Scary Movies are Based in Truth

“Halloween”, “Friday the 13th”, “Nightmare on Elms St.”, “Scream”, and “I Know What You Did Last Summer” are just some of the classic movies in the horror film genre. Sometimes known as “Slasher” films, these modern horror movies usually have the same structure.

Structure
The young female lead is stalked by deranged male killer. The male killer usually has a reason for wanting to kill her and the other victims; the audience is able to sympathize with him. The main victim is usually taunted and always alone during the terror; this causes a fear and paranoia that isolates her. While everyone else calls her “paranoid” it’s this paranoia that keeps her alive. Her friends and family are killed off, isolating her even more. The killing of the victims is highlighted as every victim is usually killed in accordance to where they stand in order of importance in society. “Sluts” die brutally, mean characters such as “Jocks” or “bullies” die fairly soon, black men and women die first. And the showdown results in her killing her attacker or surviving to the sequel.

The “Slasher” film is obviously aimed towards teenagers and young adults. This group of people became important to the media and to the economy in the 1980’s when America realizes the spending power they have. Most “Slasher” films star extremely popular young movie stars who are usually already starring in hit TV shows. The soundtracks to the movies usually include the latest popular music and if the structure is followed correctly, millions of teenagers will go to the theaters and indulge in the bloody violence.
This structure says a lot about the modern culture of American youth. First, the fact that the lead is female says we are still very much a patriarchal society. If the lead in a horror movie is male it’s usually not a horror movie. It’s basically turned into a good vs. evil showdown unless the villain is an alien. (Because for some reason a real man would never be afraid of another man, but it’s okay for men to be terribly afraid of Aliens) The lead must be female because the audience wouldn’t know how to react to a male running and screaming in terror. To be the lead in a role where you must scream and run is tradition in horror movies. And to do so comes off as feminine. Also the male role is usually expected to the hero. Since the beginning of time men were thought to be the ones who had to save women, i.e. fairy-tales.
The fact that girls get to “survive” in these “Slasher” film also could be linked to patriarchy. Most of the females that survive are “good girls”. They don’t engage in sex or drugs and are smart, pretty and pure. In fact, the girls who do have sex are usually killed the most brutally. This conveys blatant misogyny because it’s basically saying “girls who have sex = bad = should be killed”.
Another important piece in the structure of the “Slasher” film is the audience’s ability to sympathize with the killer. I find this to be unique. The fact that “Slasher” films make it a point to have killers that make audience’s tilt their head, squint their eyes and say “hmm...I see why he went crazy and killed everyone”, is brilliant. Since the 1960’s when the American public as a whole became more cynical of its “reality” it’s been a little more accepting of “Villains”. Humans find their selves at odds with doing the right and wrong thing every day, and I’m sure more people have actually considered killing another person but wouldn’t admit it.. So to see it justified and acted out on screen almost makes it a pleasant, therapeutic experience. However, the killer is almost always “crazy” so that separates the viewer from fully sympathizing and blatantly rooting for the killer. However, this has become more culturally accepted.
The real star of these “Slasher” films seems to be the killer. They survive every movie and are sometimes the only recognizable character in the franchise. In fact, aside from having a female lead and suspense filled scenes, having a popular villain is a strong part of the “Slasher” film structure. In the killer, we find all the problems with society’s youth. So he now represents the evil in the world, while the virginal female lead represents the good.

