As we close in on the height of spooky season, it seems appropriate that some of the
exquisite damage series is getting a little bit of airplay (see some of it
here,
here, and
here.) It being devoted most singularly to a certain kind of middle class fear and anxiety as glimpsed through horror movies. In some ways, it was a project I was mostly just futzing around with spring before last, that is, until we went to the slasher convention at DePaul and something started take shape during the keynote speech--a comment about how, as people became more and more securely middle class, they started to seek out ways to get an adrenaline rush from the sensation of being unsafe. I imagine, if you were starving, at war, or much less comfortable, further scaring yourself wouldn't be at the top of the list. You see it in the golden age of gothic novels--in the audience of predominantly women, predominantly secure in their homes. In the late 70's, surely that middle class comfort level spawned slasher movies. You, there, in your house, while outside, any number of killers could be watching you from the bushes outside. Growing up in the 80's was both a time of immense freedom and immense fear. Yes, we could disappear for hours from our parents and come back at dusk, but everyone warned us of stranger danger, of the man in the creepy white van. When I was a pre-teen, there was a very high profile case of a teenager who'd gone missing from a park, her face plastered on billboards all over the area. A year or so later, they found her body in a forest preserve.
Fear changes though, and the fears we had as kids seems very different--almost hypothetical--from the sort of fear that teens have now--the world of mass shootings and social media bullying. Barring that one girl, most of us were not abducted. Most of us did not end up shoved in the trunk of our car. Or stalked while babysitting. But women are killed by men every day--not in the sinister serial killer way, but in their own homes. It seems far more likely now that you may be shot just going about your day--at school, at the movie theater.
It seems that that net of safety has a whole lot of tears in it and I wonder how that transforms our horror--the sort of horror we seek out. Does it skew us toward the supernatural as opposed to the human? What does horror do now? How does it work differently?
