Today will probably go down as one of the most culturally tragic days in history, at least until the next movie star’s death. Fire engulfed the spire of Notre Dame (literally “Our Lady”), and made it topple to the ground. The cause seems to be an electrical fire caused by the ongoing renovations, which will no doubt call into the validity of current preservation methods, along with likely a slew of questions of how to preserve the landmark, whether to build it up in false grandeur, or to memorialize the place it once was.
But that’s not what this class is about, is it? As the tragedy was unfolding, people took to social media to share their grief and their love for the church now lost to an unfortunate conflagration. While many just shared stories and memories of times they had been fortunate enough to visit the landmark, others decided to share pictures of themselves there. Many of these pictures showed the person smiling, maybe with their arms spread wide or even possibly a funny pose. Quickly after they posted these pictures, another group of social media users followed. The Grief Police.
Some of this group criticized those who had posted the pictures directly, questioning what their true motives were with posting whatever photo they did. Others took a more mocking tone, as depicted in the picture below.
I will admit, I don’t believe that memorializing Notre Dame by posting a picture of yourself on your study abroad trip is maybe the best method out there. But this does bring up a good question, when the thing you’re memorializing is an iconic landmark, are pictures of yourself at the landmark an acceptable remembrance? As far as I know, I haven’t seen people have such disdain for when someone posts a picture of themselves with a celebrity, but it seems to be popping up with this landmark.
An update to this Sighting post, I found another tweet mocking the perceived premise of many of these memorial photos:
Thinking about it, the dark tourism that the Chernobyl area attracts is a kind of self-fulfilling prophecy. The Chernobyl incident is one that while I myself have never experienced, but have heard about via various mediums, including TV, movies, and especially video games. I’m sure this is a similar story for many people my age, only aware of the tragic events thanks to fictional adaptations of Chernobyl. Thanks to these adaptations, we become mystified with the tragedy of the place and we want to see these tragedies for ourselves. I will admit, if given the opportunity to explore the ruins of Chernobyl, I almost certainly would go, partly because of the mystery it’s imbued into my psyche.
However, I feel as though I must recognize the not completely unreasonable comparison made in the paper of people traveling to New Orleans to tour the destruction of the city after Hurricane Katrina. The idea certainly sickens me to a degree, as the suffering of human beings and the loss of their homes should really be on the bottom of everyone’s “Great Vacations” list. But why does Pripyat draw out my imagination in a way few other places could?
My bet’s on radiation. I’m not just saying this because I used radiation as a major theme in my Haunted Media project, but because I genuinely believe it to be true. For whatever reason, the general populace seems to be fearfully mystified by radiation and the ill tidings it brings with it. This fear, while pushing us away from radiation’s actual reach, draws us into the edges, as us humans try to peek inside and see exactly what radiation does. It’s a strange communion that we have, one that to this day still terrifies me but commands my respect.
Side note: I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the fantastic level of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare, where you must traverse through Pripyat to eliminate a target.
To explore the idea of “haunted media”, I decided to examine the idea of post-apocalyptic New York City. A cliché, I know, but the idea of how the world might look if someone’s finger hit the proverbial “big red button” tempted me too much. However, to create a world of total nuclear destruction felt overdone, especially considering the number of Fallout games I’ve played over the years. Instead, I decided to investigate what New York would look like mid-disaster, and how exactly this would look from a more mundane perspective, say, from the viewpoint of the New York City Department of Transportation.
“Apocalypse through the mundane” is the key phrase here. While any newspaper or news channel would be plastering the latest information from the growing tragedy all over the front page of their website, things would not change so rapidly for the Department of Transportation. Political biases, usually pervasive in news outlets, would not have such a strong effect on the content of the DOT. Therefore, any changes that are made to the website indicate a lifestyle and culture change, regardless of the individual. Changes in what the DOT puts out indicate everyday life will change, which is why I used the New York City Department of Transportation website as a method of examining what everyday life would be like in a nuclear New York.
