This week I found two articles which have the same topic as the issues raised by the reading that our instructor give us. One is written by Margarita Tartakovsky(2012), she is an Associate Editor at Psych Central. The second one is written by Press Journals(2007), which is from University of Chicago.
The first article is discussed about why some people love to see scared movie. The author Margarita Tartakovsky states that there are some people like to see horrible movies while the others aren’t like. She points out one of the reason why people love to see horrible movie is because they enjoy the moment after they watched the movie. She called it “excitation transfer process.” She believes that after see the horrible movies, the happiness that you might gain when you have fun with friends or anything make you exciting will become more intensified. The second reason that she mentioned that people like to see horrible movie is because they love every new and novel thing. The vampire, demon, and also the bloody scene might not always happen in the real life. She also find an interesting point of the difference between man and woman, she think that men prefer scary films than women is because women are more likely to find “physical closeness” when they’re afraid, and men can show off their “strength and bravery”. Finally she suggest that parents should pay attention to their children who are under 14 years old to see a horrible movie because a research shows that the children who are under 14 years old might have trouble when they go to bed and feel anxious after watch those kind of movies.
Compare to the reading that instructor provided and written by Carroll.N(2002) and the first article I summarized above, I found that they have some similarities and differences. First of all, both of the articles want to give audience an answer of why some people will enjoy the scared movie and the horrible moment during watching the movie. However, the author Margarita Tartakovsky mentioned that people like to see scared movie is because they enjoy the moment after they see the movie and also they like novel thing which would not happen everyday in our lives while the author Carroll.N describe that people like to see scared movie is because they are curious and attracted by the design of the movie’s plot. He states that “the horror story is driven explicitly by curiosity. It engages its audience by being involved in processes of disclosure, discovery, proof, explanation, hypothesis and confirmation.”(Page 279) In fact, the article which is written by Carroll.N is more specific and detailed to analyze the reason of people’s enjoyment of scared movie.
The second article that I find online is written by Press Journals(2007), his article also discuss about the reason why people love to see scared movie. He disagree that people love to see scared movie is because they enjoy the fearfulness moment or they just actually don’t afraid. He indicates a very arousing points that people who enjoy the scared film is because they are enjoy the moment when they are happy and also scared. He said that human beings can have two emotion at the same time. When they are watch scared movie ,the positive feelings and the fearfulness can give them a exciting experience that they are not able to try in a daily life except some extreme sports.
Compare to the reading which is written by Carroll.N, Press Journals’s opinion is more like a simple defined of Carroll’s article. According to the reading”Why horror”, The author states that:”When we turn to tragedy, plotting performs this function. The interest that we take in the deaths of Hamlet, Gertrude, Claudius, et al. is not sadistic, but is an interest that the plot has engendered in how certain forces, once put in motion, will work themselves out. Pleasure derives from having our interest in the outcome of such questions satisfied.” (Page 276) He want to prove a point that people enjoy the scared movie is not just because they want to be scared, is because they are curious about what will happen next. For example, when you read a book, if you only read the most exciting part of the book, it might not make you feel interested, however, if you read through the book and understand what happened in the whole story, you will find the exciting part of the book is more attractive than before. In Sum, he believes that a weather a scared movie is successful or not is not only depend on the horrible or disgusting scenarios, is also depend on a attractive plot.
Reference:
Tartakovsky, M. (2012). Why Some People Love Horror Movies While Others Hate Them. Psych Central. Retrieved on February 13, 2014, from http://psychcentral.com/blog/archives/2012/10/31/why-some-people-love-horror-movies-while-others-hate-them/
University of Chicago Press Journals. (2007, July 31). Why Do People Love Horror Movies? They Enjoy Being Scared. ScienceDaily. Retrieved February 13, 2014 from www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/07/070725152040.htm
Carroll, N (2002). Why Horror?. In Neill, A.& Riley, A. (Eds.) Arguing About Art: Contemporary Philosophical Debates(2nd ed,. pp. 275-294). New York, NY: Routledge.
