TheoFantastique Podcast 2.2 for 2011 is now available. In this edition my special guest is Peg Aloi, a religion scholar and film critic and who maintains her own blog at The Witching Hour, who engages me about the film Black Death directed by Christopher Smith. In this interview and dialogue, Peg and I discuss the film cinematically, as well as its religious elements (bringing together our different religious traditions, an idea I first suggested at The Wild Hunt), and how this film may, in the words of Smith, function as a dark parable for our times. TheoFantastique Podcast 2.2 can be listened to by clicking this link.
See the trailer below. This is a difficult film to find on DVD, but you can watch it on your computer through the TheoFantastique Store via Amazon.com Instant Video at this link.
Paranormal Media offers a unique, timely exploration of the extraordinary, unexplained and supernatural in popular culture, looking in unusual places in order to understand this phenomenon. Early spirit forms such as magic lantern shows or the spirit photograph are re-imagined as a search for extraordinary experience in reality TV, ghost tourism, and live shows. Through a popular cultural ethnography, and critical analysis in social and cultural theory, this ground-breaking book by Annette Hill presents an original and rigorous examination of people’s experiences of spirits and magic. In popular culture, people are players in an orchestral movement about what happens to us when we die. In a very real sense the audience is the show. This book is the story of audiences and their participation in a show about matters of life and death.
Hill is Professor of Media at the Communication and Media Research Institute, University of Westminster, UK. She has authored numerous books and articles on television and popular culture, including Restyling Factual Television (2007) and Reality TV (2005).
TheoFantastique: Annette, thank you for letting me take a look at your book, and for given me an opportunity to explore the paranormal once again on this blog, this time from the perspective of media and popular culture. How did you become personally interested in this as a research topic in relation to your work in media?
Annette Hill: It happened on the night of Halloween. A few years ago I was watching Most Haunted Live on the TV. It was fascinating to see such a reality TV show and how it invited the audience to participate in so many ways – from being scared, or laughing out loud, to texting, or sending in your psychic drawings. At the time, I was finishing a book called Restyling Factual TV and in that book the conclusions were all about a problem of evidence, truth, and authenticity. I started to imagine what it would be like to do a study of something where evidence was even more problematic.
It led to this book and its focus on ambiguous cultural experiences where evidence is only one of many factors at work in something that may or may not be paranormal. For example, what was so interesting about studying viewers of Most Haunted was that many were skeptical of the program, but that didn’t mean they were skeptical of paranormal matters. One woman I spoke to said the show opened a door to talking about the paranormal, and I think that was true for many participants in the study. I called this a revolving door of skepticism and belief – summing up the ambiguity in watching and experiencing reality ghost hunting TV.
TheoFantastique: In Paranormal Media you discuss not only paranormal phenomena, but specifically how audiences interact with and participate in such phenomena, especially in a media age. Can you sketch a little of the history of audience participation with the paranormal historically?
Annette Hill: The first point to make is that the paranormal has been a part of culture for a long time. Telling ghost stories around the campfire is something we all know about, both historically and from our experiences today. During the revolution in communications in the 19th century, the paranormal was used as a rich source for early popular culture in Europe and America. For example, there was the invention of photography, and very soon after this there was something called the spirit photograph. Social historians tell us that people went to see spirit photographs exhibited at Cheapside in London and debated the authenticity of them, just as we would today. For some people it was evidence of spirit communication, for others a trick of light. Crucially, in chatting about this, people shared their own ghost stories as well. It is this type of participation in the paranormal that makes it such a continuing rich source for popular culture now. Ghosts, phantasmagoria, unusual experiences, are topics that invite us to talk, share, debate, test out and exchange ideas and beliefs.
TheoFantastique: How does the current interest in the paranormal in popular culture play a part in our narrative of selfhood in Western culture?
