Neither Escape Nor Catharsis but Rather a Repetition of Trauma
October 31, 2018 1:14 PM   Subscribe

On this spoopiest of days, let us indulge in the most Metafilter of indulgences and overthink our way through scary movies. “After World War I, Horror Movies were Invaded by an Army of Reanimated Corpses” by W. Scott Poole "The movies. . . are just entertainment and so they are simply mirror images of the culture that produced them, flexible and flaccid in the messages they convey. He did not think that this made them. . . possible instruments of revolutionary change. Instead, as artifacts of mass culture, they put dissent to sleep, enervated their audiences, and legitimized the existing order."

“The H Word: The Politics of Horror” By Paul Tremblay
To riff on a George Orwell quote: no literary, film, or artistic mode or genre is free from political bias. That said, the political baggage of horror is considerable, and oftentimes, problematic. Many a smart person has argued, and convincingly so, that the horror genre is a conservative/reactionary one, too often with the ugliest political shades on display; misogyny, homophobia, xenophobia, ruling class re-imaginings of the other as invading monsters.

“The Horror Psychopath in 2018” by Niela Orr
It’s difficult to consider the guy who won’t die trope without thinking about the ways in which the idea lives outside of the horror film’s confines. The trope of a seemingly untouchable, almost exclusively male figure who gets off on repeated abuse, particularly of women, evoked cultural realities decades before our society was willing to openly discuss them.

“Horrifying Whiteness: Slasher Conduct, Masculinity, and the Cultural Politics of Halloween” by Tiffany Bryant
Yet the temptation to write off the slasher figure as a strictly misogynistic monster should be reconsidered in lieu of a more analytical consideration of how he represents the performance of white male anxiety and desire, as indicative of the changing cultural politics of the past 60 years. This represented anxiety refers to the displacement of the American white male as the dominant voice of socio-political power and as the ideological figure of gender superiority in a patriarchal capitalist society.

“The Others: Why Women Are Shut Out of Horror” by Soraya Roberts
Clover believed adolescent males were the predominant audience for horror movies, which, when you consider the stereotypical view of boys they are gross, violent, even misogynistic) follows. But these two ideas — young women are empowered by virginity and young men prefer to watch them suffer — helped turn the public perception of horror movies into a guy thing, a specious claim so insidious it persists to this day, even among people who know the genre better than that.

"Horror Grrrls: Feminist Horror Filmmakers and Agency" by Maude Michaude
If the enjoyment of the genre is enough to suggest feminist resistance to patriarchal ideals, female horror filmmakers take this opposition one step further. However, this idea is dependent on the assumption that independent filmmakers usually work within genres they enjoy, thus situating female horror filmmakers in the same interpretive community as female horror fans. As previously noted, female horror fans assign a more empowering reading to certain horror archetypes which render the horror genre less threatening and allows them to identify with a character displaying active agency. Two notable examples are the ‘Final Girl’ — a term coined by Carol Clover to identify the female heroine who ends up defeating the killer in the slasher subgenre — and the monster whose otherness mirrors the feeling of societal alienation they might feel.

“Horror Films Are Our Collective Nightmares” by Marshall Smith and Laura Patterson
Both sociologists and horror fans find value in delving into the qualities and behaviors of people that others would rather not address. Both focus on things we don’t want to confront. More than many other genres, horror films are rife with sociological implications. . . . Horror is a genre that relies on stigmatized topics and transgressing boundaries, and it therefore has unique potential to challenge or reinforce common conceptions of normalcy

“10 Great Movies Exploring the Unique Horror of Being a Woman” by Martha Polk
You know what’s scarier than monsters, ghouls, and goblins? The patriarchy. Forget the blood geysers, aliens, and flesh-devouring apocalypses — we need thrillers and horror flicks that get at the truly terrifying stuff of female experience, like being married (to a psychopath), getting pregnant (with the devil), going to a doctor (who doesn’t believe you), or walking home alone at night.

“The True Meaning Of Horror Movies” by Anna Gooding-Call
The reasons why human beings like horror have long been a subject of debate. Studies have found that people who like “dark” movies tend to be well-educated, self-disclosing, and creative. It’s not a far leap to the idea that people who display this constellation of characteristics may also experience some anxiety in their daily lives; horror films are a psychologist-approved means of dealing with baseless, uncontrollable fear.

