories, technology and knowledge are double-edged. Adam and Eve eat the apple of knowledge in the Garden of Eden and are ejected from paradise. In 2001: A Space Odyssey, <a href="https://youtu.be/RWCvMwivrDk">humanity is born when the first tool is used</a> – a tool that augments humanity’s ability to be violent.</p>
<p>The novel’s subtitle is referring to Kant’s 1755 essay, “The Modern Prometheus”. In this, Kant observes that: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>There is such a thing as right taste in natural science, which knows how to distinguish the wild extravagances of unbridled curiosity from cautious judgements of reasonable credibility. From the Prometheus of recent times Mr. Franklin, who wanted to disarm the thunder, down to the man who wants to extinguish the fire in the workshop of Vulcanus, all these endeavors result in the humiliating reminder that Man never can be anything more than a man.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Victor Frankenstein, who suffered from an unbridled curiosity, says something similar: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>A human being in perfection ought always to preserve a calm and peaceful mind … If the study to which you apply yourself has a tendency to weaken your affections, and to destroy your taste for those simple pleasures in which no alloy can possibly mix, then that study is certainly unlawful, that is to say, not befitting the human mind. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>And also: “Learn from me … how dangerous is the acquirement of knowledge and how much happier that man is who believes his native town to be the world, than he who aspires to become greater than his nature will allow.” </p>
<p>In sum: be careful what knowledge you pursue, and how you pursue it. Beware playing God.</p>
<p>Alas, history reveals the quixotic nature of Shelley and Kant’s warnings. There always seems to be a scientist somewhere whose dubious ambitions are given free rein. And beyond this, there is always the problem of the unintended consequences of our discoveries. Since Shelley’s time, we have created numerous things that we fear or loathe such as the atomic bomb, cigarettes and other drugs, chemicals such as DDT, and so on. And as our powers in the realms of genetics and artificial intelligence grow, we may yet create something that loathes us.</p>
<p>It all reminds me of sociobiologist Edward O. Wilson’s relatively recent (2009) remark <a href="https://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/acref/9780191826719.001.0001/q-oro-ed4-00016553">that</a>, “The real problem of humanity is the following: we have Paleolithic emotions, medieval institutions, and god-like technology.”</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/175520/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jamie Q Roberts does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
The possibilities of ‘more human than human’ artificial intelligence and the dangers of playing God and are not new – they’re the subjects of one of the world’s first science-fiction novels.
Jamie Q Roberts, Lecturer in Politics and International Relations, University of Sydney
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/183084
2022-05-20T12:15:39Z
2022-05-20T12:15:39Z
‘Dracula Daily’ reanimates the classic vampire novel for the age of memes and snark
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/464139/original/file-20220519-12-eujbju.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C34%2C1075%2C841&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">An online audience is reading the vampire novel for the first time, en masse.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/vampire-teeth-to-go-with-story-on-boston-ballet-companys-news-photo/141665303">Diane Barros/The Boston Globe via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>If you’re an active social media user, perhaps you’ve noticed a surge in posts recently <a href="https://dramatic-dolphin.tumblr.com/post/684034902439706624/i-love-how-you-guys-are-discovering-spicy">about paprika</a>, <a href="https://noritaro.tumblr.com/post/683727305352298496/he-threw-out-my-shaving-mirror">reflective shaving glasses</a> and <a href="https://banrionceallach.tumblr.com/post/684435414397927424/darchildre-friends-we-have-reached-the-point-in">castle hospitality in Transylvania</a>. One hundred twenty-five years after its initial publication, Bram Stoker’s “Dracula” is having a resurgence. </p>
<p>The current popularity bump is thanks to an email newsletter called “<a href="https://draculadaily.substack.com">Dracula Daily</a>.” The original 1897 version of “Dracula” was told in epistolary format, meaning the novel’s plot is presented through journal entries, letters, newspaper articles and the like. <a href="https://www.dailydot.com/unclick/dracula-daily-interview-matt-kirkland/">Matt Kirkland hit on a simple idea</a>: Release the novel “Dracula” by entry, by date. Subscribers to his Substack newsletter receive messages in their inboxes day by day as the vampire tale unfolds in real time. If there’s no action on that date, there’s no message sent.</p>
<p>“Dracula Daily” has become the <a href="https://twitter.com/woniiwasp/status/1522763544751747072">coolest book club on the internet</a>, <a href="https://nienna14.tumblr.com/post/683508500300759040">taking Tumblr, especially, by storm</a>. As <a href="https://skepticalinquirer.org/authors/stanley-stepanic/">a Dracula and vampire scholar</a>, I’m not surprised to see a new example of the story’s persistence and its tendency to find new life with modern audiences. Considered by many to be a classic of horror literature, Stoker’s “Dracula” is frequently <a href="https://www.jstor.org/action/doBasicSearch?Query=dracula&so=rel">referenced</a>, <a href="https://www.instagram.com/explore/tags/dracula/">discussed</a> and <a href="https://www.imdb.com/search/keyword/?keywords=dracula&ref_=fn_kw_kw_1">adapted</a>. What makes the phenomenon of “Dracula Daily” so interesting, though, is not just <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/1354856516675256">how it is finding a new audience</a>, but the way the material is being consumed by these fans.</p>
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<h2>Following the action in real time</h2>
<p>Stoker’s “Dracula” is not unique in using an epistolary style; it’s not even the first work of vampire fiction to do so. But by including the new technologies of his time – such as the phonograph and the typewriter – Stoker gave his tale a modern feel, much as if it were written today using Reddit entries composed on a smartphone.</p>