“Similarly, when an image of a thing becomes a symbol, we know more about what it does mean if know exactly what it does not mean.” (Wright)

So, if Jason is symbolic for childhood trauma, Freddy represents child molestation, and Michael Meyers represents child murderers, the good virginal female lead must represent everything that is not related to negativity in childhood. Most of the females are pretty, smart, popular, well adjusted teenagers. So when movies portray the epic battle between well adjusted youth and the less fortunate ones, what are they really trying to say? In all of the movies the good girl always seems to win, but they always suffer extreme mental illness or seem to be broken emotionally afterward. And the villain always manages to come back for the sequel.
This is symbolic for society’s constant struggle to raise healthy well adjusted sane children, but somehow we keep ending up with “Jason’s”; broken individuals who are misunderstood and turned into monsters. They are either naturally born “evil” or indirectly created “Evil”. For example, Jason Vor Hees, of “Friday the 13th” fame became a killer to avenge his mother’s death, whereas, Michael Meyers from “Halloween” was simply born that way. And in “Scream” Billy killed because he was emotionally distraught over his parent’s divorce. Whichever way it happens, the killers become evil it all starts in their youth. These monsters now become warnings to society of what could happen to children who are traumatized. Just like these killers have become the modern day “boogeyman” to promiscuous teenagers. While “Slasher” films appear to be just about youth, sex, blood and violence, they seem to be sublimely conveying serious social issues that Americans need to address, such as the psychological health of our youth. But can American look past all the gore and entertainment to see what’s really being talked about in these films?


Wright, Will. 2010 “The Structure of Myth” Cultural Theory and Popular Culture: A Reader Second Edition. Retrieved October 31, 2010 (http://books.google.com/books?id=LZ7mHdAVajYC&lpg=PA119&ots=ei4bHonFYR&dq=the%20structure%20of%20myth%20the%20structure%20of%20the%20western%20film%20will%20wright&pg=PA119#v=onepage&q&f=false)

"Syph Happens" Jon Stewart vs. Everybody Else

Jon Stewart's coverage of the recent news of America's intentional infection of syphilis on Guatemalan prostitutes, prisoners and mental patients, was sadly hilarious. In the beginning of the show he goes through his usual news blurbs, spending a few minutes on a variety of news topics and making jokes. The picture for the Guatemalan scandal was a sign that read in green letters with a creepy font, “Spyh Happens”. Stewart goes on to make jokes about America using hallmark cards to apologize for intentionally infecting Guatemalans pulling out cards that say, “Sorry” on the front cover and “We secretly infected you with syphilis” on the inside. The joke is not so much about the hallmark cards, it’s more about the lack of sincerity America has when it comes to apologizing for past transgressions.

The first joke Stewart makes about the Guatemalan scandal, starts with pondering on what America could have possibly done to another country in the 1940’s. When he’s learns it was intentionally infect syphilis, he gives a sarcastic sigh of relief and says, “I thought it was that whole atomic bomb thing.” And immediately the crowd erupts in laughter. Jon Stewart opens his shows with a joke on our country’s horrific past and somehow makes America not only laugh but informed.

CNN.com had a viral piece about the scandal as well as a written article. Elizabeth Cohen, the senior medical correspondent stood in front of the camera and gave the gory details about America’s secret medical experiment in Guatemala. She had a look of obvious disgust for the situation and even got choked up when she talked about it. The camera panned to another anchor and they seemed to have what was supposed to seem like an off the cuff discussion on their disgust to the situation. While I don’t question the sincerity of their emotions I do question the reason why CNN decided to let Cohen casually talk to the anchor while they were still on screen. I think CNN wanted to make the viewer feel like the anchors (and consequently CNN) genuinely cared about what happened 40 years ago. Personally I felt slightly suspicious and uncomfortable. Not only at their show of emotions but at the way the camera panned toward the other anchor before Cohen walked toward him, making her actions seem pre-mediated and planned. Their banter which was “spontaneous” was very awkward and they even spoke over one another. Basically, it felt forced.

