TEJ Blog 1: King, 'Why We Crave Horror Movies'

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TEJ Blog 1: King, 'Why We Crave Horror Movies'

 Quote

“For myself, I like to see the most aggressive of [our base instincts and nastiest fantasies] - Dawn of the Dead, for instance - as lifting a trap door in the civilized forebrain and throwing a basket of raw meat to the hungry alligators swimming around in that subterranean river beneath. Why bother? Because … it keeps them down there and me up here.” (Monsters, 18)

Summarize

     Stephen King's 'Why We Crave Horror Movies' extrapolates on the reason he believes people seek ways to to scare and horrify themselves - specifically through films - and how it helps us as people, even though we do much in order to avoid these feelings in real life. He explains that he thinks that everyone is, at different levels, not quite entirely sane; that when we seek out things like scary movies or rollercoasters, it is to remind different sides of ourself their role in being a human person. The side that is animal and aggressive, to be trained to stay in check, and the 'civilized' side, that it cannot ignore every other part or else leave itself open to takeover. He believes that when we do such things it is to remind ourselves subconsciously to keep balance between these two sides, lest we be completely lost to either.

Response

     I believe that King's view on why we tend to like scaring ourselves is right in a lot of aspects. I agree that we need to give attention to stimulate our instincts and remind ourselves that we are perfectly mortal as any other animal on earth - in some instances, moreso even (lobsters' and tortoises' longevity, the sheer ability to survive in both cockroaches and waterbears). That we are unlike the gods we may believe in; if we fall, we can break. If we are threatened, there isn't much we can do to protect ourselves as we are. We do not have power over the world save for what we create, and often we can lose control of those things too. 

     I also believe that King misses that mark when he says that everyone is "mentally ill" (Monsters, King 16) and alienates the 'hungry alligators' from the sense of self. Instead, I feel that while King makes a good point with the first idea, he falls quite short on what that means because he fails to mention that the model of 'sanity' in the eyes of society can be extremely flawed. The traditional idea of sanity doesn't account for the behaviors and habits that are healthy for neurodivergent people (such as stimming), and usually sets up a standard behavior for the entirety of society to follow when each individual in society has different ideals, language habits, health needs, and personalities. King also fails to recognize the nature of humans in reality as simply another creature of Earth, divorcing the idea of animalistic tendencies from people when all people truly are, are animals that evolved and survived with a different skillset than the rest. He eschews his duty as a scholar when he does not acknowledge every single side of the human self and even elevates one facet of the mind above the others as 'civilized' - disrespecting our nature and history as animals who require basic outside- and self-stimulation, by idealizing the prompt of leaving our instincts behind in order to act in a stifling performance for others to see and deem 'normal'. He demonstrates in the quote above that he believes such base-origin instincts must be bottled up and stay beneath rather than be explored and recognized as a pillar of the human self. 

     King's passage 'Why We Crave Horror Movies' is, then, interesting at a surface level for considering different sides of the self. But going any deeper than surface, the passage fails to properly scrutinize these nor provide counsel to the reader that the partaking in actions that scare ourselves, that "feed the alligators" so to speak, are perfectly healthy and an excellent way to explore situations in the world that are unlikely. The curious mind naturally seeks out data and enlightenment on the unfamiliar; by suggesting that the instinctual side of ourselves must stay hidden away, King completely fails as a guide to assure the reader that exploring scary, horrifying, or morally ambiguous narratives is healthy and perfectly acceptable as a way of learning.