<p>The novel starts on May 3, with Jonathan Harker, a young English solicitor, describing his travels to visit a mysterious client in Transylvania. “Dracula Daily” readers received this particular entry on the same date, <a href="https://draculadaily.substack.com/p/dracula-may-3-590?s=r">with a flippant summary stating</a> “Meet Jonathan Harker, on a fun road trip for work, as he collects some new recipes.” With that intro, the opening Stoker wrote in the 19th century to set the scene comes off like a naïve travel blog to 21st-century readers scrolling on their phones.</p>
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<p>The only difference between the original novel and the emailed content is that Kirkland opts to release the material in chronological order. For instance, Jonathan Harker witnesses Count Dracula scaling the wall of his castle in “lizard fashion” for the third and final time on June 29. His fiancee, Mina Murray, writes a letter to her friend Lucy Westenra on May 9. In the novel, the description of Dracula’s uncanny exit is presented before Lucy’s chatty letter. In “Dracula Daily,” it’s the reverse. Subsequent sections are published in the same way.</p>
<p>Newsletter subscribers are thus consuming the novel not just in a different format, but in a different order. While faithful to the original text, “Dracula Daily” is, in a sense, a partial retelling of the book.</p>
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<h2>Protectively mocking ‘my buddy Harker’</h2>
<p>Upon initial publication, “Dracula” was dismissed by some influential critics. One comment was that “the early part goes best.” And it’s these first entries that have grabbed the “Dracula Daily” audience’s attention in 2022. They follow Jonathan Harker’s journey to meet Count Dracula to assist with his purchasing of properties in England. It hardly sounds like the sinister scheming of a centuries-old undead vampire lord. To audiences in 1897, the novel was quite similar to previous vampire literature, and such details were largely overlooked as par for the course. </p>
<p>But today’s audience meets Harker’s descriptions with more critical scrutiny. Readers laugh as Harker marches past <a href="https://hydroflorix.tumblr.com/post/683450842647560192/loving-the-way-time-and-context-has-turned-dracula">what are obviously red flags</a>. When locals stare at him and talk among themselves of Satan, hell, werewolves and vampires after hearing his travel plans, Harker simply adds a parenthetical note to himself: “(Mem., I must ask the Count about these superstitions).” For Harker, who does not believe in vampires, this would hardly seem a nonsensical idea.</p>
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<p>Modern readers, even if tackling Stoker’s writing for the first time, however, are well aware that Count Dracula is a bloodthirsty vampire who has much more than British real estate on his mind. Trained by social media to mockingly scrutinize online content, “Dracula Daily” readers revel in minor details that <a href="https://selkielore.tumblr.com/post/683597812391428097/omg-the-count-kept-him-up-all-night-talking">are easily mocked</a>. For instance, the fact that Dracula, maintaining the pretense that there are servants in this remote vampire’s lair, secretly makes Jonathan Harker’s bed himself, is viewed in a new and humorous light. “<a href="https://ashtry.tumblr.com/post/683781830922698752/i-appreciate-draculas-efforts-in-running-a-one">I appreciate Dracula’s efforts in running a one man hotel</a>,” commented Tumblr user ashtry.</p>
<p>In Stoker’s time, one critic called the book’s descriptions “probably quite uncanny enough to <a href="https://beladraculalugosi.wordpress.com/contemporary-reviews-of-bram-stokers-dracula/">please those for whom they are designed</a>” – meaning, essentially, trash written for trash. Tumblr audiences in particular seem to have picked up on this quality, approaching the material with plenty of snark. It’s the mocking analysis of the novel by modern readers that <a href="https://fandom.tumblr.com/post/683789213230137344/email-isgood-again-the-dracula-daily-newsletter">sent “Dracula Daily” trending</a>.</p>
<h2>Consuming the story as a social experience</h2>
<p>Readers always interpret a book’s style and meaning through the lens of their own knowledge and experiences. But the majority of previous “Dracula” interpretation I’ve seen has been at the hands of scholars and devoted fans. The social media response to “Dracula Daily” is different, with a primarily younger audience riffing on the novel in a new way.</p>
<p>As audiences analyze the novel piece by piece, they are engaging one another with memes and artistic interpretations of the plot as it unfolds. For instance, Harker’s description of Dracula climbing down the walls of his castle in “lizard fashion” has elicited visual art of <a href="https://horseboneologist.tumblr.com/post/684336161182892032/serve-it-id-a-digital-drawing-of-count">fashion looks</a> <a href="https://draculaesque.tumblr.com/post/684328757123842048/looks-for-climbing-vertically-down-the-walls-of">inspired by lizards</a>.</p>
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<p>Because “Dracula Daily” reveals the plot day by day, readers follow the story together and are all at the same place in the narrative at the same time. As in the heyday of radio or network series television, the audience can gather around the (<a href="https://vampirediaries.fandom.com/wiki/Blog:Recent_posts">now virtual</a>) water cooler to discuss the latest revelation and speculate about what’s to come. Anyone could easily read ahead in the novel. But people are waiting with bated breath for the next installment to hit their inboxes.</p>
<p>It’s like a chapter-by-chapter book club. The forced slow pace leaves plenty of time for the ecosystem of memes and posts to flourish as the delicious dread builds about just what Dracula will do. As the plot further unfolds, I look forward to continuing to be entertained by the “Dracula Daily” audience – at least until Nov. 6, when the story will draw to a close for this year.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/183084/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Stanley Stepanic does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
A newsletter sends out chronological snippets from the 125-year-old novel ‘Dracula.’ Fans on the internet go wild.
Stanley Stepanic, Assistant Professor of Slavic Languages and Literatures, University of Virginia
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.