"A lot of these so-called leaders speak progressive, but act regressive"
May 15, 2020 9:05 AM Subscribe
Horror Has a Leadership Problem Director Adam Donaghey was arrested last month for raping an underage girl working on one of his films. Scene stalwart Joe Bob Briggs repeatedly "punches down" at LGBTQ folks and other marginalized groups. Did major horror companies like Shudder and Cinestate look the other way even after the problems were pointed out to them? Queer Mutants Deserve Better.
Reddit thread cited in the first link, with stories from anonymous posters of Donaghey's past behavior, including the claim that a recording of Donaghey asking a young woman on a film crew for sexual favors in exchange for higher pay was passed along to Cinestate VP Amanda Presmyk, who continued to hire Donaghey for years after.
Dallas filmmaker accused of sexually assaulting teenage girl
Horror critic Scott Weinberg's thread about Joe Bob's outrage schtick earlier this week
[side note: In the wake of its excellent Horror Noire: A History of Black Horror doc, Shudder is producing a new documentary about the history of queer horror, due out sometime this year.]
Reddit thread cited in the first link, with stories from anonymous posters of Donaghey's past behavior, including the claim that a recording of Donaghey asking a young woman on a film crew for sexual favors in exchange for higher pay was passed along to Cinestate VP Amanda Presmyk, who continued to hire Donaghey for years after.
Dallas filmmaker accused of sexually assaulting teenage girl
Horror critic Scott Weinberg's thread about Joe Bob's outrage schtick earlier this week
[side note: In the wake of its excellent Horror Noire: A History of Black Horror doc, Shudder is producing a new documentary about the history of queer horror, due out sometime this year.]
The conflation of "leadership" with "typical cishet white male raised under capitalism" might, um, be part of the problem here.
posted by Sheydem-tants at 9:13 AM on May 15, 2020 [10 favorites]
posted by Sheydem-tants at 9:13 AM on May 15, 2020 [10 favorites]
One of the execs being criticized is a woman.
posted by mediareport at 9:17 AM on May 15, 2020 [1 favorite]
posted by mediareport at 9:17 AM on May 15, 2020 [1 favorite]
We have a very progressive local Horror event here in Salem and it has been weird to see them promote Joe Bob, even to the point of having him scheduled to show up in October, while also constantly trolling Trump supporters, standing up for LGTBQ issues, and pointing out that all horror is political. I'm not saying they are wrong to invite him, just that it's weird to see him headline after Elvira and John Waters in previous years.
posted by robocop is bleeding at 9:31 AM on May 15, 2020 [18 favorites]
posted by robocop is bleeding at 9:31 AM on May 15, 2020 [18 favorites]
I remember liking Briggs's books loooooooooooong ago, so I tuned in to a couple of his Shudder episodes and found myself turned off. His schtick has not aged well. And now that it's known that the horror movie fandom tends to skew a bit more female than male, his smarmy boob obsession (to the point of featuring a 40-year-old ex-porn star with huge breast implants as a mail 'girl') really seems obtuse. Men who just want to look at naked women have internet porn now. People who watch horror movies now are actually in it for the horror.
posted by LindsayIrene at 10:15 AM on May 15, 2020 [2 favorites]
posted by LindsayIrene at 10:15 AM on May 15, 2020 [2 favorites]
Sigh. Is Joe Bob problematic? As a teenager, I was fooled by his folksy demeanor and did not realize how devastatingly knowledgeable he was about film in general, and horror in particular. But being smart gives no immunity for being problematic, and is more often than not a complication when it comes to it.
posted by notoriety public at 10:15 AM on May 15, 2020
posted by notoriety public at 10:15 AM on May 15, 2020
Oh, right, the boobs thing. How did I forget that.
posted by notoriety public at 10:16 AM on May 15, 2020
posted by notoriety public at 10:16 AM on May 15, 2020
Joe Bob was Important to me twenty-five years ago as a kid staying up late or taping TNT to watch Monstervision, but a lot of stuff that was important to me back then turned out to suck and it's good not to get so attached to things that we have no control over or say in.
posted by Pope Guilty at 10:29 AM on May 15, 2020 [12 favorites]
posted by Pope Guilty at 10:29 AM on May 15, 2020 [12 favorites]
Can we just put Ellen Datlow and Caitlín R. Kiernan in charge of horror?
posted by Faint of Butt at 11:13 AM on May 15, 2020 [16 favorites]
posted by Faint of Butt at 11:13 AM on May 15, 2020 [16 favorites]
Sigh. Is Joe Bob problematic?
There are multiple links in the first piece about Joe Bob Briggs, two are pieces he wrote for the Taki site, which I won't link to here, one of which was an extended sneer last August at the acronym "LGBTQRSTUVWXYZ" and the other supposedly a defense of the First Amendment that started with, "We need to start listening to these White Pride guys...And we need to start arresting the Antifa thugs." Completely stupid and noxious stuff.
