Wednesday, March 25, 2020

The Humor of Horror (Or Is It the Horror of Humor?), Part 2

Copyright 2020 by Gary L. Pullman

Charles Addams bases most of his cartoons on a family of monsters that not only look human, but also often act like ordinary, typical people. The humor of his work derives, in large part, from his depiction of ordinary human behavior as being, in some way, eccentric, grotesque, or outrageous. Often, however, there is an additional element that makes a particular cartoon in his oeuvre unique.

Sometimes, only a thin line separates fantasy from reality. For example, despite steady scientific progress and technological innovations such as space satellites, computers, and the Internet, many people, even today, embrace an essentially medieval worldview. The possibility, in fiction, if nowhere else, of both supernatural and natural states of existence allows the opportunity for what Tzvetan Todorov calls the “fantastic,” the “marvelous,” and the “uncanny.”

According to Todorov, the fantastic exists only if seemingly inexplicable phenomena remain inexplicable—that is, if they cannot be resolved as being either marvelous or uncanny. A phenomenon is marvelous if it defies rational and scientific explanation; it is uncanny if, although strange, it can be explained by either reason or science. For example, some contend that Henry James's novella The Turn of the Screw is fantastic, while H. G. Wells's short story is uncanny and Stephen King's short story “1408” is marvelous.

Whether Addams was aware of Todorov's paradigm or not, his drawing of stone gargoyles atop a balcony's wall and the shock of a woman who, gazing upward while her companions photograph the carved monsters, sees the shadow of a flying gargoyle on the wall above, fits perfectly into Todorov's scheme. Into the world of the ordinary, the marvelous appears, for the statue cannot be explained as one of the gargoyles on the wall. Its shape does not match any of those of the statues, none of the statues is detached from the wall, and the shadow is so situated that no unseen statue among the others could cast it. Therefore, the existence of the statues cannot itself explain the presence of the shadow. In Todorov's terms, the cartoon seems implies a marvelous resolution of the apparently fantastic.


Another of Addams's cartoons reflects the criticism of the homogenized sameness of some suburban housing tracts that Malvina Reynolds popular song “Little Boxes” also satirizes:

Little boxes on the hillside,
Little boxes made of ticky tacky,
Little boxes on the hillside,
Little boxes all the same.
There's a green one and a pink one
And a blue one and a yellow one,
And they're all made out of ticky tacky
And they all look just the same.

According to Charles H. Smith and Nancy Schimmel, Pete Seeger Reynolds said, “as she drove through Daly City, . . . Bud, take the wheel. I feel a song coming on.”

However, Addams's cartoon suggests more. The houses, indeed, “look just the same” as one another, but the residents differ considerably—and strangely. Each is bizarre but individual; each is “different” in his or her own way, yet each is regarded as normal by both him- or herself and by his or her spouse and child. Each also appears content and confident and seems to have positive self-esteem.


The first figure, at the left of the drawing, initially catches the viewer's attention, which is not surprising, since he is the largest and we are taught, in the United States, among other nations, to read from left to right. Once we notice his difference—or differences (he has three eyes, two noses, and two mouths—we may turn our gaze to the others who, like him, seem to be off to work, as their wives and children (one each to a couple), standing at their respective doorsteps, bid them farewell.


The second figure is portly. Doffing his hat, as the first figure does, he turns to face his family. His wife smiles and waves; his son waves. The gentleman wears a sports jacket, tie, and slacks, but his feet are bare, revealing sharp, pointed toes that match those of his sharp, pointed fingers.


The third figure is tiny, but game; undaunted by the rolled newspaper under his arm, which is half his own size, he looks over his shoulder, as he waves goodbye to his normal-size wife and son, who wave back.


Next, an obese man performs the same action as his neighbors, waving at his family as he departs for his day at work.


The next figure is a human octopus, with eight arms and no legs. As he shuffles down his walk, he doffs his hat to his wife and child, his wife returning his wave.


The final figure shown in the cartoon is tall and extremely thin, and he doesn't look back at his wife and child as he makes his way out of their front yard, but he has doffed his hat.

Although all the houses are identical, down to the tapered conical shrubs flanking their front doors, as are all the wives and children, the male residents differ a good deal from one another. Their wives and children seem to be exhausted by their roles; they are not individual persons but, each and all, The Wife and The Child. The horror of the cartoon comes from the sameness of the domestic lives the women and children—and, yes, the men—live. Despite the fact that the male characters are distinguished by their appearance, they live much the same lives as their wives, who look identical to one another.

The way of life, in identical houses on identical lots, and the identical papers carried by the men, who, despite their apparent individuality, live in the same type of houses, dress in a similar costume of coat, tie, slacks, and (except in the case of the figure with the sharp, pointed feet and the octopus man) shoes are what makes the characters in the cartoon as much the same as their houses and their families. A strict conformity to standard mores and social expectations are the horrors that have made everyone the same, even when significant differences exist, at least superficially.

