Unit 05

I love watching or reading horror genre. I enjoy being horrified and scared. While watching horror genre, I always regret watching them, but I love them after watching or reading them. One of the articles that I found is “Why Are We Drawn to Horror Films?” by Lauren Suval. This article talks about the author’s experience about the Horror films and thoughts about why people are drawn to Horror films. The author states that there are various purposes for people to watch horror film. The purposes are that people may want to distract themselves from daily routines of life, that they may want to counter social norms, that they seek adrenalin rush, and they hope to indirectly experience frights from a distance. This article also touches on one’s childhood. With growing up experiencing horror film movies, there are fears and thoughts of the supernatural resided inside of our consciousness. With these experiences (the author expressed these experiences as ‘movie monster’) people are attracted to experience fearful emotions from a safe and secure remove. In addition, the author gives an emphasis on personality factors as well. There are two threat-related types: repressors and sensitizers. Repressors are the one that like to approach or confront the fears, which enjoy watching horror film movies. On the other hand, sensitizers like to escape or deny the attraction from the horror genre. The author concludes the article by saying the pleasure from horror film movies can be embedded in fear and peaks of adrenaline, while offering just enough emotional distance.

In this week’s reading, Carroll, the author, states “[Monsters thus] arouse interest and attention through being putatively inexplicable or highly unusual vis-à-vis our standing cultural categories, thereby instilling a desire to learn and to know about them. And since they are also outside of (justifiably) prevailing definitions of what is they understandably prompt a need for proof (or the fiction of a proof) in the face of skepticism. Monsters are, then, natural subjects for curiosity, and they straightforwardly warrant the ratiocinative energies the plot lavishes upon them.” (Carroll Page 281) This statement is related to one of the purposes that the Lauren talked about: that people may want to distract themselves from daily routines of life. People know that the scary things from movies are not real, but they get scared of the unreal things. Nevertheless, people are curious about how the scary things are come from, and they get out of their daily routines of life by exploring new scary adventures.

Second article that I found is “Why Do Some Brains Enjoy Fear?” by Allegra Ringo. This article questions ‘what happens in our brains when we’re scared? Is it different when we’re scared “in a fun way” versus being actually afraid?’ The author says that we have to be in a safe spot to really enjoy a scary situation. The author also says “These senses are directly tied to our fear response and activate the physical reaction, but our brain has time to process the fact that these are not “real” threats.” Ringo also says “things that violate the law of nature are terrifying.”

In this week’s reading, Carroll says “All narrative might be thought to involve the desire to know – the desire to now at least the outcome of the interaction of the forces made salient in the plot. However, the horror fiction is a special variation on this general narrative motivation, because it has at the center of it something which is given as in principle unknowable – something which, ex hypothesi, cannot given the structure of our conceptual scheme, exist and that cannot have the properties it has.” (Carroll Page 281)

According to these two opinions from each author, horror genre draws audiences by taking them to unknown objects, which is the ‘movie monsters’ by bringing them to recognize and confront the unknowable things and setting the plots to let the audiences concentrate or mistake the unreal for the real.

Bibliography

Allegra Ringo, (2013), ‘Why Do Some Brains Enjoy Fear?’, The Atlantic, Retreived November 9^th, 2014, from http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2013/10/why-do-some-brains-enjoy-fear/280938/

Lauren Suval, ‘Why Are We Drawn to Horror Films?’, PsychCentral, Retrieved November 9^th, 2014, from http://psychcentral.com/blog/archives/2014/01/04/why-are-we-drawn-to-horror-films/

In this week’s reading, the author states “people construct their appearance in a wide variety of ways to control their social identities, self-definitions, and interactional prospects.” (Page 3-4) I totally agree with this statement. I personally believe that my dress or body adornment depends on the situation that I am in. When I was in a high school, I had to wear a uniform. The uniform was really formal outfits. I had to wear ties, a vest, and slack pants every day.  My appearance represents my social identity and self-definition as a student. In this week’s reading, the author also says “Clothing style is of sufficiently symbolic importance that it often is controlled through “sumptuary laws” that allow only members of specific (usually high status) groups to wear certain materials or fashions.” (Page 4) In my case, the uniform represents the symbolic importance of my status as a student because the uniform that I have worn was only given to the specific students who are attending to my high school.