Annette Hill: Psychologists point out that paranormal beliefs are usually grounded in our experience of something strange or extraordinary. This intuitive, experience-based belief tends to bring to the fore our sense of self and what we may or may not believe in regarding the paranormal. Time and again participants in my study told me they had to experience it to believe it. Certainly this focus on the self fits very well with the popularity of self-help, psychology of empowerment, and health and well being, which are all connected in various ways with paranormal beliefs today. On the one hand you can see various professionals within the paranormal and psychic industries promoting their services as self-help and empowerment. On the other hand, you can also see skeptics of the paranormal criticizing people’s beliefs because of their supposed gullibility, or self-deception. Both skeptics and believers are using a sense of self, psychology, and personal experience to debate paranormal matters. But, we should not forget that for people who engage with the paranormal in popular culture – movies, photography, ghost cams, ghost hunting events, live medium demonstrations on TV – the social side of all this is very important. So, the paranormal is not only about selfhood, but also feeling a collective self-conscious engagement with the extraordinary, or unexplained.
TheoFantastique: You suggest that Western culture’s perspective on death plays a major role in the popularity of the paranormal. At one point you quote Durham Peters saying that “our modern sensibility to death and dying ‘bespeaks a disturbance in that most crucial of all relationships our relation to the dead.'” At Burning Man Festival one of the more popular and emotionally moving aspects is the Temple, where participants leave memorial wishes to the dead and at the conclusion of the festival the Temple is burned. The event is cathartic for participants. I’m wondering if such aspects of popular culture, including even the continued popularity of Halloween, even with its commercialism and secularization, is part of a dynamic similar to the connection between Western views on death in relation to the paranormal.
Annette Hill: One of the most frightening facts I read for this book was in a sociological study of death and dying. The author claimed that a hundred years ago around 70 per cent of us would have died with family, friends or people from the local community. Today, the reverse is the case – 70 percent of us will die alone, probably in an institution. Who wants to die alone? Our fear of death is a major part of how we play with ideas of mortality, death and dying, and afterlife, in popular culture. Live events and rituals of the kind you mention are so important for our collective self-conscious engagement with death and dying in society. Whilst Julian Barnes can write on mortality and fear of death and say there is nothing to be afraid of, most of us feel the opposite.
TheoFantastique: You refer to our situation as an age of anxiety. Is our interest in the paranormal, and the depth of cultural angst, fueled by our environment of post-9/11, economic recession, and terrorism?
Annette Hill: The age of anxiety is a term used by a cultural historian Joanna Bourke in her book on fear. It is a good book that shows how the whole of the twentieth century has been filled with anxiety, atrocity, war, and civil unrest. 9/11 is one such terrible moment in a history of fear. The psychological interpretation of the rise in paranormal beliefs today is that it is a way of coping with uncertainty. This idea is so common that Marketing Week forecast that during the economic recession there would be a boom in psychic services. But, this is only one interpretation. People I spoke to had other interpretations of why interests in the paranormal are peaking at the moment, some of which are about alternative spiritual practices, or belief in afterlife. The World Values survey shows belief in afterlife is steadily rising. That may be another factor in paranormal beliefs.
TheoFantastique: At one point you refer to the paranormal not so much as religion but more as lifestyle experiences, which of course can incorporate the spiritual. I’ve noticed the same dynamic in my research in Burning Man Festival in the United States. Can you touch a little on how you see the paranormal shifting from religion to lifestyle experience through media and cultural participation?
Annette Hill: When I say the paranormal is less about religion than lifestyle practices I am referring to the way the paranormal is played out in popular culture. A few hundred years ago our belief in the paranormal would have been rooted in religion. Now, it may be linked to alternative religions, Eastern and Western spiritual practices, or different kinds of religious doctrines, but it doesn’t have to be. One person I spoke to said just because I don’t believe in God it doesn’t mean I don’t believe in anything. For my participants, there was something attractive about the eclecticsm and openness they associated with paranormal beliefs.
