WEBVTT - Scream With Me - Lab 114 0:00:03.680 --> 0:00:09.160 I'm t T and I'm Zakiyah and this is Dope Labs. 0:00:11.360 --> 0:00:14.600 Welcome to Dope Labs, a weekly podcast that mixes hardcore 0:00:14.680 --> 0:00:17.599 science with pop culture and a healthy dose of friendship. 0:00:22.160 --> 0:00:24.440 We are in the thick of spooky season, and this 0:00:24.880 --> 0:00:27.360 I think is one of our favorite times of year 0:00:27.440 --> 0:00:31.480 in our friendship, don't you think. Yes, yes, I mean 0:00:31.720 --> 0:00:34.919 bring on the fall fashions, yeah, turtle nicks and leather jackets, 0:00:34.960 --> 0:00:40.600 but also bring on the scary movies. Absolutely. I feel 0:00:40.600 --> 0:00:43.800 like we bonded over scary movies very early in our friendship. 0:00:43.840 --> 0:00:47.280 You got me hip too, the insidious movies, and those 0:00:47.320 --> 0:00:50.839 are still some of my all time favorites. Like It 0:00:51.080 --> 0:00:54.600 scared me so much. There's something about dreaming. Y'all need 0:00:54.640 --> 0:00:57.120 to watch it. Y'all gotta watch it. I think so 0:00:57.160 --> 0:01:00.480 it feels good, But that's an old well, I don't 0:01:00.480 --> 0:01:01.960 know if I would say it's an old scary movie. 0:01:01.960 --> 0:01:03.960 But there's been a new wave of scary movies like 0:01:04.080 --> 0:01:08.680 Get Out Us and most recently we've seen Centers and Weapons. Yes, 0:01:08.880 --> 0:01:12.840 and I like this genre of scary movie because it 0:01:12.840 --> 0:01:15.960 feels like we've moved from gore and blood and all 0:01:16.000 --> 0:01:18.520 of that to like some symbolism and it's a little 0:01:18.640 --> 0:01:20.959 new ones do you know? And that's not a new thing. 0:01:21.040 --> 0:01:23.399 So you know, we've seen a little bit of symbolism 0:01:23.440 --> 0:01:25.959 here there, and when you go back and look, it's like, 0:01:26.640 --> 0:01:28.840 what do they say, hindsight is twenty twenty? Lit'll make 0:01:28.880 --> 0:01:32.399 you start asking some questions, right, So before we jump 0:01:32.480 --> 0:01:35.600 into anything, let's go into the recitation. So what do 0:01:35.680 --> 0:01:39.600 we know? I feel like we know horror films have 0:01:39.680 --> 0:01:42.319 been around for a long time, and some people hate them, 0:01:42.360 --> 0:01:44.160 some people love them. I know your mom is one 0:01:44.200 --> 0:01:47.440 of the folks that doesn't like horror films. No, no, no, 0:01:47.480 --> 0:01:50.280 she doesn't want to be scared. Life is scary enough. 0:01:51.960 --> 0:01:54.160 We also know that there are some similarities that we've 0:01:54.200 --> 0:01:58.600 seen in these movies, so like witches, Satan and exorcisms, 0:01:58.680 --> 0:02:02.600 ghosts and zombies, right, And I feel like that is 0:02:02.800 --> 0:02:06.720 truth for a lot of different horror films. So what 0:02:06.800 --> 0:02:10.200 do we want to know? Well, I think my love 0:02:10.200 --> 0:02:12.600 for horror films started early. So there are some classics 0:02:12.600 --> 0:02:14.960 that I've seen, but I saw them with like an 0:02:14.960 --> 0:02:17.600 immature mind, if that makes sense, Like before I knew 0:02:17.919 --> 0:02:19.480 what I was looking for. So I want to look 0:02:19.520 --> 0:02:21.239 back and say, like, what are some of the blind spots? 0:02:21.240 --> 0:02:23.960 What are some of the classic cases of like symbolism 0:02:24.040 --> 0:02:26.920 that I don't even recognize? Yes, and I want to 0:02:27.000 --> 0:02:30.800 know how horror films because we might not think of 0:02:30.840 --> 0:02:33.280 it on its face, but it's art, you know. And 0:02:33.320 --> 0:02:35.040 I want to know how this form of art is 0:02:35.080 --> 0:02:39.280 a commentary on the times that these movies were released, 0:02:39.360 --> 0:02:41.280 you know what I mean. Yeah, we think about it 0:02:41.320 --> 0:02:44.440 forget Out and us, but you don't look back at 0:02:44.480 --> 0:02:47.040 Alfred Hitchcock and say, oh, yeah, he was really talking 