Tuesday 6 December 2011

"From Deep Space, The Seed Is Planted"

Philip Kaufman's 1978 remake of the sci-fi flick Invasion of the Body Snatchers, the original being from 1956, is a big favourite of mine. Not only has it got a young Goldblum and Donald Sutherland with a ridiculous perm and moustache, but it achieves what perhaps more scary movies, sci-fi or otherwise, should aim for; chills and horror without blood and gore.

To paraphrase my old buddy Sigmund Freud, the Uncanny is that which ought to have remain hidden, but which has come to light. Freud being who he was and more importantly interested in the things he was, this is obviously going to end up being about genitals in some way (who says critical theory is boring!?). One of man's biggest fears (if we ignore for a moment the castration and all that – we'll get to that soon enough), according to Sigmund, and the ultimate in uncanniness is being buried alive. But not for any of the obvious reasons, such as suffocating and suffering a slow and painful and claustrophobic death. That would be silly. The reason why this scenario appears to men to be one of the most horrific and uncanny scenarios possible, is because it would remind the victim of the experience of being in his mother's womb before being born. It's been too long since I've actually read this stuff for me to go into any greater depth at this moment, but my point is this: pre-birth, and birth, and maternal insides and genitals, are pretty creepy! Theoretically speaking of course, but I'm always speaking in theoretical terms.

So what could be creepier and more uncanny than seeing yourself, as a grown-up, being born from an alien pod which represents your mother's uterus? Probably not a lot. The alienness of said uterus, and vagina (oh yes, they are quite visual) would of course symbolise woman's Otherness because in case horror films have taught you NOTHING, women are like, well icky.



As Barbara Creed (amongst many, many others) points out (specifically in her essay on psychoanalytical views on horror films, Horror and the Monstrous-Feminine: An Imaginary Abjection (1986)), there is a significant tradition across various academic fields for pointing at the ways in which a woman is different from a man in order to explain why she is "shocking, terrifying, horrific, abject". To illustrate this, Creed brings up examples which should be well known to anyone with a slight interest in the topic of psychoanalysis (extremely simplified here by yours truly):


  •  Fear of castration, caused in the ever so fragile mind of a man upon seeing a woman's genitals. (Freud 1927) The man, poor thing, is unable to fathom that there are actually different sexes and that everyone isn't exactly like himself, so assumes that the woman is in fact a castrated man. He then fears, in his unconscious at least, that the same will happen to him, which leads us neatly onto the next example:
  •  " 'The toothed vagina' - the vagina that castrates". (Freud) Also known as vagina dentata, this phenomenon has finally even had an entire horror film dedicated to the topic; Teeth (2007). Basically; vaginas, and thus women, are really scary and if you (the universal "you", ie. male) don't watch out these scary women will steal your manhood.
  •  The phallic mother, according to Sigmund "a motif [which is] perfectly illustrated in the long fingernails and nose of the witch". I take this to be a representation of a controlling and authoritative woman who is percieved as threatening because she might "take over" the masculine qualities of men. A less gory version of the vagina dentata, then.



In light of this, what can be said about the uncanny terror of Invasion of the Body Snatchers? Well, for a start, it could be argued that the whole scheme with the alien pods which produce clones of human beings is merely an extension of Freud's three horror scenarios as outlined above. What they all have in common is an immense fear in the man of losing his masculine authority – more or less physically or symbolically, depending on which theory you pick as your favourite. In Invasion…, we see what could happen if these fears were to come true; repoduction without any male input (he he). Sure, the alien plants send out those weird, furry feeler things to get a "blueprint" as it were from both men and women. But the men are not required to take any active part in the process. It is the alien pods, which as I have mentioned are pretty obvious representations of female reproductive parts, that do all the work and take all the initiative – it all happens outside of the control of the man. As if that wasn't bad enough, the clones claim to have it better than their fully human, half male predecessors! What on earth would Freud say? Actually, he probably wouldn't say much, as he would have been busy having a heart attack (I love you, Sigmund).