“Why True Horror Movies Are About More Than Things Going Bump in the Night” by Aislinn Clarke
A scare is always accompanied by a sigh of relief. It’s fun – the thing wasn’t really there. Add enough of them together and you get a 90-minute scary movie. A horror film, on the other hand, is much longer than that. Horror is the slow, dawning realisation that the worst thing is true. Unlike the scare, there is no relief from it. The scare and the horror are opposite extremes: the scare is just behind you, but the horror is right in front of your eyes.

“The Real Horror in The Haunting of Hill House” by Sophie Gilbert
The novel is a model for how to elicit profound terror without ever revealing a specific ghost or monster, one The Blair Witch Project mimics almost perfectly. But The Haunting is also a frighteningly sharp investigation of the female psyche, rooted in Eleanor’s sheltered, internalized life and her increasingly fragmented mind. Haunted houses are fraught with symbolism: They signify that homes—places supposed to be sanctuaries and shelters—can instead be corrupted. Eleanor, who’s only recently been relieved of the burden of caring for her mother, has ambiguous feelings about Hill House, and about community versus solitude, confinement versus freedom.

“The Zombies of Karl Marx: Horror in Capitalism’s Wake” by Tyler Malone
While the zombie film is generally seen as the most politically leftist strain of the horror genre, it is important to recognize that even its politics are knotted, which acts as a reminder of the pitfalls of trying to capture the political currents of the horror genre as a whole. Stephen King, in his Why We Crave Horror Movies, argued that "the best horror films, like the best fairy tales, manage to be reactionary, anarchistic, and revolutionary all at the same time."

“The Scariest Part Happens After the Ghosts Are Gone” by Aurora Stewart de Peña
Horror —particularly supernatural horror — is a women’s genre. The stories not only feature women as central characters; the ghosts that haunt them are often women, too (to name a few: Samara from The Ring, Batsheba from The Conjuring, The Woman from The Woman in Black). A 2017 study conducted by Google and the Geena Davis Institute found that out of all the cinematic genres, horror is the only one in which women are seen on screen more (53 percent) than men.

“Can Horror Movies Be Prestigious?” by Jane Hu
One possibility is that lowbrow genres are simply highbrow again—a trend we can see not just in Hollywood’s “elevated” superhero films (Black Panther, Thor: Ragnarok), but in literary genre fiction as well (Kazuo Ishiguro, Colson Whitehead, Jennifer Egan). Given that the contemporary cultural production machine is in total overdrive anyway, why not double down on our trusty faves—our most formulaic genres—in order to “make it new”?

Credit is due to Carol Clover, academic who coined the term “Final Girl” in her book, Men, Women, and Chainsaws.

“Digging Into Horror's 'Final Girl' Trope” by Dahlia Balcazar
The Final Girl works as a horror film trope not only because she is expected, but also because she can be identified with. Many horror films have a sexually predatory killer at its center—it’s empowering to watch a woman fight and conquer her attacker. What horror films with a Final Girl seem to have in common is the threat of sexual assault.

“The Final Girl: Gender in Horror” by Daniel Gray
one could argue that The Final Girl has masculine traits due to the anxiety of the male viewer which is why the masculine female is rescued, escapes or kills the protagonist; ultimately survives. The Final Girl is an important factor within any Slasher narrative; however it is her associates who must fulfil their role in order to contrast with the Final Girl. The depiction of her comrades must appear deserving of death, and therefore feminine. This is generally portrayed through their interests, sexual status, educational status and primarily their sexuality; these are only several of many examples that create the profile of "the typical girl" within the subgenre.

The 1990s Teen Horror Cycle: Final Girls and a New Hollywood Formula by Alexandra West
Many critics and fans refer to the 1990s as the decade that horror forgot, with few notable entries in the genre. Yet horror went mainstream in the ’90s by speaking to the anxieties of American youth during one of the country’s most prosperous eras. No longer were films made on low budgets and dependent on devotees for success. Horror found its way onto magazine covers, fashion ads and CD soundtrack covers. “Girl power” feminism and a growing distaste for consumerism defined an audience that both embraced and rejected the commercial appeal of these films. This in-depth study examines the youth subculture and politics of the era, focusing on such films as Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1992), Scream (1996), I Know What You Did Last Summer (1997), Idle Hands (1999) and Cherry Falls (2000).

