mokie | Saturday, 8 October 2011

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Saturday, 8 October 2011

The most common criticism levelled against the horror genre--and the most inaccurate--is that it's 'empty calories.' It rarely contains social commentary or depth, at best it's just bugs on strings and cats jumping from shadowy corners, and at worst it's sex, blood and gore.

So, so wrong. To get under our skin, horror almost has to include social commentary, in order to touch on what really unnerves us.

For example, put Dracula in context: England's growing population of Eastern European immigrants, increasingly vocal suffragettes and feminists, and homosexuality something of an open secret. Who was Dracula meant to frighten? Figure that out and suddenly it's no mystery why vampires became romantic heroes in later fiction, and why young women so eagerly embrace the monster.

If you find the Other and identify the story's ideal audience, you can start to tug loose the threads of social commentary.

( Oh, the spoilers you will see! )

Current Mood: thoughtful

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Horror as social commentary

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y-* tags categorize dreams.

For types: beyond the obvious, there are dreamlets (very short dreams), stubs (fragment/outline of a partially-lost dream), gnatter (residual impression of a lost dream).

For characters: there are roles (characters fitting an archetype), symbols (characters as symbols), and sigils (recurring figures with a significance bigger than a single dream's role/symbolism).

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absinthe-minded [7]
absolutely scrumtrulescent! [13]
adorable plague vectors [1]
aha! [18]
all is full of love [6]
altared slates [7]
and to your right are wing-gremlins [3]
and yet it moves [8]
anonymice and orthophants [8]
anxiety soup [7]
apocalypse wow! [13]
apropos or no [10]
archies in their bunkers [9]
argument for hermitage [13]
arse drink feck girls [10]
as you wish [5]
astronaut sniper [1]
aw hell no [13]
baa [1]
back to the sad mines [5]
behold mah belly [5]
being of sound mind and body [12]
bridge for sale [14]
bunnucular facilities [3]
but wait! [8]
can't brain today [6]
can't sleep tim curry will eat me [6]
cat jelly [1]
celluloid-based lifeforms [15]
charisma wars [5]
church of candy [4]
cleanliness is next to ocd [4]
confused? you won't be... [4]
corked fork [1]
crackerlicious! [7]
crackheads off the port bow! [1]
crappily ever after [7]
crazy like a fox news viewer [15]
creepy and kooky [21]
creme fraiche [2]
crossposted goodness [19]
cutting out the boring parts [1]
cybernetic soapbox [10]
d'oh! [11]
damn the man! [8]
das sproggins [8]
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dear whomever [3]
debatable hamster wang [1]
deedubyosity [2]
delayed reaction [19]
deserves its own tag [5]
dirigible wars of 1982 [6]
do not adjust your screen [6]
does not fempute! [13]
domesticity achieved! [10]
doom! [14]
drinking instant karma [7]
eat the rich [7]
eat the rude [11]
echoes of [2]
eeevil [24]
elephants [8]
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erase that mental image [8]
eta [17]
explaining heaven to bears [26]
feel trip to feeladelphia [1]
feline persuasion [4]
fellowship of the thing [12]
fine chilean sea bass [12]
fire is the cleanser [12]
firecrotch factor [1]
fist in the air and head in the sand [11]
fistful of stupid [4]
get off my lawn! [1]
glorious streisandfreude [9]
goldfish says what? [26]
gone to my unhappy place [13]
hail mall-gok! god of commerce! [15]
hail sterculius! [36]
happy happy joy joy! [13]
hark! tis the song of my people [1]
hedgehog quarterly [10]
hello snowflake! [21]
herding thoughts [1]
hey now [9]
hideous space reptiles [8]
hidey-ho [3]
holiday grab bag [10]
holler fish [22]
holy ground highlander! [16]
home of the squirrelly [11]
i must not fear [9]
i see a tall dark stranger [2]
i think i'll go for a walk [10]
i will do science to it [24]
i'll use small words [27]
i'm a social butterfly! [9]
in the unloved corner [3]
internet tour guide [20]
it becomes self-aware at 2.14am [21]
