In my ongoing research on fantastic fan cultures I came across this episode of MTV’s True Life that focuses on the phenomenon titled “I’m a Fanboy.” Although the program seems to include and reinforce some stereotypes of “fanboys,” no doubt basted upon MTV’s selection process in fan submissions rather than from a scientific cross-section of those in fandom, it does provide an interesting glimpse into individuals involved in these subcultures. This episode and others form the series can be found here.
The lines between science and entertainment are blurred these days. This is especially the case when it comes to things related to horror, science fiction, and the paranormal. This is evident in an upcoming program on the National Geographic Channel addressing the possibility of alien invasion in “When Aliens Attack” which will air on May 22.
As I probed further in scientific studies that draw upon zombies I found another instance where the channel has been willing to probe unusual territory. In the recent past channel aired “The Truth About Zombies,” which we air again on June 8.
I find this significant in that in years past National Geographic focused (and continues to focus) on topics like evolution, anthropology, genetics, and any number of mainstream scientific issues. Now, subjects which would have been considered little more than entertainment, and fringe at that, are the stuff at least quasi-serious exploration. This indicates that not only have the lines between various entertainment and scientific exploration been blurred, but also that science fiction, horror, and even aspects of the paranormal are now mainstream genres that have moved beyond entertainment and into the popular imagination in ways that are drawn upon to explore serious cultural and social phenomena.
Fears, and perhaps for some, joyful anticipation, of apocalyptic doom is in the air. This is perhaps most evident with Christian radio and television preacher Harold Camping’s prediction of the end of the world on May 21st. But this is nothing new, and science fiction and horror films have often involved depictions of apocalypse. But in an article in the new edition of The Journal of Religion and Popular Culture, John Walliss and James Aston argue that cinematic depictions of apocalyptic have taken a more pessimistic turn in our post-9/11 world. 9/11 was such a dramatic shock to the national psyche, it should come as no surprise that it should inform depictions of the apocalypse in film.
In “Doomsday America: The Pessimistic Turn of Post-9/11 Apocalyptic Cinema,” Walliss and Aston contrast the type of apocalyptic films produced in the late 1990s with those that took place post-9/11. Although they recognize that apocalyptic cinema runs across a spectrum, and that post-9/11 apocalyptic cinema should not be construed as a separate cycle, nevertheless they rightly recognize the distinctive turn in the post-9/11 expressions. In their view, there are both continuities and discontinuities in apocalyptic films both pre- and post-9/11.
There are two interesting aspect of their discussion worth drawing attention to. First, they rightly note that there has been a desacralization of the apocalypse. Taking their cue from Conrad Ostwalt, they note a shift from religiously-based expressions of apocalyptic brought as a result of divine judgment, to more natural forms of the end of the world. Often terrorism is looming metaphorically behind these “natural” rather than supernatural expressions of apocalypse, as exemplified in films like Cloverfield, and War of the Worlds (2005).
Beyond the desacralization of the apocalypse, Walliss and Aston also note that many of the post-9/11 cycle of apocalyptic films raise the question of whether human beings can and should be saved. The authors share an example of this in the conclusion of Diary of the Dead where voice-over narration asks “are we worth saving?” Many of these films frame the apocalyptic narrative in such a way that the real threat comes not from the forces or agents of apocalyptic judgment, but from human on human violence which comes as a result of the apocalyptic environment and the breakdown of the social order. It is no wonder then that many filmmakers, and perhaps the audiences that watch their films, would answer this question with increasing pessimism, and often with a resounding “no.”
At the conclusion of this essay, Walliss and Aston write:
Apocalyptic cinema, like the sci-fi genre in general, continues to be a popular and pervasive form of cultural expression, never venturing far from our screens and consciousness (perhaps as Robin Wood suggested of the horror film, because it is part of our “collective nightmare.”) If this is indeed the case, then apocalyptic cinema, with its spectacular and pessimistic narratives of modern-day fears and anxieties, is ideally suited to comment on and interpret the “dreams, nightmares, fantasies and hopes” of the present historical period.
“Doomsday America” is recommended for those who want to probe the influence of one of the greatest national psychological traumas on the development of science fiction and horror cinema.
While checking the quotes and bibliographical sources in a recent book I was introduced to the work of Victoria Nelson. Nelson is an independent scholar and the author of The Secret Life of Puppets (Harvard University Press, 2002), as well as the forthcoming Gothicka (Harvard University Press, April 2012). In the midst of a very busy schedule she made some time to discuss her work in the Gothick in pop culture.
