Horror stories usually scare us with exotic and unknown monsters. This fear can take the form of vampires, werewolves, or serial killers. We stand by the ordinary and tortured protagonists, anxiously watch them try to save themselves from these aliens. However, what if the alien they are trying to escape from is actually themselves? The modern horror story presents a more familiar demon – ourselves.
In today’s horror films, the mirror has become a motif for introducing our demon self. The 2008 horror movie Mirrors explores the horror of your own image. The film starts with a scene where a man sees his mirror image cutting his throat and, although he has not committed the act on himself, ends up dying in the same way. Following the opening scene, we see the protagonist Ben, an alcoholic who is separated from his wife, take over the dead man’s position as a night security guard in the Mayflower, a burnt-out abandoned luxury department store fills with pristine mirrors. During his first night at work, he sees in the mirrors grotesque visions, such as handprints on the reflected side, a reflection of an opened door which is actually closed and other images that do not match the reality. At first, he perceives them as hallucinations. However, as the images intensify, Ben starts to believe that the mirrors are inflicting real harm on people in his life. After his sister is killed by her own reflection, Ben angrily confronts the monster inside the mirror and discovers that it is a demon that formerly possessed a young girl 50 years prior. The demon takes the form of Ben’s wife and children in the mirrors trying to kill them, and Ben has to fight the demon to save them.
The Mirror symbolize a reverse and opposite reality. Just as the left and right are switched in mirrors, we fear that morality is also reversed, for we assume that the unknown world behind it is sinister. In Mirrors, good/evil and personality are reversed as your reflections commit evil actions that your real self would not attempt and even murder the real you, while disguised as your face. Historically, this concept may have originated from the old German myth of Doppelgänger, an evil double of your own self who signals your imminent death if you see it. Although the movie attributes the abnormality to the classical horror theme of demonic possession, this fluidity of the demon’s appearance remains the highlight of the film, since this time the demon is no longer restricted to one character’s body, but can appear as anyone’s reflection. Instead of appearing as subversive being with inhuman paleness, scars and green vomit, like the traditional possessed image, the demon in Mirrors is presented in the protagonists’ usual faces. As film and media scholar Isabel Pinedo explains, this “the me/not me” violation “disrupts the social order”, causing panic by changing the most familiar – – yourself – – into unfamiliar (21). Additionally, the abject figures in the movie are not limited to young female characters, but adult men, women as well as old woman (the first victim we see is a man). The wide range of anomalies brings the violence and invasion more intimately to all audiences, and the fear affects everybody. The demonic reflection that plants evil in us is “a fusion figure [which] combines contradictory elements in an unambiguous identity” (Pinedo, 21). Thus, we are frightened by it because the identity, which hides abnormality under the skin of normality, is our own personal identity.
Mirror reveals dualism in humanity
The duality in humanity through the motif of mirror and demonic possession are classic elements in Hollywood cinema. They suggest that evil exists even in the most innocent child. For instance, many film scholars have analyzed how the mirrors and reflections in the glass surfaces in Alfred Hitchcock’s famous thriller Psycho show the split personalities of Norman Bates and the moral degeneration of Marion, who steals money. Both Norman’s and Marion’s reflections imply that guilty desires lurk beneath his boyish and her beautiful face (O. M et al. 2013). Similarly, film scholar Barbara Creed explains that the possessed images actually mirror the corrupted personality of the seemingly innocent victim, exemplified by the possession of the 12-year-old girl in The Exorcist (1993). With respect to Mirrors, Ben’s courageous side is the fearless ex-detective who fights against the demon alone to save his family; he is the protagonist that we support and respect. In his corrupted side, he is an estranged husband and father, and a policeman who is suspended for shooting innocent victim while drunk on duty. Therefore, his reflections are not only supernatural aliens, but can also be interpreted as his violent alter ego who he tries to shed yet follows him everywhere. As folklorist Janet Langlois, who examines the similar mirror-related horror folk game of Bloody Mary, notices, “when any of the girls (the participants) looks in the mirror, she sees herself; in reports of the game-playing, she sees Mary Whales [Bloody Mary], or at least, expects to. In a sense, then Mary Whales becomes the girl’s own reflection (cited in Dundes, 79)” This observation suggests that, like Bloody Mary, Ben’s demonic mirror image is in fact his “self-image”, which in his case, forces him to confront his darkness (Dundes, 86).