TheoFantastique: You state in your book that the paranormal is a neglected area of research in many areas of academic study? Why do you think this is the case? Even with its widespread presence in popular culture is it in the minds of some a marginalized set of phenomena that in turn can marginalize scholars in the academy?
Annette Hill: The study of the paranormal is a challenge for any researcher. Parapsychologists have their own methods and theories, psychologists have their approaches to the study of psi, and religious and sociological studies offer other perspectives. It is a neglected area in media, cultural and communication studies probably because scholars worry about how to study something they perceive as irrational. But, the paranormal is a part of our human experience, whether we believe in it or not, and I think it is important we find rigorous ways to study this.
TheoFantastique: Annette, thank you again for your research and this interview.
A call for papers from the Academic Study Magic list.
‘Magic is Might 2012’ : 23-24 July 2012, University of Limerick, Ireland
An International Academic Conference Exploring the Cultural Influence of the Harry Potter Books and Films
Hosted by the University of Limerick Department of Sociology in collaboration with the UL Interaction Design Centre, Dept. of Computer
Science and Information Systems.
Call for Papers
The Harry Potter series has become a publishing phenomenon that has captured the imagination of children and adults all over the world. The stories created by J.K. Rowling have inspired extensive multidisciplinary academic discussion, ranging from cultural and literary analyses, sociological and philosophical interpretations, design practices, to recognised medical publications.
Conferences have taken place that focused on the impact that the novels have had on the world and their educational contribution and edited collections have been produced centering on themes of philosophy, religion, sociology, and critical analysis, to name just a few. The characters’ relationships, the political and social systems, and cultural commentaries woven into Rowling’s writing are just some examples of what makes the Harry Potter series an exciting framework for academic discourse in a number of areas.
This two-day event will feature twenty 15-20 minute presentations on papers relating to popular culture and the Harry Potter series. We will encourage intensive and lively discussion and debate around the papers over the two days in this intimate setting. Wizards, muggles, established academics and postgraduate students are invited to submit papers. Post conference, full papers will be put together into a collection that will be available online.
Suggested Topics include but are in no way limited to:
– Society (both Wizard and Muggle) and its portrayal
– The Law and the Criminal System
– Government and Politics
– Gender
– Race
– Class
– Prejudice
– Relationships (sexual, friendship, the family etc…)
– Human and Non-Human Rights (werewolves, goblins, house elves,
centaurs, ghosts, Aragog, etc…)
– Bodies and Embodiment
– Education
– Conformity and Deviance
– Socialisation
– Sexuality and the Erotic
– Media, Technology and Design
– Fashion, Music and the Arts
Please submit a 300 word abstract with 100 word biographical information by 1 September 2011. All inquiries and abstracts can be emailed to magicismight2012@gmail.com.
All abstracts will be reviewed for inclusion in the conference by the conference committee. Accepted papers will be notified by December 1st 2011. We will then ask for draft conference papers to be submitted. General inquiries can be made at the above email address to conference organisers, Gráinne O’Brien (University of Limerick, Ireland) Michelle Mayefske (University of Limerick,Ireland) Dr. Luigina Ciolfi (University of Limerick, Ireland) and Jadwiga O’Brien (National University of Galway, Ireland).
As a fan of fantastic art, and of the Spectrum fantastic art book which comes out each year, I am pleased to pass along the following announcement concerning the Spectrum Fantastic Art Live! conference.
Scheduled for May 18-20, 2012 in Kansas City, Missouri, our intent is to create a venue in which the artists take center stage and don’t have to compete for space or attention with movie companies, actors, and former centerfolds. This is a show about the Art and about the Artists! Spectrum Fantastic Art Live! will be a weekend festival during which exhibiting artists can sell their work to attendees and where creators can socialize, network, and self-promote. There will be educational opportunities (including workshops, panels, and demonstrations) as well as the chance to meet and interact with art directors from a variety of industries.