“While Jon Stewart is a guy in a suit pretending to be a newscaster, and he acts like a guy in a suit pretending to be a newscaster, there's a certain formality and rigidity we've come to expect from our news, so much so that when Katie Couric opens the news with 'Hi,' or now I think it's 'Hello,' this is thought of as some kind of breakdown in the proper etiquette of newscasting," says the Chicago Tribune's Rosenthal.”(Smoklin)

Comparing Stewart’s reaction and coverage of the news to Cohen’s is like comparing apples and oranges. They are two completely different people in two completely different positions. Jon Stewart’s “Daily Show” is not supposed to be the same as the “real” news shows. And we trust his opinion and value it more because his viewers know and understand this. Jon Stewart has no other motive besides making us laugh when he gives us the news. The “real” news is heavily censored because it’s made possible by the government and the corporations, the very same entities that need to be monitored and reported about.

I always envisioned the media as a battered wife that has to lie to its family and friends about its deranged and abusive husband. The battered wife is the news company and anchors. The husband is the corporations that fund the news company. Coincidentally, husband has a best friend who is a police officer. The police officer would be the government. While the police officer is possibly the only person who could stop the husband, he doesn’t, because they are friends. And the family and friends are the average American audience who believes the wife’s story. We might think something doesn’t add up in the story, but what can we do about it?

Enter Jon Stewart; a member of the family who tries to get the other family members to see just how wrong and contrived the dysfunctional relationship between the media, the big corporations and the government is. Personally, I think he’s succeeding. More and more news channels are trying to be more personable, and trying to make jokes. The only problem is, they are omitting the hard truth that Jon Stewart is able to bring to his show. Why? Because the news will be beat by the corporations. When Morely Safer famously portrayed the American troops “search and destroy” mission Vietnam in a truthfully horrific light the president of CBS received a call from the president of the United States that same night. And strangely, the news has since then never showcased horrific acts done by the American government. Even the Guatemalan scandal received very little notice. 500 words stories that you have to search to find.

The news does not have an allegiance to the people; it can’t afford to have one.

“Our impatience with television’s view of politics represents, in part, a longing for an era when the news regularly achieved the depth, impartiality and civic lesson- an era that never was.”(Stephens)

Somehow people fell for the friendly faces on the TV and believed they actually had the best interests of the people in mind. Now, don’t get me wrong, I do believe the news was intended to inform the people, and still has those same good intentions. But I do believe the road to hell is paved with good intentions and CBS Camel Caravan ads.

Basically, you can’t trust the news to give you raw facts about the government or big corporations because the government wields the power of access to political affairs over the stations heads, and the corporations cuts the checks. If you want news that has no other ulterior motive other than to make you laugh, then you should be watching the “Daily Show with Jon Stewart”.

Stephens, Mitchell. “Television Transform the News” Communication in History Sixth Edition 2011
Smoklin, Rachel. 2010 “What America can learn from Jon Stewart” American Journalism Review.com Retrieved October 20, 2010. (http://www.ajr.org/Article.asp?id=4329)

iPad>The Printing Press?

The printing press is important for the fact that it created mobility for the written word. Sure papyrus paper made writing easier and even a little more mobile than before. But the printing pres made it possible to produce an endless amount of written text a t a time.

Before the printing press, when text was written that was the sole piece of evidence. A scribe only had that one piece of text, and if he wanted to make more copies he had to hand write them out. This process would take a ridiculously long time and if someone even attempted to do such a tedious and strenuous job they were limited in the amount of text they’d be able to produce. Once the printing press arrived not only was it smart but it became popular fast.

“Perfection was achieved “by the book.” Laws were compiled into official tomes, contracts were written down and nothing was valid unless put into words. Painting, music, architecture, dance were all important, but the heartbeat of Western culture was the turning pages of a book. By 1910 three-quarters of the towns in America with more than 2,500 residents had a public library. We became a people of the book.”(Kelly)

Because the book was a tangible object that people had to physically hold, it became a literal symbol of intelligence. If someone had an extensive book collection it made them look not only wise and worldly, it also meant they had a certain amount of money. Once the printing press became standard, the act of writing was no longer only for the royal or extremely rich. Regular people, those who didn’t have “status” were able to write about their lives. The sharing of life stories became easier. Once people were able to read and write and reproduce their stories easily, average people started re-writing history.