Modern Doppelgänger: social media profile
As we transit on the modern digital era, the old myth of the double-self takes a new form as our online avatars. Film critics Alissa Wilkinson makes a connection between the traditional Doppelgänger obsession/panic, and the present trend of social media (2014). She notices that, nowadays, we create our another-self online – Facebook profiles, Instagram accounts, to name but a few – because “many of us are afraid that we’re simply not enough as we are—that we’re not cool enough, pretty enough, passionate enough, or interesting enough…[and] those whom we wish would love us might prefer us if we were better, cooler, more likable.” Unlike the devilish double in Mirrors, while which presents “another version of ourselves”, our social media profiles seem to be “our better double (Wilkinson 2014).” Sociologist Lisa S. Nelson also raises the paradoxical question of the “me/not me” regarding our online personae. She notes that they are our creation, that they “separate from our personal identity in real time and space,” and that “[they] are us”, but “are also not us (2018, 171).” As a result, the question in horror movies “is the mirror image me?” evolves into “is my Facebook self me?” in the digital age.
The Netflix series Black Mirror builds on this theme of double identity in the digital age. In the episode Nosedive, the separation between our true self and virtual profile is further blurred. The story is set in a society in which everyone’s activities are rated by others on a 1-5 scale. The rating system functions similarly to our social networking sites, but in the episode, your rating is identical to your socioeconomic status in real life. Every citizen can see it and it affects your right to enjoy certain services. Lacie, our protagonist, who starts at a 4.2 when we meet her, is fighting to promote herself to a 4.5, so that she can move to a luxury neighborhood. She attempts to increase her rating by interacting with an old friend who has become a highly-rated celebrity and has invited her to give a speech at her wedding. Gladly accepting the invitation, Lacie begins her journey to the wedding, while encountering a series of unfortunate events, which cause her ratings progressively decrease. As her ratings plunge, her transportation options become fewer and she has to resort to hitchhiking, while maintaining a cheerful attitude, to get to the wedding.
Nosedive is a dramatic yet insightful reflection of the current dilemma of me/not me that arises from our online Doppelgänger. The show does not use mirrors or any reflective surfaces to imply the double of the main character. Rather, it explicitly places the image of the Doppelgänger by constantly showing a rating beside the characters’ face.
As with Mirrors, Nosedive also suggests that your double is actually you. Whereas Ben’s sister suffers and dies when the reflection hurts itself, Lacie suffers by not being able to travel by plane when her rating declines.
With the rating system, Lacie has to play the role of a friendly and smiling figure all the time, which corresponds with Wilkinson’s idea that our virtual profile represents our better self. However, with her anxiety about lower rating revealed as the plot deteriorates, the duality of her personality also emerges. We see Pinedo’s “contradictory elements” (21) of perfect friendliness and vengeful anger fighting inside Lacie’s identity, the latter winning eventually when she can no longer suppress it.
Social media lures people’s dark side
Although in Nosedive, the profile Lacie displays to the public is perfect, in reality, people always present their ugliest side in virtual image. A 2014 study by Pew Research Centre found that 92% of internet users admit being more critical online (cited in Nelson 2018). The use of pseudonyms shrouds people from the danger of being retaliated on or suffering social stigma; thus, they feel that the internet allows them to behave the ways that would be prohibited in reality (Nelson cited Citron 2018). In doing so, the virtual double serves as a safe outlet for people to release their darkness. While executing harmful actions to others is difficult in real life, it is much easier to do with only the click of a mouse (Nelson 2018), almost as easy as a demon performing supernatural act. Nelson further explains this phenomenon by citing communications scholar Whitney Phillips’ interview with a troll, who confesses that, when he is surrounded by other “citizens of the internet”, he experiences a “fracture between [his] internet and real-life persona (104)” In other words, when “an individual has switched into trolling mode. He has…put on his mask” (157). Again, we discover the split of identity in one individual, with his online Doppelgänger as the corrupted role. Nevertheless, no matter how hard we convince ourselves that the evil reflection is not our true self when posting nasty comment on Facebook, “it [the action] compromises our sense of self (Nelson 2018, 169).” Eventually, we have to accept our contradictory duality of good and evil.
