Showing posts with label survival. Show all posts
Showing posts with label survival. Show all posts

Thursday, July 8, 2021

Evolution, Psychology, and Horror, Part III

Copyright 2021 by Gary L. Pullman

 

Note: This post assumes that you have seen the movie Backcountry. If you have not, Wikipedia offers a fairly detailed, accurate summary of the film's plot.

'BackCountry' and 'The Harvest' Debut on Blu-ray This Fall!!! - Boomstick Comics 

 Source: boomstickcomics.com

As we saw in Part I, Alex is a foil to Jen; his traits, which are opposite to those of hers, highlight Jen's traits, or “evolved adaptations,” as they are known in evolutionary psychology. But, just as Alex is Jen's foil, Brad is a foil to Alex; Brad's traits are different from those of Alex and, therefore, highlight Alex's evolved adaptations, just as Alex's traits highlight those of Jen.

Backcountry | Netflix

Source: netflix.com

Brad appears at Alex's and Jen's campsite while Alex is away, chopping firewood. After leaving his hatched stuck in a tree trunk, Alex returns to their campsite, where he is both surprised and annoyed to see Brad. Jen tells her boyfriend that she has invited Brad, a tour guide, to have dinner with them. Brad has offered to contribute a hefty string of fish he has caught.


Backcountry (2014) by Adam MacDonald

Source: cinemamontreal.com

From the beginning of their encounter, Brad seeks to assert his dominance over Alex. Clearly, Brad is an alpha male, and he expects to lead, not follow, even if only during the meal he shares with his hosts. A skilled woodsman, Brad is confident, competent, knowledgeable, experienced, decisive, and aggressive.

https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2Ftse1.mm.bing.net%2Fth%3Fid%3DOIP.NbeX5OQQd_tvGZW4hao05gHaEK%26pid%3DApi&f=1

Source: dailymotion.com

During their conversation, Brad suggests that, both as a woodsman and as a man, Alex is insecure, incompetent, ignorant, inexperienced, indecisive, and passive—the opposite of Brad himself. Brad's contribution to their meal are the fish that he himself has caught. Significantly, Jen provides her and Brad's contribution, which they bought in a store. Brad's contribution was caught, live, in the wild. Theirs was purchased in a package, already prepared. Brad's fish are animals; Jen's and Alex's contribution is bloodless vegetables harvested and packaged by strangers. When Jen offers to prepare a vegetable as a side dish, Alex chooses one kind, while Brad selects another. Jen sides with Alex, but Brad orders her to prepare the vegetable he wants, not the one Alex has chosen. Diplomatically, she says she will prepare both. Alex does not challenge Brad; he lets Jen answer their guest, despite Brad's usurpation of Alex's own authority as host.

Backcountry - Gnadenlose Wildnis - Fischpott

 Source: fischpott.com

Brad also implicitly insults Brad. When Brad tells him that he plans to start a landscaping business, Brad replies, in a racist statement, that he that thought “Mexicans” did that type of work. On the other hand, Brad admires Jen's profession, law, which is, in Brad's view, superior to the manual labor that Alex names as his intended vocation. Brad has a “manly” profession: he is a tour guide with expert knowledge about the park, its trails, and its flora and fauna, a man at home in the wilderness, who can fend for himself while directing others in his charge.

Brad boldly violates propriety when he stands, his back to Jen and Alex, unzips his fly, and urinates. Most men would not only object to such conduct, but be willing to come to blows with any man who presumed to do such a thing in their girlfriends' presence. Alex neither says nothing to Brad nor reacts violently. He merely looks at Jen in disgust and says something to her: “Really?”


https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a6/Canada_Southern_Ontario_location_map_2.png

 Powassan, Ontario, Canada. Source: Wikipedia

Brad also impugns Alex's knowledge of the park that Alex claims to know well, asking him which side of the park's waterfall someone should climb down. When Alex correctly answers, “The right side,” Brad smirks. “Good guess,” he says.

Finally, as he is about to depart, Brad asks Alex what he'd meant when Alex had said Jen's inviting him to have dinner with them might have been dangerous. When Alex demurs from answering, Brad insists. Finally, Alex tells him that Jen did not know Brad; Brad had been a stranger. As far as Jen had known, Brad might have been “a nut.” By the time Brad takes his leave, he has dominated, insulted, humiliated, defied both Alex and Jen, but especially Alex. He has also make it clear that, in a hostile or dangerous encounter with nature, he is likely to triumph or, at least, survive; audiences cannot be as certain about Alex's fate under the same circumstances.

