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Assessing the Dire Message of "Zombie Culture" and Modern Horror

12/6/2012

5 Comments

 
On December 18, the Discovery Channel plans to air a documentary about the alleged zombie apocalypse, and they plan to profile a group of parents that are not only true believers in the coming plague of the risen dead but are training their children to hunt and kill zombies. Elsewhere, a 26-year-old man shot his girlfriend when she refused to believe The Walking Dead was a prophecy of a zombie uprising to come. This makes me indescribably sad. Of course it’s true that Victorian people hunted “vampires,” but Dracula didn’t make them do it; the vampires came first. Zombies, by contrast, are a Hollywood creation, and so-called “zombie culture” is directly responsible for a fictional creation being mistaken for reality. 

This, of course, is hardly a new phenomenon. H. P. Lovecraft’s Cthulhu Mythos is responsible for the practitioners of “magick” who invoke Cthulhu, and early science fiction yielded all manner of beliefs about aliens, including ancient astronauts and alien abduction. Indeed, the question of the horror writer’s responsibility for his or her audience’s beliefs has been playing out for centuries. Matthew Lewis’s play The Castle Spectre (1797), for example, was criticized for showing a ghost on stage, which could have encouraged the peasantry to believe in ghosts. Lewis refuted them by stating that nobody in the eighteenth century seriously believed in ghosts anymore. That went well.

But I think that something a bit different is happening today, and that it’s tied to a change in the horror genre.

It’s been five years since I published Knowing Fear, and when I did I stated that it was difficult to fully assess the current state of horror because the period of 2000-2007 was then too recent to really put in perspective. It’s still recent, but I think I have a bit more of a handle on what’s been happening and how it breaks fundamentally from the past. And I think zombies are a big part of what has changed.

I think that the big difference is that the role of the audience has changed. In traditional horror, drawn from the Gothic tradition, the story is intended to induce terror in order to approach the Burkean sublime by having the audience identify with the victim of the horror. Modern horror has virtually no relationship to the sublime, and it asks the audience to identify with the monster and actively—and sadistically—root for that monster to engage in extreme violence.

Obviously, this didn’t happen overnight. The Universal horror series of the 1930s and ’40s clearly turned its monsters into bankable stars, so much so that the final films in the series were advertised as “monster on monster” action promising “cataclysmic destruction.” Any humans in the story were of very little concern. But these films had at least a partial relationship to the Gothic and the sublime from which they emerged, and Hays Code restrictions on gore prevented these films from descending into sadism.

Alfred Hitchcock probably did more than anyone to transform the idea of horror with Psycho. In adapting Robert Bloch’s novel, he made a key change that influenced the audience’s perception of the story. He replaced Bloch’s pudgy, creepy Norman Bates with the attractive Anthony Perkins, allowing the audience to transfer its loyalty from Marion Crane to Norman after Marion’s untimely death—though even here, it was possible to see the “good” Norman as separate from the “Mother” persona, keeping the audience from fully identifying with the monster.

Following in Psycho's footsteps, the success of Halloween led to the 1980s slasher films, which actively advertised the monsters as the stars and asked the audience to root for ever-more-grotesque murders. There was, though, a black-comic detachment in characters like Chucky or Freddie Krueger that signaled that such killings were ritual performances more than sadism. Similarly, the 1990s postmodern killers of Scream and the like also were cloaked behind knowing humor and the genuine appeal of their young casts of victims.

But none of that really applies to the most recent horror movies and books, and even television. Recent horror seems to revel in sadism, actively demanding the audience root for the monster or the serial killer. I suppose Thomas Harris could be to blame, with his Hannibal Lecter stories. Worse, the audience is supposed to derive enjoyment from rooting for violence, mutilation, and torture. Consider the devolution of the Final Destination series from an exemplar of the late 1990s (though actually from 2000) self-aware postmodern genre to outright torture porn where the entire purpose of the series became waiting for ever more elaborate and gruesome killings. When I think of the Walking Dead TV series, I can’t help but recall the frequent critical complaint that the first seasons spent too much time with boring, cardboard characters waiting around for the zombie attacks, the only reason to really watch the show. Many viewers simply watch because they love zombie attacks, which I have elsewhere described as utterly devoid of any relationship to traditional culture and values. 

