Rub-a-dub-dub, what’s up sis?

darunck

Perhaps one of the first things that really jumped out at me is Majorie’s quote, “rub-a-dub-dub, thanks for the grub” (34), an essentially mock grace that to the best of my knowledge is a derivation of a nursery rhyme that does not include the ‘thanks for the grub’ which was introduced by the Simpsons in its first season. This phrase fits with a recurring elements of debasement and violation that appear when Marjorie and Merry add their own stories on top of previously written books, when Marjorie brings an independently produced tragically motivated story to that new world, or confesses that she enters Merry’s room while she sleeps and pinches her nose, the idea that their father is poisoning their mother and Marjorie. These elements are notable not in the sense that it’s another way of saying bad stuff is happening, but rather that concepts that are typically important to or accepted by a child Merry’s age such as undisputed faith in their father’s love or that sleep is not a state of vulnerability are stressed.

Merry may not be seriously shaken by much of this due to her understanding that her sister is unwell, but once she witnesses Marjorie’s late-night episode she begins projecting some of the images of Marjorie inside the cardboard house (54) which includes her doing inhuman things like spidering around walls. Empathizing with Marjorie becomes even more difficult due the constant distancing occurring with the increase in exogenous factors impacting her relationship with Marjorie, such as the sight of her against the wall, her mother’s notebook, Marjorie interacting with Merry and her things while asleep, and the growing things. Ultimately to me the nature of their relationship responding to their interactions while the love for each other stays the same is something I would like to keep an eye on.

2019 Doomsday Clock Update

kalebeyOne Comment

I noticed that the Doomsday Clock has been set for 2019 the same as in 2018, two minutes to midnight. This NBC report first explained the Clock’s background, as we went over in class, then talks about its function in the contemporary world. It struck me that the Clock no longer corresponds to just nuclear threats, but also to environmental degradation, terrorism, and so on. This shift showcases the challenges that may or may not face us at any given time, as well as what we do or do not prioritize. The decline of the Cold War has decreased how much we worry seriously (as a public; the government may obviously pay greater attention to such concerns) about nuclear threats. However, these still exist, somewhat from Russia but also most publically from North Korea. While not approaching the level of the Cuban Missile Crisis, the nuclear threat is less than when the Clock was made. Yet the Clock stands five minutes closer to midnight/apocalypse than it did during the Cold War. Adding emphasis is the fact that Clock has been changing more often and more dangerously:

A history of the past few decades’ Clock changes

The news video lists “bioterrorism”, specifically, as a modern concern– Americans are more familiar with physical terrorism, like bombs or murders. Is bioterrorism a more major threat than we generally treat it as? That phenomenon could make sense with advances of science, especially since some bioweaponry has been developed, used, or attempted for use (like the 2001 anthrax scare). However, the proximity to Doomsday most likely stems most from the third category mentioned, human-caused environmental decay. We often hear about humans’ detrimental effects on the world. That it might present more danger, though, than the nuclear threats of the 1950s-80s did places the peril of the environment in alarming perspective. We like to think that the effects of deforestation, drilling too often for oil, and other practices will not occur for a long time.

Yet the narrator of this report cautions that the clock represents only our perceived closeness to the end of the world. That premise prompts wondering who (which scientists with what credentials, who were selected how?) assesses how the Doomsday Clock should be set each year. They certainly seem respectable, but, all in all, the Clock encourages further investigation of its related elements, still achieving its goal.

 

“Doomsday Clock.” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Jan. 2019, thebulletin.org/doomsday-clock/.

News, NBC. “The Doomsday Clock Has Us At Two Minutes To Midnight | Mach | NBC News.” YouTube, National Broadcasting Company, 24 Jan. 2019, www.youtube.com/watch?v=KMhRPlgL1-U.

 

 

Blog and novel; Formality and informality

hocheung

A Head full of Ghosts is a horror novel about alleged possession. Like other horror fiction and what we expect, the story begins with a formal writing style in the first-person point of view. However, when it comes to chapter 2, the style and the narrator are changed completely. Instead of the grammatical and elegant sentence we are told to write in a story at school, chapter 2 of A Head full of Ghosts is written in casual style that we use in daily conversation, imitating a blog post and making it more like dialogues than the traditional first-person point of view that we will read in the later chapters. This chapter also gives us an insight into how the outsiders (the audience) like us, think of the Barretts.

The popularity of blogging in the recent decade changes the way people write, even in fictions and literature. And chapter 2 of this Paul Tremblay’s is an example of this phenomenon. I remember when I was in primary school, I read a light novel (a style of Japanese novel primarily targeting teenagers) with emojis and casual style of writing similar to a blog post and my teacher took it away because it was not a serious fiction according to her. Nevertheless, many blog users nowadays do creative writing on forums and social networking sites and there is no restriction and consensus on writing styles. We can read slangs and sonnets and serious fictions on blogs. The boundary between “high” and “low” literature is blurred when everybody has the opportunity to write and publish, through blogs and social media. Therefore, can we expect the boundary of writing styles to be broken in literature too in the future? Will more authors write in “blogging style” and incorporate blog post in their stories, just like Paul Tremblay does in A Head full of Ghosts?