We’ll also, at long last, be able to present the awards for Spectrum 19 live in front of peers and an appreciative audience at a ceremony Saturday night. Our goal is to grow the public’s appreciation for the art and the artists while simultaneously trying to grow the market for fantastic art in all its mediums and incarnations – and to do so without it costing anyone an arm and a leg. The price of exhibiting in a first-class venue is modest, attending the show will be inexpensive, staying and eating will be reasonable, particularly when compared to other shows and conventions.
We’ll have special guests of the show (Brom, Phil Hale, Andrew Jones, Iain McCaig, and Mike Mignola) as a reflection of the diversity that Spectrum has always embraced. But each exhibiting artist, each artist in attendance, is equally important: we may be organizing it, we may be signing the contracts for the space and the decorators and security, but this most definitely is YOUR show.
We’re in the process of sending out the mailer with initial information about reserving space, but we’re giving everyone on the Spectrum mailing list the head-up first. We will be advertising this heavily in the months ahead. We’ve already received a number of inquiries and with only 200 booths we’re pretty sure we’ll fill up fast. Join us! Help us make this inaugural event truly memorable.
We’ve also launched a website (http://www.spectrumfantasticartlive.com) that will continually update with information about the show, how to purchase memberships, hotel information, special events, etc. General inquiries about the show may be emailed to info@spectrumfantasticartlive.com. And, yes, for the latest information you can also follow us (and friend us) on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/spectrumfantasticartlive.
We’re a year out – and a year goes by fast. We hope you’ll agree with us that the Fantastic Art Community deserves its own venue, its own home. We hope you feel the same way we do:
A new trailer is now available for Twentieth Century Fox’s new incarnation of the Planet of the Apes franchise in Rise of the Planet of the Apes scheduled to hit theaters August 5. In this new trailer we see something of the back story as a therapy for the healing of brain disorders is experimented with on chimpanzees. One chimp is selected, who becomes Caesar, the leader of an ape revolt with the film tagline “evolution becomes revolution.”
It was 1950s science fiction/horror that began my lifelong interest in the fantastic and horrific. Two of my favorite films from that decade are The Thing from Another World (1951) and Them! (1954). Actor James Arness starred in both of these films, as the creature of the title in the first film, and as an Army soldier fighting giant ants in the latter. Mr. Arness passed away today in Brentwood, California at the age of 88. A story and obituary can be found here.
The Popular Culture Association and American Culture Association have issued a Call for Contributors:
Undead in the West: Vampires, Zombies, Mummies, and Ghosts on the
Cinematic Frontier (anthology)
Deadline for abstracts: September 18, 2011
The frontier has long been framed as a landscape of life and death, but few scholarly works have ventured into the realm where the two become one, to explore portrayals of the Undead in the West – the zombies, vampires, mummies, and others that have lumbered, crept, shambled, and swooped into the Western from other genres. This sub-genre, while largely a post-1990 phenomenon, traces it roots to much deeper hybrid traditions of Westerns and horror or science fiction, and yet, shows ties to the recent Western renaissance.
Some questions to consider:
– What happens when traditional frontier figures, settings, symbols, and ideologies encounter these characters that defy the laws of
nature?
– How are Western archetypes subverted or accentuated when confronted by the undead?
– How do zombies, vampires, and the like, affect our understandings and interpretations of the West, and vice-versa? Might these hybrid Westerns function as the new anti-Western, or do the undead facilitate a return to tradition?
– In what ways do undead Westerns consciously use the undead elements of the plot to comment on the nature of traditional Western heroes and villains?