I suppose it’s simple to blame Hostel and Saw for this, but they are only symptoms of a broader trend. Our art reflects who we are, and right now we seem to be people who want to encourage the active infliction of violence for its own sake, to revel in sadism, and to cheer the powerful villain over the powerless hero. We see that even in such Gothic hybrids as Twilight, where becoming the monster is the ultimate assumption of power and invulnerability. It’s as though our society has lost the capacity for empathy and replaced it with blind identification with power.  

I just can’t get past the spectacle of audiences whooping and screaming with delight when zombies rip out human guts, or when a serial killer springs an elaborate torture trap to maim and mutilate another victim. That feeling of exhilaration and pleasure at the sight of violence recalls the bloody spectacle of the Roman Coliseum, but it seems a far cry from the spine-chilling terror meant to conjure the sublime. Burke recognized that one does not encounter the sublime in a state of animalistic satiety but rather in the intense mental contemplation of terror (or beauty) unique to the highest reaches of humanity. If that were the measure of horror, much of what passes under the name today is not horror in any appreciable sense but rather reverse morality plays teaching the lesson that might makes right. 

5 Comments
Jim
12/7/2012 07:23:53 am

I think it is interesting how the treatment of Hannibal Lecter changed over the series. In "The Red Dragon" he plays the role of the devil to Will Graham's Faust; neither Hannibal nor the serial killer 'the Tooth Fairy' are portrayed in a way that should make the audience root for them. But by the third book, "Hannibal", his role is changed to that of an anti-hero where the audience is led to cheer for him as he shares a meal of brains with the donor still conscious at the table while turning an FBI agent to the dark side. Even the movie adaptations of "Red Dragon" portray Lecter more favorably in the 2002 film as compared to the original 1986 "Manhunter" version. Part of this is no doubt due to the success and popularity of Anthony Hopkins' portrayal of Lecter, nut, in my opinion, the series went steadily downhill as a result. Now I understand that there is to be a TV series based on Hannibal Lecter...

Reply
AMHCarter
12/7/2012 08:54:46 pm

Actually Jason I think your on to something but it really is a larger phenomena that is interdisciplinary when you get right down to it. You use the motif of horror to make your point and I think its apt and for me one that gets the message across. I think ultimately, it is a message about different forms of naturalism you have raised that you've also moved into the realm of the political by choosing Burke as a souding rod and standard as well. Its very traditionl of you to use him as your messenger as well.

Reply
Jason Colavito link
12/9/2012 09:59:55 am

Certainly the themes seen in horror are reflected in other genres as well; we might tie them to virtual elimination of positive portrayals of the working class from prime time television, for example. There is undoubtedly a political dimension to this--all art has something to say about the society in which it is made--though my use of Burke was not political per se. Though he was a conservative MP, he was also a philosopher, and I use him because Horace Walpole did, giving an explicitly philosophical basis to the Gothic and thus modern horror--the only fiction genre, so far as I know, to be born of a philosophy.

Reply
The Cimmerian
12/11/2012 04:33:34 pm

Jason, have you seen Cabin in the Woods? In addition to being an excellent horror film with likable victims, it's also a darkly-hilarious meta commentary on the formulaic gore of modern horror, positing it as some sort of dark ritual. I highly recommend.

Reply
Tim Wilkins
1/9/2013 06:59:18 pm

I recently saw the most terrifying movie I have ever seen, Kevin Smith's "Red State" It managed to avoid most of the overdone tropes, the bad guys were thoroughly unrelatable, and the actual level of gore was, by modern standards, quite mild. However, in terms of existential dread, and relating to the victim, it was masterful.