Review via Graveyard Shift Sisters (an online resource dedicated to the scholarship surrounding the experiences, representations, achievements, and creative works of Black women and women of color in the horror and science fiction genres): What's fascinating to note is West's detail to the evolving shift of the slasher. During the 1990s, the gender discrepancies in arts, politics, and society were questioned on a fiercely active and unapologetic scale. A moldable generation saw that aggressive quest for survival reflected in the horror films centering young women. The central, popular role shifted from the villain (1980s) to the Final Girl in the 90s: less defined by surface characteristics and more by her own inner-demons that will either consume or be combated. Essentially, as West states, "their complicated narratives, which made them complicit in the horror that befell them, created increasingly complex and inherently interesting characters that appealed to the young women and men who saw these films."

Recommended Listening
“Backtalk: Let’s Take Refuge In Horror” In this week’s Amy vs. Dahlia, we’re debating the metaphor of the Haunting of Hill House: Is it all about childhood trauma or white supremacy? Text “Haunting” to 503-855-6485 to let us know!

“Whom Amongst Us Does Not Enjoy a Hallow’d Ween” Pod Damn America with Jaime Peck
The podcast for Goth socialists* takes on the politics of horror tropes as collective fears, and why the Satanic Panic might be making a comeback.
*only kind of joking

Faculty of Horror [Previously]
Tackling all things horror with a slash of analysis and research, horror journalists and occasional academics Andrea Subissati and Alexandra West [author of Teen Horror Cycle] are your hosts for brain plumping discussions on all things that go bump in the night.

Metamashina [Previously]
“It Follows, Unfortunately”
The creeping horror of knowing something is moving towards you, inescapable and unrelenting in its pursuit is . . . student debt? This week we scared the living daylights out of ourselves by relating It Follows to late-stage capitalism, vaporwave, and classic literature. We also unpack the deeply feminine fear of being taken advantage of by a trusted partner, and why the prototypical nice guy *should* finish last. Content warning: this episode contains in-depth discussions of sexual assault.
“Living Deliciously”
‘Tis the season for kissing the devil and concocting a witches’ brew. On our special 1-Year Anniversary episode, we are joined by Dr. (Witch) Hazel to examine the history of witches with a focus on the American North-eastern tradition as epitomized in the Salem Witch Trials and Arthur Miller’s fictionalization of the event, The Crucible. We then touch upon 1987’s Witches of Eastwick, 1999’s The Blair Witch Project, and 2015’s The VVitch. Much thirst and academia is had.

On the Tropes is a podcast about TV Tropes. The hosts analyzes the most famous tropes, the best ways that writers can use them, and give Top 5 lists of the best examples of the trope.
165. Witch Classic
159. Final Girl
135. Vampires
134. Werewolves
132. Zombies
60. Horrifying the Horror
23. Jump Scare
21. Cabin in the Woods
10. Daylight Horror

Post title comes from “After World War I, Horror Movies were Invaded by an Army of Reanimated Corpses” by W. Scott Poole
posted by Kitty Stardust (14 comments total) 31 users marked this as a favorite
 
What a terrifyingly good post :)
posted by motty at 5:04 PM on October 31, 2018


I’ve enjoyed The Faculty of Horror a lot. They occasionally miss the mark badly (they stumble over queerness not frequently), but they are generally deeply invested, well-read, and women-focused, which puts them a mile ahead of most horror commentary.

Nice post!
posted by GenjiandProust at 5:06 PM on October 31, 2018




An excellent post, I'm looking forward to reading through the links. I've read teh first one already and found it to be quite strong. Kracauer is someone who definitely should be read by anyone interested in the history of movies and in how they are interpreted.