On the original DOT page, there are six main links, “Current Projects” – a list of all the various road work taking place in New York City, “Vision Zero Update” – a link to a 151 page PDF detailing the progress of “Vision Zero”, New York’s initiative to reduce pedestrian deaths to zero, “BQE Reconstruction Project” – another webpage detailing the effort to rebuild the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway, “Car Free Earth Day” – information on New York City’s Earth Day celebration, along with detailed traffic advice, “Electric Vehicle Curbside Charger Pilot” – a website where New Yorkers can request the city to build electric vehicle chargers in various locations, and finally “Real-Time Traffic Conditions & Cameras” – an interactive map in which those worried about their morning commute can check everything from the traffic to whether a bus route is on time. The goal of this project is to reimagine these six links, including the home DOT page, thinking about how they may be different if a catastrophic nuclear event were to occur. Many of these sites will keep much of the same information that they hold now to keep the feeling of a purely bureaucratic website alive, with subtle changes made to introduce a feeling of unease.
Current Projects
At a glance, the new “Current Projects” section of the DOT website is relatively unchanged, except for the fact that the number of ongoing projects in New York seem to be greatly reduced. However, under further investigation, some of the projects occurring seem to be just a bit different. Interspersed between regular descriptions of improving sidewalks and putting in crosswalks at busy intersections, are hints at a greater story. Mentions of “radiation shelters” and “RADSAFE approved transports” imply a lasting nuclear event that has required New York to alter its lifestyle, while never explicitly explaining the events that occurred. This pulls directly from the idea of “failure of presence” from Mark Fisher’s The Weird And The Eerie[i]. While not the ruins that Fisher describes in his work, the goal is to evoke the same feeling of wonder in the viewer. The nonchalant mention of radiation poisoning and the fictional “RADSAFE” authority imply that whatever occurred is well known in this fictional universe, and enough time has passed that governmental groups have been able to form in order to combat the threat radiation poses.
Vision Zero Update
In this section, viewers receive a preview of the full Vision Zero initiative in the nuclear New York. The first four pages have gone unchanged, showing picturesque scenes of the roadways of New York City. The fifth and final page, however, holds the most narrative this project will have, a letter from the mayor. This fictional letter from the actual mayor of New York City gives hints to a tragic event that affected the entirety of New York. He also outlines some specific changes that needed to be made to “pre-event vehicles”, a subtle hint to how many people use the terms “pre/post-9/11” today. Also, in his letter, he references “radiation incidents”, which we can only gather are unpredictable and dangerous events to those without shelter, creating a harsh new world that citizens of New York City must brave. Yet all this must be viewed through the lens of the NYC DOT, which is why terms like “pedestrians” and “commuters” are used. Finally, the letter adds to the narrative a final hint, the mention of a “Zone AX1”, an area of New York that becomes more dangerous at night. Again, the idea of failure of presence is used here to show the viewer evidence of a fuller story, without giving it to them.
3 & 4. BQE Reconstruction and Car Free Earth Day
These sections I decided to leave untouched for a few reasons. First, leaving these links untouched allows them to be linked to the actual NYC DOT website, giving the sense of a more complete project world. Also, these sections left a particular “flavor” to the new website, as they are both vey uniquely New York things. The Brooklyn-Queens Expressway is an iconic piece of New York and leaving this section unchanged helps to keep the viewer engaged and believe the world of nuclear New York. I used similar reasoning for the Car Free Earth Day section, as New York’s progressive nature and its lean towards environmentalism is something that helps to make the city distinct, and I wanted to preserve that feeling of a uniquely New York website.
RADSAFE Curbside Shelter Pilot
In this section, the viewer finds themselves looking at one of the logistical challenges of nuclear New York. The City of New York and “RADSAFE”, a fictional radiation safety group, have set out to ensure that those who are stuck on the busy streets of New York are safe in the event of a radiation incident. Originally the electric vehicle charger section, this section’s goal is to depict the challenges a government may face when tasked with the protection of its citizens from a threat that could strike at any time. Therefore, it’s not unreasonable to think that the DOT would turn to the citizens of New York City to help them understand where the protection is most needed. This section also gives the impression of a relatively functional government, one that is able to receive input from its citizens and act upon said input.
