{"id":894,"date":"2017-03-06T18:17:06","date_gmt":"2017-03-06T18:17:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/courses.digitaldavidson.net\/dig215\/?p=894"},"modified":"2017-03-06T19:21:52","modified_gmt":"2017-03-06T19:21:52","slug":"from-peril-to-power-defying-weakness-in-the-nosleep-podcast-and-hush","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/courses.digitaldavidson.net\/dig215\/2017\/03\/06\/from-peril-to-power-defying-weakness-in-the-nosleep-podcast-and-hush\/","title":{"rendered":"From Peril to Power: Defying Weakness in the \u201cNoSleep Podcast\u201d and Hush"},"content":{"rendered":"

Introduction:<\/strong><\/p>\n

One of the critical features within the post-modern horror genre its ability to enhance all five senses. The voice, for example, enables the audience to not only hear the fear but connect to the speaker on an emotional level. In a sense, the voice becomes a body, which then becomes a whole entity. For the following analysis, I observe two different mediums that rely on one or more than one of the five senses to generate their respective stories: a horror fiction podcast, \u201cThe NoSleep Podcast\u201d and a horror film, Hush<\/em>. Both forms of media use the senses (or lack thereof) to make distinct statements about disability, mental illness, and women in peril.<\/p>\n

The NoSleep Podcast: \u201cHe Won\u2019t Stop Tapping\u201d (2017)<\/strong><\/p>\n

The \u201cNoSleep Podcast<\/a>\u201d is a space for amateur horror writers to broadcast their work. Stories are told in the first person which enables the listener to experience the action firsthand. All of the podcasts begin with a specific introduction, combining dark and harsh music with phrases such as, \u201cWe\u2019re here to frighten you and mess with your head,\u201d \u201cYou\u2019re here because that\u2019s what you want,\u201d and \u201cJoin us as the sleepless hours take a pass\u201d to welcome the listener into uncharted territory. Within one of the podcast\u2019s series devoted to survivors, searchers, and strangers is a narrative written by Collette Akile entitled, \u201cHe Won\u2019t Stop Tapping<\/a>.\u201d This is a story about an unnamed young woman who lives alone in a room in an attic that has only one window. She claims she is wary of loud noises, prone to sudden bouts of fear, and has a history of mental illness. The story examines the woman\u2019s struggle as she becomes aware of a mysterious tapping on her bedroom window, which she refuses to investigate because she is convinced that her mind is playing tricks on her. When she finally decides to peer out of her window, she discovers a man perched on her slanted roof. She realizes that the sound is not tapping, but instead, it is the clacking of the man\u2019s teeth. The story then follows her as she begs her male friend to spend the night to assuage her fears and to listen for the tapping to confirm the sound\u2019s existence. The two hear the tapping, but when her friend goes to take a photograph of its source, the man on the roof escapes. The next morning, the narrator\u2019s friend goes missing, which might indicate that he was killed by the mysterious man. The podcast\u2019s final line, \u201cI left my window unlatched\u201d leaves the listener uncertain about the narrator\u2019s fate.<\/p>\n

The feeling of isolation is largely associated with mental illness. Find source here<\/a>.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

One of the main areas of focus in the podcast is the concept of a mentally ill woman in peril. The narrator repeatedly admits that she feels like she is being \u201cwatched\u201d or \u201chunted\u201d and notes that she keeps a knife beside her bed just in case she needs to defend herself against an intruder. When she thinks about the threats that might lurk in the outside world, she repeats the mantra, \u201cIt\u2019s not real it\u2019s in your head\u201d to herself. Instead of creating distance from the audience, the listener becomes trapped inside the head of the narrator. Even though the narrator is convinced that the tapping sound is just her mind playing tricks on her, we are aware that her mental illness plays a role in the severity of the problem. In his opinion piece in the New York Times entitled, \u201cMental Illness Is Not a Horror Show<\/a>,\u201d Andrew Solomon writes, \u201cIt\u2019s the proximity of mental illness rather than its obscurity that makes it so scary\u201d (Solomon). The NoSleep Podcast invites the listener to tackle mental illness head on, which contributes to a heightened level of fear as it is unclear whether what is being presented is imagined or real. The narrator also tries to normalize her mental illness, commenting that her mother has also displayed signs of paranoia and anxiety and that her therapist makes her write about what is going on in her life. This, paired with a surprising level of self-awareness, makes the events seem more realistic, thereby lulling the listener into a false sense of security. The narrator admits, \u201cMy paranoia saved me. I also know it killed someone.\u201d This level of self-awareness enables the narrator to show the listener that she is aware of the action that transpires. However, the fact that she leaks information such as, \u201cI also know it killed someone\u201d before we actually see who is killed and why makes the content more frightening because we experience the scare more than once.<\/p>\n