I'm not sure I quite agree with Poole's take on Kracauer and horror films ultimate values as I tend towards agreement with Kracauer or his methods, but that isn't an absolute agreement since the way one frames the question of the meaning or value of horror really does serve to determine the results of the claim. It's one thing to read a movie as text, another to understand it as it may be understood by an audience without regard for "correctness" of their interpretation. Those two things often stand in sharp contrast to each other, which makes talking about movies, capitalism, and art so difficult. Poole's article does a great job in giving context and opening up an area for those thoughts though so it was much appreciated.
posted by gusottertrout at 12:18 AM on November 1, 2018


Tremblay's argument in the second article, that horror movies need to be considered from a macro-level if one is to avoid reactionary politics has some real merit in concept, even if it is a bit more sketched out than deeply delved into.

There's a Pasolini quote that served as a header for one chapter of the film book Film Genre Reader (which is well worth reading): The truth lies not in one dream but in many. Which I think points towards a similar idea, that a story in itself can mostly serve only immediacy in response, it's the linking of stories and/or experiences that provide the deeper meaning. Movies that treat horror as a thing to be dispatched and then forgotten work to deny the truth of experience and collected memory, thus undermining attempts at understanding. Whatever a "monster" might be seen to represent, if it can be destroyed and banished from memory to restore the status quo without disruption, then it is most likely going to serve the purposes of conservatism. That which threatens the norm is to be excised and things as they are will continue.

It's only in the acceptance of the monster existence and/or understanding of the trauma caused that one can move forward in a more progressive framework. The monstrous may need to be defeated in its horrific aspect, but that which it represents or where it comes from needs to be acknowledged to gain as a community. I see some of the other articles will touch on slasher films, where that is even more salient an issue, and where Tremblay's arguments about "no cheering in horror" are put to the test as the trajectory of slasher films moved from the monster as evil to something to be cheered in itself in often troubling ways. What happens when the real monster is the audience?
posted by gusottertrout at 12:51 AM on November 1, 2018 [2 favorites]


Sorry, I don't want to overwhelm any other comments on there articles, but they are so good I'd hate to let them go without acknowledgement. The third and fourth articles linked, by Orr and Bryant do indeed take up the slasher film issue with emphasis on the Halloween movies and Michael Myers. They make an excellent pairing, the article by Orr looking at the most recent Halloween movie in light of the Me Too movement and outside cultural interpretation and the one by Bryant taking a more classically academic approach in analyzing in depth Myers potentiality as representative of white maleness by reading the films and character from how it is represented onscreen and attaching that representation to a possible understanding of his symbolic function for white male viewers.

Both articles are quite good, though the second being a more in-depth examination, and the approaches, from "the outside in" to the movie, and the "inside out" to the culture both worth serious consideration for the points raised and the attitude of approach.

I won't comment on the remaining articles for a while to give the thread time to breathe, but I just want to note what an important moment in movie/art criticism we are witness to right now. While individually many of the articles or videos one might read are adopting some older formulas for their organizing methods, the change in variety of perspective and voice from that which was easily obtained in previous decades is massive.

This is a watershed moment for how we as a culture approach and try to understand movies and art of all sorts and it really deserves notice. Given how much time, money, and cultural emphasis we put on shows and films and how those same works will help shape the culture of tomorrow, the opening of platforms to the amazing variety of voices that exhibit both care and ability in looking at what we consume is incredibly gratifying and important. As someone who's studied theory and criticism as a ongoing obsession for years, this is a remarkable time in that history where the future of how we think about culture is being thrown open to change in ways that aren't entirely clear yet. I hope people will notice it and engage with it since the subject is more important than for use in deciding what to stream from Netflix next.
posted by gusottertrout at 2:14 AM on November 1, 2018 [1 favorite]


I see some of the other articles will touch on slasher films, where that is even more salient an issue, and where Tremblay's arguments about "no cheering in horror" are put to the test as the trajectory of slasher films moved from the monster as evil to something to be cheered in itself in often troubling ways. What happens when the real monster is the audience?

I can't find it now, but, one of the various things I read took Laura Mulvey's concept of the male gaze and spun it off into a "psychopath gaze" which frames the sort of slasher/torture porn movies that center the killer's point-of-view. I think that's an interesting difference in slasher films in the late 20th C. You can see the victim-centric PoV shifting to a killer-centric PoV.