The conflict between Alex and Brad further defines Alex, just as his relationship with Jen defines him. In both cases, Alex loses. His traits, or evolved adaptations, might serve him well in other environments, but they are unlikely to help him survive in the wild, no matter how well he thinks he knows the provincial park or the ways of the woods and its wildlife.


Next post: Evolution, Psychology, and Final Girl.

 

Evolution, Psychology, and Horror, Part II

 Copyright 2021 by Gary L. Pullman

Source: Wikiepdia

Note: This post assumes that you have seen the movie Backcountry. If you have not, Wikipedia offers a fairly detailed, accurate summary of the film's plot.

 

As prompts for groups in my English 101 classes, after we had watched Backcountry (2014) and the class had been divided into groups, I would distribute these instructions:

 

Which personality traits (use nouns to identify them) are predicated or dependent upon others? Which are primary and which are secondary? In other words, can an immature person be responsible? Can a cowardly person defend someone else if doing so puts him or her in danger? In developing your thesis, you should consider these questions, so that your claim is not self-contradictory.

Fill in the three blanks with the TRAITS (use nouns to identify them) of Alex’s character that you see as related to his errors of judgment. (Make sure these errors lead to his death and to Jen’s endangerment.) Some of these errors may directly lead to consequences; others may indirectly do so. In your paragraphs, you should distinguish the former from the latter.

THESIS:  Alex’s ______________,   ______________, and ______________ lead him to make many errors of judgment that result in his death and Jen’s endangerment.

Based upon the thesis, write the body paragraph (1, 2, or 3) assigned to your group. The first sentence should be the paragraph’s topic sentence. Use simple present tense.

 

The blanks could be filled in with a variety of traits, but let's use this thesis for the purposes of this post:


 

THESIS:  Alex’s immaturity, self-interest, and impetuosity lead him to make many errors of judgment that result in his death and Jen’s endangerment.

 

If a trait is defined as an evolved adaptation, we must ask, how each of Alex's adaptations, or traits, promotes his survival and the chance that he will generate offspring through reproduction. Since he, in fact, does not survive and, therefore, cannot reproduce, the answer is apparent at once that his adaptations do not "work"; they do not enable him to survive. Quite the contrary, they are, essentially, the death of him—and nearly of Jen. Simple. Lacking the traits that do promote survival, he dies.

His girlfriend is the final girl, who survives their ordeal. Therefore, it is her traits, or adaptations, that we should examine.

In many ways, she is a foil, or opposite, to Alex. We could fill in the thesis's blanks with traits that are the opposite of Alex's own and produce a good summary of some of the adaptations that enable her to survive their ordeal:

 

THESIS:  Jen’s maturity, altruism, and caution lead her to make sound judgments that result in her survival.

 

Another way to approach our consideration is to identify the mistakes that each character makes during their visit to a provincial park in Canada.


 Source: allocine.fr

Let's start with Alex, who makes considerably more mistakes and more serious ones than Jen; as we list his errors, we will also characterize them as springing from poor judgment; an immature desire to impress Jen; inconsideration; deceitfulness; negligence; carelessness; an immature desire to focus Jen's attention on himself; or recklessness.

  • He refuses the map of the camp that the ranger offers him: poor judgment; an immature desire to impress Jen. (Jen and Alex become lost and have no guidance out of the woods. His behavior could endanger their lives.)

  • He leaves Jen's cell phone in the trunk of their vehicle: poor judgment; an immature desire to focus Jen's attention on himself; deceitfulness. (Without a phone, Alex and Jen have no way to call for help. His behavior could endanger their lives.)

  • He neglects tending to his toe after dropping their canoe on it: poor judgment; an immature desire to impress Jen; recklessness. (He could have become incapacitated or died of an infection, so his neglect endangers himself and, possibly, Jen by making her more vulnerable.)

  • He removes his clothes and leaps naked into a lake: poor judgment; recklessness. (He could injure himself on a rock in the lake and, without clothes to keep him warm, he could succumb to the cold, endangering his own life and potentially leaving Jen unprotected.)

  • He leaves Jen alone to cut firewood: poor judgment. (By herself, she is vulnerable to animal attack or the assault of another camper; thus, he endangers her life.)

  • He leaves his hatchet in the trunk of a tree: poor judgment. (He leaves a potential weapon behind, both depriving himself of its use and potentially arming a human predator; he thus endangers both Jen's life and his own.)