Victoria, thank you for this interview. My thanks goes to Jeff Kripal as well for helping to connect us. You’ve done some academic work and writing on alternative spiritualities, and what might be labeled esotericism in popular culture which is explored in part in your book The Secret Life of Puppets. You also have an interesting essay in THE BELIEVER titled “Cathedral Head: The Gothick Cosmos of Guillermo del Toro,” which will be expanded as a chapter in Gothicka. Del Toro is one of my favorite filmmakers today given his approach to horror and dark fantasy. How are you defining “Gothick” in del Toro’s work, and can you provide a few examples of how this surfaces in his horror and fantasy?
Victoria Nelson: Guillermo del Toro is a self-confessed (and very learned) devotee of the original “Gothick,” the scandalous 18th-century pop fiction genre founded by such writers as Horace Walpole, Ann Radcliffe, and Matthew Lewis. If you want a crash course in the Gothick, listen to his director’s commentary on the deluxe edition of The Devil’s Backbone and save yourself a year of graduate school! Those long-ago writers laid down a set of conventions that are still with us today: the young pure hero or heroine who journeys to an ancient castle, abbey, or mansion and must confront a mysterious evil there: think Jane Eyre and Dracula in the 19th century, Interview with a Vampire in the 20th century — I’m thinking of Louis’s plantation, which burns down like all charged Gothick spaces must–and del Toro in the 21st century. In The Devil’s Backbone, Carlos discovers the ghost of the murdered boy in the orphanage basement. In Pan’s Labyrinth, the young girl Ofelia finds an entrance to the Underworld in the labyrinth behind the mill. Both of them must face off against a murderous antagonist who is ultimately defeated and killed. Carlos escapes the haunted orphanage, but Ofelia is killed by her stepfather, only to reincarnate as the immortal princess Moanna. Her rebirth is the defining feature of much 21st century Gothick because it foregrounds existence beyond death.
TheoFantastique: One of the things that struck me in your essay was the mention of del Toro’s appreciation for the beauty of the monstrous. In my thinking this seems to be missing in much of the traditional religious expression in the West which has lost site of the synthesis of what might be called light and dark where the monstrous is repressed or explained away. Is del Toro recapturing an aspect of earlier forms of Western religious thought here?
Victoria Nelson: Yes, he absolutely is. Del Toro is very eloquent on his love of the medieval grotesque–gargoyles on cathedrals and the fanciful creatures in medieval bestiaries–and he often expresses this love in religious terms. He said someplace that instead of Jesus, he accepted monsters into his heart. In the Catholic Middle Ages (the original Gothic that the first “Gothick” writers drew their inspiration from), monsters were also sacred creatures. Because they were something contrary to nature, the shock you felt looking at representations of them was supposed to jump you out of your rational mind into that other realm where the holy resides. There’s a whole bestiary of monsters in the market scene in Hellboy II, and his androgynous Death figure later in that movie has eyeballs embedded in its wings — that’s like medieval iconography on acid.
TheoFantastique: You describe Pan’s Labyrinth and The Devil’s Backbone as depicting a medieval metaphysic. How is this the case?
Victoria Nelson: Both these movies use the old law of correspondences as part of their narrative engine. The sound bite for this is the old alchemical dictum, “As above, so below.” The invisible world and the material world are totally interconnected; what happens in one affects the other. It’s an idea that we’re all familiar with from Shakespeare, that when a person violates the moral order or the rule of heaven, the natural world reflects this upset in all kinds of ways: thunderstorms, earthquakes, etc. In The Devil’s Backbone, we feel that the bomb that accidentally drops into the orphanage courtyard simply got sucked down from the skies into the warp of evil already going on there: the murder of the boy. Pan’s Labyrinth is full of correspondences between the invisible world and the material world. One is the baby-shaped mandrake root that Ofelia puts under her mother’s bed to help her difficult pregnancy. As long as she keeps the root bathed in milk, the pregnancy goes well. As soon as the stepfather has the mandrake root destroyed, the mother miscarries and dies in childbirth.
TheoFantastique: On the one hand del Toro is critical of theistic forms of belief in God, but yet tells cinematic narratives about alternative magickal realities that might be interpreted as spiritual in nature. In his films, especially in Pan’s Labyrinth, he seems to leave open the interpretation that Ofelia is not having an escapist fantasy, but instead is taking part in another realm of reality that only certain people can see. Does it seem that there is some kind of tension in del Toro that may eschew Christianity and claim atheism yet still present a monstrous and Gothick fantasy that can be spiritual in nature?