Furthermore, one of Creed's central themes is the role of the abject in horror. If I might be so bold as to quote Wikipedia, seeing as no one's going to mark this, the abject is "exists in between the concept of an object and the concept of the subject, something alive yet not". [my italics] Creed mentions traditional monster figures such as vampires, ghouls, zombies, and witches as examples of "bodies without souls", and even werewolves as an example of a "collapse of the boundaries between human and animal". In Invasion…, the thing threatening to collapse the boundaries of safety is not animal, but alien. Thus, we can say that there is a collapse of the boundaries between, or the very categories of, human subject and Other. The problem here of course, lies in the customary definition of the "universal" (a term which loses even more of its meaning in confrontation with aliens) human subject, which again and again turns out to be a very small part of the human population. Women, for example, traditionally speaking have no place within the definition of subject. So once again, what we are dealing with is a male ("universal") fear of losing control; women, aliens, Others are threatening to take over authority. The boundaries that are collapsing might as well be between the genders.

Creed says:

"the concept of a border is central to the construction of the monstrous in the horror film; that which crosses or threatens to cross the "border" is abject. Although the specific nature of the border changes from film to film, the function of the monstrous remains the same: to bring about an encounter between the symbolic order and that which threatens its stability".

She goes on to list different kinds of films with different kinds of borders to be crossed; human/inhuman in one category, genders in another (and even "normal and abnormal sexual desire" as a third category). What I'm suggesting here is that in seperating the categories in such a way, Creed is missing a vital point. The same threat could easily be represented in an infinity of different ways, without changing the fact that the threat itself does not change because what is being threatened remains the same. The "symbolic order" which is so loved by several psychoanalysts is unflexible at best, yet it continues to inhabit one of the most dominant roles of all in popular culture.




Meanwhile, the way I see it, one important question remains. Creed touches upon it, though she formulates it in a different way from what I would prefer: "Is it possible to intervene in the social construction of woman as abject?" Luckily, seeing as this is my blog, I get the last word: once we have identified the problem as being not necessarily the representations of women as abject, but of the never changing symbolic order which is being forever threatened, what can we do to turn this insight to our advantage?

But ahh, had it only been that easy – because I just outlined an "us" which would necessarily define a "them" and thus construct even more borders and boundaries to be threatened and defended. Such is life, perhaps?

Saturday 30 July 2011

When slashers become reality.

Dear readers,

although this blog is (as you'll know) irregularly updated at best, there is a reason why it's not being updated currently.

As most of you will know, things have been all but normal and peaceful in Norway for the past week.

For those of you who don't know, I am a Norwegian who's lived most of my life in Oslo. I returned here about a year and a half ago after having studied abroad, and had the pleasure of falling in love all over again with the city of Oslo.

After the massacre which took place last Friday, I've had absolutely no urge to watch slasher films, most of which obviously include innocent teenagers being slaughtered.

I'm always the one to insist, when friends call me a weirdo for finding pleasure in watching these types of films, that they have nothing to do with reality and are only shallow entertainment. At the moment though, that kind of shallow entertainment seems to have come a bit too close to reality.

I just need a brief break from all of this, and I will return to the world of horror/slasher films soon, as they can almost be described as one of the big loves of my life – and I will return to update this blog as sporadically as ever. But I ask for your understanding in that I cannot bring myself to watch, or write about, slasher films in this specific situation.

Thanks,
H x

Friday 17 June 2011

Black Christmas and the Dread of Difference


In a previous post on this blog, Looking through Gary Gilmore's Eyes, I discussed the fairly widespread use of what has been called the I-camera; that is, when a scene is being filmed as if through the eyes of one character, to let the audience see just what that specific character is seeing. In horror films, it is inevitably the villain's eyes through which we are invited to look. I argued against the idea of I-camera as forced identification and linked it rather with the Derridean idea of horror in seeing yourself seen.

Upon watching Black Christmas (1974) for the first time quite recently, it struck me how much more meaning there lies in the act of watching, and the knowledge that you are being watched, in horror films.