 

Cell Phones Are Smart Tools

wiclark

Isabel Pinedo and Tasha Robinson tackle similar subjects in the genre of horror. Pinedo’s Recreational Terror provides a more in-depth look at the themes in classical and postmodern horror films, while Robinson’s Modern Horror Films Are Finding Their Scares in Dead Phone Batteries focuses on the use of one trend in particular: the useless cell phone. These two articles provide a great backdrop for one another and highlight one of the key changes of society in the twenty-first century.

Cell phones have played an interesting role in the horror genre since their creation and massive proliferation.  Their faulty use in horror films has gone from being a trope to a cliche, but has recently seen some innovation in their use, as pointed out by Robinson in her article for The Verge. In Pinedo’s article, she mentions how many great horror films invoke a sense of fear by disconnecting the protagonist from the rest of the world. This was done by use of a foreign setting in the classic horror films, but the postmodern era saw more blurred connections between the subject and the rest of society.

Cell phones help to create a weak connection to the rest of society in horror films. Simply removing them by clever use of plot devices allowed many of the early postmodern films to help create this feeling of isolation. This is the kind of isolation that comes in The Strangers, Get Out, or Jeepers Creepers. This was how the broken cell phone trope became cliched, however, but filmmakers in the twenty-first century capitalized on increased smartphone and cell phone ownership rates.

Pinedo’s article, though thorough, only covers trends up until the mid 1990’s. What she did not get to include in her article was the rise in smartphone prevalence and subsequent rise in technology based horror films during the twenty-first century. The anthology series Black Mirror immediately comes to mind when thinking of the next step in subversion. The show doesn’t treat technology as a trope to be played with, but it treats technology as an antagonist of sorts. This kind of opens up a conversation about how our technology really does affect our psychology with regard to how we think about and interact with death.

Horror’s all about establishing sympathies

tucker

Tasha Robinson, in her article titled “Modern Horror Films Are Finding Their Scares in Dead Phone Batteries” for The Verge, describes cutting connection as a way of “establishing sympathies.” Part of the neurological science behind horror, and what can make it so scary, is the connection to the main character. The fact that 95% of the people watching these movies have a cell phone, gives the producers of these films something to tug at. While every viewer might not react in the same way, there are certain strings which I think manipulate people and make them malleable. This, mainly, being the fear of not being able to use your mobile device in case of an emergency! For this could be one of the main reasons that phones were created in the first place: to give the ability to call for help and get information while on the go. I mean, she points this out (and ties this idea together) as well, that “[the producers] aren’t just tapping into a tired cliché. They’re channeling the low-key real-world anxiety of needing a phone for a specific purpose and suddenly not being sure whether it has the juice to perform.”

And it’s not just cell phones – it’s things like power or a working car. These, among others, being “clichés” that producers work with in establishing sympathy. All technologies that I think we can mostly agree are taken for granted. It doesn’t surprise me that as we use things like Instagram, video chats, or cell phones, that they get integrated into the films. Especially as the majority of the population begin to use these digital technologies on a day-to-day basis.

Horror films are all about taking an aspect of real life and turning it on its head. You’re supposed to get close to the characters so that everything that happens to them feels like could happen to you. Establishing sympathy.

One last thing I want to expand upon is that not only does technology reshape the horror genre, but it’s starting to change how we receive it. I’ve encountered posts on Instagram and Snapchat with snippets of horror movies made specifically for the platform. They revolve around texting or using some app on your phone that producers are using to connect you to the character even more literally. And I think being able to use the medium you’re scaring someone on to be the subject you scare them with is not only meta, but a clever way to strengthen the impact of the scare.

The Final Irrational Girl

lacraneOne Comment

In the section on irrationality, Isabel Pinedo mentions that many of postmodern horror’s heroes are women, and that the genre requires instrumental rationality and a reliance on intuition from the hero. This initially sounds like a positive thing, seemingly giving women more agency as lead characters and more of a presence. But then Pinedo explains that “according to the Cartesian construction of reason, rationality is masculine, associated with mastery, and requires the domestication of irrationality, which is feminine and associated with the bodily and disorder” (23). Horror Hollywood is telling us that women are allowed in the role of hero because women are irrational. This explanation reveals the sexism behind female heroes in horror movies and makes me wonder what postmodern horror female heroes Pinedo is referencing. Albeit I do not know much about recent horror films, horror has a history of sexism towards woman – victims of monsters are often female, sexually active women always die, or perhaps the film doesn’t pass The Bechdel Test. While horror has treated its female characters misogynistically, it is also the genre that’s given us “the final girl” trope (basically what Pinedo was referring to as female heroes; means the last female alive to confront the monster). Do you think postmodern horror is perpetuating misogynistic images of women in Hollywood or changing them?

