Reflection So Far

This class has been a real joy for me so far. The discussion forum we have every Monday is structured enough that we generally stay on the topic of that day, but I never feel held back in something I want to or feel compelled to say. Talking about fear in terms of horror films has been especially interesting since I hope to work behind the scenes in filmmaking in the future. Our discussions in class about what scares us connected well to the horror movies we watched outside of class. I personally realized that there is no scientific formula in the creation of scary movies that is guaranteed to frighten people. Each director has his own take on horror and fright, and watching American Nightmare solidified this through the interviews of many film directors. When the Texas Chainsaw Massacre director detailed his creative process, he defined true fear as the events in life that we are afraid to fully open the door to; ideas that we shun and hide away at the onset because they seem to put everything we are certain of in question. I found this insight very relevant to the entire Culture of Fear discourse we’ve studied so far this semester.

 

             In Hall’s “The Work of Representation,” the author brought up the idea of traffic lights representing different ideas, such as red meaning Stop and green meaning Go. These colors mean the same things even globally where the spoken language changes. This concept made me think about fear. There are certain codes in horror films that invite the emotion of being afraid—someone jumping into the frame from the darkness, a sudden movement or deranged look from the perpetrator. Such signifiers do not need to be translated according to which country they are shown. However when it comes to being truly afraid from a movie days, months, or years after viewing it, the fright goes deeper than a sudden jolt on the screen. The fear becomes realized in the conscience, deep down in one’s self where it actually becomes a part of you. The movie Sixth Sense did that for me. It forever changed the way I view the afterlife and I now feel that the spirits of those who passed surround me daily. I believe that fear from an outside source is accomplished only when accessing that deep emotional pool in people’s minds. The nightly news does it every day when they tell us our world is filled with monsters. Everything in this course connects back to that ability to make people question what they thought was certain and unchanging in their lives. It is a topic that never fails to intrigue me and I look forward to the rest of this semester’s studies.

The Mean World Syndrome

“Why have we allowed so much cultural power and influence to fall into the hands of so narrow a range of commercial interests?” This Michael Morgan quote resonated with me after watching The Mean World Syndrome. Morgan effectively unpacks George Gerbner’s final interviews throughout the film, and then delivers the aforesaid quote as a sort of send-off or final message. The film makes it clear that the question of why there is so much violence presented in our media is a very complex query that cannot be answered quickly or succinctly. There is a wide-ranging spectrum of reasons for the violence but they all seem to beg the question, Who exactly is conveying such violent messages and what are they getting out of it? 

Vulnerable people seek out products that promise to enhance and strengthen their lives, and guns are no exception. They seem to guarantee safety, security, and power. Corporate interests thrive from the public’s need to feel protected whilst ultimately feeling vulnerable and alone, because as long as people are buying products all is well and good in their world. The media thus pumps out images of violence even in a forum like the nightly news. The media’s agenda is to make its viewers feel that at any given moment they could be under attack. Guns are dangerous and deadly weapons, but they have been normalized through movies, commercials, and television shows where gun usage and intense acts of violence are standard. Gerbner recognized that such normalization coupled with people’s desire to feel safe and protected is a recipe for acceptance of violence in the media. 

To say that playing violent video games has a cause-and-effect relationship with being violent in real life is a notion that Gerbner quickly shot down. Violence is now such a common discourse that one cannot pinpoint exactly what inspires someone to want to inflict violence upon other people.

Bowling for Columbine

Michael Moore’s documentary Bowling for Columbine was incredibly thought provoking, but in my opinion could have used a more focused message. I kept asking myself throughout the film, “Where exactly is this going?” All of the data that Moore exposed, including America’s staggering statistics on homicidal gun usage, was interesting and educational but the reasons for providing this information were not immediately clear. If Moore’s goal was to present viewers with a comprehensive idea of why gun usage is so prominent in the U.S., he succeeded in the way that quality documentaries often do: prompting viewers to mull it over themselves. But it would have been more effective, at least according to my own viewing preferences, if Moore had made his reasons for making the film clear at the start. This way I wouldn’t have constantly tried to figure them out myself. For example when the tragedy of Columbine was introduced to the film about a half hour into it, I wondered what direction Moore intended to head in. An anti-bullying implication? Why or how parents should be more involved in their children’s lives? After watching the film in its entirety, I believe Moore was looking to Columbine as yet another product of a culture saturated in fear and aggression. The two gunmen were not particularly bullied and their parents were not totally shut out of their lives. But as the film unfolded, I kept thinking that the use of guns was unimportant compared to the rage and evil that results in a killing spree. I see now that the combination of a culture based in fear and access to deadly weapons is the real issue at hand and the one Moore was trying to address.

My time watching Bowling for Columbine was time well spent. Tragedies like Columbine and 9/11 and the many massacres that America has had a hand in are difficult to fully accept, but they are part of a larger cultural narrative. There is a reason why Americans are scared to leave their doors open at night and obsessed with “protecting themselves” from the evil that lurks outside. Moore captured this fear brilliantly, juxtaposing it with a culture that feels inherently safer and more protected: Canada. Through many interviews with a spectrum of different people, some more ignorant than others, Moore brought the issue of gun violence to the forefront of peoples’ minds. His ability to keep calm even when thoroughly disgusted with a situation is admirable, and each scene offered information that was different and new. Bowling for Columbine was disturbing and often uncomfortable, and to me those are traits documentary well done.

American Nightmare

I was thoroughly impressed with the American Nightmare documentary and found it both riveting and disturbing to watch. I could not turn my eyes away from the screen during viewing, as the images were so moving and surreal. It hit on a lot of important aspects of horror films, some of which we have begun to discuss in class including why or how certain images scare us while others are not so effective. By using interviews with directors of classic horror movies from the past fifty years, the documentary acquired a certain credibility and rawness that amplified each clip they used. It seemed that the film was trying to take a long, hard look at the link between horror films and a wider historical lens. What did each movie represent about the fears in our society at the time of its release? Why or how was this significant? To be able to get into the minds of directors who created such classics as Night of the Living Dead, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Shivers was stupefying because it started to answer some of these questions.

One of my favorite parts of the film was the interview with Tobe Hooper, director of the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre released in 1974. Hooper talked about how he came up with the idea for the film, and revealed that it all started when feeling pressured to evacuate a crowded store and laying his eyes upon a chainsaw on the shelves. Having a chainsaw in his arsenal would have broken up the crowd so he could leave easily. He then went even further into his inspiration for this film and discussed the idea of delving into issues that most people shun in their conscious minds. He said that there is a small window into deep, dark, sinister thoughts, but we close the door to those ideas because they frighten us.  As a film director he feels the need to push that door wide open and explore what terrifying film tactics have the most substantial effects on viewers. While watching this section I wondered what questions the interviewer was asking in order to get such incredible responses. It seemed effortless to get Hooper to open up about his process, when in reality it's a very deep and personal topic to talk about so candidly. For this and so many more reasons, I found American Nightmare both educational and socially important.