0:02:47.080 --> 0:02:50.400 about what was going on there. You know, it's so true. 0:02:51.000 --> 0:02:53.600 And I also want to know how recent horror films 0:02:53.639 --> 0:02:56.120 are stacking up against the ogs. You know. I feel 0:02:56.120 --> 0:02:59.640 like when we're talking about horror films, we talk about 0:02:59.639 --> 0:03:02.200 the same ones. We talk about Carrie, we talk about 0:03:02.480 --> 0:03:05.120 Friday the Thirteenth, Nightmare on Elm Street, we talk about 0:03:05.120 --> 0:03:07.919 the Shining, you know, all of the same ones. But 0:03:08.040 --> 0:03:11.560 I want to know, like how the present day horror films, 0:03:11.760 --> 0:03:13.640 how they match up to some of the ones that 0:03:13.720 --> 0:03:16.880 are stuck in our minds. Yeah, I think that's good. 0:03:16.919 --> 0:03:19.320 What's going to be on your mount rushmore of horror films? 0:03:21.320 --> 0:03:23.160 If you can't tell by now. This episode is all 0:03:23.160 --> 0:03:25.720 about horror films, and I love what you said, t T. 0:03:25.919 --> 0:03:27.880 There is an art to this. It is art, and 0:03:27.919 --> 0:03:30.920 sometimes we overlook that. And so we said, who can 0:03:30.960 --> 0:03:32.880 help us unpack it? You know, who can help us 0:03:32.880 --> 0:03:35.240 find the science behind it? And so for this episode 0:03:35.280 --> 0:03:37.280 we pulled out the really big guns and we have 0:03:37.400 --> 0:03:38.760 doctor Eleanor Johnson. 0:03:43.200 --> 0:03:46.920 I'm Eleanor. I'm a professor of medieval literature and horror 0:03:46.920 --> 0:03:49.920 films at Columbia University and my new books, Scream with Me, 0:03:50.080 --> 0:03:52.480 was just published by Atria Books in September of twenty 0:03:52.520 --> 0:03:53.000 twenty five. 0:03:53.160 --> 0:03:55.640 Your book Scream with Me introduced us to the concept 0:03:55.720 --> 0:03:58.840 of domestic horror, and domestic horror is where you have 0:03:58.920 --> 0:04:01.600 stories where the terror come from within the home instead 0:04:01.600 --> 0:04:05.400 of like external monsters. So tera from within the home 0:04:05.440 --> 0:04:09.800 would be abuse, control, bodily violation, and routines of violence. 0:04:10.080 --> 0:04:13.040 And also in your book, you focus on six movies, 0:04:13.160 --> 0:04:16.320 so Rosemary's Baby, The Exorcist, The Step for Wives, the 0:04:16.320 --> 0:04:19.960 Omen Alien, and The Shining And you also focus on 0:04:20.000 --> 0:04:23.000 a specific time period nineteen sixty eight to nineteen eighty. 0:04:23.480 --> 0:04:25.920 Why was that time period so important to you? 0:04:27.080 --> 0:04:30.520 Several reasons. One, I was interested. 0:04:30.120 --> 0:04:34.480 In writing a book that would look at horror during 0:04:34.680 --> 0:04:39.200 the period in which sort of feminism was really really 0:04:39.240 --> 0:04:42.359 surging into the public consciousness and was worn with women's 0:04:42.360 --> 0:04:45.719 bodily autonomy and so through obviously in Roe v. Wade 0:04:45.760 --> 0:04:49.440 passed in nineteen seventy three, the Equal Rights Amendment, which 0:04:49.560 --> 0:04:52.599 didn't pass, but was on the docket for like almost 0:04:52.600 --> 0:04:56.560 that whole entire decade, and also the early laws and 0:04:56.600 --> 0:05:00.840 social changes that tried to remediate mess violence or what 0:05:00.880 --> 0:05:02.080 was then called wife battery. 