Enter the iPad. Although the computer and the internet made it even easier to share stories and reproduce writing, the iPad is creating an even bigger wave. Not only does it look extremely futuristic, but it brings together all media and almost all of the human senses to create a truly unique multimedia experience. Where the computer started a revolution in how humans relate to media the iPad is taking it to the next level. The iPad allows us to see, hear, and touch. (I’m sure they are in the works of incorporating smell and taste in to the experience) Where the computer put up a third wall of simply observing the iPad breaks it down with allowing our fingertips to touch the sacred screen and create, or destroy something we are watching.

“We live on screens of all sizes—from the IMAX to the iPhone. In the near future we will never be far from one. Screens will be the first place we’ll look for answers, for friends, for news, for meaning, for our sense of who we are and who we can be.”(Kelly)

The emergence of the iPad, brings the humans experience with communication and the ways we express ourselves full circle. We started out with tablets. They were made of stone or clay, but they where tablets none the less. Now we find ourselves right back at square one with the iPad tablet, although it’s made of much more sophisticated materials. It’s still a tablet which is much more easier to hold than a book. I see the book eventually become outdated, like VHS tapes and vinyl records. However, I think it will be a long time before that happens. The book still makes money, the creators and producers of e-books haven’t quite figured out how exactly to make money off these products. Because the internet is so open and access is so easy, they will be a few constraints placed on e-books, and it won’t be a central figure in society like the book is. But the e-book is a new invention and as much as I hate to say it is much more efficient than a book.

But, that does not mean they are better. The book has a classiness and aesthetic that the iPad or kindle will never be able to recreate. And the book as well as the printing press will go down in history as one of the most important inventions in the world.

Kelly, Kevin. 2010. “Reading in a Whole New Way” The Smithsonian.com Retrieved October 7, 2010. (http://www.smithsonianmag.com/specialsections/40th-anniversary/Reading-in-a-Whole-New-Way.html)

Free Your Mind and The Rest Will Follow

“Literacy -- or an ensemble of literacies -- will continue to thrive, but in forms and formats we can't yet envision.” (Howard Gardener)

I believe we are shifting from a print based society to a hybrid of print oral and visual culture. With the technology we have today we can effectively do all three and we can usually do it through the same medium. The importance of writing and reading has not been over emphasized; we are still reading and write just in a different form. It’s just that speaking is much more natural than writing. I think the oral culture was always just as strong as the written; it’s just that the written word is a little more respected because learning to read was so hard for so long.. Now that we have learned how to read and write and mastered it we move on to create another medium of expression and communication. It’s the natural progression of human life.

For example, when the Greeks introduced the alphabet around 700 B.C, they opened the flood gates of progression. By creating an alphabet of letters that were similar to the sounds humans created naturally they made the learning of language a little more efficient. “

The Greek system by its superior analysis of sound placed the skill of reading theoretically within the reach of children at the stage where they are still learning the sounds of their oral vocabulary. If acquired in childhood, the skill was convertible into an automatic reflex and thus distributable over a majority of a given population provided it was applied to the spoken vernacular.” (Havelock 38)

Teach people how to read and write while they are still learning how to talk and it becomes second nature.

“The acoustic efficiency of the script had a result which was psychological: once it was learned you did not have to think about it.” (Havelock 39)

Once you don’t have to think about something, you free space in your mind to remember something else or to create something else.

This “freeing of the mind” gives way to innovation, which then leads to progression. Progression isn’t necessarily always a positive thing but it’s something that always moves forward. Once an idea is sparked, spoken and recorded; once it reaches the intended audience there is no going back. To think that this generation will become stupider by the innovation of the internet explosion is to have very little faith in the human spirit.