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    • Collection: Ancient Alien Fraud >
      • Chariots of the Gods at 50
      • Secret History of Ancient Astronauts
      • Of Atlantis and Aliens
      • Aliens and Ancient Texts
      • Profiles in Ancient Astronautics >
        • Erich von Däniken
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      • Blunders in the Sky
      • The Case of the False Quotes
      • Alternative Authors' Quote Fraud
      • David Childress & the Aliens
      • Faking Ancient Art in Uzbekistan
      • Intimations of Persecution
      • Zecharia Sitchin's World
      • Jesus' Alien Ancestors?
      • Extraterrestrial Evolution?
    • Collection: Skeptic Magazine >
      • America Before Review
      • Native American Discovery of Europe
      • Interview: Scott Sigler
      • Golden Fleeced
      • Oh the Horror
      • Discovery of America
      • Supernatural Television
      • Review of Civilization One
      • Who Lost the Middle Ages
      • Charioteer of the Gods
    • Collection: Ancient History >
      • Prehistoric Nuclear War
      • The China Syndrome
      • Atlantis, Mu, and the Maya
      • Easter Island Exposed
      • Who Built the Sphinx?
      • Who Built the Great Pyramid?
      • Archaeological Cover Up?
    • Collection: The Lovecraft Legacy >
      • Pauwels, Bergier, and Lovecraft
      • Lovecraft in Bergier
      • Lovecraft and Scientology
    • Collection: UFOs >
      • Alien Abduction at the Outer Limits
      • Aliens and Anal Probes
      • Ultra-Terrestrials and UFOs
      • Rebels, Queers, and Aliens
    • Scholomance: The Devil's School
    • Prehistory of Chupacabra
    • The Templars, the Holy Grail, & Henry Sinclair
    • Magicians of the Gods Review
    • The Curse of the Pharaohs
    • The Antediluvian Pyramid Myth
    • Whitewashing American Prehistory
    • James Dean's Cursed Porsche
  • The Library
    • Ancient Mysteries >
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        • Mesopotamian Texts >
          • Atrahasis Epic
          • Epic of Gilgamesh
          • Kutha Creation Legend
          • Babylonian Creation Myth
          • Descent of Ishtar
          • Berossus
          • Comparison of Antediluvian Histories
        • Egyptian Texts >
          • The Shipwrecked Sailor
          • Dream Stela of Thutmose IV
          • The Papyrus of Ani
          • Classical Accounts of the Pyramids
          • Inventory Stela
          • Manetho
          • Eratosthenes' King List
          • The Story of Setna
          • Leon of Pella
          • Diodorus on Egyptian History
          • On Isis and Osiris
          • Famine Stela
          • Old Egyptian Chronicle
          • The Book of Sothis
          • Horapollo
          • Al-Maqrizi's King List
        • Teshub and the Dragon
        • Hermetica >
          • The Three Hermeses
          • Kore Kosmou
          • Corpus Hermeticum
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          • The Secret of Creation
          • Ancient Alphabets Explained
          • Prologue to Ibn Umayl's Silvery Water
          • Book of the 24 Philosophers
          • Aurora of the Philosophers
        • Hesiod's Theogony
        • Periplus of Hanno
        • Ctesias' Indica
        • Sanchuniathon
        • Sima Qian
        • Syncellus's Enoch Fragments
        • The Book of Enoch
        • Slavonic Enoch
        • Sepher Yetzirah
        • Tacitus' Germania
        • De Dea Syria
        • Aelian's Various Histories
        • Julius Africanus' Chronography
        • Eusebius' Chronicle
        • Chinese Accounts of Rome
        • Ancient Chinese Automaton
        • The Orphic Argonautica
        • Fragments of Panodorus
        • Annianus on the Watchers
        • The Watchers and Antediluvian Wisdom
      • Medieval Texts >
        • Medieval Legends of Ancient Egypt >
          • Medieval Pyramid Lore
          • John Malalas on Ancient Egypt
          • Fragments of Abenephius
          • Akhbar al-zaman
          • Ibrahim ibn Wasif Shah
          • Murtada ibn al-‘Afif
          • Al-Maqrizi on the Pyramids
          • Al-Suyuti on the Pyramids
        • The Hunt for Noah's Ark
        • Isidore of Seville
        • Book of Liang: Fusang
        • Agobard on Magonia
        • Book of Thousands
        • Voyage of Saint Brendan
        • Power of Art and of Nature