Victoria Nelson: In my opinion, he’s an atheist in name only. What he presents in Pan’s Labyrinth — the one film besides Cronos that’s his own original conception — is a kind of alternative Christianity spawned from Victorian fantasy. The Underworld palace where Ofelia/Moanna reigns is a faux Gothic cathedral with a Celtified rose window. He’s suggesting that our world is ruled from an alternative spiritual reality that’s mostly beneficent, even if it’s also populated by morally ambiguous creatures like the Faun and truly dreadful ones like the cannibal Pale Man.
TheoFantastique: You have a forthcoming book titled Gothicka. Can you sketch a little about what this book will cover, and when can readers look forward to it coming out?
Victoria Nelson:The Secret Life of Puppets, my previous book about the grotesque supernatural, stopped on a dime in the year 1999. Gothicka (Harvard University Press, 2012) is about a range of 21st-century Gothick or Gothick-influenced genres (horror, romance, fantasy, sci-fi) considered in the light of both their 18th-century ancestors (many of which still make marvelous reading today) and the medieval Gothic that first inspired them. I talk about Dan Brown, Stephanie Meyers, graphic novelists like Neil Gaiman and Garth Ennis, the Christian writer William P. Young who wrote The Shack, and lots of others. Also oldies like Lovecraft, Rice, and King.
There’s been a big, big shift in the Gothick figures of the vampire, the zombie, and other monsters in the last 20 years, towards spiritualizing them and making them the heroes instead of the villains. It’s beautifully summed up in the way vampires shifted categories from “undead” to “immortal.” Monsters have been humanized, humans are turning into gods — or Otherkin. Many of the Gothick fictions I talk about have been used as the scripture for new religious groups. It’s a fascinating pop culture trend toward a kind of subliminal Hindu-like pantheon of deities, along with a mainstreaming of the supernatural into the culture at large as never before.
TheoFantastique: One last question. Could you make a few comments about the issue of creativity, the unconscious, and the muse/daimon — the latter of which you all but mention in your On Writer’s Block?
Victoria Nelson: When I wrote that book, I was deeply into humanistic psychology and I viewed the world through a completely psychological lens. So I wasn’t really engaged with the idea of the muse or the daimon. I thought everything could be explained in terms of internal forces within a person, loosely labeled as the unconscious or the subconscious. So 20th century of me! It wasn’t until I wrote The Secret Life of Puppets that I found myself moving into different, old/new territory. Muses and daimons belong to the old, pre-Enlightenment worldview that externalizes all the forces we are brought up to think of as belonging to us as individuals. So, seen in that light, does our creative inspiration come from an unknown region or energetic force that resides inside us or outside us? From the unconscious or from the goddess? All I know for sure is the “unknown” part. That it certainly is!
TheoFantastique: Victoria, thank you again for discussing your work. I look forward to reflecting on it and having it inform my own understanding of the fantastic.
In a previous post I took part in a group effort from the League of Tana Tea Drinkers on the phenomenon of “cute” monsters in horror. In this series of posts the contributors tried to address why we take horrific items and produce less than frightening aspects of them for our enjoyment.
I would like to address this issue again by way of an essay by Ian Conrich titled “Seducing the Subject: Freddy Krueger, Popular Culture and the Nightmare on Elm Street Films,” which appears in Trash Aesthetics: Popular Culture and its Audience, edited by Deborah Cartmell, I.Q. Hunter, Heidi Kaye and Imelda Whelehan (Pluto, 1997), pp.118-131. Concrich has been a guest at TheoFantastique previously to discuss the book he edited, Horror Zone. In the essay in Trash Aesthetics Concrich discusses the success and cultural impact of the Nightmare on Elm Street films. Conrich states that,
It is, however, not so much the success of the films that is surprising, but the fact that they featured a child killer as their protagonist. The Nightmare films depict the activities of Freddy Krueger, a child molester and murderer, who, having escaped conviction on a technicality, was burnt to death in his boiler room by Elm Street’s vengeful parents.
After discussion of the narrative of the film and the shifting of Krueger between illusion and reality as he stalks his victims, Conrich considers how Krueger’s seduction of not only his victims, but also his audience, is facilitated by the various products sold in connection with the films. This includes a wide range of items, from a clothing line to a fan club to toys (especially dolls and figurines of Freddy, as well as his razor glove) and even a few hardcore porn films which take off from the film series. Conrich also notes that much of the marketing of products is directed toward children.