0:05:02.320 --> 0:05:05.080 So you mentioned the Equal Rights Amendment, and it was 0:05:05.120 --> 0:05:07.880 first introduced in nineteen twenty three, and it proposed to 0:05:07.880 --> 0:05:10.120 make changes to the US Constitution that would make sure 0:05:10.200 --> 0:05:14.000 men and women are treated equally under the law. Now, 0:05:14.480 --> 0:05:18.560 Congress approved it in nineteen seventy two, but not enough 0:05:18.600 --> 0:05:21.280 states have agreed to it yet for it to officially 0:05:21.279 --> 0:05:23.680 become law. That's wild to me. 0:05:24.080 --> 0:05:27.440 So there were three really really big movements around women's 0:05:27.520 --> 0:05:31.960 rights in the nineteen seventies, reproductive autonomy, safety in the home, 0:05:32.160 --> 0:05:34.599 and equal rights before the law, and they were all 0:05:34.680 --> 0:05:38.359 kind of getting cooked simultaneously in the public eye. And 0:05:38.440 --> 0:05:40.400 I thought, you know, the nineteen seventies is a really, 0:05:40.440 --> 0:05:44.279 really important moment because it's analogous to the twenty twenties, 0:05:44.360 --> 0:05:47.359 for better or for worse, Like, there are huge backslides 0:05:47.400 --> 0:05:50.320 happening right now in the avenues. Women have to extricate 0:05:50.360 --> 0:05:52.640 themselves from domestic violence situations. 0:05:53.279 --> 0:05:55.200 As we know Roe v. Wade has been reversed. 0:05:55.360 --> 0:05:59.240 So whatever protections the American public believed that Rowe conferred, 0:05:59.560 --> 0:06:04.159 those are gone. And the Equal Rights Amendment, like fifty 0:06:04.240 --> 0:06:08.280 years later, has not passed, right, Like, I am not 0:06:08.320 --> 0:06:10.400 an equal person in the eyes of the law, neither 0:06:10.440 --> 0:06:12.600 of you, and we just go around and live our lives. 0:06:12.760 --> 0:06:15.239 Women in the seventies had to live in this crazy 0:06:15.360 --> 0:06:18.599 roller coaster where they were held out the carit of 0:06:18.680 --> 0:06:23.240 equality repeatedly, and it kept getting yoinked back, and I 0:06:23.279 --> 0:06:27.200 think that caused a cultural trauma unto itself that our 0:06:27.240 --> 0:06:30.520 popular culture has not metabolized. Well, so instead we've just 0:06:30.560 --> 0:06:35.360 suppressed it. We've forgotten that fifty years ago there was 0:06:35.400 --> 0:06:38.440 an intensive effort to recognize the full equality end of 0:06:38.480 --> 0:06:40.279 the law of women, and it failed. 0:06:41.000 --> 0:06:41.200 Right. 0:06:41.320 --> 0:06:44.919 That's embarrassing, right, And instead we sort of try not 0:06:44.960 --> 0:06:45.520 to think about it. 0:06:45.560 --> 0:06:47.360 And I thought, I want to think about it. 0:06:47.400 --> 0:06:48.880 I want other people to think about it, and I 0:06:48.920 --> 0:06:51.880 want other people to recognize that the twenty twenties are 0:06:51.880 --> 0:06:56.400 looking way too much like the nineteen seventies for my taste, right, except, 0:06:56.440 --> 0:06:59.479 if anything, the trajectory's worse now. At least in the seventies, 0:06:59.520 --> 0:07:03.799 the general pitch was shallowly up. Women did get reproductive autonomy, 0:07:03.839 --> 0:07:07.000 they did get relatively secure protections against violence in the home. 0:07:07.320 --> 0:07:10.200 It got easier to end, for example, an abusive marriage. 0:07:10.560 --> 0:07:13.680 But at the same and now all those things are declining. 0:07:13.720 --> 0:07:16.240 It's getting harder and harder for women to extricate themselves, 0:07:16.600 --> 0:07:20.320 for anyone to extricate themselves from an abusive situation. So 0:07:20.480 --> 0:07:22.000 that was the reason I wanted to look at these 0:07:22.040 --> 0:07:25.440 two periods, is because of the very uncomfortable resonances between 0:07:25.480 --> 0:07:27.200 the nineteen seventies and the twenty twenties. 0:07:27.520 --> 0:07:31.240 In your book, you talk about how art often reflects 0:07:31.520 --> 0:07:35.720 what's going on socially within our worlds. Can you talk 0:07:35.760 --> 0:07:39.000 about how horror films, how art in general does that, 0:07:39.080 --> 0:07:40.840 and how you see horror films doing that. 0:07:41.640 --> 0:07:44.800 Yeah, art often receives these impressions from us that we 0:07:44.880 --> 0:07:47.640 can't fully articulate and then the art of repactes them 0:07:47.640 --> 0:07:49.280 so that we can see them. And because of that, 0:07:49.400 --> 0:07:52.800 because of art's capacity to do that, art doesn't in 0:07:52.840 --> 0:07:57.520 fact just reflect cultural reality. It can accelerate