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Blog Post #8- Reflection

I came into this class thinking I was going to be miserable with all the horror movies we were set to watch. I had only seen one or two horror movies and refused to watch anything from that category when offered the chance. But I ended up learning so much more than I could have imagined over the course of the trimester thanks to this class. I really enjoyed learning all about the history tied to each of the main archetypes: zombies, werewolves, vampires, and witches. I never knew how much the culture and the experiences in different societies played a part in creating and forming creatures. From this point on, I don’t think I will ever be able to watch a horror movie without looking further into what brought the idea about, or what it tells about the times and what people are repressing. While I am still not entirely sure how much of the supernatural I actually believe in, I definitely have gained a new lens to see it all through. Going on a haunted site visit led to me experiencing a “presence” like I never really have before, despite visiting multiple haunted sites on my own time. I’m so glad that I stuck with this class and challenged myself to find some sort of joy in it.

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Blog Post- Grant-Humphreys Mansion

During our tour at the Grant- Humphreys Mansion, I learned so much information about the supposed hauntings of the Grant- Humphreys Mansion. While not just focusing on the Grant- Humphreys Mansion, I also asked our tour guide about the history and hauntings of Cheesman Park, since the two are often tied together. He told us that there haven’t been any real sightings of ghosts from City Cemetery residing in the Mansion, but he’s sure that the park itself is haunted. According to him, the story of City Cemetery and Cheesman Park goes something like this: The cemetery got overcrowded, and one guy was hired to exhume the coffins. He was paid on an honesty system per coffin. So what he would do was dig up a body, dismember it, and separate the pieces into child size coffins to make more money. So while Cheesman Park may be haunted, it is unlikely that any of those spirits that were traumatized during that process are now in the Grant- Humphreys Mansion. This is for a couple reasons, 1) the locations are a couple miles away from each other, 2) the locations really have no connection between them, and 3) the Mansion wasn’t built until about 20 years after the park had been established, which was about 40- 50 years after the cemetery was established. Although there haven’t been any sightings of ghosts from the cemetery, there have been reports of Mr. Albert Humphreys and a little girl around the age of 10, who was his granddaughter have both been spotted around the Mansion. The little girl that has been seen in the house didn’t actually die there, but apparently she was there the night Mr. Humphreys shot himself. She went on to live her life but when she did die, her spirit came back to this age when she experienced such a traumatic event. Both of these ghosts have been spotted mostly on the third floor of the Mansion, which has been turned into office space and is typically off limits to guests. Our tour guide took us up there because he knew the premise of our project and wanted us to have the full experience. Once we made our way up the third floor, all of our group members instantly felt a weight upon our chests, making it feel a little harder to breathe. Thinking that it was just because we climbed two sets of stairs, or the altitude, or something, we didn’t mention anything about it at the time. As soon as our tour was over and we were out of the house, we explained our experiences to each other and realized we had all felt the same thing. Even though we didn’t capture anything strange in our pictures or videos, or see anything with our eyes, that feeling that was felt will never leave my mind. 

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Blog Post- Culture Vultures

I had a really great time at the Culture Vultures event. I learned a lot about topics that the students were curious about and decided to research deeper. My favorite section of the day was the El Pomar Leadership Panel. I learned so much about leadership from what the gentlemen on the panel had to say. I really liked what they said were the most important characteristics to have as a leader: courage, humility, and to be a coach, rather than the shining star. These are all vital things to keep in mind in any leadership role, but definitely when it comes to helping people grow to be prepared to come into a leadership role themselves. I also really liked what Mr. Martin said about diversity. He said that when it comes to looking at diversifying a group, it’s just as important to look at people’s abilities and their ways of thinking, and not just at physical appearances. I think that was a key point to make because of how often people seem to overlook that aspect of diversity.

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Blog Post #7 - Cabin in the Woods

Cabin in the Woods was a great last film to watch in this class because it includes most of the major topics we covered throughout the trimester, in regards to the different types of horror we covered and how they each represent cultural and societal fears and anxieties in their own way. The archetypes of the characters that we saw in the film (whore, athlete, fool, virgin, and scholar) are typical of horror movies, where the whore or dumb blonde is killed off first, the athlete becomes the alpha male leader, the virgin is the last to survive, etc. These stereotypes show the value that people place on these archetypes such as the importance of virginity in women. While this film was making fun of other horror movies for following this so-called “formula”, we see this outside of the horror industry as well. An example that came to mind for me was The Breakfast Club. This group of five misfits stuck together in detention, trying to find their way out. They sign the movie off by labeling themselves “a brain, an athlete, a basketcase, a princess, and a criminal”. While they are not the exact same labels, they represent similar things. They help to identify individuality in our society, but have helped to build reputations, good or bad, within films and literature. Each of these labels could be also be easily lined up with the monsters that we discussed, such as vampires, zombies, werewolves, witches, and freaks.