Real – Time Traffic Conditions & Cameras
The goal of this section is to give a visual of the “new” New York City and build the world that has so drastically changed from present-day New York. Arguably the most obvious of the changes are the large, red or yellow circles covering a section of the “map” (actually just a screenshot of the original map). These circles have labels, noting various sections of the city to be under various levels of quarantine, with the ominously named “Event Zone” only available for access to government personnel. Just outside of the Event Zone is Zone AX1, which is less heavily cordoned, but the annotation warning citizens that the area becomes restricted at night shows the viewer that nuclear New York may have new visitors that go bump in the night. If the viewer looks directly behind these circles, the viewer will quickly notice that a large part of Long Island is missing. This is the most heavy-handed bit of world building I did during this project, as I wanted to cement the idea of tragedy in the viewer’s mind. Whatever this event was, it was destructive, both in the long and short term. Also, as a subtle nod to possible environmental concerns, the shorelines of New York City have been brought in just a little bit, to hint at a worsening climate, perhaps due to the event.
The Academic Stuff
The main inspiration for this project comes from Fisher’s work quite obviously. The idea in this project was to create a sense of eeriness through the website and give the viewer an image of a broken New York City, without ever explicitly telling them what happened and the full extent of the damage. As Fisher remarked, “the question concerns the particular nature of the agent at work…we have to reckon with the traces of the departed agent whose purposes are unknown.”. The viewer knows very early on in exploring the website that New York City has gone through a tragedy, this much is made clear. What is obfuscated is the exact who, what, and why of the tragedy in New York City, thus creating that tension and feeling of eeriness.
Next we move onto the idea of avoidance of death online. In Dear Tech Companies, the author makes note of her desire to not be reminded of the death of her unborn child[ii]. While the created website does not contain ad algorithms, it does contain a similar sentiment if examined closely. The “event” alluded to in the website must have been catastrophically damaging to the population of New York City, as it destroyed a sizeable piece of Long Island. Likely tens of thousands of people died in the fictional event, leaving an incredible emotional impact on the city. Despite all this, the DOT website avoids any mention of death, for fear of upsetting those who may read it. A government uncomfortable with acknowledging death created this fictional website, instead choosing to use euphemisms and implication whenever near the realm of death.
For outside research, I turned to two very real tragedies to understand a little more of how people reacted to them and how the world might look in my created world. These tragedies are the bombing of Hiroshima and the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center on September 11th. I used two different articles to inform my decision making, a short paper titled from the University of Michigan How Americans Responded: A Study of Public Reactions to 9/11/01 and a journal article by Paul Boyer titled Exotic Resonances: Hiroshima in American Memory.
The information gathered from the University of Michigan paper helped to inform the writing of the “Letter from the Mayor” in the second section, along with the overall tone of the website. This paper cites a figure that after the events of 9/11, trust in both “neighbors” and “Americans” was very high[iii]. This trust leads to much of the language used in the letter, for example the fictional mayor’s usage of “team effort”, implying a trust built through this tragedy.
Finally, using the article from Paul Boyer, we gain a better understanding of how Americans might react to an event similar to Hiroshima on their own soil. Boyer describes some of the activist movements that occurred after the bombing of Hiroshima, coming from a strong sense of fear of the possibilities of nuclear conflict[iv]. The government would want to allay those fears and bring some normalcy back into the lives of its citizens. Thus the inspiration for keeping the “Car Free Earth Day” page exactly the same, as a way to encourage fearful citizens back out into the world.
[i] Mark Fisher, The Weird and the Eerie, Third edition (London: Repeater Books, 2016), 62–63.
[ii] “Perspective | Dear Tech Companies, I Don’t Want to See Pregnancy Ads After My Child Was Stillborn,” Washington Post, accessed March 27, 2019, https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/2018/12/12/dear-tech-companies-i-dont-want-see-pregnancy-ads-after-my-child-was-stillborn/.