cultural change 0:07:57.640 --> 0:08:00.680 and cultural understanding. And I think that is really part 0:08:00.720 --> 0:08:02.560 of what I wanted to convey and scream with me, 0:08:02.760 --> 0:08:05.960 is that these works of art, these films, are receiving 0:08:06.000 --> 0:08:08.640 a lot of input about women's rights and the status 0:08:08.880 --> 0:08:11.120 and level of freedom of women's bodies in America in 0:08:11.120 --> 0:08:14.920 the nineteen seventies and are reflecting that back and thinking 0:08:14.920 --> 0:08:17.640 about it, and also trying to accelerate a certain kind 0:08:17.640 --> 0:08:21.840 of social change around those dynamics. Part of the power 0:08:21.880 --> 0:08:25.280 that horror has, and that horror cinema has even more 0:08:25.720 --> 0:08:29.280 than like say a horror novel, it's that horror kind 0:08:29.320 --> 0:08:31.000 of hits us in our heart. It hits us where 0:08:31.040 --> 0:08:33.560 we feel, It hits us where we fear, and it 0:08:33.600 --> 0:08:35.360 also hits us where we think about who we are 0:08:35.360 --> 0:08:38.000 and how we occupy our bodies. So we watch a 0:08:38.000 --> 0:08:41.800 horror movie and for let's just say, for example, Rosemary's Baby, right. 0:08:41.679 --> 0:08:44.520 For those who haven't seen Rosemary's Baby, it's a psychological 0:08:44.520 --> 0:08:47.720 horror film that centers around a woman who is experiencing 0:08:47.720 --> 0:08:51.480 her first pregnancy, and she starts to suspect that her 0:08:51.520 --> 0:08:54.719 neighbors and even her husband are part of a satanic 0:08:54.800 --> 0:08:57.599 cult that are plotting to use our baby for dark purposes. 0:08:57.720 --> 0:08:59.760 I highly recommend watching this. 0:09:00.440 --> 0:09:02.000 You're watching Rosemary's Baby. 0:09:02.080 --> 0:09:04.600 You're gonna identify with Rosemary, I don't care who we 0:09:04.640 --> 0:09:08.880 are or where you're from. Causes us to feel her 0:09:09.000 --> 0:09:12.320 agony at becoming pregnant in a way that she was 0:09:12.480 --> 0:09:14.839 not even understanding at the time, and then it came 0:09:15.120 --> 0:09:19.960 excruciating pregnancy to term. So horror films because they activate 0:09:19.960 --> 0:09:23.080 our fear, because they activate our feelings, because they activate 0:09:23.120 --> 0:09:26.920 even our confusion and our panic, are very powerful ways 0:09:26.920 --> 0:09:32.199 of making us empathize with a protagonist. And that empathogenic element, 0:09:32.280 --> 0:09:35.080 the capacity to make us feel empathy, is part of 0:09:35.120 --> 0:09:39.079 what gives horror, if anything, extra purchase on both explaining 0:09:39.120 --> 0:09:42.200 and accelerating social change, because if you can be made 0:09:42.200 --> 0:09:47.640 to feel compassionate empathic identification with someone unlike you, right, 0:09:48.000 --> 0:09:51.840 that's a very powerful engine for social change and social movement. 0:09:52.320 --> 0:09:54.680 Can you think of some scary movies where you felt 0:09:54.679 --> 0:09:58.320 some type of compassion for the protagonists absolutely. I mentioned 0:09:58.480 --> 0:10:02.000 Insidious and not start of our conversation, and in that one, 0:10:02.040 --> 0:10:04.800 I feel like who I felt empathy for like shifted 0:10:04.840 --> 0:10:07.040 with each film. So at first I was feeling really 0:10:07.400 --> 0:10:09.680 scared and a lot of empathy for the little boy. 0:10:09.920 --> 0:10:12.720 Then I was feeling a lot of empathy for the dad. 0:10:13.080 --> 0:10:16.199 Then you get this backstory on like who that demon. 