Cabin in the Woods provides a lot of opportunities for the viewer to experience the uncanny laid out before them, but also that the characters experience as they are fighting for their lives. One example would be the house that they go to, Curt’s cousin’s house. All of the elements within the cabin that you wouldn’t find in a typical house give an unsettling feeling to everyone, such as the two way mirror in the bedroom, the hatch to the cellar that just flies open on it’s own, or the lack of lights in the cabin overall.  

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Blog Post #6- The Exorcist

In 1960-1970s American society so many things were changing for women and the whole traditional family value set up. There was such a crisis over the woman’s body, especially during the 1970s, that was brought to attention through the use of horror movies. This crisis revolved around how, “...women’s sexuality and reproductive abilities became the focus of numerous horror films...exposing America's nervousness over contraception, abortion, the sexual revolution, and the changing nature of the family,” (Haunted Houses, 170). The Exorcist is a great example of the cultural anxieties that were produced during this time for many reasons. First of all, the body that the Demon takes over is that of a twelve year old girl who is coming of age. With all that was changing in society, she would be the next generation which dealt with the issues of reproductive and women’s rights.

 Another reason this film is representative of the time period is because of the detail that Regan’s mom was a single mother. This was a time when divorce rates were higher than ever due to the fact that was just becoming legalized state by state through the US. This shift was helpful for those suffering in silence through domestic violence or general unhappiness and it was also giving women more power in themselves, their sexuality, and their happiness. While Regan and her mom, Chris, seemed to be doing alright by themselves, there is an important scene when Chris is desperately trying to contact Regan’s father about her birthday. They may seem like they have it all together just the two of them, not including Chris’s assistant, they still communicate and try to have a relationship with Regan’s father. These are just a couple of the many reasons The Exorcist is a representative film of women’s anxieties in 1960-1970s American culture.

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Essay #2: The Werewolf: A Creature of Anxieties and Fears

After learning and discussing the significant characters, werewolves, vampires, and zombies, that have arisen over the course of history to exemplify cultural fears and anxieties, I have decided to dig further into what the werewolf represents. The representation of the werewolf has changed in some ways since the first recording of it in 1765. Although in a lot of ways, the werewolf still holds the same fears and anxieties that we experience in today’s contemporary culture. The werewolf depicts the darker side of the psyche and the unknown.

The werewolf as we see it today represents the Jungian archetype of the shadow self which is described as being composed of repressed ideas, weaknesses, desires, or instincts. The shadow is known as being the darker side of the psyche which contains wildness, chaos, and most importantly, the unknown. The shadow archetype is typically seen forming out of a person’s attempts to conform and adapt to the norms and expectations of their current culture (Cherry). In The Wolf Man, the character Larry was the werewolf and embodied these characteristics. He was a high class man, going out of his comfort zone with a girl in a lower class than him, and then one step further by making his way to the gypsy fortune-tellers, who was part of an even lower class. While it seems like he was stepping out of his comfort zone, he really was just trying to be more like the majority of the members of the community in which he lived.

Werewolves are the low monster on the totem pole, or food chain. There are many reasons for this. In my opinion, humans view werewolves as being on the bottom of the food chain above humans because of how close the relationship between them is. Werewolves represent the animalistic, wild, chaotic side of people that we typically try to repress and never let see the light. In our current world, I believe the closest thing to a werewolf that one could see would be a serial killer or a mass murder. These people are no longer able to control themselves, and that dark side is let into the light and chaos ensues. They seem to go into a state where they don’t feel like they are really in control, just as we saw in The Wolf Man with Larry. Once he turned into a werewolf, he was not able to control his actions or his thoughts. When the next morning rolled around, he felt as if it was all just a dream and he had to convince himself of the things he truly did while he was no longer in control. Werewolves are the least talked about and least recorded monster of the ones we looked at. I think that is because of how close the possibility of a human acting in the same way is not as far off as we would like to think. Everyone has stuff going on inside them and it’s just a matter of controlling whatever “it” is in order to keep it in the dark, or as part of that shadow self.