Another link was to this ScreenRant article responding to Brigg's absurdly reactionary "stop putting your politics in my horror movies!" nonsense last fall, when the Black Christmas remake came out.
posted by mediareport at 11:30 AM on May 15, 2020 [5 favorites]
There are multiple links in the first piece about Joe Bob Briggs, two are pieces he wrote for the Taki site, which I won't link to here, one of which was an extended sneer last August at the acronym "LGBTQRSTUVWXYZ" and the other supposedly a defense of the First Amendment that started with, "We need to start listening to these White Pride guys...And we need to start arresting the Antifa thugs." Completely stupid and noxious stuff.
Another link was to this ScreenRant article responding to Brigg's absurdly reactionary "stop putting your politics in my horror movies!" nonsense last fall, when the Black Christmas remake came out.
posted by mediareport at 11:30 AM on May 15, 2020 [5 favorites]
I think the rise of streaming media has allowed a new generation of horror to flourish (of course, I'm only assuming it's easier to get your movie on a streaming platform -- even for rent -- than it is to get it into theaters). And this has let more non-cis-het-white-male horror filmmakers get their movies in front of viewers who would not have otherwise been able to see them. And this is great! I never thought I liked horror until a few years ago and there are certainly some things I don't like (and will never watch) but it's exciting to have a bunch of new movies to explore (I've joked the only movies I've been getting excited about lately are weird horror movies or weird sci-fi movies).
But I think this is scary (ha!) for a lot of the horror gatekeepers because there aren't as many gates. So they have to double-down and decide they still gets to say who gets to be here.
I love Shudder. I was an early subscriber to Shudder and it's still my favorite "boutique" streaming service. I don't love everything there but I'm happy to pay the $8 a month (or whatever) to have it. There's so much good stuff there and I do think they do a great job of covering the wide range of what horror is (and some of it -- on occasion -- is just horror-adjacent. Shudder is where I discovered Josephine Decker's work, after all) and who makes (and watches!) horror. I think the problem is how heavily Shudder promotes Joe Bob Briggs (beyond just that he's on it at all) along with the absence of other voices on the streaming service that may counteract him. Yeah, it's awesome they produced Horror Noire & they're doing one about queer horror, but maybe that's not enough. I'd like to see Shudder nurture a new generation of horror hosts rather than rely so heavily on the past.
Horror is an incredibly big tent. It can do better than this (and I do think it's getting there).
posted by darksong at 11:41 AM on May 15, 2020 [6 favorites]
But I think this is scary (ha!) for a lot of the horror gatekeepers because there aren't as many gates. So they have to double-down and decide they still gets to say who gets to be here.
I love Shudder. I was an early subscriber to Shudder and it's still my favorite "boutique" streaming service. I don't love everything there but I'm happy to pay the $8 a month (or whatever) to have it. There's so much good stuff there and I do think they do a great job of covering the wide range of what horror is (and some of it -- on occasion -- is just horror-adjacent. Shudder is where I discovered Josephine Decker's work, after all) and who makes (and watches!) horror. I think the problem is how heavily Shudder promotes Joe Bob Briggs (beyond just that he's on it at all) along with the absence of other voices on the streaming service that may counteract him. Yeah, it's awesome they produced Horror Noire & they're doing one about queer horror, but maybe that's not enough. I'd like to see Shudder nurture a new generation of horror hosts rather than rely so heavily on the past.
Horror is an incredibly big tent. It can do better than this (and I do think it's getting there).
posted by darksong at 11:41 AM on May 15, 2020 [6 favorites]
Joe Bob Briggs. Man.
Like a lot of folks, Monstervision was a big deal for me in the late '90s, so I was stoked as hell when the The Last Drive-In was announced. I'd get to stay up late watching horror flicks, drinking Lone Star and enduring bad jokes! That sounded pretty good.
Still, I'd kinda kept up with his columns off and on over the years, but their running in Taki's Mag was a red flag, and the ratio of insight to "what's up with X?" dumb shit was, uh, variable at best. Shit that might've amused or made some kind of sense to a younger, dumber, less caring version of myself fell flat or was just gross (and not in the cool horror movie way).
And then The Last Drive-In, when it finally arrived, compounded the problem. Some of those between-scene rants were just fuckin' terrible, and hearing them was embarrassing. They haven't gotten much better over the last couple years, either. Two years ago I would've probably said that I'd regularly be watching The Last Drive-In every Friday night, but truth is, I've still only seen about half of the first season and a few flicks from the second.
It's kind of a shame, because I haven't seen a lot of the flicks he shows, and I find that the viewing experience is definitely enriched by and more entertaining with Joe Bob's encyclopedic knowledge. But goddamn, it seems the quasi-legendary version of Joe Bob as "erudite, irreverent redneck," as described by folks in this 2011 Metafilter thread about Monstervision has vanished, or never fully existed, and we're left with a smart dude saying some mean-spirited, stupid shit while showing cool movies.
