PHILOSOPHIZING HORROR (pt. 1)
9:54pm, June 28, 2008
In anticipation of what I hope will be a healthy conversation/debate on the aesthetics of horror cinema, I'm posting a short introductory piece on horror narratives below. Look forward to your thoughts! -ss
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Horror as a narrative mode can be traced back to the origins of representational art. Cave paintings depicting terrifying creatures wreaking havoc on defenseless humans find contemporary analogues in the monster movies playing to packed houses in theaters across the globe. The timeless popularity of horror as a cross-medium genre appealing primarily to young men and women - perhaps as adolescent rite of passage, or as practice ground for the display of socially-sanctioned gender roles - is well-established, and the primitive human need to consume fictional tales of horror indisputable.
When theorising horror, three questions frequently arise:
(1) What is the main affect that horror narratives seek to engender in audiences?
(2) Why is it that people are so often frightened by what they know isn't real?
(3) Why do so many of us take pleasure from threatening beings and scenarios that would truly horrify if encountered in real life?
There are several different schools of thought concerning the first question above. Sigmund Freud characterised the 'uncanny' as that which arouses dread and horror: 'something which is familiar and old-established in the mind and which has become alienated from it only through the process of repression'. In contrast, contemporary philosopher and film theorist Noël Carroll invokes the work of anthropologist Mary Douglas, who attributes feelings of disgust and aversion to apparent transgressions or violations of a particular culture's accepted norms and values. For Carroll, horror narratives produce an admixture of fear and disgust in audiences through the dangerous, unnatural figure of the monster.
Tzvetan Todorov, meanwhile, distinguishes between the 'fantastic', the 'uncanny', and the 'marvelous' in literature, all of which find a place within the horror genre. The fantastic is that hesitation experienced by someone familiar only with the laws of nature, confronting a seemingly supernatural event. The uncanny for Todorov ultimately offers a resolution governed by natural laws; while the marvelous offers a resolution governed by supernatural laws.
With respect to the question why we are so often frightened by what we know isn't real, one influential theory (elaborated by Carroll and others) holds that, when people consume horror fictions, the only thing required is that they 'entertain the thought' of the frightening entities and events in question -- a belief in the monster's existence is not necessary for feelings of horror to result.
As for the seemingly perverse pleasures often produced by fictional horror narratives, a popular view has it that consuming such fictions is akin to riding a roller coaster: although we get the adrenaline rush that comes with feeling momentarily unprotected and out of control, we know that ultimately no harm will come to us. As film scholar Isabel Pinedo puts it, fictional horror allows for a 'bounded experience' of fear.
User Comments
 | Wharmon 11:24pm, June 28, 2008
Okay...good...now tell us something we "haven't" been reading for years on the subject, or have always known about ourselves. I am not a mystery to me. |
| deadlover 3:22pm, June 29, 2008
Interesting. |
 | Stinger839 7:36pm, July 4, 2008
Those three questions can be condensed into one: What is the function of fear in film? |
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