As laid out in Monsters of the Gevaudan: The Making of a Beast, some people believed that the Beast was either a wolf or some sort of wolf-hybrid, it had supernatural qualities, and it was either a psychotic human or an animal that was trained by a psychotic human. There were also thoughts that this Beast was a survivor from the prehistoric era, meaning it roamed with the dinosaurs. In the eighteenth century, the werewolf monster represented the unknown in every sense. People had no clue what this creature could be that was terrorizing and killing the women, children, and livestock of Gevaudan (Smith). In a way, nothing has changed, as far as what the werewolf represents today. As seen in The Wolf Man, Larry killed the gypsy werewolf who ended up being the one who bit Larry turning him into a werewolf. Since the gypsy was dead, Larry had to rely on the gypsy woman to learn about his own situation while also being very resistant. In a similar way that Larry lost his main source of information, the French people in Gevaudan had very limited information about the beast that was stalking their village. They mostly had to figure it out on their own. This was mostly due to the time period and the lack of technology that they had, but also because of their ignorance about the beast.  

One fear that scientists struggled with during The Enlightenment was the idea that maybe there were more creatures out there that they still didn’t know about or fully understand yet. This was a topic specifically in The Age of Superstition. This is a concept that a lot of people still struggle with today. This concept of the undiscovered is one of the reasons why I’m terrified of the ocean due to the large percentage of the ocean that has not been discovered, along with all of the creatures that live in those spaces. It is hard to imagine the extent of the fears that scientists and the general public had back during The Age of Superstition, considering how much both science and technology have improved since the eighteenth century. Larry had a hard time admitting to himself that he was a werewolf and killing the people. While the gypsy woman was there and trying to help him keep himself and others safe, he was very resistant to her because he was too afraid to admit to himself that this was who he had become. This scared him because his werewolf side had led him to release his personal unknown and dark side into the light.

The werewolf is a concept and creature that helps us discuss fears and anxieties without making them feel too real. Especially when it comes to those fears that nobody wants to talk about or let come to the surface. It’s just easier to store them away in a mythological monster. 

Cherry, Kendra. “The 4 Major Jungian Archetypes.” Verywell Mind, www.verywellmind.com/what-are-jungs-4-major-archetypes-2795439.

Smith, Jay M. “Introduction.” Monsters of the Gévaudan: the Making of a Beast, Harvard Univ. Press, 2011, pp. 1–59.

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Blog Post #5: The Wolf Man

The werewolf represents the shadow when looking at the Jungian archetypes. This is displayed many times, especially within the film, The Wolf Man. According to Jung, the shadow appears “in dreams or visions” (Cherry). The Wolf Man did a great job using small details to exemplify these characteristics within the movie. One example of this is through the use of gypsy fortune-telling characters. The fortune-teller sees the vision for Jenny’s life when he sees the pentagram appear on her hand, meaning that she will be his next victim. Once Larry is turned werewolf and wakes up the next morning in bed, he has no clear recollection of what happened that night, just like when one wakes up from a dream. It is also commonly described as the darker side of the psyche that is represented through chaos, wildness, and the unknown. Before Larry kills the fortune-teller and becomes a werewolf, he is in an unknown and chaotic state of his life. This can be understood by the fact that he is still living at home with his father, trying to get with a girl who is engaged to another man, and going to unknown and unfamiliar places. These attributes that make up his current life situation, help to see that he doesn’t really know what he is doing or where he is going with his life. In a way, his life becomes figured out for him through the circumstances that ensue once he becomes a werewolf.

Cherry, Kendra. “The 4 Major Jungian Archetypes.” Verywell Mind, www.verywellmind.com/what-are-jungs-4-major-archetypes-2795439.

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Blog Post #4- Zombies

The contemporary view of zombies in popular culture gets down to the nitty gritty of our fears and anxieties. Zombies help us to see how the world as we know it could change in an instant, and how everything that we have could be taken from us in an instant. There are many fears and anxieties that are exemplified through zombies. One is definitely the fear of not being able to survive. We are so accustomed to the technology and luxuries that we are so fortunate to have access to in the United States, that if those are all taken away, how many of us would really be okay? I went through a phase of watching Doomsday Preppers, and that made me realize how little I know about food storage, weapons and other protection, and how to truly live off the grid. Since then, I have had more of an urge to be able to figure those things out just to be prepared for whatever could happen, but also because I see them as good skills to have anyways. While there are so many situations that could lead to having to fend for ourselves to survive, zombies are one that seems a bit far out there, but also, strangely and uncomfortably, very possible. Through all this, the overarching fear of death really comes into play. It comes down to learn how to survive on your own or stand face to face with death, in this case: zombies.