  • He does not dismiss a stranger (Brad), whom, in Alex's absence, Jen invites to join Alex and her for dinner at their campsite: poor judgment. (The stranger, Brad, who happens upon Jen could be dangerous: he might have raped or killed Jen. His behavior could endanger their lives.)

  • Even after learning that Brad is in the park, Alex again leaves Jen alone at their campsite, he leaves Jen alone again to retrieve the hatchet he's left embedded in a tree trunk: poor judgment. (By herself, she is vulnerable to animal attack or the assault of another camper; thus, he endangers her life.)

  • He does not turn back when he sees bear prints: poor judgment; recklessness. (His inaction could endanger their lives.)

  • He does not ell Jen that there is a bear in the area: poor judgment; deceitfulness. (Jen has bear spray and a traffic flare that they could use against the bear, but she is unaware of its presence. The bear could kill someone. His behavior endangers their lives.)

  • He does not investigate noises that Jen hears during their first night in their tent: poor judgment. (His inaction could endanger their lives.)

  • He sees a sapling's snapped-off branch, but ignores its significance: poor judgment; recklessness; deceitfulness. (His inaction could endanger their lives.)

  • Even after seeing the carcass of a dead deer indicating the presence of a bear—and of a bear that is both starving (bears, otherwise, don't eat meat—and predatory)—Alex refuses to leave the park: poor judgment. (His decision could endanger their lives.)

  • He continues to hike, deeper into the forest, even after he realizes he is lost: poor judgment; recklessness. (His action could endanger their lives.)

  • He hastens up the trail ahead of Jen, leaving her vulnerable, as they ascend the mountainside: carelessness, inconsideration. (His inconsideration could endanger their lives.)

  • Even after the bear visits their campsite, Alex refuses to leave the park: poor judgment; recklessness. (His refusal to leave the park endangers their lives.) 

  • Alex leaves his axe outside the tent: carelessness. (He leaves a potential weapon behind, depriving himself of its use, which endangers their lives.)

    Source: showbizjunkies.com
     

Jen also makes several mistakes:

  • She does not insist that Alex accept a park map from the ranger or accept one herself: poor judgment. (She and Alex could get lost. Her behavior could endanger their lives.)

  • In Alex's absence, Jen invites Brad onto their campsite: poor judgment. (Since she does not know Brad, Jen could be endangering her and Alex's lives and could be putting herself in danger of being raped.)

  • Jen does not insist that Alex make sure the “acorns” he says are falling on their tent really are acorns: poor judgment. (Her behavior could endanger their lives.)

  • Jen does not insist that Alex take her home after she sees evidence of the nearby presence of a bear: poor judgment; recklessness: poor judgment; recklessness. (Her behavior could endanger their lives.)

  • Jen returns to their campsite after the bear has killed Alex so she can retrieve the engagement ring he has shown her: poor judgment; recklessness. (Her behavior could endanger her life. lives.)

Source: anthonybehindthescenes.com

It seems that Jen's mistakes stem from her desire to support Alex and to prevent damage to his ego and self-esteem, from her needs to be friendly and to feel liked, and from her love of him.

Although she is a successful lawyer, while he plans to start a landscaping service, she often defers to his judgment and to his needs and desires, rather than pursuing or seeking to advance her own.

Rather than insisting that he accept the map of the park that the ranger offers him, Jen accepts his refusal, probably because she does not want to embarrass Alex by casting doubts on his knowledge of the park.

She invites Brad to join Alex and her because she is a friendly person.

Alex professes to be an expert on hiking and camping, especially at the park, which he implies he knows well. Jen probably refrains from insisting that Alex check out the unfamiliar sounds she hears while she and Alex are in their tent for the same reason that she does not insist that he take a map from the ranger: she does not want to embarrass Alex by casting doubts on his knowledge of the park.

It seems that, when it becomes clear they are, without doubt, lost, Jen does not insist that Alex take her home after she sees evidence of the nearby presence of a bear because she does she has feelings for him and may feel sorry for him. Likewise, after Alex's death, she returns to their campsite, despite the bear's presence, so that she can retrieve the engagement ring he has shown her, because she has feelings for Alex and wants a memento of his love for her.

Although Jen, like Alex, makes mistakes in judgment when she is with Alex, she is not a woodman and the couple's survival is not primarily her responsibility. In addition, she is not deceitful toward Alex, as he is to her.

When she is alone, after Alex's death, her decisions are wise, allowing her to survive the bear and the wilderness. The fact that she makes no mistakes when she is alone suggests that her romantic relationship with Alex clouded her judgment; without him, she makes clear, rational, wise decisions and takes prudent, effective action, which enables her to survive.