I look forward to a new breed of horror host, because it's a unique feature of the genre that deserves to continue. There's certainly enough young weirdos out there suited to give audiences a hand in tearing the heart out of Saturday night.
posted by heteronym at 12:08 PM on May 15, 2020 [1 favorite]
Like a lot of folks, Monstervision was a big deal for me in the late '90s, so I was stoked as hell when the The Last Drive-In was announced. I'd get to stay up late watching horror flicks, drinking Lone Star and enduring bad jokes! That sounded pretty good.
Still, I'd kinda kept up with his columns off and on over the years, but their running in Taki's Mag was a red flag, and the ratio of insight to "what's up with X?" dumb shit was, uh, variable at best. Shit that might've amused or made some kind of sense to a younger, dumber, less caring version of myself fell flat or was just gross (and not in the cool horror movie way).
And then The Last Drive-In, when it finally arrived, compounded the problem. Some of those between-scene rants were just fuckin' terrible, and hearing them was embarrassing. They haven't gotten much better over the last couple years, either. Two years ago I would've probably said that I'd regularly be watching The Last Drive-In every Friday night, but truth is, I've still only seen about half of the first season and a few flicks from the second.
It's kind of a shame, because I haven't seen a lot of the flicks he shows, and I find that the viewing experience is definitely enriched by and more entertaining with Joe Bob's encyclopedic knowledge. But goddamn, it seems the quasi-legendary version of Joe Bob as "erudite, irreverent redneck," as described by folks in this 2011 Metafilter thread about Monstervision has vanished, or never fully existed, and we're left with a smart dude saying some mean-spirited, stupid shit while showing cool movies.
I look forward to a new breed of horror host, because it's a unique feature of the genre that deserves to continue. There's certainly enough young weirdos out there suited to give audiences a hand in tearing the heart out of Saturday night.
posted by heteronym at 12:08 PM on May 15, 2020 [1 favorite]
This is also kind of a side note, but I do think there are a lot of men -- although not exclusively -- that equate the ability to be a consumer with being an expert. And before, yeah, it was more of a challenge to find that obscure movie and watch it -- nevermind the privilege involved with being able to do so. And yes, there are plenty of movies that aren't streaming and are otherwise unavailable, but when so many people have access to the things that were once hidden or in the hands of a few, it definitely takes the power of "I know about something you don't!" away. I personally think that's a good thing, but maybe when you've built most of your identity on such a thing, it's not.
posted by darksong at 12:55 PM on May 15, 2020 [13 favorites]
posted by darksong at 12:55 PM on May 15, 2020 [13 favorites]
That Joe Bob Briggs is 'satire' is the same lame excuse Andrew Dice Clay uses, "Its just a character, I don't believe any of that personally"
Ok.. but the self-selecting audience isn't laughing at your oafish behavior, they laugh because they agree with your character's voice.
posted by MiltonRandKalman at 12:55 PM on May 15, 2020 [10 favorites]
Ok.. but the self-selecting audience isn't laughing at your oafish behavior, they laugh because they agree with your character's voice.
posted by MiltonRandKalman at 12:55 PM on May 15, 2020 [10 favorites]
This makes me think about a guy who ran in my circles in the early 90s in high school... He had the requisite trenchcoat/backwards hat "Kevin Smith/Columbine" thing going. IIRC, he was really into Fangoria and horror.
I hadn't talked to him since maybe like 93. So... Fast Forward to 2017...
He ended up in the news for some tweets...
Imagine my pleasant surprise that they were NOT about shooting up queer people or racist slurs. (I'm not saying he was in the right with what he did, but...)
It's clear he is anti-Trump.
Seeing what's transpired in this state and how it's devolved, it was a very pleasant surprise to know that some of the Old School White Dude horror fans still seem to be mostly on the right side of things (unless he's devolved since then). But then again, he could also be supportive of this kind of shit, IDK I haven't followed him since seeing that news story.
Also MORE queer, weird, funky, offbeat horror, less "white dude torture porn fantasy" please.
posted by symbioid at 3:56 PM on May 15, 2020 [1 favorite]
I hadn't talked to him since maybe like 93. So... Fast Forward to 2017...
He ended up in the news for some tweets...
Imagine my pleasant surprise that they were NOT about shooting up queer people or racist slurs. (I'm not saying he was in the right with what he did, but...)
It's clear he is anti-Trump.
Seeing what's transpired in this state and how it's devolved, it was a very pleasant surprise to know that some of the Old School White Dude horror fans still seem to be mostly on the right side of things (unless he's devolved since then). But then again, he could also be supportive of this kind of shit, IDK I haven't followed him since seeing that news story.