When I was graduated from high school and started attending to the university, I had my own choice about what to wear. I believed that wearing the same outfits are bad, so I tried not to wear the same thing with others. I tried to find the outfits such as shoes, jackets, hats, and pants that others might not have. I valued the uniqueness the most at that time. In retrospect, I think that I was in the beginning stage of constructing my appearance in my own way to control my social identity and self-definitions. By trials and errors, I built up my personal beliefs and values with my dress. Now I wear normal clothes and do not prefer unique items. Rather, I prefer comfortable outfits such as sweatpants, hoodies, and tennis shoes. I believe comfortable clothes would help me study more and focus more, and I believe it would make me healthier to wear comfy outfits.

I made the choice of wearing comfortable outfits because of my responsibility of studying as a student. Back in the days when I valued the uniqueness the most, I had no passion to study and all I cared about was hanging out with my friends. My parents, however, supported me to study abroad here in the United States to motivate me and give me an opportunity to develop myself.

With these supports from my parents, my values have been completely changed. I prioritize studying to anything. The reason why I started wearing comfortable clothes is that I cannot concentrate or focus on something when I am uncomfortable. For example, I had a presentation for my marketing class one day, and I had a mid-term the day after. Thus, there was no choice for me to change my clothes and study for the mid-term. I studied with my suits on and it was very uncomfortable, which was not very helpful for me to study. As a result, I was distracted a lot by my outfits and I did not do well on the mid-term.

The core beliefs and values in my family are that there is nothing impossible if you do your best, and my family thinks the processes are more valuable than the results because the results come from the processes. To do my best, I must have adjusted my surroundings and circumstances to my best fit. I think what I wear depends on the situations where I am. When I have to wear nicely and formal, I wear nice formal outfits. When I need to do something important that requires concentration such as studying for exams, I wear comfortable outfits to do my best. By wearing the best fitted outfits to the specific situations, I think my family’s core beliefs and values are communicated and sustained through.

As a student at University of Oregon, many others wear clothes imprinted with the school logo. I think the core beliefs and values of my peer community is originated from the pride of school. By wearing hoodies, pants, shoes, or hats with the school logo, they create their own certain barriers that others cannot enter. Again, the author states, “Clothing style is of sufficient symbolic importance that it often is controlled through “sumptuary laws” that allow only members of specific (usually high status) groups to wear certain materials or fashions.” (Page 4) I think the school logo creates the symbolic importance for specific members which are students at University of Oregon. They are expressed through dress with the school logo imprinted.

I took about an hour and thirty minutes to observe several people. One of the people were wearing comfortable jacket printed with the logo of University of Oregon. He was putting flops on his foot, wearing sweatpants, and wearing a hat printed with the logo of University of Oregon. I think he was proud of University of Oregon since he was wearing most of his outfits imprinted with the school logo. I believe he values school work more than other things since he wears comfort outfits rather than nice fancy outfit.  He was reading some online articles with looking at the screen of a computer in the library. When someone wears a comfy outfit in the library, I make an assumption that the person values studying is the most important. When someone wears a logo jacket, T-shirt, or pants, the person is proud of the thing that the logo represents.

Second person that I observed was looking at her cell phone and walking around back and forth for the whole time during the observation. She was wearing a fancy jacket of high quality brand, high hills, and holding a shoulder bag of expensive brand on her right shoulder. She looked like she was waiting for someone to come. She was walking around back and forth while looking at her phone. She looked like early of twenties. She looked like all nervous because she was looking around a lot. Based on her dress, I made assumptions that she was waiting for someone, and someone is really important to the person I observed because she wore fancy outfits. Based on her movements, I made an assumption that her emotion condition is really nervous. I first made an assumption that she was waiting for someone because of her movement of looking at her phone. Secondly, I made an assumption that the one she was waiting is really important for her because of her outfit. Lastly, I made an assumption that she was nervous because she was moving around.

I observed the third person in the library. He was standing in front of the computer in the library while web surfing. He was wearing a do-rag, and he adorned his face with a black spider web shape of mask. He was wearing all black from top to bottom of his body. He was a little skinny tall guy. I thought that he likes spiders or his role model is Jack Sparrow from “Pirates of Carribean” the move. His outfit looks exactly like Jack Sparrow. He also had a long hair reaching his shoulder. I have seen him so many times whenever I come to the library, and he wears the same outfit all the time. Based on my observation on him, I made assumptions that he likes spiders, and he is like a Jack Sparrow wannabe. Since his outfits are all black, I think that he tries to hide his emotion from someone else.