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Blog Post- Numerology Presentation

The people that practice numerology are such a diverse group spread all across the globe. There are people who are world famous, or those who are famous within their own countries. There are so many different methods used within numerology and each person has their own way of interpreting the numbers all built from the same basic foundation. One notable practitioner is Dr. Sengottuvel from India. He has been practicing since 1985. His practice is built on the idea of “empowering the name”, so he focuses on a person’s birth name to help determine where they are heading or how to change their direction in life. Some of the topics he helps work through revolve around the ideas of education, property & vehicle purchases, health, travel, career & financial prospects, children, and longevity. It blows my mind to think that someone could predict these things just based off a number determined by the letters in your name.

Another famous practitioner, one in the United States, is Glynis McCants. She is considered to be the “go-to-girl” in the Los Angeles area for a numerologist. She has written two Best Seller books, appeared on the Today Show, Good Morning America, a few talk shows and multiple podcasts and radio shows. The biggest impact that I have seen in my research about Glynis is her efforts to commercialize numerology. She has put together kits with books and charts on how to find your life number, and how to use that to improve your life. While these two people are very different, despite both practicing the same alternative spirituality, they both are huge personalities and quite idolized in their profession.

What are some examples of numerology that you have seen in our culture before?

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Blog Post #3- Queen of the Damned

The film, Queen of the Damned, puts the vampire character, Lestat,  in a modern context with historical and traditional characteristics of vampires. Once Ashaka comes back from stone, she brings a new air to the vampires and brings the characteristics discussed in our lecture including wild, erratic, untamable, lustful, and animalistic behaviors, to surface amongst all the vampires. Ashaka exhibits these attributes the most prominently once she is awoken, and comes to get Lestat to join in her reign. For example, once she lays eyes on him, she becomes extremely lustful which is why the scene then cuts to them in the tub and bed together. She also proves to be quite animalistic in the following scene when Lestat goes around and sees all the corpses from the night before sprawled on the beach and around the house. Ashaka makes a comment about this is how their life will be now, and Lestat replies, “What? Living amongst corpses?” While Lestat is somewhat hesitant, Ashaka is fully into it; she is out for blood, literally.

Queen of the Damned revises the vampire tradition by making Jesse so interested and so drawn to the idea of becoming a vampire, and to experience what it would be like to be one. While I think it is normal to have that kind of fascination, especially when one is so famous and public like Lestat is, the whole idea really goes against the historical fear associated with vampires. People used to be so afraid of coming in contact with a vampire that any little sign that was different about a person or at birth put everyone on high alert and the person would be killed or at least avoided. Such birth defects, like being born with teeth, or an extra nipple, or even with a lack of cartilage in the nose, would lead to these children being potentially killed out of fear. Such birth defects are things that the medical field has come a long ways with as far as understanding and caring for children in those situations.

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Essay #1- Option 1- Worse Than Creepy Dolls...Maybe

The chapters making up Ghostland, by Colin Dickey, tell the tales of haunted spaces and places all over the country. These stories vary from the typical haunted places such as asylums, mansions, and cemeteries, to more obscure ones like toy stores and other haunted businesses. He mentions how, “...haunted businesses can come in all shapes and sizes--even brightly lit, happy places that sell toys,” (Dicky, 97).

A man named Johnny Johnson is said to haunt the Toys ‘R’ Us located in Sunnyvale, California. He was a former ranch hand who worked on the Martin Murphy wheat plantation. He died working on the plantation supposedly from a machine accident that severed his artery in his leg. Another source, The Mercury News, claimed that he hacked his leg with an axe which hit an artery, or he took an axe to the neck accidentally which also left him bleeding to death.His untimely demise took place around 1884 and he has been there ever since. This story was made famous by world-renowned psychic Sylvia Browne in the late 1970s when she hosted a television broadcasted seance in this particular toy store in hopes of communicating with Johnson. She claimed that Johnson had caught himself in a time warp, unwilling to accept his death, and move into the afterlife. According to Browne, Johnny was hard at work at the plantation that was on the same land as the toy store now, and,

“He can’t figure out for the life of him...where all these loud, rambunctious children keep coming from who tear up his freshly planted vegetables, having no clue that the children are actually playing up and down the aisles of the toy store that sits there today,” (Dickey, 98).

This story was particularly interesting at the time and still is now because it made people all over the world more conscious of the possibility, “...that anywhere could be haunted--not just creepy old Victorian mansions or derelict graveyards,” (Dickey, 99).