Also MORE queer, weird, funky, offbeat horror, less "white dude torture porn fantasy" please.
posted by symbioid at 3:56 PM on May 15, 2020 [1 favorite]
If you can’t tell if it is satire or not, it isn’t.
The failure mode of satire is sincerity.
posted by Pirate-Bartender-Zombie-Monkey at 5:08 PM on May 15, 2020 [8 favorites]
The failure mode of satire is sincerity.
posted by Pirate-Bartender-Zombie-Monkey at 5:08 PM on May 15, 2020 [8 favorites]
reactionary "stop putting your politics in my horror movies!" nonsense
To an extent, it feels like the standard reaction to "stop putting your politics into my _______" declarations is the simple knee jerk "stop putting your politics into my commentary on ___________." It's my first stop on the deep sigh, oh, damn, not this guy, too? process that leads to me deciding to walk away from whatever (not always, but almost always) old white guy I was listening to because I found them interesting/amusing/whatever.
But you know, fuck the "my horror movies" nonsense. He's a fan. Surely, he's a prominent, well paid, and to some, an authoritative voice in fandom, but he's still just a fan. As mentioned above, there's the growing idea that being a fan is somehow ownership of the thing. Consumption isn't ownership. Fandom is a real thing, I get and accept that, but it doesn't mean you get to determine the contents. You know what allows you to determine the contents of a thing? Making it your damn self. These aren't Briggs' movies, though he certainly allows himself to feel like the fact that he's watched a lot of movies makes him an expert.
Let the guy make a movie. Let him make the ugly, backwards, gratuitous derivative movie he chooses to believe is the apex of movies, and let him deal with people tearing it apart and complaining about his troglodyte view of the world. But seriously, they aren't his movies, any more than they are mine. At the very basest point of things, somewhere along the line, he forgot that he was talking about "my favorite movies, and just decided that, because he liked them so much, they were his, full stop.
This isn't to say criticism doesn't have a place. Valid, thoughtful criticism can only improve art. Gatekeeping bullshit is toxic, and not, to me, and sort of valid criticism.
posted by Ghidorah at 5:58 PM on May 15, 2020 [4 favorites]
To an extent, it feels like the standard reaction to "stop putting your politics into my _______" declarations is the simple knee jerk "stop putting your politics into my commentary on ___________." It's my first stop on the deep sigh, oh, damn, not this guy, too? process that leads to me deciding to walk away from whatever (not always, but almost always) old white guy I was listening to because I found them interesting/amusing/whatever.
But you know, fuck the "my horror movies" nonsense. He's a fan. Surely, he's a prominent, well paid, and to some, an authoritative voice in fandom, but he's still just a fan. As mentioned above, there's the growing idea that being a fan is somehow ownership of the thing. Consumption isn't ownership. Fandom is a real thing, I get and accept that, but it doesn't mean you get to determine the contents. You know what allows you to determine the contents of a thing? Making it your damn self. These aren't Briggs' movies, though he certainly allows himself to feel like the fact that he's watched a lot of movies makes him an expert.
Let the guy make a movie. Let him make the ugly, backwards, gratuitous derivative movie he chooses to believe is the apex of movies, and let him deal with people tearing it apart and complaining about his troglodyte view of the world. But seriously, they aren't his movies, any more than they are mine. At the very basest point of things, somewhere along the line, he forgot that he was talking about "my favorite movies, and just decided that, because he liked them so much, they were his, full stop.
This isn't to say criticism doesn't have a place. Valid, thoughtful criticism can only improve art. Gatekeeping bullshit is toxic, and not, to me, and sort of valid criticism.
posted by Ghidorah at 5:58 PM on May 15, 2020 [4 favorites]
I think it's weird to treat horror as some kind of monolith. Oh, so you don't like the "politics" in Black Christmas? Who said you need to? Go watch something else. It's like saying "well, you like comedy, so of course you like Adam Sandler movies." (I mean, no disrespect if you do like Adam Sandler -- it's just an example.)
Like I said, I used to think I didn't like horror movies because people sold them to me in such a particular way (I resisted watching Halloween because everyone was telling me it was a slasher movie. Once I watched it, I was like, no, this is more of a Hitchcock-inspired thriller and I loved it way more than I thought I was going to).
I feel like horror, more so than any other genre of film, has so many mini-genres. You can have really beautiful, emotional movies and stupid fun comedies that all get put in the "horror" box. We all have things we like more than others and there's nothing wrong with that. I like horror movies but I definitely don't like all horror movies.
Even when you like a thing, not every bit of that thing needs to be for you. Joe Bob Briggs can do his thing (even if I don't really like it all that much) but there's absolutely no reason why he deserves to be the only voice or authority now.
(And this reminds me, I do need to watch that new Black Christmas.)
posted by darksong at 6:47 PM on May 15, 2020 [3 favorites]
Like I said, I used to think I didn't like horror movies because people sold them to me in such a particular way (I resisted watching Halloween because everyone was telling me it was a slasher movie. Once I watched it, I was like, no, this is more of a Hitchcock-inspired thriller and I loved it way more than I thought I was going to).