In adapting to his environment, Alex has developed traits which serve his emotional needs, but he lacks adaptations that pertain to practical, everyday matters, including traits related to analysis, evaluation, and survival. He is overconfident. He seeks to impress others, especially Jen. He wants to be the sole focus of Jen's attention. He is deceitful, often hiding the truth from Jen regarding their situation and the danger they face. He is careless at times and reckless. He is immature. He is irresponsible.

In a different environment, such as Jen's house or the city, such traits might not fail him, because his survival is protected by institutions (art and culture, commercial and industrial enterprises, economic systems, family, friends, government, hospitals, language, legal systems, mass media, military forces, penal systems, schools, scientific research laboratories, religion); organizations, such as charities, emergency responders, and fraternal societies; an infrastructure (energy, highways, railroads, rivers, warehouses).

Jen, on the other hand, although not without flaws of her own, is cautious, mature, responsible, and resourceful. She is a thinker; she analyzes, evaluates, and plans.
In the city, society has individuals' backs. In the wilderness, individuals need to be able to take care of themselves. Those who can, as Jen does, are likely to survive; those who cannot, as Alex does not, will probably die.

By putting to opposite characters side by side in an environment different that their typical surroundings, Backcountry tests the effectiveness of the respective characters' evolved adaptations. The unfamiliar surroundings, the remoteness of the park, the rugged terrain, the stranger Brad, and, of course, the bear all pose threats or potential threats; each tests the evolved adaptations, or the traits, and the behaviors of the couple. One perishes; the other survives. The reason for one's failure and the other's success is that Jen had evolved adaptations that are effective for survival in the wilderness, whereas Alex has not. Without the support of society, civilization, and culture, Alex cannot survive and dies; Jen can and lives. The park is an environment, an arena, a laboratory, that puts traits to the test. Jen passes, but Alex receives the Darwin Award.


Source:  alenatedinvancouver.blogspot,com

Next post: Evolution, Psychology, and Horror, Part II

Wednesday, July 7, 2021

Evolution, Psychology, and Horror, Part I

Copyright 2012 by Gary L. Pullman

 

Source: kickstarter.com

According to evolutionary psychologists, human behavior evolved through adaptations that had survival, including reproductive, value. Although not without its critics, who see the school as seriously flawed, evolutionary psychology may offer some insights of value to readers and writers of horror fiction.

 

Leda Cosmides and John Tooby. Source: news.uscb.edu

According to evolutionary psychologists Leda Cosmides and John Tooby, the discipline regards the brain as “a computer designed by natural selection to extract information from the environment” and this organ generates the behavior of individuals based on its “cognitive programs,” adaptations that “produced behavior” that “enabled [our ancestors] to survive and reproduce.”

 

Einstein's brain. Source: thespec.com

Therefore, to understand what makes people tick, these programs must be understood and explained. As a result of natural selection, the brain consists of “different special[-]purpose programs” rather than having “a . . . general architecture.” Finally, the description of the “evolved computational architecture of our brains 'allows a systematic understanding of cultural and social phenomena.'”

 

Psychological Methods. Source: slideshare.net

The method of evolutionary psychology is not entirely scientific. After detecting “apparent design in the world” (e. g., in the brain), they seek to produce a “scenario” that suggests the selective processes that could account for “the production of the trait that exhibits [this] apparent design” and then put their hypotheses to the test of “standard psychological methods.” Thus, their approach seems part thought experiment, part scientific method and has been challenged on both counts.

 

Waist-hip ratio in women. Source: ergo-log.com

For example, men, shown illustrations of potential female mates exhibiting “varying waist[-]hip ratios,” preferred those depicting “women with waist/hip ratios closer to .7,” because hips wider than waists suggested that the women who possessed them would be likely to be more “fertile” and, as such, better able to “contribute to the survival and reproduction of the organism.”

 


"Would you survive?" Source: thequiz.com

One theme of horror fiction is the survival of the threat posed by the villain or monster. Both novels and movies often show their characters' use of a variety of attempts at, or methods of, survival, most of which prove futile. Often, in the slasher sub-genre, the sole survivor of the group's encounter with the antagonist is the so-called final girl.

 

 
There's a reason they're called "slashers'? Source: whatculture.com

These films implicitly invite audiences to compare the methods of survival—i. e., the behavior—of the characters: who did what to survive, and which one, ultimately, succeeded. Why did she succeed? Why did each of the other characters fail? Not only do slasher (and, of course, other types of horror fiction and drama) thus provide models for analyzing and evaluating both failed and successful survival adaptations, but the slasher also offers a list, as it were, of each.