Conrich then tries to explain the mystifying appeal of merchandise depicting a murderer and child molester for young audiences, including children. He writes:
A child’s desire to become Freddy could be explained by Gary Heba’s suggestion that there exists in horror films “an ideological kinship of ‘otherness’ between youth and the monster”. Elders have regarded youths as threatening and disruptive as a result of their pre-adult interests and appearance. Young people are consequently able to identify with the monstrous as “it, too, stands outside and apart from the members of dominant culture”. Freddy, a monster with attitude and limitless power, makes subversion appear exciting.
There may be something of value in Conrich’s thinking as he wrestles with understanding the cute side of horror. At the least it provides another clue as to the light side of our enjoyment of the dark side.
Related post:
“TheoFantastique Podcast 1:1 – Interview with Ian Concrich on Horror Zone“
I learned about this degree program today so I thought I’d copy it here to give it a plug. From the University of Derby School of Humanities, an MA in Horror and Transgression:
Why choose this course?
* It combines taught and individual research modules to allow you to focus on your own research project, while exploring different approaches to humanities scholarship.
* You’ll be supported by a team of published researchers who will enable you to develop your own skills and scholarly interests within horror and transgression.
* You can undertake research projects in a range of humanities subjects including American Studies, Creative Writing, English Literature, Film Studies, Media Studies and Theatre Studies.
About the course
The new MA Humanities – Horror and Transgression is an innovative postgraduate course in film, literature and cultural studies offering the opportunity to work both critically and creatively. Drawing on the expertise of internationally renowned practicing writers and critics, the themes of Horror and Transgression explores what our limits consist of and the boundaries of culture and society. Through the analysis of culture we understand what defines us collectively and individually as humans and what is beyond the human. The course has the support of horror writer Clive Barker who is planning to be involved, saying “Thank you for Raising Hell in Derby!”
This MA is international and transnational in scope, including work on cinema and literature in the East and world cinema. This would suit all of those interested in diverse forms of film and literature, with the option of creative coursework for those that want it. It also suits those interested in philosophical and literary theoretical developments from Nietzsche to Bataille, Foucault, Kristeva, and Deleuze and transgressive writers, such as Burroughs, Ballard and Burgess.
“The UK has always had a rich history of horror, and a time when a new generation of British horror practioners are making interesting and provocative work, The University of Derby’s MA in Horror and Trangression looks to be an important step forward in further establishing the genre as a rich source of social, political and cultural significance.”
– Steve Shiel, director of critically acclaimed Brit-Horror feature Mum & Dad as well as one of the organisers of the Mayhem Horror Film Festival.
You will cover the following modules:
Research Skills in Humanities
In this taught module you will explore the different skills used by humanities researchers and develop your knowledge and understanding of research methodologies.
Issues in Humanities
This taught module will introduce you to a range of critical and theoretical concepts that underpin humanities scholarship, including postmodernism, psychoanalysis, the concept of ‘ideology’ and theories regarding identity.
Horror without Boundaries: Horror Cinema and the International Cultures of Horror
This is a taught module will introduce you to theoretical and critical enquiry into horror as a phenomenon that crosses cultural and national boundaries. Horror will be examined in its roots in literature and folk traditions; through visual, oral and dramatic expression; in its cinematic manifestations within national cultures and in trans-national exchange.
Transgression: Theories and Practices
In this taught module you will explore a range of theories of transgression, engaging with questions of aesthetics, ethics and social boundaries and norms. You will examine a wide range of transgressive texts, from world literature, film and art; the selection of materials for study will encourage you to consider ways in which the notion of transgression alters across different historical periods and cultural formations. To ‘transgress’ is to cross a boundary; the culturally-constructed borders and boundaries whose limits we shall explore will be those of taste, morality, identity, gender and sexuality, among others.
In a recent post I commented on an Australian news item that went global, along with a certain level of controversy, as Pastor Avril Hannah-Jones combined her love for science fiction and fantasy with a service in her local church. Now that the controversy has died down, and her busy Easter service is behind her, Pastor Hannah-Jones discusses science fiction, fantasy, and The Church of Latter-Day Geeks with TheoFantastique.
TheoFantastique: Avril, how did you come to a personal interest in science fiction and fantasy, and what expressions of them are most appealing to you and why?
Avril Hannah-Jones: It all began for me when a school teacher gave me a copy of The Hobbit when I was about eight. I remember that as the moment when I discovered science fiction and fantasy – but since I was born in the early seventies I’d also seen Star Wars when it was first released, and at some point I’d read C. S. Lewis’ Narnia series. Growing up I enjoyed very (stereo)-typical genre fiction by authors like Marion Zimmer Bradley, Mary Stewart, Judith Tarr and David Eddings.