My still unformed theory on this is that it reflect a shift in focus from middle-class fears of urban crime bleeding over into the suburbs during the late 70s/early 80s to the rise of the neoliberal capitalist hero in the 90s. So in the first case, the viewer identifies with the Final Girl and her determination to return to the normalcy of suburban life. The silent, pitiless slasher often stands in for forces that disrupt the purity of "good" society (amoral teens, poor people, the mentally ill. (This also reflects the social anxiety resulting from Reagan's policies dumping the mentally ill out onto the streets)). But as capital plowed unleashed through society in the late 80s into the early 2000s, the silent slasher got a voice and a new role as. . . well not quite a hero, but a protagonist at least. Because the pitiless logic of Free Markets acted outside of moral bounds, both punisher and savior, depending on your class perspective, the elevation of his (always his) role to a perversely admirable one coincided with the kind of sociopathy necessary to rise to the top of a hyper-capitalist society.

American Psycho makes this subtext text, but I believe it is present in other films as well: from the culturally-aware killers in the Scream series who create murders as if they're creating products (film) for mass-consumption, to the innovatively sadistic Jigsaw in the Saw films, who would fit in perfectly with the Facebook (Silicon Valley) ethos of "move fast and break things,"-- if one operates from the neoliberal market-logic standpoint that people are things. I don't think it's coincidental that torture porn movies like Hostel are set in formerly communist/socialist nations at the point where free-market capitalism was stripping them bare.

So to answer the question, I do think there are examples of films where the audience is encouraged to identify with the monster, and not just the sort of melancholic-outcast-Romantic-"Noble-Savage" kind of monster like the literary Frankenstein's monster, but monsters that are a lot closer to real forces of destruction in our own world.

I think we're in the process of emerging from a period of culturally lionizing white male sociopaths, and the reason this is changing is #MeToo, outspoken feminist anger, and greater representation of non-white perspectives. The slasher is going back to being the undoubted villain, but the difference this time is that we're not fascinated by his traumas, or trying to solve the mystery of the origins of his hate. Why he kills doesn't matter as much as surviving/defeating him.
posted by Kitty Stardust at 8:16 AM on November 1, 2018 [2 favorites]


Thanks for creating this post, what a treat! I've been thinking about The Witch for days, one of the most disturbing endings I've ever seen, for a few reasons; I was so happy to find a fresh, original, and genuinely unsettling Halloween movie (thanks to a Metafilter recommendation thread in AskMe). (Warning to others: turn on the subtitles, the sound isn't very good and it helps a lot.) Haven't had time to dig in to the links yet but thanks again for a wonderfully crafted post.
posted by joseph conrad is fully awesome at 10:06 AM on November 1, 2018 [1 favorite]


The podcast for Goth socialists*

Is this where I out myself as a member of THE DAMNED?

Also, this is much better than the post I was making that had some of these links!
posted by the man of twists and turns at 10:21 AM on November 1, 2018 [1 favorite]


Is this where I out myself as a member of THE DAMNED?

I was so glad when they chose that name, because I love these guys too.
2019 is going to be the year of the Goth Socialist! You heard it here first! Unionize the undead!
posted by Kitty Stardust at 12:58 PM on November 1, 2018 [1 favorite]


The VVitch and other current narratives reclaiming the witch figure in the visual horror genre (film/tv) are pretty interesting from a sociological perspective, too. On the one hand, they reflect growing acceptance of women in positions of power, and the desire to forge channels for our own agency, but on the other hand they seem to warn that these powers must exact a terrible price. In The VVitch, Thomasin has to survive the destruction of all familial bonds for a shot at a future of child-murdering. Her other options are death through starvation or death for heresy. Her outcomes ensure she'll be forever outcast from the life she'd known, but who knows, maybe the other witches really do form a welcoming intentional community when they're not killing babies.

Another example of this trope is Melisandre in Game of Thrones. Powerful, independent woman: check. Steers not only her own fate, but that of several kingdoms: check. Feared and respected: pretty much check. Resigned to a life of murder: Yep. Check. There's the occultist grandmother in Hereditary, and the new Sabrina the Teenage Witch (now with angst), which "ultimately suggests, then, . . . that perhaps the witch fantasy of today is too potent, too transgressive, too unsettling, for pop culture to embrace it wholeheartedly. We don’t yet have a story structure that allows witches to be powerful for long stretches of time without men holding them back." So it seems that there are still cultural messages trying to warn women to temper their desires or risk becoming monsters.
posted by Kitty Stardust at 1:22 PM on November 1, 2018


Because the pitiless logic of Free Markets acted outside of moral bounds, both punisher and savior, depending on your class perspective, the elevation of his (always his) role to a perversely admirable one coincided with the kind of sociopathy necessary to rise to the top of a hyper-capitalist society.

