Someone with a tumblr A Numbskull with a Chainsaw Hand wrote:
The Horror genre exists to make you scared, uncomfortable and shocked at what is abnormal and non standard to the human world. It is supposed to trigger a reaction in you, it is there to be used as controlled fear and chaos and we use it as a way to escape our boring, monotonous reality and explore all that could harm and kill us in a controlled environment (tv, movies, games, books, haunted houses even!). The horror genre is important and I will defend it forever until I die. And then I will come back as a poltergeist and defend it some more.
This was relayed to me by another tumblr I’m not going to kill you (Warning: autoplay music!), and I indulged a quick response on my disturbing images tumblr.
The horror genre also exists to encode for and transmit to us truths far too unpleasant for most of us to face: that life can only go on by feeding on other life, that we spend most of our lives in a slow but ever-accelerating process of decay, that for all our proud pretensions of free will our psyches are governed by often-destructive forces we do not control and scarcely understand, that the world is filled with immense and arbitrary suffering, that the universe cares no more for us than we do for the least insect, and that death stalks us all and will catch every last one of us fairly soon. And because I think we need these horrible truths even if most of us cannot face them directly, I will always defend the horror genre.
I forgot to add the clause “that the human species will itself someday go extinct,” which is also both a truth and a popular trope of horror (e.g. apocalypse stories). Still, not too bad at the social networking thing for an old dude.
This is actually illuminating to me with regard to my longstanding distaste for the horror genre. It always struck me as an unwelcome manipulation of my emotional system, the which I never understood why I should volunteer for. I don’t LIKE feeling “scared, uncomfortable, and shocked” and won’t sit still for efforts to make me feel that way.
The only one of your truths that I have encountered in pop-culture horror (understanding that I avoid it like the plague, as rigorously as I may) is your final one about death stalking us all. I don’t quite understand how anybody enjoys having their nose rubbed in that one.
Well, consider…
“life can only go on by feeding on other life,” –> vampires;
“we spend most of our lives in a slow but ever-accelerating process of decay,” –> zombies;
“for all our proud pretensions of free will our psyches are governed by often-destructive forces we do not control and scarcely understand,” –> stories of demonic possession or alien mind control;
“the world is filled with immense and arbitrary suffering” –> most of the bad things that happen to characters in a horror story; if the sufferings of the characters are non-arbitrary, because either the bad things happen for “reasons” (to motivate the protagonist, to punish the villains), or the suffering undergone by the characters is “redemptive,” then the story is probably in a genre other than horror even if it has some of the trappings of horror;
“the universe cares no more for us than we do for the least insect” –> most of H.P.Lovecraft and “cosmic” horror generally.
As to why people might subject themselves to this, well, some of it might just be thrill-seeking (why do people line up to ride on roller-coasters?) and some of it might be vicarious sadism or masochism, although both of these things can also be readily gotten out of many other genres. The special strength of horror comes in sublimation (see note here): “we escape from our suffering by providing a bogus simulation of it.”
The thrill-seeking motivation is absent for me; I tend to avoid just about all amusements that provide an adrenaline rush that’s motivated by fear or peril. Adrenaline in that context parses as toxic to me, not enjoyable.
As for sublimation, being one of those optimists you aver are cruel just by existing, I’ve somehow found a way (perhaps most fairly described as a combination of optimism, escapism, denial, and the routine use of alcohol) not to experience suffering as an ongoing persistent state of existence. So there’s no attraction to seek out a bogus simulation of suffering; it would (and does) undermine my optimism, denial, and escapism, requiring larger doses of alcohol to maintain my comfortable statis. 😉
Er, that should be “comfortable stasis.”
Ah, distraction as opposed to sublimation. Well, it’s not like anyone else has come up with a better response to life, just ones that might happen to be better- or worse-tailored to their individual circumstances. Now if you’ll excuse me, I feel a need to go forth and commission some more tentacle sex art.
Dear Sir,
I read your blog. It is very interesting and enligtening.
Greetings from Asuncion,.Paraguay