I feel like horror, more so than any other genre of film, has so many mini-genres. You can have really beautiful, emotional movies and stupid fun comedies that all get put in the "horror" box. We all have things we like more than others and there's nothing wrong with that. I like horror movies but I definitely don't like all horror movies.
Even when you like a thing, not every bit of that thing needs to be for you. Joe Bob Briggs can do his thing (even if I don't really like it all that much) but there's absolutely no reason why he deserves to be the only voice or authority now.
(And this reminds me, I do need to watch that new Black Christmas.)
posted by darksong at 6:47 PM on May 15, 2020 [3 favorites]
Okay, I've just started watching the new Black Christmas and so far I'm suspecting that Briggs's real problem is that it's easier for him to deal with seeing a naked woman get butchered than a clothed woman discreetly inserting a Diva cup.
posted by LindsayIrene at 9:15 PM on May 15, 2020 [4 favorites]
posted by LindsayIrene at 9:15 PM on May 15, 2020 [4 favorites]
Okay, having watched the whole movie and so being able to do more than make a quick snark:
1) This movie is definitely for a female audience.
2) It's very timely in its themes.
3) It makes explicit themes that are more implicit in older slash film--that women are being put 'in their place' by the killer. But in this film, that's clearly made out to be a bad thing.
4) It is not a movie that makes any effort to make us identify with the male killer.
5) After decades of women in horror movies being killed for being sexual, there are men who are PO'd at a movie about women fighting misogyny. That's rich.
posted by LindsayIrene at 10:41 PM on May 15, 2020 [8 favorites]
1) This movie is definitely for a female audience.
2) It's very timely in its themes.
3) It makes explicit themes that are more implicit in older slash film--that women are being put 'in their place' by the killer. But in this film, that's clearly made out to be a bad thing.
4) It is not a movie that makes any effort to make us identify with the male killer.
5) After decades of women in horror movies being killed for being sexual, there are men who are PO'd at a movie about women fighting misogyny. That's rich.
posted by LindsayIrene at 10:41 PM on May 15, 2020 [8 favorites]
I'd never heard of Adam Donaghey, so I looked him up. He features Casey Affleck in one of his most recent films. Not surprising. When will people listen to women and what we say about rapists and those who support them?
posted by FirstMateKate at 7:20 AM on May 16, 2020 [1 favorite]
posted by FirstMateKate at 7:20 AM on May 16, 2020 [1 favorite]
A documentary I've been eagerly awaiting may be of interest: Scream, Queen!, about Mark Patton's role in the queer-coded Elm Street sequel.
posted by Gin and Broadband at 6:29 AM on May 17, 2020 [1 favorite]
posted by Gin and Broadband at 6:29 AM on May 17, 2020 [1 favorite]
Woof. I've been thinking about this stuff all weekend, and to be honest, it's a bigger subject than Joe Bob, a bigger subject than a reply to a MetaFilter post, and too big a subject for a Medium article. You'd need to write a whole book. It's a lot. There's a lot going on here.
The main thing is that times change. One of the articles mentions Joe Bob parodying "We Are the World" (in the '80s) in a way that is shockingly racist and awful to us now. Someone reading this who's, say, 25, may be astonished not that anyone could have said such things, but that generally good liberal people -- the kind of people who would have posted on MetaFilter, had it somehow existed on your Commodore 64 in the mid-1980s -- might not have been totally outraged by them. For context, go back and watch something like Eddie Murphy's Delirious and Raw concert films. Keep in mind, these were made at a time when gay men in this country were dying in droves of the AIDS virus. Eddie just absolutely harangues gay people in a way that is horrifying to today's audiences; it's unimaginable that this wouldn't be classified as hate speech today. But it was comedy then. And Eddie Murphy was the most successful comedian in the fucking world! This wasn't some marginalized outsider, this was the guy who saved Saturday Night Live! It was a different time.
We know better than this now. We've lived through (and perhaps driven) decades of seismic change in this country and around the world, and our attitudes are not the same.
But here's a thing about the horror genre. It basically stopped maturing in the early '90s. The market fell away; slashers peaked, serious filmmakers like David Cronenberg and David Lynch wandered off into something approaching art house respectability, the field became dominated by frankly lame PG-13 films aimed at malls, and a lot of people became nostalgic for the halcyon days of...well...the '70s and '80s. The genre just didn't really evolve with the times, because the genre mostly didn't exist. It was a museum piece. It became dad rock.
Horror was never better than in the '70s and '80s, but when you take a clear-eyed look at many of the films from that time, there's a lot of problems there, okay. But these aren't really problems with horror, per se -- they're problems with the 1970s and 1980s.