Repetition is the technique that reveals the theme of Addams's cartoon. In and of itself, some find repetition eerie, especially when its reiterations seem unending. When such repetition is combined with a hard-and-fast conformity to rigid social conventions, its demonstration of the effects of such dehumanization is horrific, indeed, despite the humorous situation Addams's cartoon depicts. 

A third Addams cartoon exhibits a bit of ethnocentricity, the valuing of a another culture by the standards of one's own culture.


As a party of four black men wearing loincloths sit or stand about a huge cauldron at the edge of a bamboo forest in the background, one of them stirring its contents with a stick, a woman of their tribe, naked but for a string of beads around her neck, bends forward at the waist to offer a white man in khakis a bowl of food, presumably from the cauldron. A shelf below the thatched roof of a nearby hut displays four human skulls, seeming to suggest that the tribe are cannibals. Her guest grimaces in disgust, refusing to accept the bowl, which prompts the woman to say, as a parent might remonstrate with a stubborn and unreasonable child, “How do you know you don't like it if you won't even try it?”

The cartoon's readers may also find the idea of eating human flesh to be repulsive for the same reason that the disgusted man to whom the bowl is offered does. He need not sample the food to find it objectionable; he accepts his own culture's taboo against cannibalism as justified. In short, he finds human flesh, as food, obnoxious on principle. There is no need to “try” the dish to determine whether he would enjoy it.

From the native woman's perspective, her guest is being childish. She finds his position to be unreasonable. Experience, she suggests, should be the test of approval or disapproval. From her standpoint, he should “try” the meal; from his, eating human flesh is simply unthinkable.

By juxtaposing the standards of conduct dictated by two societies that differ sharply from one another, Addams suggests that some horrors are horrible only because taboos make them so. If one were a member of the woman's culture, he or she would find her guest's refusal to even “try” the dish she offers him—an affront to her people's hospitality—as rude as it is incomprehensible. If a member of his culture, one would find her offer of such a meal unenlightened at best and as horrific in any case.

As seen from the perspective of the man in khakis, the humor of the cartoon depends upon the reader's acceptance of the Western taboo against cannibalism, which makes the woman's chiding of him, as if he were a child, humorous because of the patent incongruity of it.

In a second reading of the cartoon, its humor depends upon seeing the guest, a grown man, acting in a petulant, childish, rude, and thoroughly unreasonable manner. If there is nothing intrinsically wrong with eating human flesh, he is the stubborn, unreasonable child she thinks he is.

Finally, the cartoon can also be seen as a satirical comment on the nature of morality itself, if morality is viewed as relative and ethnocentric, rather than as absolute and universal.
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Paranormal vs. Supernatural: What’s the Diff?

Copyright 2009 by Gary L. Pullman

Sometimes, in demonstrating how to brainstorm about an essay topic, selecting horror movies, I ask students to name the titles of as many such movies as spring to mind (seldom a difficult feat for them, as the genre remains quite popular among young adults). Then, I ask them to identify the monster, or threat--the antagonist, to use the proper terminology--that appears in each of the films they have named. Again, this is usually a quick and easy task. Finally, I ask them to group the films’ adversaries into one of three possible categories: natural, paranormal, or supernatural. This is where the fun begins.

It’s a simple enough matter, usually, to identify the threats which fall under the “natural” label, especially after I supply my students with the scientific definition of “nature”: everything that exists as either matter or energy (which are, of course, the same thing, in different forms--in other words, the universe itself. The supernatural is anything which falls outside, or is beyond, the universe: God, angels, demons, and the like, if they exist. Mad scientists, mutant cannibals (and just plain cannibals), serial killers, and such are examples of natural threats. So far, so simple.

What about borderline creatures, though? Are vampires, werewolves, and zombies, for example, natural or supernatural? And what about Freddy Krueger? In fact, what does the word “paranormal” mean, anyway? If the universe is nature and anything outside or beyond the universe is supernatural, where does the paranormal fit into the scheme of things?

According to the Online Etymology Dictionary, the word “paranormal,” formed of the prefix “para,” meaning alongside, and “normal,” meaning “conforming to common standards, usual,” was coined in 1920. The American Heritage Dictionary defines “paranormal” to mean “beyond the range of normal experience or scientific explanation.” In other words, the paranormal is not supernatural--it is not outside or beyond the universe; it is natural, but, at the present, at least, inexplicable, which is to say that science cannot yet explain its nature. The same dictionary offers, as examples of paranormal phenomena, telepathy and “a medium’s paranormal powers.”