For a long time my interest was purely book-based; it wasn’t until Joss Whedon’s Buffy series that I really became obsessed with television-based fantasy. I try to limit myself to one television obsession at a time, so at the moment it’s Supernatural (with occasional forays into Doctor Who and Torchwood) and I’m trying to resist the friends who tell me I must watch True Blood.
Usually I read and watch stories that either explore and challenge gender stereotypes or ponder the nature of good and evil. Occasionally, as with Joss Whedon’s television series, I find something that does both.
TheoFantastique: How do you see or make a connection between the sacred and the fantastic, more specifically, between a Christian spirituality and theology and the fantastic?
Avril Hannah-Jones: I draw very heavily on the thoughts of The Inklings, the Oxford-based group that included C.S. Lewis, J. R. R. Tolkien and Charles Williams. They were all very committed Christians who saw the fantastic as a way of exploring theological themes. Lewis was much more allegorical about it than Tolkien and Williams, but all of them were exploring good and evil and questions about the best way to live.
Tolkien also argued that the sort of “world-building” that authors of the fantastic do is a form of “sub-creation” that is part of being human, because humans are made in the image of God the Creator.
Sci-fi and fantasy are often accused of being forms of escapism, as opposed to more serious works, partly because they do often involve the ultimate triumph of good over evil. For me that triumph is at the heart of the Christian story, with the resurrection following the crucifixion, and the sort of fantasy and sci fi that I enjoy most reflects an affirmation by Archbishop Desmond Tutu: Goodness is stronger than evil; love is stronger than hate; light is stronger than darkness; life is stronger than death; victory is ours through him who loves us.
TheoFantastique: At some point you decided to incorporate the fantastic into your church services among your congregation. How did this decision come about? What types of things did you do? And what was the response of the congregation as well as those outside the church?
Avril Hannah-Jones: It started as a joke! I was in the audience of a television program called Adam Hills in Gordon Street Tonight hosted by the very charming Australian comedian Adam Hills. One of the things that he did was get the audience to fill out surveys before coming to the taping, and to the question: “What is your guilty pleasure in life?” I answered: “Sci-fi television. I thanked Buffy the Vampire Slayer in my thesis acknowledgments.”
Adam and his writers thought that that was so funny, given my day job as a Uniting Church minister, that they created an ad for something they called The Church of Latter Day Geeks. Adam then got me to agree to wear a ‘geeky’ t-shirt to lead a worship service, which I did, and finally challenged me to get an entire congregation to dress up.
Since I’d already been thinking about using sci-fi and fantasy to explore theological themes for years, I agreed, and held what I called a “sci-fi and fantasy-friendly church service”. AHIGST promoted it and came along to film an item about it.
Before the service was held I explained to my four congregations what I was doing and why I believed that this particular genre could be used to explore Christian theology. As I told them: “I don’t just watch and read sci fi and fantasy books, films, comics and television programs. I analyse them and theologise about them. My library is full of books with titles like Holy Superheroes! Exploring the Sacred in Comics, Graphic Novels and Film and The Gospel according to Tolkien: Visions of the Kingdom in Middle-Earth and Hogwarts for Muggles: Harry Potter and Philosophy. I’ve even had a chapter on “Good and Evil in the World of Supernatural” published in a collection of essays on the television show Supernatural. Once they knew that there was something seriously spiritual behind the idea of the service their response was overwhelmingly positive.
I advertised the service by saying:
Impressed with the way the Doctor, Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Harry Potter live out Jesus’ teaching, “No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends”?
Intrigued by the themes of mercy, forgiveness and redemption in Lord of the Rings, Star Wars and the television series Angel?
Inspired to do good and resist evil by the example of Peter Parker, the crew of Serenity and the Winchester brothers?
Then come to a sci-fi and fantasy-friendly church service to be held at Romsey Uniting Church on the 10th of April at 4 pm.
(You’re welcome to come in a costume of your choice, but blasters, stakes and other weapons will have to be left at the church door.)
TheoFantastique: Has any of the reactions you’ve received surprised you, whether positively or negatively?