Let's take a look at three horror movies that focus on the characters' attempts to survive the threat of an antagonist. The first, Backcountry (2014), involves a predatory animal; the second, Final Girl (2015), features a band of men who hunt a woman for sport; the third, The Exorcist (1973), presents a supernatural threat. The first involves a “woman vs. nature” plot; the second, a “woman vs. men” plot; the third, a “man vs. supernatural monster” plot. Each involves a final girl as the survivor of her respective threat.


Next post: Jen's survival


 

Tuesday, March 17, 2020

The Horror of Abandonment

Copyright 202 by Gary L. Pullman 

Although the evil in Cujo takes the form of a rabid dog, this poster suggests the true evil of the movie based on Stephen King's novel: the adulterous affair that arises from neglect and represents an abandonment of the adulteress's husband and son; it is her unfaithfulness that tears her family apart.

A major theme of horror stories, in both film and in print, is abandonment. Often, such desertion is symbolically represented by an abandoned house or by empty rooms. It is also frequently suggested by images of crumbling stone castles or manor houses or by dilapidated houses or other symbols of neglect, including yards overrun with weeds, uncut grass, and overgrown sheds or other structures. In itself, isolation can also be representative of abandonment: a remote cabin in the woods, a castle atop a lone promontory, an expanse of empty beach, an uninhabited island, the middle of a desert, a narrow trail through a rain forest, an oil rig at sea.


The type of edifice or landscape can also imply what has been abandoned or what is at risk of abandonment: a church may suggest that religious faith has been abandoned; a hospital, the attempt to control or cure a rampant disease; a manor house, a family and its connection to the community of which it was once a vital part; a military barracks, war or peace (depending on the reason for abandonment); a strip mall, a dearth of customers.


In every case, the common element is change: something has occurred that has caused the clergy or the congregants, the medical staff or the patients, the family members, the troops, or the business owners or the customers to leave their beloved or customary place of worship, medical center, home, installation, or shopping center. The “something” is apt to be the story's villain, whatever form it takes.


Being abandoned is horrific because it results in the loss of social, psychological, commercial, medical, and other forms of support vital to the abandoned individual's or individuals' safety, health, and welfare. Being abandoned forces the abandoned to fend for themselves, even when they do not have the expertise to do so. In a highly technologically advanced society, no one can know all things or do all things. Assistance in many, not a few, endeavors is both essential and necessary. Most cannot diagnose and treat health complaints, especially horrific injuries or potentially fatal diseases; resist or defeat an army; or provide the products of the marketplace crucial to individual and communal survival.
We are, each and all, much more dependent than we might like to admit; we owe our continued happiness, safety, health, and welfare to others much more than we do to ourselves. That is the message of horror stories in which a villainous force or being lays waste to the infrastructure of religious, psychological, social, medical, commercial, and other means of support essential to human life. We like to think of ourselves as independent, as able to fend for ourselves, as self-sufficient and autonomous individuals.


Horror stories that rely on the theme of abandonment beg to differ; they take, as their implicit or explicit task, the teaching of the lessons of our mutual dependence, of our need for one another, of our need to rely on each other rather than to deceive ourselves with the erroneous belief that we are, each and all, self-reliant. The recognition of such a reality should promote humility and compassion and generosity. In horror stories, it is characters with these attributes who, generally speaking, survive, while the arrogant, the indifferent, and the parsimonious do not. In the midst of the coronavirus pandemic, these are wise, worthwhile lessons, to be sure.






Monday, March 18, 2019

Now available on Amazon

My latest novel, part thriller and part horror, Blue Mountain Detour, is now available, both in paperback and as an e-book on Amazon.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1090784392

Synopsis

Nathan Henderson, a Special Forces veteran with a horrific past, hopes a few weeks in Virginia's beautiful Blue Ridge Mountains will be just the tonic he and his family need. When they encounter a detour on the way to their remote cabin, however, a clan of sociopaths tests Nathan's fighting and survival skills. Can the former Green Beret protect his family from the double threat of the brutal mountaineers and their associates, a band of fearsome outlaw bikers?

