The Politics of Horror

285 Pages·2020·4.138 MB·English

by  Damien K. Picariello

The Politics of Horror
Edited by
Damien K. Picariello
The Politics of Horror
Damien K. Picariello
Editor
The Politics of Horror
Editor
Damien K. Picariello
Department of Political Science
University of South Carolina Sumter
Sumter, SC, USA
ISBN 978-3-030-42014-7 ISBN 978-3-030-42015-4 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-42015-4
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P
reface
“Begin,” says Stephen King, “by assuming that the tale of horror, no mat-
ter how primitive, is allegorical by its very nature; that it is symbolic.
Assume that it is talking to us, like a patient on a psychoanalyst’s couch,
about one thing while it means another.”1
In other words, horror is always about more than what it’s about.
This is so, King suggests, because the things that terrify us also, in some
sense, reveal us. Horror shows us who we are—by showing us what we’re
scared of—in a powerful, foundational way. In this sense, King suggests
that we think of horror as “lifting a trapdoor in the civilized forebrain and
throwing a basket of raw meat to the hungry alligators swimming around
in that subterranean river beneath.”2
If we’re fishing for insights about politics, this subterranean river might
be worth exploring.
Politics, like horror, is about who we are. It’s about big questions like
the nature of justice and how we ought to live together, and it’s also about
narrower, more particular questions, like: “How can I get people to vote
for me?”
Come to think of it, throwing raw meat to hungry alligators sounds a
little bit like running for office, doesn’t it?
In this collection, The Politics of Horror, you’ll find 20 chapters that
explore the connections between horror and politics in a wide variety of
ways. In composing these chapters, we’ve tried to write in a way that’s
both broadly accessible and intellectually rigorous, and we’ve tried to
spark conversations—about horror and about politics—that our readers
will find engaging.
v
vi PREFACE
What we want is for you, dear reader, to turn at random to a chapter in
this volume, start reading, and say: “Hey, I never thought of that before!”
If that happens—when that happens—we’ll know that we’ve done
our job.
* * *
The Politics of Horror is organized into several sections. The chapters
grouped together in each section have something in common with each
other: sometimes a common theme—witches or the apocalypse or
nature—and sometimes a common medium—comics or television or
games. This mode of organization is meant to make our volume easier for
you, the reader, to navigate. You’re welcome to start at the beginning and
go straight through, or to skip to a section that looks particularly interest-
ing to you. Don’t worry: the other sections will be waiting for you when
you’re ready.
Our first section, Petrifying Politics, explores some of the connections
between horror and contemporary American political life. In “The
American Nightmare: Graveyard Voters, Demon Sheep, Devil Women,
and Lizard People,” Christina M. Knopf shows us how horror imagery has
come to play a prominent role in both depictions of American politics and
American political discourse and campaigning. In “Horror, Crisis, and
Control: Tales of Facing Evils,” John S. Nelson brings out the common-
alities between horror narratives and “crisis theory,” which theorizes the
impending collapse of social and political order. In Meghan Purvis’s
“We’re Witches and We’re Hunting You: Matriarchy and Misogyny in
Conjure Wife,” we find insights for contemporary politics in mid-
twentieth- century depictions of marriage and witchcraft.
The two chapters in our next section, Apocalypse and After, examine
depictions of societal collapse and rebuilding. In “The Democratic Impulse
in Post-Apocalyptic Films,” Christie L. Maloyed and J. Kelton Williams
show us how films like Land of the Dead and WALL-E point us toward
thinkers like Alexis de Tocqueville; in “Through a Glass Darkly: The
Dimensionality and Inadequacy of Political Fear in Stephen King’s The
Stand,” Jordon B. Barkalow and Jennifer A. Mogg discuss the uses and
abuses of fear within the post-apocalyptic political communities in
King’s novel.
Our third section features two chapters that deal with what we call
Ghoulish Games. In “The Monsters Among Us: Realism and Constructivism
PREFACE vii
in Vampire: The Masquerade,” James D. Fielder discusses what horror-themed
live action roleplaying can teach us about international relations. In “Anxiety
in Suburbia: The Politics of Gaming in Neighborhood 3: Requisition of Doom,”
Michelle Salerno brings out the political implications of a play with a disturb-
ing video game at its heart.
Our next two sections each focus on a particular medium. In Terrifying
Television, Lynn Kozak discusses a horror TV series with a contemporary
political charge in “The Exorcist and a New Kind of American Television