This image is the biggest piece of evidence from the Browne seance. It is a photo taken with an infrared camera showing the white, warm bodies of the group sitting in a circle, but the black, cowboy-looking silhouette who appears to be standing outside of the circle, is said to be Johnny Johnson. He is seen leaning against the wall with either his hands in his pockets or maybe with his thumbs, “...hooked in his belt loops in stereotypical cowboy fashion,” (Dickey, 98).  

While the haunting and the location may not be as important or relevant in history, the broadcasted seance was what helped launch Sylvia Browne’s career to the next level. Browne became a best-selling author, charged hundreds of dollars for a psychic reading, and had regular appearances on daily talk shows. Dickey states, “...but paranormal reports involving Browne might best be taken with a grain of salt,” (Dickey, 99). For example, Browne started working with the local police investigators to find missing people, and she would be either too vague, a hindrance, or no help at all, “She developed a notorious record of being wrong, telling families that their missing loved ones were alive when they were already dead and vise versa,” (Dickey, 99). By having this knowledge of Sylvia and her potential lack of abilities, it makes it more easily believable that the whole thing was staged; especially since her big moment with the seance in Toys ‘R’ Us revealed such a clear photo. While there are many reports of Johnson in the store by employees up until the time the store closed, he might still be there.To each his own on whether Sylvia Browne is to be believed, or not.

According to Ghostland,  “...Johnson had fallen in love with his boss’s daughter, Elizabeth Murphy, and was heartbroken when she married an East Coast lawyer and left for Boston. A short time later, he gravely injured his leg in the accident that killed him,” (Dickey, 98). This is interesting to look at given the class of these two people, Johnson and Elizabeth. Johnson is a member of the lower class as he is the one working at the plantation which Elizabeth’s father owns, one of the largest in the area. Places like the Stanley Hotel and the Winchester Mystery House are supposedly haunted by the people who built and made these places famous. They were rich enough to build these extravagant buildings, and now they still reside there haunting, drawing tourists into to see or experience them. The fact that Johnson, a member of the lower class, haunts such a regular place like Toys ‘R’ Us, which anyone can enter and roam around in, doesn’t make him anything special in the eyes of those still living. This contrast exemplifies the idea that rich ghosts gain more popularity and publicity than those of the lower class, who are more easily forgotten about in history.

Works Cited:

May, Patrick. “This Bay Area Toys R Us is about to Vanish like a Ghost.” The Mercury News, The Mercury News, 24 Mar. 2018, www.mercurynews.com/2018/03/23/this-bay-area-toys-r-us-is-about-to-vanish-like-a-ghost/.

Ghostland: An American History in Haunted Places, by Colin Dickey. New York: Penguin, 2016.

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Blog Post #2: The Amityville Horror

This film reinforced gender roles as we tend to see them in not only horror films, but in general of that time period. A few examples of these roles include the mom loving on and caring for the children, the father figure being distant, the male lead going crazy, the female lead reaching out to other people for help. 

In the 1970’s, women started to gain more rights as far as gender equality, and this is displayed throughout the film. This is shown through Kathy’s attitude mostly. Such as taking matters into her own hands and standing up to her husband about how her children will be treated, making so many efforts to call and talk to the priest, and doing her own research about the murders that had happened in their house the year prior. There are a few times when the roles do revert back to what used to be, the “traditional” roles. For example, Kathy is the one making meals and wrangling the kids together and she cares for her husband and her sick kid. But we also see some major role confinement in George. He is chopping wood and taking care of the fire, he seemed to be in charge of the finances when they were first looking at the house and having the discussion on how to afford it, and also when he hits Kathy for standing up to him. This film does a great job displaying the start of the shift of gender roles within the 1970s.

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Blog Post #1 “Why We Crave Horror Movies”

In his essay, Stephen King relates watching horror films to riding a rollercoaster, and now I understand why I don’t like horror films. I don’t enjoy the feelings given by a rollercoaster; the elements of surprise, and the unexpected twists and turns. 

People watch horror movies that typically include whatever their fears are, whether it’s murderers, the dark, or something way worse than they could ever imagine. I believe this is because it allows people to face their fears without really experiencing it. As King puts it, “we pay four or five bucks and seat ourselves at tenth-row center in a theater showing a horror movie...daring the nightmare” (King, 1).

While I have a limited knowledge on horror films, one thing that I am interested in is the Holocaust. To most people this would probably give the same reactions and feelings that a horror film would, except this was real. This topic interests me because I can’t seem to wrap my head around how a single person or even a group of people could cause such an ethically immoral event to occur, much less go to the lengths that the Holocaust did. I think that the number of historical books written on the Holocaust show how its occurrence is a place for people to remember the shadowy side of morality.