[iii] Michael Traugott et al., “How Americans Responded: A Study of Public Reactions to 9/11/01,” Political Science & Politics 35, no. 03 (September 2002): 11, https://doi.org/10.1017/S1049096502000768.
[iv] Paul Boyer, “Exotic Resonances: Hiroshima in American Memory,” Diplomatic History 19, no. 2 (1995): 297–318.
I know this idea of grasping for a sort of immortality in technology all too well, I fear. To avoid a sob story of sorts I’ll skip details, but last year my grandmother died after a surgery. While the initial reaction was likely similar to every death of a grandparent who was far away, what struck me when reading A Resonant Tomb was how much it reminded me of my mother as she grieved for the death of hers.
A few days after my mother came home from handling my grandmother’s affairs, my mother approached me with my grandmother’s cellphone, asking how to pull my grandmother’s voicemail message onto a computer so she could save it. My mother is also an aspiring videographer, and wanted to save my grandmother’s voice so she may use it in later videos.
What I think is special about this is we now no longer run into the problem of the phonograph’s lackluster recording quality, as a digital audio file is a bit-for-bit exact copy of the speaker’s voice. Archival-quality recording material is no longer needed, as the voice file could be put onto a CD, a flash drive, or maybe even the cloud. But then this raises a question similar to the one Be Right Back was asking, is this extended preservation good for you?
This ability to hear someone as if they were sitting next to you, despite their death years ago is a definite double-edged sword. A person can be memorialized, using their voice to remind those who love them of whatever goodness they left in the world. A musician’s best music can be immortalized and can influence generations beyond merely the time they were alive. But also this constant, true-to-life reminder of loss could also cause someone to become stuck in a more comfortable past, one where they don’t have to face the harsh realities that await them when they take off their headphones.
If someone gave a quick overview of Dead Space and the latest Doom game, it’s not unlikely that the two would seem relatively similar. Nonspeaking, male main character? Check. A near-future setting with new technology? Check. Scary monsters whose only goal is to kill the main character? Check. A wide variety of weapons to kill these enemies that pop out of nowhere? Check. Brutal character death animations? Check. Blood and gore as far as the eye can see? Definitely check. Despite these similarities, however, the games feel and play completely differently. Dead Space is a slow moving, deep psychological horror that sets out to disturb and unnerve the player through its nearly cinematic experience. Doom (2016) on the other hand, starts fast and moves even faster, throwing the player into the fire (literally, since much of the game is set in the depths of Hell) and telling them to shoot their way out.
This essay focuses on a select group of characteristics of both Dead Space and Doom that I believe differentiate them from each other, but also from much of the rest of the video game market. The goal here is to highlight these differences and with that, show how these games achieve similar results with their different methods.
Aspect 1: Speed
One of the first things a player will notice about Dead Space is just how slow Isaac Clarke really is. Practically everything about him is slow, his default walking pace, his sprint, his melee attacks, and even the lethargic speed at which he aims his weapons. Admittedly, part of that is because of technical challenges the game had when converting the game over from the Xbox 360, but this makes sense, since Clarke is a regular mechanic who presumably, isn’t trained in complex combat techniques.
Doom, however, blows all of these ideas out of the water. Doomguy (you are never given an actual name) is fast. Everything from his movement to aiming his weapon is done at a blistering pace. This speed creates moments of chaos as you sprint around the arena (something we’ll get to in the “Maps” section) where the player has to make split-second decisions, lest they be torn to shreds by an oncoming demon horde. Doomguy even can double-jump, turning him into an insanely mobile, demon-hating death machine wearing a suit of armor.
So how do these different styles play into how the games convey horror? In Dead Space’s case, it makes the player feel weak and vulnerable, since they are no more capable of fighting off the enemy in the game than they would be in real life. Players feel an unconscious connection to Clarke, as there is no confusing him for some superhero-like character who can run and jump around enemies with ease. Doom obviously takes a different approach to this entirely. By turning the movement speed up to ludicrous and adding in the ability to double-jump, the creators of Doom created a clear line between the player and the game. This will become a common theme throughout Doom, as there is a self-awareness and hypermediation that permeates everything the game does.