Possible topics include:
The Undead as Agents of Redemption and Retaliation:
1. Clint Eastwood’s Undead Avengers (such as Pale Rider)
2. Quests for Redemption (as in Gallowwalker)
3. The Undead as Guardians of the Sacred West (as in Seven Mummies)
The Moral Order Under Siege:
1. The Vampire as the Ultimate Outlaw (as in From Dusk Till Dawn)
2. Renegades and Bounty Hunters (as in Dead Walkers)
3. Moral Panic in the Heartland (as in Devil’s Crossing)
4. Identity and Otherness on the Western Frontier (as in The Curse of the Undead)
Playing with Classic Western Tropes:
1. Frontier Masculinity and the Undead (as in Bubba Ho-tep)
2. The Gunfighters’ Code (as in The Quick and the Undead)
3. A Cowboy, a Soldier, and Geronimo’s Niece: The Undead and Classic Western Characters (as in Undead or Alive)
The ‘Spirit’ of the West:
1. The Undead and Western Iconography
2. Texas Ranger on a Fire-Breathing Horse: Sam Elliott as Western Icon in Ghost Rider (2007)
3. Spirit Guides and Guardians: Native American Apparitions
Please send your 500-word abstract to both co-editors, Cindy Miller (cynthia_miller@emerson.edu) and Bow Van Riper (bvanriper@bellsouth.net).
Deadline for submissions is September 18, 2011. Accepted essays will be due in February 2012, for a 2012 publication.
Horror historian David J. Skal has argued that the early Universal horror films were, in part, a response to the trauma experienced as a result of World War I. In The Monster Show: A Cultural History of Horror, Skal wrote:
A good deal of this book has dealt with the long shadow of war reflected and transformed in the shared anxiety rituals we call monster movies. Wars tend not to resolve themselves, culturally, until years after the combat stops. The same is true of economic depressions, fatal epidemics, political witch-hunts — the traumas can linger for decades.
Other commentators have seen the pessimistic influence of 9/11 in horror as a response to the damage to the national psyche. In addition, horror films as well as science fiction have often recognized that human beings have a penchant for tribalism, destruction of the other, and self-annihilation. TheoFantastique wishes everyone a happy Memorial Day as we remember those who have given their lives in battle, even as we hope that we will one day move beyond our tendencies toward war.
Yesterday one of the interesting media features I came across came from College Times. A piece by Janice Vega asked a question with its title “Which is better: Star Trek or Star Wars? Two mega-fans battle it out”. In the piece various facets of the two science fiction franchises are examined in competition and scored accordingly. It is perhaps no surprise that the conclusion results in a tie. After posting a link to this piece on the TheoFantastique Facebook page with a comment that for me, although a fan of both franchises, the edge goes to Star Trek. One fan came across the link and my preferences and weighed in with his own thoughts on the matter. In his view the larger box office, greater merchandise sales, better acting and special effects, musical score, and greater popularity today indicates, at least to this individual, that Star Wars is the clear winner and therefore “better.”
As I’ve thought about this over the last 24 hours for me the broader question is about our criteria for good science fiction. Of course we will all have our personal and subjective preferences for aspects of science fiction in popular culture, but how might we assess the value of this genre?
In my view the criteria set forth in the comments to my Facebook link post miss the mark. Science fiction films and television must be entertaining, and make money in the process, but hopefully ticket sales, advertising revenue, merchandise sales, and impressive special effects aren’t the main criteria by which we evaluate science fiction. This is where I part company with many fans today perhaps. I like science fiction that is not only good entertainment, and which includes good special effects, but I also want it to be intellectually engaging. I like to to raise cultural, social, ethical, and even religious or irreligious questions that makes us probe beneath the surface of the entertainment. Here Star Trek clearly meets this criteria, at least in the original series. Another example is the original Planet of the Apes film, now well known for incorporating social commentary on race. More recent examples of thought provoking science fiction come in the form of District 9, Splice, and Moon.
I don’t want to be misunderstood. I’m a fan of both Star Trek and Star Wars. But when push comes to shove the edge goes to Star Trek in my preferences because I want more than a mythic space opera in my sci-fi. Does this mean I’m swimming against the flow in science fiction in popular culture?
In response to another failed doomsday prophecy, and in anticipation of the next to come in 2012 in connection with the Mayan calendar, a nice graphic comparison of various cultural, religious, and secular doomsday prophecies and scenarios from LiveScience.com.