Avril Hannah-Jones: I found the fact that the story went global absolutely astounding! Every time I do something a little bit different in the churches, I let the local media know. So I emailed the local papers about this, and one came to Romsey to take photos of me holding a toy lightsaber. That story then got picked up by one of the state newspapers, the Herald-Sun, and the day they published the story I got phone calls at 6 am from two Melbourne radio stations asking me about the service and a film crew from a current affairs program on my doorstep at 7.30 am. After consulting with the Uniting Church’s state leaders I agreed to be interviewed by the current affairs’ program – and after that the story apparently went global. Utterly bizarre! For some reason countries starting with ‘I’ were particularly interested: I’ve seen stories in the Indian, Italian and Indonesian press.
I was strongly supported by members and ministers of the Uniting Church, which was wonderful, and I was criticised by some conservative Christians who assumed that I was replacing the Christian story with sci-fi and fantasy, rather than using the latter to reflect on the former. But that last didn’t surprise me at all. Conservative Christians seem to spend all their time criticising the rest of us.
TheoFantastique: What does the future hold for your interactions between Christian spirituality and the fantastic?
Avril Hannah-Jones: I think the service is going to have to become an annual one; this first one was such a success and I had so many comments from people who couldn’t make it and would like to come to the next one if it happens.
And I still have an idea for a book on ‘Theodicy in Fantastic Television’ in the back of my head. That would look at the way shows like Buffy and Angel and Charmed and Quantum Leap and Doctor Who and Supernatural present good and evil and answer questions about the meaning of life. I don’t really have any time to work on that while I’m working in congregational ministry, but if I ever get a sabbatical that will be what I spent it on.
TheoFantastique: Avril, thank you for taking the time to discuss this. I think this interaction with pop culture, and this expression of church is fascinating and I’d love to see something like this replicated in the United States. Perhaps a new kind of emergent church!
What might the opening title sequence from HBO’s popular vampire series True Blood tell us about “vernacular religion” in our post-9/11 context? And what does this say back to institutional religion?
While researching Burning Man Festival for my MA thesis a few years ago the book God in the Details: American Religion in Popular Culture, edited by Eric Michael Mazur and Kate McCarthy (London and New York: Routledge), was helpful with one of its chapters. The second edition from 2010 includes new material, including the intriguing essay “I Wanna Do Bad Things With You: Fantasia on Themes of American Religion from the Title Sequence of HBO’s True Blood,” by Leonard Norman Primiano.
Dr. Leonard Norman Primiano is Professor and Chair of Religious Studies at Cabrini College. He came to Cabrini’s Religious Studies department in 1993 with a foundation in religious studies and folklore and folklife studies, and a desire to teach courses on the history of Christianity, vernacular religion, religious folklife, contemporary moral problems and contemporary American religion. Throughout his years at the College, he has dedicated himself to teaching students about the relationship of these exciting fields.
Dr. Primiano discusses a few of the aspects of his chapter on True Blood in this interview.
TheoFantastique: Leonard, thank you for helping me get a copy of your chapter from the new edition of God in the Details. How did you come to develop an interest in the religious aspects of True Blood, and how does your academic work in folklore help shed light on this?
Leonard Norman Primiano: Believe it or not, John, I did not watch True Blood in its first episodes of broadcast. I only watched several months after the conclusion of the first season when in December 2008 HBO broadcast the season over many hours of one broadcast day. I was looking for a topic to stimulate me for a new contribution to the second edition of the collected essays titled God in the Details. I believe that I began watching the show mid-way through episode two of season one. I was initially fascinated with the way religious material culture had been used on the program, but something also intrigued me with the opening credits montage and the way they represented religion, religious people, religious practices. My scholarly life has centered on the study of what I call “vernacular religion,” or the way people practice their religion in their everyday lives. I am equally fascinated with ways that “popular” or mass media culture represents religion in America and elsewhere. As I watched the second season of the series, I began to develop a better sense of the role that religion played in the series, and what the series was expressing about contemporary religiosity.
TheoFantastique: How does True Blood add to the depiction of the vampire as sympathetic anti-heroes?
Leonard Norman Primiano: The length of the series allows for a richer characterization of the vampires on screen and this development of them as “undead individuals,” if you will, and not merely as spirits with no personalities, definitely assists viewers’ appreciation of them as sympathetic, frightening, intelligent, sexual, heroic, anti-heroic familiars.
TheoFantastique: The thrust of your essay addresses how the series depicts organized religion. I found your discussion of the series’ opening title sequence in this regard of great interest. How did you come to see this as significant, perhaps almost as much as the ongoing depictions of religion in other aspects of the series?