Now, some people will be highly resistant to the idea that anything could have been wrong at all -- people who are ride or die for the genre, and the genre's creative peak (it may be at a new creative peak now). I'm not sure that's a big problem. I think most people are more critical than that, even regarding things they love...maybe especially regarding things they love. I think the problem is that we all can see what's changed; and for some of us, the cultural differences between then and now are bugs, and for some of us, they're features.
More than that, though, I think some people who were young when these films were new just don't want to reevaluate them, or their feelings about the era that spawned them. That era is probably quite fondly remembered by them...for many reasons.
Engaging with the works of the past requires, I think, an agile-minded viewer -- a person who can take some scenes with an ironic distance (that the filmmakers likely did not intend) and engage fully with others, someone who can meet a film halfway at times, and reject it at others. In short, I don't think engaging with old movies is best done passively, which is of course how we generally watch everything.
There's a lot more I could say, but I've written a lot, and I'm gonna stop here.
posted by kittens for breakfast at 9:18 AM on May 17, 2020 [3 favorites]
The main thing is that times change. One of the articles mentions Joe Bob parodying "We Are the World" (in the '80s) in a way that is shockingly racist and awful to us now. Someone reading this who's, say, 25, may be astonished not that anyone could have said such things, but that generally good liberal people -- the kind of people who would have posted on MetaFilter, had it somehow existed on your Commodore 64 in the mid-1980s -- might not have been totally outraged by them. For context, go back and watch something like Eddie Murphy's Delirious and Raw concert films. Keep in mind, these were made at a time when gay men in this country were dying in droves of the AIDS virus. Eddie just absolutely harangues gay people in a way that is horrifying to today's audiences; it's unimaginable that this wouldn't be classified as hate speech today. But it was comedy then. And Eddie Murphy was the most successful comedian in the fucking world! This wasn't some marginalized outsider, this was the guy who saved Saturday Night Live! It was a different time.
We know better than this now. We've lived through (and perhaps driven) decades of seismic change in this country and around the world, and our attitudes are not the same.
But here's a thing about the horror genre. It basically stopped maturing in the early '90s. The market fell away; slashers peaked, serious filmmakers like David Cronenberg and David Lynch wandered off into something approaching art house respectability, the field became dominated by frankly lame PG-13 films aimed at malls, and a lot of people became nostalgic for the halcyon days of...well...the '70s and '80s. The genre just didn't really evolve with the times, because the genre mostly didn't exist. It was a museum piece. It became dad rock.
Horror was never better than in the '70s and '80s, but when you take a clear-eyed look at many of the films from that time, there's a lot of problems there, okay. But these aren't really problems with horror, per se -- they're problems with the 1970s and 1980s.
Now, some people will be highly resistant to the idea that anything could have been wrong at all -- people who are ride or die for the genre, and the genre's creative peak (it may be at a new creative peak now). I'm not sure that's a big problem. I think most people are more critical than that, even regarding things they love...maybe especially regarding things they love. I think the problem is that we all can see what's changed; and for some of us, the cultural differences between then and now are bugs, and for some of us, they're features.
More than that, though, I think some people who were young when these films were new just don't want to reevaluate them, or their feelings about the era that spawned them. That era is probably quite fondly remembered by them...for many reasons.
Engaging with the works of the past requires, I think, an agile-minded viewer -- a person who can take some scenes with an ironic distance (that the filmmakers likely did not intend) and engage fully with others, someone who can meet a film halfway at times, and reject it at others. In short, I don't think engaging with old movies is best done passively, which is of course how we generally watch everything.
There's a lot more I could say, but I've written a lot, and I'm gonna stop here.
posted by kittens for breakfast at 9:18 AM on May 17, 2020 [3 favorites]
There is new life in the horror genre--VVitch, It Follows, Get Out, Midsommar, for example. But the traditional horror fans are not interested in a lot of it. It's too political or too arty or it doesn't cater to the male gaze enough or it's not gory enough. It's far more comfortable to watch Saw torture people than to be confronted with a sly commentary on American race relations.
posted by LindsayIrene at 10:42 AM on May 17, 2020 [3 favorites]
posted by LindsayIrene at 10:42 AM on May 17, 2020 [3 favorites]
But here's a thing about the horror genre. It basically stopped maturing in the early '90s...
There are dozens of horror movies from every decade since its inception that prove this point to be untrue. There is a case to be made for every decade to be the best decade for horror and by all means, have a favourite. But to say that there's been no evolution or maturation in the genre in the past 30 years is inaccurate and reductive. The popularity and public discourse may have waxed and waned but there's been many brilliant people working on wildly subversive and challenging films in this genre constantly.
Horror was never better than in the '70s and '80s, but when you take a clear-eyed look at many of the films from that time, there's a lot of problems there, okay. But these aren't really problems with horror, per se -- they're problems with the 1970s and 1980s.