Monday, February 18, 2019

Adaptation and Survival: The Selection of Heroic Traits

Copyright 2019 by Gary L. Pullman
 
Laurie Strode, of the Halloween franchise, survived several times against her supernatural adversary Michael Myers (aka “The Shape”). As a final girl, she represents a character who possesses the fitness to adapt to her environment and, therefore, survive to pass her genes to her offspring (unlike those of her peers whose genetic inheritance wasn't sufficient to ensure their own survival). The question arises, What traits helped Laurie to survive against Myers? What was, in the Darwinian sense, special about her?


Her older sister Judith, the first of Myers's victims, was stabbed to death when Laurie was but a young girl. (At the time, Judith was in her teens, and Myers, her older brother, was six years old.) In January 1965, her parents were killed in a car accident, and four-year-old Laurie was adopted by Morgan and Pamela Strode, who changed her last name to theirs. The governor of Illinois ordered that the adoption records be sealed so that Myers would not be able to connect Laurie Strode to his surviving sister. Eventually, Laurie no longer recalled her original family.

By 1978, Laurie had developed into a shy, introverted, 17-year-old girl who preferred books to boys. The Strodes owned the Myers house, in which Laurie grew up, and Morgan asked her to return the keys to the house. On her way to do so, she spotted a male stranger who seemed to be shadowing her. She learned that one of her friends, Lynda, has also been followed by a mysterious man.

While babysitting Tommy Doyle, the son of neighbors, Laurie was visited by her fellow babysitter, Annie Brackett, who asked Laurie to babysit her charge, Linsdey Wallace, so Annie could be with her boyfriend, Paul Freedman. Reluctantly, Laurie agreed, after Annie promised to break the date she'd arranged, without Laurie's knowledge or consent, between Laurie and Bennett Tramer, a boy in whom Laurie was interested. 

 

When Laurie visited the Wallaces' house to check on Annie, Laurie discovered the bodies of Annie, Lynda Van Der Klok, and Lynda's boyfriend, Bob Simms, positioned throughout the house. Myers, who'd returned to Laurie's (and his own) hometown, Haddonfield, Illinois—he'd been the mysterious figure Laurie had spied following her—attacked Laurie, slicing her arm with his knife. Laurie fell off the second-story landing and down the stairs, fracturing her ankle. She managed to limp to the Doyles' house, calling for the children to admit her. When Tommy did so, she entered the house and locked the door. Myers slipped through a window, attacking Laurie again. 

 

She fended him off, stabbing him in the neck with a knitting needle, before running upstairs. Myers pursued her, cornering her in a bedroom closet. Although he attempted to stab her with his knife, Laurie straightened a clothes hanger, using it to jab Myers in the eye, and he dropped his knife. Laurie picked up the weapon, stabbing Myers in the stomach. He fell to the floor, and Laurie assumed she'd killed him. Leaving the closet, she ordered the children to flee the house. Soon thereafter, Myers began to strangle her, but Laurie pulled his mask away, exposing his face. Myers's former psychiatrist, Doctor Samuel Loomis, arrived and shot Myers six times, each bullet driving him backward, through the bedroom window, and he fell from the balcony. Loomis looked, but Myers was nowhere in sight.


Biographies of the victims in the original Halloween movie (Annie Brackett, Lynda Van Der Klok, and Lynda's boyfriend, Bob Simms) suggest that they have mostly negative traits which advance their needs and desires at the expense of the welfare of others, while the survivor, Laurie Strode's personality traits, which are mostly positive, tend to favor both her own welfare and that of others. As such, Laurie's characteristics allow her to unite with others against a common enemy (as she does in later films of the franchise or to act in support of both her own welfare and that of others, as she does throughout the franchise).

Laurie Strode (Final Girl)
Traits
(Green + socially sanctioned; red = socially condemned; uncolored = socially neutral)


Kindness
Shyness
Introversion
Studiousness
Defiance
Responsibility
Persistence
Courage
Inventiveness
Annie Brackett (Victim)
Deceptive
Sarcastic
Hasty
Exhibitionistic
Impertinent
Aggressive
Presumptuous
Defiant
Manipulative
Irresponsible
Promiscuous
Lynda Van Der Klok (Victim)
Disorganized and unfocused
Gregarious
Extroverted
Social
Unscholarly
Loud
Annoying
Promiscuous
Brash
Defiant
Teasing
Titillating
Bob Simms (Victim)
Athletic
Intelligent
Deceptive
Irresponsible
Defiant
Rash

Laurie's positive values are those endorsed by her society and culture, the values of secular humanism, or what the philosopher Friedrich Nietsche calls (and condemns as) “herd morality.” According to Nietsche,

Herd morality is a development of the original slave morality which inherits most of its content, including a reinterpretation of various traits: impotence becomes goodness of heart, craven fear becomes humility, submission becomes ‘obedience’, [sic] cowardice and being forced to wait become patience, the inability to take revenge becomes forgiveness, the desire for revenge becomes a desire for justice, a hatred of one’s enemy becomes a hatred of injustice (Genealogy of Morals).