        • Travels of Sir John Mandeville
        • Yazidi Revelation and Black Book
        • Al-Biruni on the Great Flood
        • Voyage of the Zeno Brothers
        • The Kensington Runestone (Hoax)
        • Islamic Discovery of America
        • The Aztec Creation Myth
      • Lost Civilizations >
        • Atlantis >
          • Plato's Atlantis Dialogues >
            • Timaeus
            • Critias
          • Fragments on Atlantis
          • Panchaea: The Other Atlantis
          • Eumalos on Atlantis (Hoax)
          • Gómara on Atlantis
          • Sardinia and Atlantis
          • Santorini and Atlantis
          • The Mound Builders and Atlantis
          • Donnelly's Atlantis
          • Atlantis in Morocco
          • Atlantis and the Sea Peoples
          • W. Scott-Elliot >
            • The Story of Atlantis
            • The Lost Lemuria
          • The Lost Atlantis
          • Atlantis in Africa
          • How I Found Atlantis (Hoax)
          • Termier on Atlantis
          • The Critias and Minoan Crete
          • Rebuttal to Termier
          • Further Responses to Termier
          • Flinders Petrie on Atlantis
        • Lost Cities >
          • Miscellaneous Lost Cities
          • The Seven Cities
          • The Lost City of Paititi
          • Manuscript 512
          • The Idolatrous City of Iximaya (Hoax)
          • The 1885 Moberly Lost City Hoax
          • The Elephants of Paredon (Hoax)
        • OOPARTs
        • Oronteus Finaeus Antarctica Map
        • Caucasians in Panama
        • Jefferson's Excavation
        • Fictitious Discoveries in America
        • Against Diffusionism
        • Tunnels Under Peru
        • The Parahyba Inscription (Hoax)
        • Mound Builders
        • Gunung Padang
        • Tales of Enchanted Islands
        • The 1907 Ancient World Map Hoax
        • The 1909 Grand Canyon Hoax
        • The Interglacial Period
        • Solving Oak Island
      • Religious Conspiracies >
        • Pantera, Father of Jesus?
        • Toledot Yeshu
        • Peter of les Vaux-de-Cernay on Cathars
        • Testimony of Jean de Châlons
        • Rosslyn Chapel and the 'Prentice's Pillar
        • The Many Wives of Jesus
        • Templar Infiltration of Labor
        • Louis Martin & the Holy Bloodline
        • The Life of St. Issa (Hoax)
        • On the Person of Jesus Christ
      • Giants in the Earth >
        • Fossil Origins of Myths >
          • Fossil Teeth and Bones of Elephants
          • Fossil Elephants
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          • Fossil Mammoths and Giants
          • Giants' Bones Dug Out of the Earth
          • Fossils and the Supernatural
          • Fossils, Myth, and Pseudo-History
          • Man During the Stone Age
          • Fossil Bones and Giants
          • American Elephant Myths
          • The Mammoth and the Flood
          • Fossils and Myth
          • Fossil Origin of the Cyclops
          • Mastodon, Mammoth, and Man
        • Fragments on Giants
        • Manichaean Book of Giants
        • Geoffrey on British Giants
        • Alfonso X's Hermetic History of Giants
        • Boccaccio and the Fossil 'Giant'
        • Book of Howth
        • Purchas His Pilgrimage
        • Edmond Temple's 1827 Giant Investigation
        • The Giants of Sardinia
        • Giants and the Sons of God
        • The Magnetism of Evil
        • Tertiary Giants
        • Smithsonian Giant Reports
        • Early American Giants
        • The Giant of Coahuila
        • Jewish Encyclopedia on Giants
        • Index of Giants
        • Newspaper Accounts of Giants
        • Lanier's A Book of Giants
      • Science and History >
        • Halley on Noah's Comet
        • The Newport Tower
        • Iron: The Stone from Heaven
        • Ararat and the Ark
        • Pyramid Facts and Fancies
        • Argonauts before Homer
        • The Deluge
        • Crown Prince Rudolf on the Pyramids
        • Old Mythology in New Apparel
        • Blavatsky on Dinosaurs
        • Teddy Roosevelt on Bigfoot
        • Devil Worship in France
        • Maspero's Review of Akhbar al-zaman
        • The Holy Grail as Lucifer's Crown Jewel
        • The Mutinous Sea
        • The Rock Wall of Rockwall
        • Fabulous Zoology
        • The Origins of Talos
        • Mexican Mythology