For reference, watch this brief comparison of the two.
Aspect 2: Storybuilding
Dead Space is a story-driven game. From the very beginning, the player is treated to cutscenes, strategically placed audio logs, and well-timed video chats to keep the player in touch with the plotline, directly relating to the methods used in the Resident Evil series as Ewan Kirkland describes in his paper Resident Evil’s Typewriter: Survival Horror and Its Remediations, which makes sense, since Dead Space was based directly off of the Resident Evil series[1]. These are all used to build the world of Dead Space, to build tension, and to drive player investment into the game.
Doom is not a story driven game. In the very first scene of the game, this becomes abundantly clear as Doomguy throws the monitor in which one of the few other characters in the game is using to try and convey the plotline to you. The game does have a story though, you just have to find it.
Again, we see the difference between Dead Space and Doom, and their approach to the story. Since the story important for the world of Dead Space to be created, the story is forced upon the player, so that they’re always informed of exactly why they should be scared. Doom, on the other hand, doesn’t care. The previously mentioned self-awareness of Doom plays into this again shows itself as it puts gameplay first. The player can go the entire length of the game without ever really listening to, reading, or experiencing the story of Doom. That’s the postmodern part of Doom coming through. Hypermediation applies here as well in a convoluted sort of way, as the hyper-awareness of Doom being a video game allows players to shamelessly avoid the typical elements that create “buy-in” into a video game.
The following video should give a good idea of the differences between each game’s storytelling.
Aspect 3: Perspective
Dead Space puts the player into a third-person, behind the shoulder viewpoint as they control Isaac Clarke and trudge through the desolate spaceship that is the setting for the game. The camera shifts around Clarke and allows for some level of corner-peeking, letting slightly nervous players to get a few moments of advanced warning and letting the player look behind them in case a pesky necromorph tries to sneak up on them.
Doom places the player front-and-center, using a first-person perspective to carry the player through the hectic levels. There is no separation between the player and the action, allowing the player to witness firsthand the brutal and bloody evisceration of the demons that dare tread near Doomguy.
Dead Space is an excellent example of cinema verité as described in Barry Keith Grant’s paper Digital Anxiety and the New Verité Horror and Film[2]. While Dead Space may lack the first-person, shaky camera that other works of cinema verité may have, the player is drawn in and involved in the experience, with subtle additions like Isaac Clarke’s breathing (which changes depending on the state he is in) creating a feeling of almost a violent voyeurism as the player forces Clarke forward into the unknown. Doom uses the first-person perspective to draw the player in and make them experience the game exactly how the developers wanted the player to experience it. Doom’s first-person perspective also allows the player to experience aporia and epiphany, something that Jeff Rush describes in his paper Embodied Metaphors: Exposing Informatic Control Through First-Person Shooters as a moment in the game where the player is presented with a situation that they cannot immediately figure out, and must try multiple times before having an “epiphany” and finding a solution to the problem[3]. This first-person perspective restricts the amount the player can see at a single moment, forcing these roadblocks to present themselves to the player.
Aspect 4: Maps
While Dead Space and Doom both have linear maps, ferrying the player character along a designated course with specific landmarks the character must pass for the game to progress, each game drew the line from A to B a bit differently.
Dead Space used narrow hallways and curving corridors for much of the level design, creating natural points where enemies could spawn to surprise the character as they turned a corner. While Doom does have hallways and various paths, for the most part these are just to get the player to the next section of the game. The true gameplay of Doom occurs in large arenas, with a large amount of verticality built in, allowing Doomguy to jump up and down to his heart’s content in order to bounce around the demons.