Leonard Norman Primiano: I was immediately struck by what I understood to be the use in the credits of what a folklorist or anthropologist would cite as film footage depicting the “ethnographic” present of the Louisiana country side, its inhabitants, and its religious environs. Wow, I thought, were these credits made in a ethnographic documentary style, and how did the creators obtain permission to film these individuals, and what did they explain was their purpose. I was especially taken by the scene in the church – which was actually filmed in Chicago — with the choir being filled with the Holy Spirit and exhibiting this Christian form of spirit possession. Were the producers of the series actually using real people and real contexts in these scenes? That is when I contacted the credits creators at Digital Kitchen in Seattle, and asked them some basic production questions, especially after reading their own statements on their web site about the opening credits. As it turns out, most of the individuals you see in the credits were “actors” or people they filmmakers know, or who agreed to be filmed in an artificially induced religious context. What I mean is that the church scene was not a documentary of a real Pentecostal service — a naturally induced context — but a church choir and musicians were hired and agreed to create a church service for the cameras, which to them it seems was still quite an authentic spiritual experience, but still not one of their regularly scheduled church services.
TheoFantastique: How do the title sequence, characters, and storylines help us understand the late modern relationship to organized religion, at least in True Blood and its vampires?
Leonard Norman Primiano: The plot lines often reference religion in a variety of forms: organized religion, institutional religion, seemingly “Mainline” Protestantism, sectarian religion in America, “folk” religion (all of the references to Vodou practice), and the vernacular religion of the characters – the myriad ways that the characters interpret and create religion and a relationship to the spiritual in their own lives. That complex constellation of religiosity in so many forms defines religion in America and the world in the twenty-first century; that is the way these characters are living their religion and expressing their spirituality. Still, organized forms of religiosity do receive the harshest judgment in the plotlines which expose them as centers for deception, greed, and hypocrisy.
TheoFantastique: What might those in traditional, organized religions take away from expressions of religion in popular culture like True Blood in terms of connecting more meaningfully or relevantly with what you call “vernacular religion”?
Leonard Norman Primiano: I think that what those in traditional, organized, institutionalized religion should take away is not that the series represents a triumph of secularization or even sacrilege in American society, but a longing for the sacred, the ritualistic, the experiential, and the sacramental in our society. That the perception and expression of religion in its organized form is changing, or should I say still developing. This idea is more complex today because of the profound religious illiteracy, aka, lack of knowledge of religious traditions, that exists in our society. Even people who describe themselves as religious or spiritual, do not seem to have a firm foundation of knowledge in the religious traditions with which they so identify. Is it surprising then that people may be more creative than ever about the beliefs and practices that make up their religious lives? I suggest in the article that this sense of illiteracy about religious and spiritual traditions, and the negotiations of religious ideas and practices, may also be extended to the way that religious material culture – religious objects and the multiple forms of the materialization of the spiritual — is perceived and employed in the series. I am not saying that there is a right or wrong here in terms of the way people are religious or the way religiosity is depicted. I am not admonishing anyone, but I am noting and analyzing this development in contemporary religion.
TheoFantastique: Leonard, thank you again for sharing your thoughts and discussing your essay.
This weekend I had the opportunity to watch two documentaries, Back to Space-Con, produced and directed by Tom Wyrsch of Garfield Lane Productions, and Four Days at Dragon*Con, produced and directed by Jack Walsh of Public Broadcasting in Atlanta. Taken together, these films tell the story of the development of science fiction and fantasy conventions, which over time have become significant, not only for entertainment and commercialism, but also in the formation of distinct subcultures.
Back to Space-Con looks at one of the earliest Star Trek conventions from the 1970s. The first event was called “The Red Hour Festival,” a name inspired by a time of revelry and abandon from the original Star Trek series episode “The Return of the Archons.” This convention took place on February 22, 1975 and was held at Lincoln High School in San Francisco. For those who only have familiarity with contemporary conventions, whether science fiction, fantasy, or horror, and the widespread media exposure in niche communication channels that these gatherings receive, whether from magazines, the Internet, Facebook, specialized satellite and cable television channels, and other venues, back in the 1970s none of these media channels existed, with the exception of a small handful of specialized magazines. I remember this situation as a teenager and fan of the fantastic growing up in northern California. We had to work hard to find out about conventions, and about other fans that might share our peculiar interests.