        • Chinese Pyramids
        • Maqrizi's Names of the Pharaohs
      • Extreme History >
        • Roman Empire Hoax
        • American Antiquities
        • American Cataclysms
        • England, the Remnant of Judah
        • Historical Chronology of the Mexicans
        • Maspero on the Predynastic Sphinx
        • Vestiges of the Mayas
        • Ragnarok: The Age of Fire and Gravel
        • Origins of the Egyptian People
        • The Secret Doctrine >
          • Volume 1: Cosmogenesis
          • Volume 2: Anthropogenesis
        • Phoenicians in America
        • The Electric Ark
        • Traces of European Influence
        • Prince Henry Sinclair
        • Pyramid Prophecies
        • Templars of Ancient Mexico
        • Chronology and the "Riddle of the Sphinx"
        • The Faith of Ancient Egypt
        • Spirit of the Hour in Archaeology
        • Book of the Damned
        • Great Pyramid As Noah's Ark
        • Richard Shaver's Proofs
    • Alien Encounters >
      • US Government Ancient Astronaut Files >
        • Fortean Society and Columbus
        • Inquiry into Shaver and Palmer
        • The Skyfort Document
        • Whirling Wheels
        • Denver Ancient Astronaut Lecture
        • Soviet Search for Lemuria
        • Visitors from Outer Space
        • Unidentified Flying Objects (Abstract)
        • "Flying Saucers"? They're a Myth
        • UFO Hypothesis Survival Questions
        • Air Force Academy UFO Textbook
        • The Condon Report on Ancient Astronauts
        • Atlantis Discovery Telegrams
        • Ancient Astronaut Society Telegram
        • Noah's Ark Cables
        • The Von Daniken Letter
        • CIA Psychic Probe of Ancient Mars
        • Scott Wolter Lawsuit
        • UFOs in Ancient China
        • CIA Report on Noah's Ark
        • CIA Noah's Ark Memos
        • Congressional Ancient Aliens Testimony
        • Ancient Astronaut and Nibiru Email
        • Congressional Ancient Mars Hearing
        • House UFO Hearing
      • Ancient Extraterrestrials >
        • Premodern UFO Sightings
        • The Moon Hoax
        • Inhabitants of Other Planets
        • Blavatsky on Ancient Astronauts
        • The Stanzas of Dzyan (Hoax)
        • Aerolites and Religion
        • What Is Theosophy?
        • Plane of Ether
        • The Adepts from Venus
      • A Message from Mars
      • Saucer Mystery Solved?
      • Orville Wright on UFOs
      • Interdimensional Flying Saucers
      • Flying Saucers Are Real
      • Report on UFOs
    • The Supernatural >
      • The Devils of Loudun
      • Sublime and Beautiful
      • Voltaire on Vampires
      • Demonology and Witchcraft
      • Thaumaturgia
      • Bulgarian Vampires
      • Religion and Evolution
      • Transylvanian Superstitions
      • Defining a Zombie
      • Dread of the Supernatural
      • Vampires
      • Werewolves and Vampires and Ghouls
      • Science and Fairy Stories
      • The Cursed Car
    • Classic Fiction >
      • Lucian's True History
      • Some Words with a Mummy
      • The Coming Race
      • King Solomon's Mines
      • An Inhabitant of Carcosa
      • The Xipéhuz
      • Lot No. 249
      • The Novel of the Black Seal
      • The Island of Doctor Moreau
      • Pharaoh's Curse
      • Edison's Conquest of Mars
      • The Lost Continent
      • Count Magnus
      • The Mysterious Stranger
      • The Wendigo
      • Sredni Vashtar
      • The Lost World
      • The Red One
      • H. P. Lovecraft >
        • Dagon
        • The Call of Cthulhu
        • History of the Necronomicon
        • At the Mountains of Madness
        • Lovecraft's Library in 1932
      • The Skeptical Poltergeist
      • The Corpse on the Grating
      • The Second Satellite
      • Queen of the Black Coast
      • A Martian Odyssey
    • Classic Genre Movies
    • Miscellaneous Documents >
      • The Balloon-Hoax
      • A Problem in Greek Ethics
      • The Migration of Symbols
      • The Gospel of Intensity
      • De Profundis
      • The Life and Death of Crown Prince Rudolf
      • The Bathtub Hoax
      • Crown Prince Rudolf's Letters
      • Position of Viking Women
      • Employment of Homosexuals
      • James Dean's Scrapbook
      • James Dean's Love Letters
      • The Amazing James Dean Hoax!
    • Free Classic Pseudohistory eBooks
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