0:10:16.880 --> 0:10:18.920 I don't know who that demon person was. You were 0:10:18.920 --> 0:10:21.440 feeling bad for him split second, you know, because you 0:10:21.480 --> 0:10:24.200 find out like their villain origin story and what led 0:10:24.240 --> 0:10:26.520 to them doing all of these things, and you're like, dang, 0:10:26.960 --> 0:10:29.600 it's so wild how these movies can really like shift 0:10:29.880 --> 0:10:32.280 your compassion for a person where you you might have 0:10:32.320 --> 0:10:35.520 a moment where the villain you're like, oh, how this 0:10:35.600 --> 0:10:38.040 might happen? So just think about society in general and 0:10:38.120 --> 0:10:41.480 the patriarchal society that that we exist in the lens 0:10:41.520 --> 0:10:44.640 through which you're watching these horror films through. It's a 0:10:44.640 --> 0:10:47.720 feminist lens, right, Like, how can we if we're going 0:10:47.760 --> 0:10:49.760 to think along that same train of thought, like how 0:10:49.800 --> 0:10:51.800 does the male gaze play into all of this? 0:10:52.160 --> 0:10:54.240 Yeah, such a great question, right, And in the book, 0:10:54.280 --> 0:10:56.640 I have this chapter called bad Men Making Good Art 0:10:57.000 --> 0:10:59.240 because of course, So you're raising a really important question, 0:10:59.320 --> 0:11:02.440 right when we watch Rosemary's suffering in that film, we 0:11:02.520 --> 0:11:05.240 feel along with Rosemary, the question of what exactly we 0:11:05.280 --> 0:11:08.920 feel during the rape scene a little more ambiguous, right, 0:11:09.000 --> 0:11:11.559 And remembering that that scene was shot by none other 0:11:11.600 --> 0:11:16.040 than Roman Polanski, legacy as an abuser of women is 0:11:16.160 --> 0:11:17.400 well established, right. 0:11:17.679 --> 0:11:19.960 Okay, So a little bit about Roman Polanski before we 0:11:20.040 --> 0:11:23.400 keep going. Roman Polanski is a famous film director known 0:11:23.480 --> 0:11:27.040 for films like Rosemary's Baby and The Pianist. And in 0:11:27.120 --> 0:11:29.760 nineteen seventy seven he was charged with sexually assaulting a 0:11:29.800 --> 0:11:32.000 thirteen year old girl in Los Angeles, and then he 0:11:32.120 --> 0:11:34.960 fled the country before he could be sentenced. And ever 0:11:35.000 --> 0:11:38.360 since then he's been living outside of the US and 0:11:38.520 --> 0:11:42.760 continuing to make films. And so there's this ongoing controversy 0:11:42.840 --> 0:11:45.920 surrounding Roman Polanski, which complicates things. 0:11:46.120 --> 0:11:48.920 Yeah, it does, and it should complicate things because for 0:11:49.000 --> 0:11:51.800 us to have the capacity, for any individual viewer to 0:11:51.800 --> 0:11:55.840 have the capacity, in effect, to code switch between identifying 0:11:55.840 --> 0:11:58.679 with a predator and identifying with a victim, that's an 0:11:58.679 --> 0:12:00.960 important part of how we think about it violence and 0:12:01.000 --> 0:12:03.840 how propagates itself. To realize that it's a hair's breath 0:12:03.880 --> 0:12:07.160 that separates any of us from transitioning from having power 0:12:07.600 --> 0:12:09.240 to having no power at all. 0:12:24.320 --> 0:12:27.880 One that after reading your book that kept popping into 0:12:27.920 --> 0:12:31.120 my head was No. Sfaratu, the original and the remake, 0:12:31.600 --> 0:12:35.679 and the violence against women in No. S Faratu as 0:12:35.720 --> 0:12:38.360 like one of the first horror films back in I 0:12:38.360 --> 0:12:42.120 think nineteen twenty two, And so it seems like this 0:12:42.200 --> 0:12:46.319 has always been a through line in horror films, and 0:12:47.320 --> 0:12:51.360 I'm not really sure why that is, Like, what do 0:12:51.400 --> 0:12:56.560 you feel like artists are trying to reinforce by having 0:12:56.600 --> 0:12:59.800 this narrative that exists throughout history. 0:13:00.320 --> 0:13:06.360 I think that our culture has been aware of and 0:13:06.520 --> 0:13:11.160 anxious about predatory masculinity for a very very very long time, 0:13:11.720 --> 0:13:15.560 like since way back before second wave feminism really even 0:13:15.559 --> 0:13:17.479 coss the ground in the nineteen fifties. 