The use of I-camera or "forced identification" probably goes further than just pointing out how essentially different the "evil" character is to normal people. The fact that it is always someone watching from the outside as seemingly normal people engage in completely normal, everyday activities – before this character ends up killing them all, or at least trying to – is a way of demonising difference. Once the quality of "difference" is marked as truly monstrous, it is not a terribly long way away to judge those who are different as equally horrible.

In the excellent collection of essays on horror films and gender, The Dread of Difference, editor Barry Keith Grant writes in his introduction:

In 1986 Constance Penley wrote that "science fiction film as a genre –– along with its evil twin, the horror film –– is now more hyperbolically concerned than ever with the question of difference". Certainly she is correct in her observation about the genre's concerns, although her use of the temporal qualifier ("now") is perhaps somewhat misleading, for such treatment has tended to characterize the genre throughout its history.

I think that this goes further than just being limited to gender issues, although that is what Grant (and normally myself) is preoccupied with. If that's where it stopped, Black Christmas would simply be about a group of sorority girls who are afraid of one man. While it would be useless to claim that that outline is not part of what is happening (plot: a group of sorority girls are being stalked and slashed, one by one, by an unknown man), it is a lot more interesting to think in broader terms with this one. It is the fact that someone is watching from the outside that is the source of the horror in this film, as in countless others. Someone who is not like "us" (that is, the sorority girls or whatever group of mostly average people we are meant to sympathise with in any given slasher film), and who can only ever hope to watch from the outside as we carry on with our normal, somewhat dull, activities.

I struggle to think of any kind of successful film plot in which some kind of irreconcilable difference does not play an essential part; and it's no wonder, because what conflicts would there be without difference? And could an interesting story ever be told without some kind of conflict in the core? Possibly not. That does not mean, however, that the kind of demonising of difference which takes place in so many horror films is unproblematic.

Saturday 7 May 2011

From revenge to rape, and back again. Part 1

This post has been a long time coming. And not only because it's a long time since I've posted anything. I've been trying to make sense of the rape-revenge sub-genre ever since I was introduced to it (once again, credit goes to Carol Clover). Maybe not even so much the genre or the movies themselves but something to say about them. Can anything sensible be said, that isn't already said elsewhere?

For those not familiar with the phenomenon: a rape-revenge film is exactly what it sounds like. A person (typically a woman... I'm not aware of any examples where a man is the victim. If you know of any, please comment below) is raped brutally, seemingly unprovoked. She is then left for dead or at least assumed unwilling or unable to do anything about the situation. Her hatred builds up and drives her to perform hideous acts of revenge. Sometimes, the person executing the revenge is not the victim herself but rather someone close to her (especially, of course, in the cases where the victim is actually killed), such as a boyfriend or parents. The rapist(s) is often killed. There are variations, as you will soon enough see, but that is the standard outline.


Not strictly speaking the first of its kind, I Spit On Your Grave (1978) has certainly come to be the defining movie of this bizarre sub-genre.



There was a remake of this film released last year. In 2009, there was a Norwegian rape-revenge film called Hora ('The Whore'), which made all sorts of claims about being the first Norwegian grindhouse film and other things besides, and as far as I am aware it never said anything about being a remake. It was, though. This made me think, again, about what this genre actually is. Can it even be said to be an actual genre, a type of film, or is it just basically one film and endless remakes and variations?

In this post I will try to provide you with a kind of history of the evolution of the rape-revenge film. In some cases, it will be debatable whether the films I'm talking about are actually rape-revenge films at all. Debate away! I've mainly just picked films that help to illustrate my point. Which is hinted at in the title of this post.

Ready? Let's go!

For many reasons, the brutal visual representations of rape have not been around for many decades. Censorship rules and standards of what might be socially acceptable have, as you might be aware, not always been the same as they are today. Movies have always included stories more or less about sex though, and women scorn, and bitter, hateful vengeance. Look, if you will, to the 1958 classic Attack of the 50ft Woman:

When an abused wife grows to giant size because of an alien encounter and an aborted murder attempt, she goes after cheating husband with revenge on her mind.
Here, the theme of female revenge over a male object is brought into horror, and even sci-fi, terrain. Granted there is no hint at an actual rape, I'm sure you could interpret a rape into it if you really wanted: maybe the alien raped Mrs. Archer? Maybe it was a forced marriage that could on some level be likened to rape? Maybe it was just what is popularly referred to as "emotional rape"? Who knows. The revenge motif is clear, and we're talking a real physical type of revenge.