Wikipedia offers a few other examples of such phenomena or of paranormal sciences, including the percentages of the American population which, according to a Gallup poll, believes in each phenomenon, shown here in parentheses: psychic or spiritual healing (54), extrasensory perception (ESP) (50), ghosts (42), demons (41), extraterrestrials (33), clairvoyance and prophecy (32), communication with the dead (28), astrology (28), witchcraft (26), reincarnation (25), and channeling (15); 36 percent believe in telepathy.

As can be seen from this list, which includes demons, ghosts, and witches along with psychics and extraterrestrials, there is a confusion as to which phenomena and which individuals belong to the paranormal and which belong to the supernatural categories. This confusion, I believe, results from the scientism of our age, which makes it fashionable for people who fancy themselves intelligent and educated to dismiss whatever cannot be explained scientifically or, if such phenomena cannot be entirely rejected, to classify them as as-yet inexplicable natural phenomena. That way, the existence of a supernatural realm need not be admitted or even entertained. Scientists tend to be materialists, believing that the real consists only of the twofold unity of matter and energy, not dualists who believe that there is both the material (matter and energy) and the spiritual, or supernatural. If so, everything that was once regarded as having been supernatural will be regarded (if it cannot be dismissed) as paranormal and, maybe, if and when it is explained by science, as natural. Indeed, Sigmund Freud sought to explain even God as but a natural--and in Freud’s opinion, an obsolete--phenomenon.

Meanwhile, among skeptics, there is an ongoing campaign to eliminate the paranormal by explaining them as products of ignorance, misunderstanding, or deceit. Ridicule is also a tactic that skeptics sometimes employ in this campaign. For example, The Skeptics’ Dictionary contends that the perception of some “events” as being of a paranormal nature may be attributed to “ignorance or magical thinking.” The dictionary is equally suspicious of each individual phenomenon or “paranormal science” as well. Concerning psychics’ alleged ability to discern future events, for example, The Skeptic’s Dictionary quotes Jay Leno (“How come you never see a headline like 'Psychic Wins Lottery'?”), following with a number of similar observations:

Psychics don't rely on psychics to warn them of impending disasters. Psychics don't predict their own deaths or diseases. They go to the dentist like the rest of us. They're as surprised and disturbed as the rest of us when they have to call a plumber or an electrician to fix some defect at home. Their planes are delayed without their being able to anticipate the delays. If they want to know something about Abraham Lincoln, they go to the library; they don't try to talk to Abe's spirit. In short, psychics live by the known laws of nature except when they are playing the psychic game with people.
In An Encyclopedia of Claims, Frauds, and Hoaxes of the Occult and Supernatural, James Randi, a magician who exercises a skeptical attitude toward all things alleged to be paranormal or supernatural, takes issue with the notion of such phenomena as well, often employing the same arguments and rhetorical strategies as The Skeptic’s Dictionary.

In short, the difference between the paranormal and the supernatural lies in whether one is a materialist, believing in only the existence of matter and energy, or a dualist, believing in the existence of both matter and energy and spirit. If one maintains a belief in the reality of the spiritual, he or she will classify such entities as angels, demons, ghosts, gods, vampires, and other threats of a spiritual nature as supernatural, rather than paranormal, phenomena. He or she may also include witches (because, although they are human, they are empowered by the devil, who is himself a supernatural entity) and other natural threats that are energized, so to speak, by a power that transcends nature and is, as such, outside or beyond the universe. Otherwise, one is likely to reject the supernatural as a category altogether, identifying every inexplicable phenomenon as paranormal, whether it is dark matter or a teenage werewolf. Indeed, some scientists dedicate at least part of their time to debunking allegedly paranormal phenomena, explaining what natural conditions or processes may explain them, as the author of The Serpent and the Rainbow explains the creation of zombies by voodoo priests.

Based upon my recent reading of Tzvetan Todorov's The Fantastic: A Structural Approach to the Fantastic, I add the following addendum to this essay.

According to Todorov:

The fantastic. . . lasts only as long as a certain hesitation [in deciding] whether or not what they [the reader and the protagonist] perceive derives from "reality" as it exists in the common opinion. . . . If he [the reader] decides that the laws of reality remain intact and permit an explanation of the phenomena described, we can say that the work belongs to the another genre [than the fantastic]: the uncanny. If, on the contrary, he decides that new laws of nature must be entertained to account for the phenomena, we enter the genre of the marvelous (The Fantastic: A Structural Approach to a Literary Genre, 41).
Todorov further differentiates these two categories by characterizing the uncanny as “the supernatural explained” and the marvelous as “the supernatural accepted” (41-42).