When the introduction of the written language occurred, it was thought that society was going to lose a lot of its oral culture. This wasn’t necessarily true. In oral culture, the story came from the man, lived in the man, told to the people, died in the man; or was passed on to another man, who more than likely altered the story. Facts and details in oral culture were shaky at best. So in a way the story was bound to change or die eventually. But when written language was introduced humans we were able to record the story will more accuracy. This shift allowed the oral culture to be preserved. Once the culture’s main beliefs, laws and rules were recorded it made life a little less harsh and more civilized. Once the mind isn’t burdened with survival or remembering everything it is free to learn and or create other things.

Now we find ourselves almost coming full circle. In this culture of blogging, and web pages, a human can go to a blog, read the post, hear music or an audio taping or simply watch a video. Three different forms of expression, one medium; the internet. Similar to the first oral culture, the ability to see and hear the storyteller adds a level of community that wasn’t as prevalent in the days before the telephone, radio, TV and internet.

“Like primary orality, secondary orality has generated a strong group sense for listening to spoken words form hearers into a group, a true audience, just as reading written or printed texts turns individuals on themselves.”(Ong 54)

With video websites like YouTube we now are able to hear and see our storytellers as well as share our experiences and thoughts about the story with people around the world instantaneously through the comment button. This new and unique experience is the shifting of a literate cultural to an oral, visual and literate culture.

And this is why I agree with Gardener, we cannot fight progress, all we can do is try to control it or adapt to it. Most of the time we end up adapting and we usually adapt because it’s easier. It’s in our nature to want to be efficient in what we do. Why should we pull out a five pound encyclopedia and search for 15 minutes when we could search Google.com and find the answer in less than three minutes. It just makes sense. Of course when we gain efficiency we lose something. We lose the unnecessary aspect that was making our task harder. The advancements in medicine, science and technology that will come out of our hybrid culture will ultimately outweigh the negativity that comes with any new innovation.

That’s why I get upset when people only see the negative in “video culture”. How can video culture be forced into the narrow box labeled stupidity as if there aren’t any digital media that enrich the mind or influences the soul. As if when the printing press was invented every article and book written was a masterpiece.

“Dumbness, to paraphrase the late senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan, has been steadily defined downward for several decades, by a combination of heretofore irresistible forces. These include the triumph of video culture over print culture (and by video, I mean every form of digital media, as well as older electronic ones); a disjunction between Americans' rising level of formal education and their shaky grasp of basic geography, science and history; and the fusion of anti-rationalism with anti-intellectualism.”(Jacoby)

Where do these facts come from? How are they to even be believed? Group studies are largely inaccurate for the simple fact that there is no way to know what “everyone” knows. Ironically, the same mediums that are being blamed for the rise of anti-intellectualism in our culture could possibly be the new way to conduct accurate group studies i.e twitter, facebook, YouTube. Obviously, I am a supporter of video culture, or what I believe to be a hybrid or oral, visual and literate culture. And while there are negative aspects of the video culture that shows America’s unhealthy obsession with celebrities and entertainment, there are also wonderful things being made readily available now thanks to the video culture.

I would even go so far as to say that video culture removes the elitist status of expression over the internet. Before YouTube became popular and the bandwidth of the internet grew, the internet was a place for people who knew how to express themselves through writing and music. Those who could not express themselves through those ways were left in the cold. Those who could only learn something by seeing it also found themselves on the outside looking in. But with the explosion of the video culture we know find ourselves in a day and age where knowledge has become accessible and comprehensible by all.

Havelock, Eric "The Greek Legacy", Communication in History Sixth Edition 2011

Ong,Walter "Orality, Literacy and Modern Media", Communication in History Sixth Edition 2011

Gardener, Howard. 2008. "The End of Literacy? Don't Stop Reading." The Washington Post.com Retrieved October 3, 2010. (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/02/15/AR2008021502898.html)

Jacoby,Susan. 2008. "The Dumbing of America" The Washington Post.com Retrieved October 3, 2010. (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/02/15/AR2008021502901.html)