0:13:17.920 --> 0:13:18.640 And I think that. 0:13:18.640 --> 0:13:22.480 We see that anxiety reflected much more clearly in cinema 0:13:22.840 --> 0:13:23.800 than anywhere else. 0:13:24.120 --> 0:13:26.760 And this is such a great point because as a society, 0:13:27.240 --> 0:13:32.000 predatory masculinity is a shared fear amongst all people. That's 0:13:32.040 --> 0:13:34.000 why when we go into a movie theater, we all 0:13:34.040 --> 0:13:36.160 scream when the man appears in the corner exactly. Okay, 0:13:36.160 --> 0:13:37.880 it's not just women's screaming, it's not just what set 0:13:37.920 --> 0:13:40.080 of people screaming. Exactly, everybody's screaming. 0:13:40.200 --> 0:13:42.280 If we go way back, and I'll sort of join you. 0:13:42.320 --> 0:13:45.000 In the nineteen thirties, I was just teaching in a 0:13:45.000 --> 0:13:47.280 class I'm teaching this semester called the History of American 0:13:47.280 --> 0:13:49.959 Horror Cinema. I was teaching a set of films called 0:13:50.400 --> 0:13:53.520 White Zombie, I Walked with a Zombie, and then the 0:13:53.559 --> 0:13:56.360 film Gaslight. And in all three of those films, the 0:13:56.360 --> 0:14:00.720 core dynamic is that there's a controlling, abusive man who 0:14:00.760 --> 0:14:04.280 dehumanizes a woman in one way another, either by actually 0:14:04.320 --> 0:14:07.880 turning her into a zombie, or psychologically abusing her so 0:14:07.960 --> 0:14:10.880 that she's vulnerable to becoming turned into a zombie, or 0:14:10.920 --> 0:14:13.080 by gaslating her so badly this is the case in 0:14:13.120 --> 0:14:16.679 the movie Gaslight, that she becomes effectively mentally ill and 0:14:16.760 --> 0:14:20.760 thus subject to his whims. What's special to me in 0:14:20.800 --> 0:14:23.320 part about what happens in the Hayday of Domestic Horror 0:14:23.360 --> 0:14:26.200 in the nineteen seventies is that the first of all 0:14:26.280 --> 0:14:29.440 the women either do not get saved, as in the 0:14:29.480 --> 0:14:32.560 case of Rosemary, or they save themselves, as in the 0:14:32.560 --> 0:14:34.920 case of Ellen Ripley from Alien Right. 0:14:36.080 --> 0:14:37.520 And on top of that. 0:14:37.560 --> 0:14:43.600 It's very clear that the cruel, predatory masculinity is giving 0:14:43.680 --> 0:14:47.800 the monster direct access to the women in the film, 0:14:48.240 --> 0:14:52.040 so there's no instrumental purpose to it. And that sort 0:14:52.040 --> 0:14:55.280 of dynamic is true in almost all of the films, 0:14:55.280 --> 0:14:58.000 with the possible exception of The Shining, where Jack Nicholson 0:14:58.040 --> 0:15:02.760 really does seem to derive wrecked immediate pleasure from worsering 0:15:02.880 --> 0:15:03.800 and dehumanizing. 0:15:03.840 --> 0:15:05.240 Shelley Duvall who plays Wendy. 0:15:05.520 --> 0:15:08.280 Yes, I love The Shining. This is another classic horror 0:15:08.320 --> 0:15:10.880 film and it follows Jack Torrance, which is played by 0:15:11.000 --> 0:15:14.240 Jack Nicholson. He's a writer who takes a job as 0:15:14.360 --> 0:15:17.920 a winter caretaker of this isolated hotel in the middle 0:15:17.960 --> 0:15:20.720 of nowhere. There's all this snow, and his wife Wendy 0:15:20.840 --> 0:15:23.440 and his son Danny, so they're with him, and as 0:15:23.440 --> 0:15:27.480 they're getting settled in this hotel, Jack starts to some 0:15:27.600 --> 0:15:30.000 starts to happen to Jack and he starts to lose 0:15:30.040 --> 0:15:34.000 his mind. Jack started adding strange and very strange. But 0:15:34.080 --> 0:15:37.520 his son Danny has psychic capabilities, which is called the Shining, 0:15:37.520 --> 0:15:40.400 which is where the name of the film comes from 0:15:40.760 --> 0:15:43.720 and it's a tale of Danny and his mother just 0:15:43.760 --> 0:15:48.600 trying to survive their father and husband. It's another film 0:15:48.640 --> 0:15:51.040 that I feel like is etched in the memories of 0:15:51.120 --> 0:15:53.960 all people, Like we all remember Red Rum and the 0:15:54.480 --> 0:15:57.840 Blood in the Hallway and everything like that, and when 0:15:57.880 --> 0:16:02.320 we think about Wendy and what she went through in 0:16:02.520 --> 0:16:08.680 that hotel, we fear for