He condemns herd morality, because, he says,

Well-being’ in herd morality limits human beings, promoting people who are modest, submissive and conforming . And so it opposes the development of higher people, it slanders their will to power and labels them evil. Belief in its values limits people who could become higher people, leading them to self-doubt and self-loathing ( Genealogy of Morals).


If Laurie, the final girl, the survivor not only of the original Halloween movie, but also of the entire franchise to date, adheres to herd morality, the victims, those who fail to survive, must represent the opposing morality that Nietsche characterizes as a position “beyond good and evil,” the amoral stance of the superman, which reverses the tenets of the herd morality and could, thus be characterized as its opposite, an amoral position opposed to herd morality and to the original slave morality from which herd morality developed, based on the ideas that—

Heroic Amorality
Herd Morality
Goodness of heart
Impotence
Craven fear
Humility
Submission
Obedience
Cowardice and being forced to wait
Patience
The inability to take revenge
Forgiveness
The desire for revenge
Justice
Hatred of one's enemy
Hatred of injustice

If we list Myers's personality traits, as they are presented or suggested by his behavior, we see a predator motivated by impulses that are considered, as Dr. Loomis later describes them, “pure evil.” In other words, Myers is everything civilized society condemns:

Michael Myers (Predator)
Traits
(Green + socially sanctioned; red = socially condemned; uncolored = socially neutral)


Irrational
Sociopathic
Amoral
Emotionless
Evil

Murderous
Schizophrenic
Vengeful
Predatory
Voyeuristic
Violent
Persistent
Thieving
Duplicitous
Superhuman stealth, strength, endurance, durability, survivability

For Nietzsche, the opposite of the herd is the Superman,” a “superior man [who] would not be a product of long evolution; rather, he would emerge when any man with superior potential completely masters himself and strikes off conventional Christian 'herd morality' to create his own values, which are completely rooted in life on this earth. Nietzsche was not forecasting the brutal superman of the German Nazis, for his goal was a “Caesar with Christ’s soul.”

Thus, we see that, although Myers may have some of the traits of the Nietzschean superman, Myers, lacking “Christ's soul,” is not such a figure, nor is he a type of Caesar, for Caesar conquered nations; he did not waste his life murdering individuals for no apparent motive, nor were his foes, for the most part, teenagers, women, children, and helpless men, as were Myers's victims.

If anything, he is a rogue figure, without any redeeming qualities, something neither human nor superhuman, but subhuman. Unless one is a Caesar, the herd is needed to resist such a creature, a herd energized by the traits that make up the final girl, Laurie Strode's character, although she might be better off with the defiance exhibited in her smoking marijuana, a substance which, at the time she used it, was illegal, set apart by society as forbidden and dangerous. (It does no good to argue that, today, the recreational use of marijuana is tolerated, if not accepted, by most of the population, as, ordinarily, a character must be judged by the moral standards—and, indeed, by the laws—of the society of the time; although an act or an institution—whether the smoking of marijuana or slavery—may be reckoned as having been right or wrong by later generations, it is a rare person who transcends a contemporary understanding of right and wrong during his or her own lifetime.)







Thursday, February 25, 2010

Quick Tip: Monstrous Motivations

Copyright 2010 by Gary L. Pullman

To start, let’s list a dozen horror stories and the antagonists, or monsters, which each of them features. No, on second thought, let’s make that a baker’s dozen; thirteen seems a more appropriate number for horror:
Now, let’s list the motivation of each monster.

Wait a minute! you say. Monsters aren’t human (well, at least not all of them are); they don’t reason; they don’t have objectives; they don’t act upon emotions. They’re monsters!

You may have a point, logically speaking, but fiction isn’t logical--at least, not entirely. Sure, there’s a cause-and-effect relationship among the incidents that comprise a plot, but causes need not be reasons, any more than motives must be rational. Motives can be rational, but, in the broad sense, they can also be emotional or, for that matter, even instinctive or reflexive. So, yes, monsters do have motives.

Ergo, let’s list the motivation of each monster on our list:

As we’ve seen, monsters, even non-human ones, do have motives. Why? For dramatic, more than for realistic, purposes.