Aspect 5: User Interface
Dead Space refuses to clutter the player’s screen with various bars and meters and counters to tell the player the information they need to continue playing the game. Instead, the developers decided to integrate all this information into the game itself. The health bar is placed on the back of Clarke’s spacesuit, along with his ability meter, hiding these player stats in plain sight. Ammunition is displayed on the weapon itself, a simple numerical value that follows the weapon as if it were an optic attached to the weapon. When the player examines Clarke’s inventory, Clarke follows along, looking at whatever item is currently highlighted in the menu as if he were rummaging through a backpack, looking for some medication.
As is probably expected by now, Doom takes the opposite approach. Health, armor, and ammunition meters reside in the bottom portion of the screen, with a minimap tucked away in the corner at the top. Menus and various screens are plentiful in Doom, despite Doomguy not actually having an inventory to gather found items in.
Dead Space wants to keep the player engaged in the game as much as possible, and the user interface shows this perfectly. Everything (even saving the game!) is incorporated into the gameplay so it all feels like one contiguous cinematic experience, from game beginning to end. The developers actively sought to meld the player and Isaac Clarke together as tightly as possible, something that the developers of Doom most certainly did not try to do. This is neither a good or bad thing, just different game design. The games both flex their postmodern muscles in opposite directions, with Dead Space trying to blur the lines between player and game, while Doom points out the breaks in reality with a gleeful, gory energy.
Aspect 6: Shooting Mechanics
This time, Doom will come first. Doom is blessed with one of the greatest developments in gaming history, the weapon wheel. Simply hold down a button, and you can choose between any weapon you have picked up so far, transferring from a shotgun, to a laser rifle, to a full-sized Gatling gun in less than a second. The player can choose from various modifications to each weapon at the press of a button while moving, keeping the pace up and the player engaged. When the time comes to use these weapons, Doom delights in the chaos. Loading screen hints openly admit to the player that they should aim for the head whenever possible to inflict as much damage as possible. As the player whittles down the health of the demons surrounding them, the demons become bloodied and stumble backwards. Once at low enough health, enemies stop moving, wobbling in place, allowing the player to go for a “glory kill”, a brutal and quick contextual animation of Doomguy (sometimes literally) tearing the unfortunate demon apart. If the player hits an enemy with an abundance of damage, the enemy will ceremoniously explode into various bits of gore, accompanied by the sound of crunching of bone and flesh.
Dead Space’s combat is a bit more subdued. While yes, there are many weapons available in Dead Space, Isaac Clarke can only carry a paltry four at a time, forcing the player to run back to an equipment bench to replace their weapons if they want to try a different strategy. Melee attacks are slow and cumbersome, making getting up close and personal with an enemy a tenuous affair. What is special about Dead Space’s combat is the fact that the game encourages you to tear off the limbs of enemies, as that is the only way to inflict enough damage to kill the necromorphs once and for all.
Combat is really where Doom gains its horror chops. From the very beginning, the player is forced to confront the demons that are chasing after them with intense and brutal ferocity. Paired with the first-person perspective, the player sits in the front seat of something akin to a demon snuff film. The spectacle that is Doom’s combat is what makes it postmodern horror, as it laughs in the face of typical first-person shooters as they try to become more and more realistic. Dead Space uses combat more as a method to build suspense and depict the horrors of the world that is being created.
Final Thoughts
Overall, what can be seen by comparing Dead Space and Doom are two very different strategies to accomplish a similar task. Dead Space went the suspenseful route, building tension through careful world building and making the player feel vulnerable as they progress through the game. Doom took the opposite route, choosing to shove violence and gore into the player’s face to excess, gripping the player in terror as they must determine how to defeat the swaths of enemies that are closing in around Doomguy. These games break barriers in very different ways, but they succeed in the main goal of these broken barriers, drawing in the player and forcing them to face their fears.
Works Cited
[1] E. Kirkland, “Resident Evil’s Typewriter: Survival Horror and Its Remediations,” Games and Culture 4, no. 2 (April 1, 2009): 115–26, https://doi.org/10.1177/1555412008325483.
[2] Barry Keith Grant, “Digital Anxiety and the New Verité Horror and Sf Film,” Science Fiction Film and Television 6, no. 2 (June 27, 2013): 153–75.