Gaze is dangerous
The theme of duality in both Mirrors and Nosedive is also applied to the gaze. Gaze is un-escapable and ubiquitous. In Mirrors, the demon can emerge not only from mirrors, but glasses, windows, water and other reflective surfaces. The idea that something or someone is constantly watching you without your knowledge is a modern horror in which we are engaged everyday, with the wide coverage of surveillance cameras and civil mobile cameras. (Ben’s sister image) This theme is amplified in Nosedive, in which everybody has the right to rate you and interpersonal judgement can affect your real life. As criminologist Emily Van der Meulen and sociologist Robert Heynen observe, social media mediatizes gaze and converts “the once private social space of bedroom culture… into a quasi-public space by commercial interest (57).” As we see in the episode, Lacie’s every action can be judged by others, akin to a dictatorial monitoring terror; only this time, it is a dictatorship of majority in which “many are trained to recognize and watch for a few types of performances and to incorporate those into interpersonal watching for others” in the “watching and being watched” relationship in social media (Van der Meulen and Heynen, 57). However, ironically, instead of promoting pure horror in Mirrors, the gaze to Lacie is bittersweet. Identifying with Lacie, all of us social media users understand the simultaneous desire to gain attention and stress that comes with the gaze. Lacie changes her behaviors and even her personality because of the expectation of others’ gaze, which exemplifies Van der Meulen and Heynen’s argument in feminist studies that “Social media constitute an interactive space where female presentation can be actively constructed by the user herself through her interactions with her audience(s)” (57). Nevertheless, since the horror and longing of gaze in both works applies to all genders and age groups who suffer from them, I argue accordingly that the personality of all people can be constructed by the interactive gaze in the internet.
The Modern Horror: losing ourselves in the mirror
In the age of social media, we are all like Lacie, trapped in a created profile and suppressing our true identity until it vanishes. If we are not careful, we may submerge into the evil side of the mirror, like Ben. Therefore, the postmodern fear of our Doppelgänger is no longer limited to mirrors or other reflective materials, but to our daily social interactions in our phones. As Wilkinson suggests, this is the most chilling possibility: “if I get too good at projecting my Internet doppelgänger, I might just kill off the “real” me.”
Reference:
Brooker, Charlie. Black Mirror: Nosedive. Netflix. 2016. https://www.netflix.com/us-zh/title/70264888
Creed, Barbara. 1993. “Woman as Possessed Monster” from The Monstrous-Feminine : Film, Feminism, Psychoanalysis. Popular Fiction Series. London: Routledge: 31-42
Dundes, Alan. 2002. Bloody Mary in the Mirror : Essays in Psychoanalytic Folkloristics. Upcc Book Collections on Project Muse. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi.
Mirrors. Directed by Alexandre Aja. United States: Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corporation, 2008.
Nelson, Lisa S. 2018. Social Media and Morality : Losing Our Self Control. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Olivares-Merino, Eugenio M, and Julio A Olivares-Merino. 2013. Peeping through the Holes : Twenty-First Century Essays on Psycho. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing.
Pinedo, Isabel. 1996. “Recreational Terror: Postmodern Elements of the Contemporary Horror Film.” Journal of Film and Video, vol. 48, no. 1/2 (Spring-Summer 1996): 17–31.
Van der Meulen, Emily, and Robert Heynen, eds. 2016. Expanding the Gaze : Gender and the Politics of Surveillance. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.
Wilkinson, Alissa. “What’s With All the Movies About Doppelgängers?” The Atlantic. March 14, 2014. https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2014/03/whats-with-all-the-movies-about-doppelg-ngers/284413/.
Bibliography:
Masello, Robert. 2014. Fallen Angels … and Spirits of the Dark. New York: Open Road Media.
Moveigrrl. n.d. “Friday Feature: Mirror Mirror On The Wall, What’s The Scariest Film Of All by @moveigrrl.” The Day Hollywood Stood Still. Accessed February 23, 2019. http://dayhwstoodstill.blogspot.com/2010/07/friday-feature-mirror-mirror-on-wall.html.