I take your point about looking at films from the 70s and 80s through a certain lens, but it also ignores the fact that so many films, especially in horror, were actively speaking out against what was clearly as wrong then as it is now. Night of the Living Dead came out in 1968 with wildly progressive values. Horror doesn't get a pass for being shitty just because the decade around it was shitty. On a fundamental level horror is meant to be subversive and challenging. I'd argue that the 80s was when horror was co-opted and conservative thinking in the genre was normalised and it took the 90s post-modern horror to start tearing those ideas down. Yes it was a problem with the 70s and 80s but it continues to be a real problem with horror and its advocates and why we're having this conversation.
Horror is a genre that has literally had to engage with real-world politics to be allowed to exist/be viewed and is one of the best reflections of the unfiltered collective psyche of the times. It's the most political genre even when it's not trying to be.
I appreciate my comment is more about the films themselves than the people who make them. While further progress is needed on the films themselves, the people who make them and the people who consume them I am glad that people in the industry are being brought to task and that people with conservative, regressive views are no longer accepted as the public representatives of the genre.
posted by slimepuppy at 2:37 PM on May 17, 2020 [6 favorites]
There are dozens of horror movies from every decade since its inception that prove this point to be untrue. There is a case to be made for every decade to be the best decade for horror and by all means, have a favourite. But to say that there's been no evolution or maturation in the genre in the past 30 years is inaccurate and reductive. The popularity and public discourse may have waxed and waned but there's been many brilliant people working on wildly subversive and challenging films in this genre constantly.
Horror was never better than in the '70s and '80s, but when you take a clear-eyed look at many of the films from that time, there's a lot of problems there, okay. But these aren't really problems with horror, per se -- they're problems with the 1970s and 1980s.
I take your point about looking at films from the 70s and 80s through a certain lens, but it also ignores the fact that so many films, especially in horror, were actively speaking out against what was clearly as wrong then as it is now. Night of the Living Dead came out in 1968 with wildly progressive values. Horror doesn't get a pass for being shitty just because the decade around it was shitty. On a fundamental level horror is meant to be subversive and challenging. I'd argue that the 80s was when horror was co-opted and conservative thinking in the genre was normalised and it took the 90s post-modern horror to start tearing those ideas down. Yes it was a problem with the 70s and 80s but it continues to be a real problem with horror and its advocates and why we're having this conversation.
Horror is a genre that has literally had to engage with real-world politics to be allowed to exist/be viewed and is one of the best reflections of the unfiltered collective psyche of the times. It's the most political genre even when it's not trying to be.
I appreciate my comment is more about the films themselves than the people who make them. While further progress is needed on the films themselves, the people who make them and the people who consume them I am glad that people in the industry are being brought to task and that people with conservative, regressive views are no longer accepted as the public representatives of the genre.
posted by slimepuppy at 2:37 PM on May 17, 2020 [6 favorites]
Slimepuppy, what I'm saying is that you effectively have a lost generation of horror filmmakers; there were horror films made in the '90s and '00s to be sure, but very few powerful voices who made the genre home for long. As a result, we have a community that in many ways stopped maturing in the early '90s suddenly joined by a coterie of filmmakers who are very much of the '10/'20s. The genre may as well have spent the last two decades stuck in the Black Lodge. It's wonderful to see it resurge not just commercially but artistically; but to be honest, it's not at all surprising to see a few eggs broken as some people are dragged into the 21st century apparently for the first time.
I agree with you about Romero and the politics of many old-school horror directors, but I would urge you to consider that even the most left-leaning bleeding hearts of three or four decades ago may have held attitudes that would not go over well today. Romero was an exceptionally progressive thinker, including strong women, POC and (however clumsily, albeit with the best intentions) gay heroes at a time when that might have cost him an audience, but most filmmakers were not George Romero. (They still aren't.) Generally, I think that when you look at the horror films of the '70s and '80s, you will find much that's progressive and much that's unintentionally cringe, and in the same film. Which is part of why I'm saying, yes, we should appreciate these movies, but we shouldn't turn off our brains when we sit down to watch them.
posted by kittens for breakfast at 3:03 PM on May 17, 2020 [1 favorite]
I agree with you about Romero and the politics of many old-school horror directors, but I would urge you to consider that even the most left-leaning bleeding hearts of three or four decades ago may have held attitudes that would not go over well today. Romero was an exceptionally progressive thinker, including strong women, POC and (however clumsily, albeit with the best intentions) gay heroes at a time when that might have cost him an audience, but most filmmakers were not George Romero. (They still aren't.) Generally, I think that when you look at the horror films of the '70s and '80s, you will find much that's progressive and much that's unintentionally cringe, and in the same film. Which is part of why I'm saying, yes, we should appreciate these movies, but we shouldn't turn off our brains when we sit down to watch them.
posted by kittens for breakfast at 3:03 PM on May 17, 2020 [1 favorite]
Fangoria just posted an article entitled Let Us In: On Horror Inclusivity, but it's behind a paywall and they want $80 for a year's access.