[3] Jeff Rush, “Embodied Metaphors: Exposing Informatic Control Through First-Person Shooters,” Games and Culture 6, no. 3 (May 2011): 245–58, https://doi.org/10.1177/1555412010364977.
Holy crap. I’m not sure what the rules are with cursing so I’ll stick with that statement for now. I have yet to see a more gruesome depiction of the zombie story, so thanks for that. But despite the general goriness of the show, I genuinely thought it provided a realistic and logical depiction of how a zombie apocalypse would go down. The zombies didn’t ever break their own rules (fast, but dumb) and the characters reacted in a way that followed along with their characters (Pippa – screaming, Patrick – self-centered, etc). But there are some moments I’d like to break down.
First, the scene which gives this post its name. The horrifically uncomfortable, totally gruesome Grayson slicing scene. Here Patrick is tearing apart the now-deceased Grayson for “bait” for his so-thought brilliant plan, while berating the rest of the house for not having his sense of entrepreneurship and keen sense of leadership. He also adds in narration at times, commenting on the morsels of flesh he pulls from Grayson’s corpse. What caught me in this scene was how Patrick mocked the group for not having “real” jobs, or actual work ethic, and claimed they were a bunch of useless good-for-nothings. Patrick seems to have forgotten that those people were the reason why Patrick had a job in the first place. He has transformed the Big Brother contestants from actual human beings into money-making pieces of flesh. Hopefully (maybe) this is a less obvious moment that Brooker put into the show as a method to hint at his greater point.
Next, mainly because I think it was pretty humorous, the police scene. What we saw there was a moment where someone (the police) was trying to make sense out of a completely nonsensical situation. These police officers were the last holders of authority, and they’ll be damned if they lose it thanks to some smelly zombies. I particularly liked the “I’ll let you off with a warning […] You could at least say thank you” bit at the end. Yet I think Brooker put that scene in there for a reason other than a bit of much needed comic relief. Those officers were desperately trying to hold onto some sense of normalcy by going about their regular patrols. I can’t help but think how others might try to retake control of their lives in times like those.
In both TheExorcist and Head Full of Ghosts, the possessed characters start their affliction with some sort of mental unwellness. Regan, in The Exorcist, sees doctor after doctor, trying to find some “logical” explanation for her actions and behaviors. In Ghosts, Marjorie is introduced as going to a psychiatrist near the beginning of the book. A painfully obvious common thread, but it’s there.
In a separate class, I was given a reading titled Monster Culture (Seven Thesis) by Jeffery Jerome Cohen, a piece which goes into detail of seven commonalities the author observed in various works with monsters in them. Thesis 4 is titled The Monster Dwells at the Gate of Difference, basically, the monster exemplifies what is different and scary in the world, and makes it manifest. While maybe not intentional, I do believe that for both The Exorcist and Head Full of Ghosts, this ‘difference’ is mental illness.
While mental health has come a long way, in even just around 50 years (from 1970 to the present day), there is still a stigma of fear and wariness around those who have mental health issues. In The Exorcist we see doctors clamoring to explain away Regan’s illness (I’ve never seen a movie use the word temporal lobe so many times in such a short period), as if to claim that there was no possible way that Regan’s brain could make her behave like that regularly. In Ghosts, Marjorie’s father is convinced she just needs God to solve her problems. While yes, a good priest can make an excellent counselor, the idea that a counselor is not working after a few visits ignores the reality of mental health treatment, which can be a slow and arduous process of therapy, testing various dosages of medicines, and more therapy. The spectre of an unhealthy brain is still scary to many people, something that both of the works show.
Also, I feel it necessary to mention the what I found while Googling the real exorcism The Exorcist was based on. This is the Wikipedia (yes I know it’s not a great source but it sums it up well) page on the exorcism of Roland Doe, the exorcism the book and subsequent movie was based on. In it, we find that the consensus about the boy was not that he was taken over by some demon, but that he was merely a bratty small child who threw tantrums every time he was not the center of attention. It makes you think, what else have we tried to explain away with ‘demons’?