Horror” and Carol Westcamp illuminates the unexpected commonalities
between horror and reality television in “Reality TV as Horror:
Psychological Terror and Physical Torture.” In Creepy Comics, Lara
Saguisag shows us how Philippine horror comics provide a window into
the politics of the Philippines in “Zombie Komiks in a Cacique Democracy:
Patay Kung Patay’s Undead Revolution” and Zack Kruse explores depic-
tions of colonialism in twentieth-century American horror comics in “‘Just
as You Will Do to One Another!’: Colonialism That Consumes Itself in
Warren Publications’ Creepy.” Daniel V. Goff rounds out this section with
“Witches in the South: Past, Present, and in Comics,” in which he dis-
cusses the power dynamics at play in depictions of witchcraft in comic books.
We’re just past the halfway point of our volume, now, and our section
is a long one: Nightmarish Nature features four chapters, each of which
focuses, in one way or another, on the terrors of the natural world. In
“‘Bring Him the Blood of the Outlanders!’: Children of the Corn as Farm
Crisis Horror,” Kathleen P. Hunt connects the 1984 horror film to a crisis
in American farming, while Emma Frances Bloomfield mines Darren
Aronofsky’s 2017 film mother! for insights in “mother! and the Horror of
Environmental Abuse.” The two chapters that conclude this section also
focus on movies: In “Let the Bodies (of Water) Hit the Floor: Development
and Exploitation in John Boorman’s Deliverance,” Salvatore J. Russo and
Chelsea Renee Ratcliff show us how Boorman’s film challenges the tropes
of the “eco-horror” genre, and in “The Mayor of Shark City”: Political
Power in Jaws, Leslie Stratyner discusses the politics of Amity Island in
Spielberg’s film.
Our next section, Return of the Repressed, begins by returning to
Spielberg. In “Fear of Founding from Plato to Poltergeist,” Damien
K. Picariello discusses the terror lurking beneath the surface of the perfect
community in the Spielberg-penned 1982 film. In this section’s other
chapter, “Post-Racial Lies and Fear of the Historical-Political Boomerang
in Jordan Peele’s Get Out and Colson Whitehead’s The Underground
viii PREFACE
Railroad,” Cammie M. Sublette shows us how Peele’s film and Whitehead’s
novel challenge the notion of a “post-racial” United States.
Our final section, Cradle to the Grave, begins with Eamon Byers’s
discussion of motherhood in Irish horror film in “‘The Mother Who Eats
Her Own’: The Politics of Motherhood in Irish Horror.” The last chapter
in our volume is “Frankenstein’s Dream and the Politics of Death” by Jeff
J.S. Black, in which we examine Shelley’s novel in the context of contem-
porary—for Shelley and for us—discussions of human mortality.
Sumter, SC, USA Damien K. Picariello
Notes
1. Stephen King, Danse Macabre (New York: Berkley Books, 1981), 31.
2. King, 177. Or “One might say,” with Robin Wood, “that the true subject of
the horror genre is the struggle for recognition of all that our civilization
represses or oppresses, its reemergence dramatized, as in our nightmares, as
an object of horror” (“An Introduction to the American Horror Film,” in
Barry Keith Grant, Ed., Robin Wood on the American Horror Film: Collected
Essays and Reviews [Detroit, MI: Wayne State University Press, 2018] 79).
a
ckNowledgmeNts
As editor of this collection, I’m extremely grateful to our contributors,
who have put tremendous time and energy into their chapters. I hope
you’ll agree that their work is remarkable. The University of South
Carolina Sumter and the Institute for Humane Studies both provided
funding toward the completion of this volume, and I’m grateful for their
generosity. A RISE grant from the University of South Carolina Office of
the Vice President for Research was an essential part of this project and
was greatly appreciated. This collection marks my second collaboration
with Michelle Chen at Palgrave, and I’m glad and grateful to have had the
experience; I’d also like to thank Rebecca Roberts at Palgrave for her help
in preparing this manuscript. My colleagues at the University of South
Carolina Sumter have been generous as always with their time and atten-
tion: Kristina Grob, Andy Kunka, Ray McManus, Eric Reisenauer, Bianca
Rowlett, and many others. Finally, and always: Jil and Lenny Picariello,
Alex Picariello, Pepper Picariello, and—deeply—Erin. I dedicate this vol-
ume to Baci; as of this writing, we’re counting the days.
ix
c
oNteNts
Section I Petrifying Politics 1
1 The American Nightmare: Graveyard Voters, Demon
Sheep, Devil Women, and Lizard People 3
Christina M. Knopf
2 Horror, Crisis, and Control: Tales of Facing Evils 17
John S. Nelson
3 We’re Witches and We’re Hunting You: Matriarchy and
Misogyny in Conjure Wife 33
Meghan Purvis
Section II Apocalypse and After 45
4 The Democratic Impulse in Post-Apocalyptic Films 47
Christie L. Maloyed and J. Kelton Williams
5 Through a Glass Darkly: The Dimensionality and
Inadequacy of Political Fear in Stephen King’s The Stand 59
Jennifer A. Mogg and Jordon B. Barkalow
xi