By 1972, things were naturally different. For a start, Wes Craven was in business. And in The Last House on the Left, he is introducing one of his favourite themes: teenagers rebelling against their parents. With added rapists.

Two girls get raped in this film, and the representation of the two rapes are quite different. The first rape is that of the tougher girl, Phyllis, and is not very graphic at all. You hear some noises and Phyllis telling them to 'stop it', but overall it almost seems as if it was a far worse experience for her when she was forced to 'piss her pants'. The rape of her more innocent friend Mari is far more exhausting on the viewer, and the experience of being raped is here pretty much likened to death. Mari is being stabbed in the chest almost while she is being raped (but I think the stabbing takes place just after the other kind of penetration), blood spurts out, she screams and cries and begs for her life. After being raped, Mari gets up, covers herself up and walks into a lake. She is then shot. It seems almost that death is the only possible consequence of being raped.

It is Mari's parents who punish the brutal gang for their crimes after they realise she has been killed. Maybe this is another "mother and father know best" kind of thing? Coming from Craven though, that would be a bit strange (see: A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984), The Hills Have Eyes (1977), The People Under the Stairs (1991), the Scream films, etc.). Interestingly (though a bit of an aside), one of the men repsonsible for Mari and Phyllis' rapes and deaths, dreams of Mari's parents taking out his teeth. Apparently this can represent 'a fear of rejection [or] sexual impotence', or a loss of 'childhood innocence'.



Although Jennifer in ISOYG is the victim of that film as well as the avenger, she certainly has common traits with Mari's mother. As opposed to Mari, they are both fully adult women, who do not hesitate to use sex as a way of getting back at the ones who have somehow hurt them. In both films, the men do not seem to have any doubts about the legitimacy of the women's approaches – maybe believing themselves to be that irresistable, or in Jennifer's case that they have somehow changed her mind about them; that deep down, she must have enjoyed the rape(s).

I realise I have not really paid much attention to the rape scenes themselves. If you have not seen these films you will just have to take my word for it: they are there, and they are quite graphic. Indeed, 'the length of the rape sequence, the prolonged physical and mental anguish suffered by the victim' were among the reasons why ISOYG was originally refused classification. (Here is a link to the Video Nasties documentary.)

In order to prevent this post from getting so long that no one will want to read the whole thing, I will pause here and get back to you with a part 2 within a couple of days. There will be quite a leap in time in terms of films being discussed as well, so this is a good place to take a break.

Oh, and while we're all here: it is now possible to be become a fan of Tits And a Scream on Facebook! I set it up so that I can share funny links and film clips and stuff, and still keep this blog as "clean" as possible. See you there, guys n gals.

Friday 25 March 2011

Norwegian Ninja

Hello dear readers (or those of you who have randomly stumbled upon this site whilst searching for pictures of alien tits etc),

1) I've written a thing about Norwegian Ninja for the hub site over at Cult Labs. Not only should you read my post (obviously), but you should definitely have a look around the site and the forums as well, it's a cool place. Norwegian Ninja will be out on DVD on April 18.
 (PS: It took me a while to spot the pretty subtle scroller (is that an actual word?), but it is there, just on the right hand side of the top blog post – scroll down for plenty more, including the post signed by yours truly)

2) I will actually update this blog soon as well – I've got a SMASHING post about the evolution of rape-revenge films up my, umm, sleeve. Until then, have a good weekend, and remember, kids: It's only a movie.


Tuesday 4 January 2011

Highlights from the search keywords section

I absolutely love being able to see what people are actually searching for when they stumble upon my blog. Some people do actually search for relevant things, but here's a small selection of my personal favourites:

- looking through titts
- alien tits
- girl with three tits
- charlotte gainsbourg castrates herself video
- final girls tits
- lovemaking
- gary gilmore titties

Granted, none of these are very surprising... They all brought a smile to my face, though!

Keep up the good work, everyone.