In reality, it is unlikely that creatures such as bogeymen, aliens, trolls, dragons, demons, vampires, gorillas, and ghosts have motives (other than, in the case of gorillas or other animal antagonists) that can be known or even surmised with anything approaching certainty. But, like a jury who is expected to convict a defendant who risks a life sentence or execution, readers want to know not only the who?, what?, when?, and where?, but, above all, the why?, before they’re willing to believe in the monster and to want its imprisonment or execution.

Besides, motivating a monster, even a non-human one, makes the monstrous antagonist at least somewhat understandable to the reader (or moviegoer). It’s hard to believe in an antagonist that is so alien from us that we cannot comprehend why it wants to spindle, fold, and mutilate the human characters in the story.

So, here’s the upshot of this “quick tip”: motivate your monster.

Monday, August 4, 2008

Sexing It Up, Part II

copyright 2008 by Gary L. Pullman

With few exceptions, horror fiction has a reputation for being puerile and jejune. One might add that this reputation, hard won, is well deserved. However, the same charge may be leveled accurately at any other genre of fiction and, indeed, has been leveled at many classics in mainstream fiction as well by the critics and contemporary authors of the day in which these literary classics made their debuts. It may be interesting to some to review the plots of a few of the more brazenly irrelevant examples of what might be termed erotic films. In doing so, it should be apparent to any that the flimsiest excuse for a model or an actress to doff her clothing was regarded as reason enough for her to do so. What is good for the goose of the sexploitation movie, one may argue further, should be good for the gander of the horror story. Violence and, indeed, gore needs no more persuasive or socially redeeming reason for being than erotica disguised as--well, let’s look at the rationales, suggested or stated directly, for the sexploitation films of the past and see just what reasons they do offer for their existence.


2069: A Sex Odyssey: Venus’ females (who, as it turns out, resemble the most beautiful women that planet Earth has to offer) visit our planet to fornicate with men so as to preserve their own species. Reason for being: Species survival.


The Beautiful, The Bloody, and the Bare: Behind Closed Doors: A nude photographer--no, he’s not nude; his models are--takes fine glamour shots unless the color red appears. The color of blood drives him to lust--for blood--and, therefore, to murder. Reason for being: Art for art’s sake.


Philosophy of a Knife: A documentary (kind of) concerning the Japanese version of Nazi Germany’s Dr. Mengele. (Okay, so this one does have a little real reason for its gratuitous displays of nudity, which make such displays no longer gratuitous, just nude.) Reason for being: Documentary of human villainy.


Bikini Airways: Sexy stewardesses find a way to earn their pay after their airlines seems to be going belly up financially: they rent their aircraft as a flying forum for wild bachelor parties. Reason for being: Financial survival.


Brigitta: Swingers’ fantasies about swinging. Reason for being: Uh, Brigitta?


Curse of the Erotic Tiki: A talisman sold at a bikini shop causes whoever wears it to lose her sexual inhibitions. Reason for being: Magic and enchantment.

Okay, now that we’ve taken a squint at some of the lamer sexploitation flicks and their reasons for being, let’s look at a few horror movie plots to see whether the excuses that they offer for their existence are any less lame.


Species: An alien female mates with Earthmen to avoid her species’ extinction. Reason for being: Species survival.


The Picture of Dorian Gray: Due to his sins, Dorian’s portrait ages while he stays young. Reason for being: Art for art’s sake.


Ed Gein: A transvestite killer wants his mom back--from the grave. Reason for being: Documentary of human villainy.


Hostel: An entrepreneur’s inn of supposed pleasure turns out to be a not-so-public house of pain. Reason for being: Financial survival.


The Abominable Dr. Phibes: The doctor is a rabbi, maybe, who uses the same sort of amulet that Moses apparently used to stir up the plagues in ancient Egypt, because he’s doing the same thing now, in modern America, using a set of his own similar charms. Reason for being: Magic and enchantment.

Wow! It looks like a tie, proving that other film genres--in this case, sexploitation films--offer excuses for their existence that are just as flimsy--in fact, identical at times--as those of the weak excuses that horror films advance for their existence. In fact, at times, it’s hard to tell the two genres apart, since many horror films are made to exploit the adolescent crowd, as are sexploitation films. Sex and violence both sell, and, with the former, as with the latter, there is often the added bonus of bikini-clad girls or actual nudity. What does a little prurience matter, along with the puerility or a little jiggle along with the jejunity? It’s all harmless fun until someone gets an eye poked out.

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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