Article One

The first article I’ve selected comes from Granta.com and explores the role horror in modern society, particularly considering the advent of the internet, social media, and how/what increased exposure does to our perceptions of the “other.” It chronicles several narratives and the ways in which each speaks to the issue illuminated by the author, citing most specifically the use of Eros and Thanatos — in other words desire and death. It also briefly discusses the necessity of selecting appropriate music or non-diegetic sound in the horror narrative.

I thought the article was an interesting choice because in as many ways as it touched on the subject of horror similarly to the readings we were exposed to in class this week, it also presented another perspective: “that which is familiar to us, and which we indeed are, is also the most profound, frustrating and compelling of enigmas. Fear and desire — so intrinsically linked — and witnessed through the creation, compulsion and destruction of the body” (Salu, 2011). This is in contrast, in some ways, to what Carroll stated that in addition to curiosity it is monsters or the unknown “arouse interest and attention through being putatively inexplicable or highly unusual vis-a-vis our standing cultural categories, thereby instilling a desire to learn and to know about them” (Carroll, p281).

It is in contrast for obvious reasons: one advocates that it is the familiar thrown into circumstances of “creation, compulsion and destruction” of the body that excites the audience, while the other maintains that it is the unknown. In both cases, however, there is an element of what Carroll refers to as being “of the sort that was a highly probably object of disgust” (Carroll, p283). What they are both referring to is what Salu calls the Eros and Thanatos, or mutual existence of desire and disgust. In this sense, there is a paradox between the familiar and unfamiliar. For example, seeing the human body torn to bits. We, as viewers, can relate to the human body and certainly understand pain, but the unknown exists in the form of the extremity and excruciatingly horrific circumstances the victim is killed under. The proximity to the known excites enough to continue watching the undeniably disgusting. In both cases, both writers ultimately make a case for curiosity and morbid fascination.

Carroll, N. (2002). Why Horror?. In Neill, A. & Riley, A. (eds.) Arguing About Art: Contemporary Philosophical Debates (2nd ed., Chap. 17). New York, NY: Routledge.

Salu, Michael. (2011, November). The Art of Horror. Granta.com [Online Publication]. Retrieved August 3, 2014. http://www.granta.com/New-Writing/The-Art-of-Horror
Article Two

The article attempts to explain the joy of horror through scientific terms. The first such explanation presented is the catharsis horror films provide. The audience goes to see a horror film knowing they will be scared, but the fact that it is a “safe” kind of scared allows the nervous system to get worked up, then calm back down: “our nervous system requires a periodic revving, just like a good muscular engine” (Begley, 2011). The pleasure of the horror narrative, under this explanation, is believed to be derived from the ensuing relief.

It also suggests this may be why the horror genre is so popular among the younger generations, as confirmed in our weekly reading, “audiences for horror fictions are often adolescent males” (Carroll, p291). Begley continues to suggest that as we get older we “tend not seek out experiences that make our hearts race, and feel that real life is scary enough” (Begley, 2011).

Following the catharsis model of horror enjoyment, Begley cites Freud saying, “horror is appealing because it traffics thoughts and feelings that have been repressed by the ego but which seem vaguely familar.” This mimics the suggestions made in the first article about the inherent play between desire and fear.

The second scientific explanation made in the article is that “horror films generally stick to an almost Victorian moral code… Horror films thus appeal to people who like predictability and neat ends” (Begley, 2011).

Lastly the article suggests that “most fundamentally, horror films are popular because they speak to the basic human condition of existential fear, the knowledge that we are all doomed… By sitting through a fictional depiction of that fact — even if the movie’s victims slough their mortal coil in a more sensational way that most of us, God willing, will — we face our greatest fear” (Begley, 2011).

I think I am inclined to agree mostly with this last possible explanation. There is a simultaneous attraction and repulsion towards concepts of mortality, particular meeting our own demise. To validate Carroll’s points, it is the ultimate unknown, and, again, as the first article I reviewed suggested, is familiar enough to spark interest in all of us.

 

Begley, Sharon. (2011, October). Why Our Brains Love Horror Movies. The Daily Beast [Online Newspaper]. Retrieved August 3, 2014. http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2011/10/25/why-our-brains-love-horror-movies-fear-catharsis-a-sense-of-doom.html

Carroll, N. (2002). Why Horror?. In Neill, A. & Riley, A. (eds.) Arguing About Art: Contemporary Philosophical Debates (2nd ed., Chap. 17). New York, NY: Routledge.

The example of mis en scene I selected comes from the opening scene of the episode. I selected this scene because the camera angle — and I might note I find it remiss to ignore camera angle in such things, including movement (a la The Blair Witch Project) — does a few interesting things. At first it appears positioned externally, like a voyeur looking in on an experience, but quickly shifts to the perspective of the students and professor, respectively. There is a narrowing of the lens — much the way an author might illuminate a subject in broad strokes before exploring each in more and subsequent detail.

This transition is an effective way of pulling the viewer in — providing a bit of broad-scale background before assuming an interactive visual role. The diagetic sound and lighting initially represented here did little to augment the aesthetic of the scene aside from, maybe, representing many-a-classroom: dull lighting, the slapping of closing desks, bleak color. It bothered me that Buffy was the only really visible character, despite being the central focus, to wear vibrant color (blue). Enough already.

Next Buffy and her beau embrace, kiss, and indeed the sun goes down, represented visually by a dimming of lights and increased overall contrast (unnatural — think: backlighting — and for me ALWAYS detracts from the experience). There is another representation of diagestic sound accompanied by non-diagetic as Buffy hears something in the distance — a girl singing what sounds like a lullaby: an historic device used to create unease, haunting-ness, the eery. The non-diagenic and emotional invoking music piping in the background serves to enhance this experience. Then — blink — Buffy awakens. She’s merely fallen asleep in class.

But, thematically, is that all that’s occurred? It’s clearly foreshadowing the plot the narrative has yet to play out. The devices in use, under a microscope, do a decent job of enhancing the readability of the experience — my own less-than-approving opinions of the series aside. There is an inherent — however campy* — air of mystery and the unknown about the opening scene that continues to unfold as the narrative progresses (IE: the inexplicable loss of the ability to speak the characters quickly become afflicted by).

In so many ways it follows the model of horror described in the weekly reading: an act of discovery, unknown, curiosity. As the narrative unfolds it continues to follow this model as various monsters of uncategorical and interstitial nature begin to reveal themselves — again the lens begins to narrow, but with enough subtlety and nuance to engage the audience and elicit a greater desire for the satiation of curiosity.

* Yes, I understand the “camp” to be intrinsic to the canon of the series. I still don’t care for it. Though I do care for (some seasons) of True Blood, oddly enough.