As Back to Space-Con documents, local horror host Bob Wilkins of the Creature Features program on Channel 2 in the Bay Area, and later Channel 40 in Sacramento, promoted “The Red Hour Festival” on his television program, and also served as master of ceremonies at the event. The result was a huge turnout of fans, many with home-made costumes from the television series, as well as props such as phasers and tricorders made in home garages, long before Hollywood recognized there was a mass market for such items and concerns over copyright and royalties became an issue as it would in the post-Star Wars era shortly to come. Wilkins would continue to promote the events, as would his eventual successor on Creature Features, John Stanley. The result was an was an ongoing and increasingly successful series of conventions, and a burgeoning and influential fan base. As the Back to Space-Con website states:
These “Space-Con” conventions left an indelible mark on the science-fiction fans and “Trekkers” who attended. In the end, conventions like Space-Con helped awaken Paramount from hibernation and led to the creation of the first installment of the major motion picture series “Star Trek” in 1979. This full-length documentary film is the story of how fandom revolutionized an industry.
Back to Space-Con provides not only a sense of nostalgia for those of us who lived through these times of being a fan, but also helps us understand the origins of contemporary sci-fi and fantasy conventions and the significance of fandom not only as an element connected to entertainment and commercialism, but also in how certain aspects of the fantastic move from individual fandom to the formation of collective subcultures.
Fast forward from the 1970s and fledgling science fiction conventions to the contemporary period, and shift from California to Atlanta, add several thousand more fans in attendance (at least 35,000 in total by one estimate), and you have Dragon*Con. Four Days at Dragon*Con explores this convention which has been in existence for twenty-four years, and which someone in the documentary calls “Woodstock for nerds.” Dragon*Con makes for an interesting contrast with Comic-Con, in that while both events draw fans and feature aspects of pop culture from science fiction, fantasy, and even horror, Dragon*Con, much like the Space-Cons which preceded it, gives the impression that it is far more fan-driven than media and commerce-driven. This is not to say that there is not a strong driving force of entertainment and commercialism behind Dragon*Con, but it appears to focus more on explorations and expressions of fandom as a result of the fantastic, rather than serving primarily as a means for promoting the latest Hollywood products of the fantastic.
The press release for this documentary brings out one of the significant facets of this for Dragon*Con, and I believe this element was also present at the initial formation of such conventions in the 1970s, and also serves as the foundation for fan subcultures.
“One thing we wanted to explore was the real reason people gather here in such numbers,” said the documentary’s director, Jack Walsh. “It couldn’t be just to talk about sci-fi”. Walsh co-produced Four Days at Dragon*Con with Gordon Ray, PBA30’s Senior Producer.
“It became pretty clear early on that this was a sense of acceptance,” said Walsh. “For 361 days out of the year, they might be dismissed as nerds, but when these fans come together on such a massive scale, they form their own like-minded community that just happens to be larger than a lot of towns.”
After watching both of these documentaries, and reflecting on the resulting fan subcultures that have arisen over time as a result, I was struck by the similarities to my research on Burning Man Festival which I did for my masters thesis. Burning Man is an alternative cultural event which meets each year in the Black Rock Desert of Nevada. Although it began with a handful of participants from its humble origins on a San Francisco beach, it has grown to become an international phenomenon that creates a temporary city and subculture each year.
Some of the parallels between Burning Man Festival and fan conventions/subcultures like Dragon*Con include:
– A sense of belonging, family, and being part of a like-minded group that shares similar values.
– Related to the above, a shared sense that their participation in the festival/convention represents being part of a subculture more real than that lived in the rest of the year.
– A process which Victor Turner discussed which involved leaving one’s tribe, traveling to a liminal space apart, participation in various forms of ritual, and a return to the tribe after experiencing a strong sense of “communitas” or community from the shared experience.
– The inclusion of a strong sense of artistic expression through painting, drawing, sculpture, and the creation of various forms of artifacts.
– Costuming and play. At Burning Man this can take a variety of forms, from nudity to any number of costumer creations, while at sci-fi/fantasy conventions it becomes “cosplay,” costume play as a form of performance art related to the fantastic.
– A strong sense of participation and self-expression in keeping with embodied ideals as the driving force behind the gatherings.
– A sense of modern tribalism, a connectedness in terms of shared understandings of social and (sub)cultural values.
– Utopian desires which yearn for the creation of forms of society which transcend the limitations and overcome the negative aspects of contemporary Western societies.
These documentaries are “must viewing” for fans, as well as students and scholars of the fantastic, media studies, and fan cultures. Back to Space-Con can be ordered from Tom Wyrsch here. Unfortunately, Four Days at Dragon*Con is not available for purchase, but it is airing nationally at the discretion of local public broadcasting stations. Visit the documentary’s Facebook page, as well as its American Public Television page for possible broadcast times near you.