I like your post and think it's a sound argument, but I highlight this section to add that the method of production of these movies itself also serves the argument as what starts as horror becomes familiar, accepted, then commodified as something to be enjoyed for itself. The Nightmare on Elm Street first uses Freddy Kruger as a unmistakable figure of horror, using him as a symbolic representation of sorts for different real world problems, the harms visited upon children by fractured family environments, or the pains of adolescence for those who don't fit social/sexual norms as in the first two movies, but as audiences grow more familiar with the series the character of Freddy starts to "develop", becoming the character people go to see. The metaphoric value wanes as the fear becomes pleasure.

Freddy becomes the point of the movies and his ingenuity in slaughter is the selling point. Freddy becomes more like the Grinch, the guy you know will lose, but who you root for nonetheless as the series is him and the victims are largely generic. Eventually this leads to things like Freddy versus Jason, another monster that becomes the star, where the purpose is to maintain the revenue stream from familiar characters and the pleasure is in the "ironic fun" of seeing the two killers battle. As revenues decline the desire to "reboot" the series grows as the brand name recognition is too valuable to just throw away out of hand. Some new creator, or the original creator, steps in and starts the cycle over again.

One of the interesting things to me about these kinds of series is how the victims so often seem to be of the same group that makes up the audience. I remember one night back when I worked at a movie theater that was showing Death Wish IV the audience was made up almost entirely of a group of bikers came to see a movie where Charles Bronson squares off against a group of bikers. There is a logic of pleasure in self-negation to this, but also simply the enjoyment of seeing like figures onscreen engaged in a battle against a "celebrity" adversary. Being treated as a threat can increase one's sense of self-importance. Movies about teenagers "needing" to be slaughtered makes the things teens do seem more vital for simply doing them. Whether Jason is felt to be a stand in for any sort of moral authority becomes less meaningful than perhaps showing simply being a teenager is a perpetual threat or danger in itself, charging it with importance.

(I'd think a history of teens in movies marketed to teens would be interesting. It feels like the earlier years of film showed them more as participants in the status quo that sometimes challenged authority for its blindness to teen problems, then over time teens themselves were shown as more of a threat to a authority that would eventually be solved by submission to the status quo, to now where teens are shown more as the status quo, where franchises are built around them or are "handed down" to them from the teen years of adults leaving the culture in a state of near constant teendom.)
posted by gusottertrout at 12:07 AM on November 2, 2018 [1 favorite]


The VVitch and other current narratives reclaiming the witch figure in the visual horror genre (film/tv) are pretty interesting from a sociological perspective, too. On the one hand, they reflect growing acceptance of women in positions of power, and the desire to forge channels for our own agency, but on the other hand they seem to warn that these powers must exact a terrible price.

It has been really interesting to watch how witches are being used in media over recent years. There was a push to have witches as more traditional villains that the heroes must defeat. That was often pretty ugly, as it involved men trying to beat the crap out of a woman as part of the "heroic" resistance to her powers and eventual victory over them. Those movies, however, didn't prove nearly as popular as ones where witches are either ambiguous in their status, neither entirely good nor evil or acting out of some deeper harm done to them. Those movies, while not all necessarily laudable in themselves, had a more compelling take on social order generally, where the witch is matched to the actions of the society and its in the contrast between those forces that the "moral" center is located.
posted by gusottertrout at 1:58 AM on November 2, 2018 [1 favorite]


Terrifying Family Trauma Is the New Thing in Horror [spoilers for Haunting of Hill House], Ryan Bradford, VICE - "Perhaps what we’re witnessing in horror right now is not a commentary on a single anxiety, but a culmination of all the anxieties that exist in culture—the shit that’s built up, affecting generation after generation, especially women. "
posted by the man of twists and turns at 10:47 AM on November 2, 2018 [1 favorite]


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