posted by LindsayIrene at 2:01 PM on May 18, 2020
posted by LindsayIrene at 2:01 PM on May 18, 2020
LOL whoops
The $80 is for some special membership. Other wise it's $20 a year.
posted by LindsayIrene at 2:04 PM on May 18, 2020
The $80 is for some special membership. Other wise it's $20 a year.
posted by LindsayIrene at 2:04 PM on May 18, 2020
Danielle Ryan, the author of the piece, posted a tweet with a link that gets you over the paywall.
posted by mediareport at 2:25 PM on May 18, 2020 [1 favorite]
posted by mediareport at 2:25 PM on May 18, 2020 [1 favorite]
Hmm. Ryan doesn't write anything about Joe Bob Brigg's piece about needing to listen to white nationalists while shutting down "antifa thugs," on a far-right site owned by an alleged Nazi sympathizer. Odd to completely ignore that part of the argument - the accusation that Joe Bob regularly feeds off of and stokes sentiments that appeal to white nationalists.
posted by mediareport at 2:39 PM on May 18, 2020
posted by mediareport at 2:39 PM on May 18, 2020
There's some good stuff in Ryan's piece, among it a link to this Twitter thread from Sam Wineman, director of Shudder's upcoming queer horror doc. He talks about queer folks feeling like we finally have a seat at the table, then adds:
But we have to remember that it’s our table they are sitting at, not the other way around. Horror is a space of otherness. And it’s been ours since Carmilla. The best Universal monsters? Ours. The most iconic horror franchises? Ours. Who reinvented the slasher? We did.
posted by mediareport at 3:20 PM on May 18, 2020
But we have to remember that it’s our table they are sitting at, not the other way around. Horror is a space of otherness. And it’s been ours since Carmilla. The best Universal monsters? Ours. The most iconic horror franchises? Ours. Who reinvented the slasher? We did.
posted by mediareport at 3:20 PM on May 18, 2020
Devastating reporting from The Daily Beast about years of ongoing sexual harassment from Donaghey (while working on Cinestate film lots and other locations in the Dallas film community). Witnesses sayi they tried to get founder Dallas Sonnier and producing partner Amanda Presmyk to listen to the clear (and extremely gross) audio evidence:
Ten people have told The Daily Beast that they reached out to either Dallas Sonnier or Amanda Presmyk to inform them of Donaghey’s history of bad behavior—including his sexual harassment of Cristen, and the existence of the audio—and that their protestations fell on deaf ears. Further, four people allege that they personally offered up the audio to Presmyk, who declined to hear it. “They completely swept it under the rug,” one prominent local filmmaker tells me.
There are more examples, including witnesses claiming Fred Williamson groped a costume designer on the set of VFW and an excited fan being allowed to substitute in for an actor during a sex scene with actress Ruby Modine during the filming of Satanic Panic. Presmyk and Sonnier's excuses are wretchedly inadequate throughout. It's a very sharply reported piece, and it will be interesting to see how many horror news sites like Bloody Disgusting bother to link to the story. My guess: almost none.
posted by mediareport at 5:44 AM on June 6, 2020 [3 favorites]
Ten people have told The Daily Beast that they reached out to either Dallas Sonnier or Amanda Presmyk to inform them of Donaghey’s history of bad behavior—including his sexual harassment of Cristen, and the existence of the audio—and that their protestations fell on deaf ears. Further, four people allege that they personally offered up the audio to Presmyk, who declined to hear it. “They completely swept it under the rug,” one prominent local filmmaker tells me.
There are more examples, including witnesses claiming Fred Williamson groped a costume designer on the set of VFW and an excited fan being allowed to substitute in for an actor during a sex scene with actress Ruby Modine during the filming of Satanic Panic. Presmyk and Sonnier's excuses are wretchedly inadequate throughout. It's a very sharply reported piece, and it will be interesting to see how many horror news sites like Bloody Disgusting bother to link to the story. My guess: almost none.
posted by mediareport at 5:44 AM on June 6, 2020 [3 favorites]
Perhaps ironically given most of the conversation in this thread, Joe Bob Briggs resigned from Rebeller and Fangoria today on Twitter, "[b]ased on the revelations at Cinestate and their failure to come clean about everything and make it right."
posted by kittens for breakfast at 4:17 PM on June 9, 2020 [2 favorites]
posted by kittens for breakfast at 4:17 PM on June 9, 2020 [2 favorites]
"I guess I have to resign"
Fuck Joe Bob Briggs.
posted by mediareport at 8:34 AM on June 13, 2020 [1 favorite]
Fuck Joe Bob Briggs.
posted by mediareport at 8:34 AM on June 13, 2020 [1 favorite]
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posted by mediareport at 9:06 AM on May 15, 2020 [3 favorites]