Wendy a lot, and so 0:16:09.360 --> 0:16:13.280 understanding that Jack Nicholson could go from a guy who's 0:16:13.600 --> 0:16:16.800 a husband that we father that we're just going along 0:16:16.840 --> 0:16:20.240 with and then something switches, but there's no switch with 0:16:20.280 --> 0:16:24.560 Wendy and so she has to endure. Essentially, it really 0:16:24.680 --> 0:16:27.240 changes what you're scared of when you think of it 0:16:27.520 --> 0:16:30.480 in that way. When you add this lens of feminism 0:16:30.680 --> 0:16:32.920 to these films, it really makes you think of them differently, 0:16:33.040 --> 0:16:35.400 Like it was scary a little bit before, yeah, but 0:16:35.440 --> 0:16:38.120 then like put yourself in those shoes exactly like I mean, 0:16:38.160 --> 0:16:39.560 it makes you think that you might not have to 0:16:39.560 --> 0:16:43.600 think far, you might be right next to your foot. 0:16:44.240 --> 0:16:46.560 One of the sort of I don't know if this 0:16:46.680 --> 0:16:48.920 was like a designed choice on the part of Stanley 0:16:49.040 --> 0:16:51.640 Kubrick and everyone, or if it was an accident, but 0:16:51.720 --> 0:16:52.800 I'm going to make something. 0:16:52.600 --> 0:16:53.480 Of it regardless. 0:16:53.840 --> 0:16:57.360 I think it's so important that the main character, the 0:16:57.400 --> 0:17:00.560 main malicious evil character in the film is named Jack 0:17:00.600 --> 0:17:03.840 Torrance and the actor who plays that character is named 0:17:04.040 --> 0:17:07.800 Jack Nicholson, because it highlights that what's being described in 0:17:07.840 --> 0:17:13.040 the film is fiction, but it's not fiction. This really happens. 0:17:13.080 --> 0:17:15.600 And I think part of the reason that Shelley Duval's 0:17:15.600 --> 0:17:18.560 performance is so frightening is like in the scene when 0:17:18.640 --> 0:17:21.359 Jack Nicholson as Jack Torrance is battling her up the 0:17:21.359 --> 0:17:23.840 staircase and trying to kill them, and she's sort of 0:17:23.880 --> 0:17:27.080 like Jack. No, Shelley Duvall is like talking to a 0:17:27.119 --> 0:17:31.280 real person named Jack. So you know, when when horror 0:17:31.320 --> 0:17:35.320 depicts violence against women, it often does so allegorically, like 0:17:35.359 --> 0:17:37.760 in the Exorcist, right, it makes the evil man in 0:17:37.800 --> 0:17:38.760 the house into a demon. 0:17:39.320 --> 0:17:42.440 Their Exorcist is an oldie but a good Oh yeah 0:17:42.520 --> 0:17:45.280 tells the story of Reagan, and she begins to show 0:17:45.320 --> 0:17:49.359 some disturbing and violent behavior after becoming possessed by a 0:17:49.400 --> 0:17:52.560 demonic force. Now her mom is like, somebody got help 0:17:52.560 --> 0:17:54.359 me with this child. We've seen them, We've seen a 0:17:54.359 --> 0:17:57.440 helpless mother before. You know, and so she seeks help 0:17:57.480 --> 0:18:01.399 from two priests and they're trying to get the demon 0:18:01.440 --> 0:18:02.959 out of her through an exorcism. 0:18:03.040 --> 0:18:04.719 And to your other point, that like, once you have 0:18:04.840 --> 0:18:07.960 this lens fitted to your eye for thinking about domestic 0:18:08.000 --> 0:18:10.439 horror and the men in a domestic scenario as the 0:18:10.480 --> 0:18:13.440 source of the evil, you kind of see it everywhere. 0:18:13.600 --> 0:18:16.920 I talk about some contemporary reboots of the original films 0:18:16.920 --> 0:18:19.280 from the seventies in the book, like Immaculate, the First Omen, 0:18:19.359 --> 0:18:22.560 Apartment seven A. But if you count a wider kind 0:18:22.600 --> 0:18:25.520 of net, there has been just a ton of domestic 0:18:25.560 --> 0:18:41.720 horror in the last few years. The movie Speak No Evil, 0:18:41.800 --> 0:18:45.280 which came out as before the movie Weapons, Yes, a 0:18:45.480 --> 0:18:48.720 very interesting variant on domestic horror, where like children prison 0:18:48.760 --> 0:18:51.919 in a basement by this old witchy woman and the 0:18:52.040 --> 0:18:54.960 language she uses to keep her the child who's kind 0:18:54.960 --> 0:18:59.200 of like her lackey if you tell anyone, I will 0:18:59.240 --> 0:19:02.480 kill your parents. That happens to be a well established 0:19:02.600 --> 0:19:06.200 ruse that abusers use to keep children afraid to disclose 0:19:06.200 --> 0:19:07.879 what's going on in their homes. So that film is 0:19:07.920 --> 0:19:12.720 absolutely about domestic violence and domestic abuse of absolutely ridden right, 0:19:12.840 --> 0:19:14.760 you see it, It's all over the place, right, It's 0:19:14.760 --> 0:19:18.280 like happening constantly. The movie Heretic that was definitely a 0:19:18.400 --> 0:19:22.639 variation were kind of genre. The only difference is that 0:19:22.680 --> 0:19:25.600 the two girls that he abuses are strangers to him 0:19:26.160 --> 0:19:28.119 until they get into his home. But once he's in, 0:19:28.200 --> 0:19:30.520 they're in his home, they're every bit as subject to 0:19:30.560 --> 0:19:32.720 him as Wendy Torrance is to Jack Torrance and the 0:19:32.760 --> 0:19:33.960 Shining Have. 0:19:33.960 --> 0:19:36.719 You seen weapons? I've seen weapons, and I actually really 0:19:37.240 --> 0:19:40.560 liked it. I thought it was such a smart movie, 0:19:40.560 --> 0:19:43.439 in a very well done movie. It really makes you 0:19:43.440 --> 0:19:46.520 think about a lot of things. And one thing that 0:19:46.560 --> 0:19:50.119 I through our conversations with you, Eleanor that made me 0:19:50.520 --> 0:19:53.200 think about something is that there are always witchy women 0:19:53.800 --> 0:19:56.960 and not any witchy men. What is that about? 0:19:57.560 --> 0:20:00.679 Because in history, like I'm a medievalist by training, I 0:20:00.680 --> 0:20:02.800 study medieval history, in medieval literature, I do a lot 0:20:02.800 --> 0:20:05.600 of early modern literature and history. In the actual witch 0:20:05.640 --> 0:20:07.800 hunts that took place in Europe and the United States, 0:20:08.040 --> 0:20:10.960 men were witches too, not as frequently, but it was 0:20:11.080 --> 0:20:14.480 well established that a witch could be male. We've lost 0:20:14.520 --> 0:20:17.240 that cultural vocabulary over time. When we say which, I 0:20:17.280 --> 0:20:21.000 think the default assumption is that we mean female, right 0:20:21.200 --> 0:20:22.679 in terms of dark magic or whatever. 0:20:23.200 --> 0:20:24.120 And I think you're right. 0:20:24.200 --> 0:20:26.800 I think that when a female character in a film 0:20:26.880 --> 0:20:30.080 is cast as really bad, she often gets monsterized in 0:20:30.080 --> 0:20:34.240 a supernatural way, whereas men often just are monstrous, like 0:20:34.240 --> 0:20:36.920 in a sort of daily quotitian like, oh, I. 0:20:36.600 --> 0:20:38.760 All murder my wife kind of a way. So I 0:20:38.760 --> 0:20:39.480 think there's. 0:20:39.840 --> 0:20:43.600 Laytan misogyny baked into that, right, like that a woman 0:20:43.680 --> 0:20:46.520 is bad, She's not just a bad woman. She's a monster, right, 0:20:46.920 --> 0:20:51.080 airwolf like in Jennifer's body or in apps, or she's 0:20:51.160 --> 0:20:53.119 like a vampire, or she's like a witch. 0:20:53.280 --> 0:20:53.440 Right. 0:20:54.000 --> 0:20:56.800 So I think that that's very much in play. I 0:20:56.840 --> 0:20:59.080 also think the other thing that's interesting about the gendering 0:20:59.080 --> 0:21:02.800 in that film, and it's related to the way that 0:21:02.840 --> 0:21:05.800 film is mobilizing an awareness of how domestic abuse, and 0:21:05.840 --> 0:21:08.320 in particular, the sexual abuse of children works. 0:21:08.920 --> 0:21:09.040 Right. 0:21:09.680 --> 0:21:12.280 Children statistically are far more. 0:21:12.240 --> 0:21:14.399 Likely to be sexually abused by someone they know and 0:21:14.480 --> 0:21:18.919 are relating than by a stranger. Right. Growing up's parents, 0:21:18.960 --> 0:21:21.000 they go around the world sort of afraid of the 0:21:21.080 --> 0:21:23.840