Another little thought: Pinedo writes “Characters who insist upon rational explanations in the face of evidence that does not lend itself to rationality are destined to become victims of the monster” (22). She might as well have replaced the word characters with white men. But this made me think about African Americans in horror films, and while they are majorly underrepresented, there is also the stereotype that black characters are the first to die in horror movies. But when quickly looking up more information on this, I learned that while black characters almost certainly die in horror movies, they almost never die first (Fact Check). I’m interested in learning more about the role of women and people of color in horror films.

Keeping Your Cellphone Close and Your Enemies Closer: Postmodern Horror in the Digital Age

niwebb

Caution: I am about to spoil the ending to You on Netflix. 

Why does the horror genre persist? In a sociopolitical climate where headlines are bleak, why bother seeking out fictionalized but similarly disturbing content?

As someone who is made anxious by CNN notifications daily but also spent much of the past weekend watching Netflix’s new seriesYou (a series of ten episodes following a man who uses information gleaned through stalking to make a woman fall in love with him) I am not qualified to answer. On January 10, thirteen year old Jayme Closs was discovered almost 90 days after disappearing following the murder of her parents. The man accused of the murder and kidnapping is suspected of specifically targeting Jayme. Eleven days later, another New York Times article attempted to parse out why You has become such a fast favorite for binge watchers.

Tasha Robinson’s Modern Horror Films Are Finding Their Scares in Dead Phone Batteries for The Verge calls out methods directors are shoehorned into using to isolate their protagonists from life-saving technology because seemingly any plot could be stopped with a call or text. Netflix’sYou acts in opposition to these assertions. For the object of the stalker’s desire, her cellphone provides her enemy with all the information he needs in order to manipulate her. It is all the more unsettling when what is believed could be the saving grace of horror movie victims is revealed to be in alliance with the villain.

In the end, Joe’s obsession with Beck leads him to kill her when she discovers the lengths at which he was willing to go for “love” and, unsurprisingly, is terrified instead of flattered. Joe cleans up his mess and moves on with his “normal” life with barely any trace of suspicion aimed toward him. The ending is dissatisfying to any viewer hoping to see him rot in a cell by the end of episode ten. According to Isabel Pinedo’s Recreational Terror: Postmodern Elements of the Contemporary Horror Film, postmodern reliance on deconstructing boundaries, institutions and “master narratives” like  cellphone saviors can explain why You is particularly upsetting.

Perhaps, though, being forced to acknowledge the illusions of fictionalized horror can still bring some satisfaction. Jayme Closs lived and we can watch her aggressor meet the fate wished upon Joe. Maybe it’s best that headlines and horror stories are consumed in tandem.

Safety in Isolation

almcatee

At the end of Tasha Robinson’s article, Modern Horror Films Are Finding Their Scares in Dead Phone Batteries, she raises an interesting point that what she has been describing may be eventually flipped on its head. As we become more uneasy with technology’s adverse side effects, she says that “maybe that unplugged phone or stolen battery will eventually be seen as an attempted helpful intervention for horror movie characters.”

This point made me realize how I’ve noticed a shift in society that almost romanticizes going without your phone. Leaving your phone at home when grabbing dinner with friends is seen as an act of loyalty. Resorts now advertise not having internet access for a rustic appeal. This desire to be less dependent on technology could play a role in horror movies. Soon, movies may soon be able to realistically rely on the setting of an isolated home that lacks technology. Viewers would understand why the characters would want to go there because they realize that it can be a relief to escape the technologically-saturated world.

Technology can also be disruptive and hard to ignore – things that could put horror movie characters at risk. When hiding in a closet from a murderer, the last thing that you want is for your cell phone to go off. A moment like this in a film could be terrifying, but also comedic in its plausible stupidity. Soon, a common trope may be for characters to put their phone on airplane mode to neutralize the threat it provides.

 

In the examples I’ve given, the developments that Robinson predicted do not seem as far-fetched. As society’s relationship with technology changes, horror films will have to adapt to stay relevant.

Deadly Outcomes of Dead Cell Phones

symckenna

Horror films have been a unique part of the digital culture for as long as we can remember.  One of the tricks for producers is constantly tying in audiences of recent generations and making the content relatable within that date and time.  As discussed in Modern Horror Films are Finding Their Scares in Dead Phone Batteries, films are working to tie in the most captivating content with the 95% of people who own a cell phone of some sort.  Including this fear to not have the ability to contact or communicate with an outside individual for help stimulates challenges for the 21st century.  However, though this article may further discuss these points, I believe there’s a more philosophical reason behind the “horror” in cell phones dying. Generations today cannot physically live without their cell phones.

For teens and young adults, the thought of leaving a cell phone out of reach is a deadly thought.  What if someone calls me and I’m not there to answer? What if someone likes or comments on my post and I can’t see it right away? These questions spark a new area of discussion; will our generation and the generations below us be reliant, if not addicted, to their phones being constantly charged in the future? Thinking of this idea allows me to reflect on personal experiences, and sadly I would answer yes.  Seeing the horrendous images in horror films and losing/forgetting to charge my phone both allow me to exhibit the same amount of fear.  Horror film industries are on track to keeping younger generations hooked, and further allowing us to realize that having our phone dead really is terrifying.