Interestingly, the prejudice against even the possibility of the supernatural’s existence which is implicit in the designation of natural versus paranormal phenomena, which excludes any consideration of the supernatural, suggests that there are no marvelous phenomena; instead, there can be only the uncanny. Consequently, for those who subscribe to this view, the fantastic itself no longer exists in this scheme, for the fantastic depends, as Todorov points out, upon the tension of indecision concerning to which category an incident belongs, the natural or the supernatural. The paranormal is understood, by those who posit it, in lieu of the supernatural, as the natural as yet unexplained.

And now, back to a fate worse than death: grading students’ papers.

My Cup of Blood

Anyone who becomes an aficionado of anything tends, eventually, to develop criteria for elements or features of the person, place, or thing of whom or which he or she has become enamored. Horror fiction--admittedly not everyone’s cuppa blood--is no different (okay, maybe it’s a little different): it, too, appeals to different fans, each for reasons of his or her own. Of course, in general, book reviews, the flyleaves of novels, and movie trailers suggest what many, maybe even most, readers of a particular type of fiction enjoy, but, right here, right now, I’m talking more specifically--one might say, even more eccentrically. In other words, I’m talking what I happen to like, without assuming (assuming makes an “ass” of “u” and “me”) that you also like the same. It’s entirely possible that you will; on the other hand, it’s entirely likely that you won’t.

Anyway, this is what I happen to like in horror fiction:

Small-town settings in which I get to know the townspeople, both the good, the bad, and the ugly. For this reason alone, I’m a sucker for most of Stephen King’s novels. Most of them, from 'Salem's Lot to Under the Dome, are set in small towns that are peopled by the good, the bad, and the ugly. Part of the appeal here, granted, is the sense of community that such settings entail.

Isolated settings, such as caves, desert wastelands, islands, mountaintops, space, swamps, where characters are cut off from civilization and culture and must survive and thrive or die on their own, without assistance, by their wits and other personal resources. Many are the examples of such novels and screenplays, but Alien, The Shining, The Descent, Desperation, and The Island of Dr. Moreau, are some of the ones that come readily to mind.

Total institutions as settings. Camps, hospitals, military installations, nursing homes, prisons, resorts, spaceships, and other worlds unto themselves are examples of such settings, and Sleepaway Camp, Coma, The Green Mile, and Aliens are some of the novels or films that take place in such settings.

Anecdotal scenes--in other words, short scenes that showcase a character--usually, an unusual, even eccentric, character. Both Dean Koontz and the dynamic duo, Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child, excel at this, so I keep reading their series (although Koontz’s canine companions frequently--indeed, almost always--annoy, as does his relentless optimism).

Atmosphere, mood, and tone. Here, King is king, but so is Bentley Little. In the use of description to terrorize and horrify, both are masters of the craft.

A bit of erotica (okay, okay, sex--are you satisfied?), often of the unusual variety. Sex sells, and, yes, sex whets my reader’s appetite. Bentley Little is the go-to guy for this spicy ingredient, although Koontz has done a bit of seasoning with this spice, too, in such novels as Lightning and Demon Seed (and, some say, Hung).

Believable characters. Stephen King, Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child, and Dan Simmons are great at creating characters that stick to readers’ ribs.

Innovation. Bram Stoker demonstrates it, especially in his short story “Dracula’s Guest,” as does H. P. Lovecraft, Edgar Allan Poe, Shirley Jackson, and a host of other, mostly classical, horror novelists and short story writers. For an example, check out my post on Stoker’s story, which is a real stoker, to be sure. Stephen King shows innovation, too, in ‘Salem’s Lot, The Shining, It, and other novels. One might even argue that Dean Koontz’s something-for-everyone, cross-genre writing is innovative; he seems to have been one of the first, if not the first, to pen such tales.

Technique. Check out Frank Peretti’s use of maps and his allusions to the senses in Monster; my post on this very topic is worth a look, if I do say so myself, which, of course, I do. Opening chapters that accomplish a multitude of narrative purposes (not usually all at once, but successively) are attractive, too, and Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child are as good as anyone, and better than many, at this art.

A connective universe--a mythos, if you will, such as both H. P. Lovecraft and Stephen King, and, to a lesser extent, Dean Koontz, Bentley Little, and even Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child have created through the use of recurring settings, characters, themes, and other elements of fiction.

A lack of pretentiousness. Dean Koontz has it, as do Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child, Bentley Little, and (to some extent, although he has become condescending and self-indulgent of late, Stephen King); unfortunately, both Dan Simmons and Robert McCammon have become too self-important in their later works, Simmons almost to the point of becoming unreadable. Come on, people, you’re writing about monsters--you should be humble.

Longevity. Writers who have been around for a while usually get better, Stephen King, Dan Simmons, and Robert McCammon excepted.

Pacing. Neither too fast nor too slow. Dean Koontz is good, maybe the best, here, of contemporary horror writers.


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