The female gaze. Find source here<\/a>.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

It is crucial to examine how womanhood plays a specific role in the construction and outcome of this story. The tale is told through the eyes of a female, thereby providing her with control over the story and a sense of power over any other character. In a section entitled, \u201cAnd Then She Killed Him\u2026Women and Violence in the Slasher Film\u201d within her book, Recreational Terror: Women and the Pleasures of Horror Film Viewing<\/em>, Isabel Pinedo writes, \u201cThe surviving female\u2019s appropriation of the gaze enables her to use violence to defend herself effectively and to drive the narrative forward. We see him <\/em>from her <\/em>point of view.\u201d (Pinedo 76). The only information we receive about the man on the roof is what the narrator chooses to tell us, which forces us to trust the speaker because we see the story through her eyes. Yet, she feels the need to question whether or not the tapping was in her head and begs her male friend to spend the night. This indirectly aligns masculinity with intelligence and control and takes away the feminine power that was given to the narrator from the beginning of the story. In the end, the man outside her window does not choose to attack her, but instead he decides to kill her male friend. This gives the power back to the female but strengthens the idea that the podcast focuses on an unbalanced sense of who is in control to confuse and frighten the listener.<\/p>\n

The podcast also utilizes real life sounds such as the moving of bedcovers, the noise coming from a television show, and running water from a sink to create a sense of familiarity and security. The tapping also creates a metronomic sound, which is soothing to the ears of the audience. This contrasts with the lack of security the narrator feels when discussing the police. She claims that they would not be able to do much with little evidence about the man sitting on the roof and is convinced that because the sound is in her head, the police would not believe her. When the narrator\u2019s friend goes missing, the police tell her that there is nothing they can do unless he has been gone for twenty-four hours, as he is not considered \u201cmissing\u201d until then. As it turns out, according to Uslegal.com<\/a>, if a person is missing and believed to be in danger, there \u201cis no twenty-four hour waiting period. The law enforcement agency will immediately enter information about the missing person into the Missing Person\u2019s database and the National Crime Information Center\u2019s Missing Person File.\u201d Although this is a horror fiction podcast, the distortion of real life facts is used to make the the listener feel vulnerable and unprotected. Therefore, our sense of security is violated because the police cannot make any immediate progress within the story.<\/p>\n

Finally, the use of technology skillfully frames the narrative and makes the actions that occur more relatable. For instance, the narrator texts her friends in the middle of the night when she feels like someone is watching her and we hear her typing on her keyboard as she composes the text messages. Additionally, when the narrator\u2019s male friend hears the tapping, he attempts to take a picture of the man outside on the roof, but before he is able to the sound cuts off and the man disappears. In a sense, the failure of technology adds to the terror because we are conditioned to believe that technology should always work. The uncertainty over technology also enhances what Pinedo writes in another piece within her book entitled, \u201cRecreational Terror: Postmodern Elements of the Contemporary Horror Film\u201d about the open ending. She claims, \u201cin the end, the inefficacy of human action and the repudiation of narrative closure combine to produce various forms of the open ending\u201d (Pinedo, 19). The open ending and our uncertainty about the fate of the narrator allows the listener to control how the story should end.<\/p>\n