it came from the intarweb [15]
it's my therapy knife [3]
it's weatherish out there [10]
japanese moon rover [7]
john has a long moustache [21]
jumping at shadows [1]
laser tag [4]
less invasions! more equations! [6]
lesson! if you see a stranger follow him [6]
link rot ahoy [2]
listolicious [12]
little snackrifices [9]
live from my pants! [15]
live from the salt mines [14]
lolitics [8]
look what i made! [1]
love and hate and reality tv [15]
major leaflet campaign [1]
mediapocalypse [32]
mental shoebox [11]
metareader's digest [16]
moving pictures [1]
my common sense is tingling [46]
my fellow earthicans [38]
my god it's full of lol [19]
name that tune [1]
neutron star [5]
no soap radio [13]
not a morning person [4]
note to self [2]
nsfcw [1]
ohana mofo [2]
omgwtfzombiebbq [7]
one pill makes you larger [7]
orbiting the monkeysphere [3]
organic gmo-free hemlock [3]
osh kosh b'goth [10]
passive-aggressive possum [13]
perfectly cromulent [32]
person-shaped blobs of sentient misery [5]
phoebelicious [5]
plague on both your houses! [5]
practicando the parlez-vous [40]
president of the nillionaire's club [5]
projectile uterus [5]
purple monkey dishwasher [4]
rageonomics [6]
rain of shoes [2]
raised by wolves [19]
rawr! [30]
reading ridealong [7]
retrostalgic reminiscences [12]
sacrelicious! [3]
salute some shorts [27]
sappy's choice [6]
say cheese [1]
say your safeword [17]
shaking my tiny fists [20]
sharing is caring [29]
shenanigans! [25]
shiny happy people [3]
shut up and write [2]
side of fremdschamen [12]
skull full of wasps [3]
snotalicious [13]
so i was watching this thing [24]
spacemonkey mafia [10]
spoileriffic [1]
squeeful things [24]
squirrel bait! [16]
standing ovulation [8]
state of the mokie [15]
stupid questions lj asks [7]
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summon bigger fish! [19]
sweep the leg! [18]
sweet baboon of florissant! [7]
sweet zavist zeitgeist [23]
tag me later [2]
tag me later! [7]
tag your pets! [2]
tagraggery [2]
talking to ghosts again [2]
taste the rainbow [7]
tea and blasphemy [9]
tea and crackers [6]
technically people [1]
that place where bees come from [3]
the great unhip [20]
the internet will know what to do [14]
the man is a christmas miracle [6]
the root of the problem is bigfoot [19]
themeday memeday [8]
they've gone to plaid! [6]
things i hate [28]
this hateful hiatus [2]
this is my design [21]
this is my shiny thing! [8]
this is why we can't have nice things [25]
this toads the wet sprocket! [5]
three cheers for reincarnation! [4]
till someone loses an eye [3]
to the oubliette [9]
touched by an anvil [22]
tree bad fire pretty [10]
tweetalicious [4]
twirling towards freedom [10]
two lincolns for every napoleon [25]
tyranny of the coffee machine [12]
unfairest of them all [5]
unicorn shit everywhere [19]
united states of bitch [5]
until your forehead bleeds [1]
urban jungle [1]
viva el moochismo! [6]
wandering in edom [10]
watching out for japanese well-girls [1]
we're going to need a bigger boat [2]
wet copper armour [2]
whatshisface [1]
wheel of morality turn turn turn [38]
when i grow up [7]
when i rule the world [32]
when i was a young warthog [13]
why did it have to be snakes? [25]
wild thingdom [4]
wisdom of the mokie [48]
wood=duck=witch [3]
x-audience
- adults [1]
  - women [1]
- ego [1]
x-conflict
- man v supernatural [1]
x-form
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  - instructive [1]
- series [1]
x-place
- uk
  - england [1]
- usa
  - nj [1]
x-setting
- fantastic
  - supernatural [1]
x-style
- horror
  - cosmic [1]
- mystery
  - softboiled [1]
x-theme
- arrogance of man [1]
- behind the veil [1]
- character v author [1]
- gnostic nightmare [1]
- nature is not innocent [1]
- social examination [1]
x-time
- contemporary [1]
- victeddian [1]
xmarksthespot [3]
y-issue
- betrayal [1]
- clutter [1]
- contamination [2]
- failure [1]
- power [1]
- trust [2]
y-meta
- actors or stand-ins [2]
- bathroom [3]
- blast from the past [3]
- cycles [1]
- dorky details [5]
- lucidity [3]
  - control [1]
- macguffin [3]
- media tie-in [2]
- replay [1]
- resolutely no [1]
- resolution [1]
- scripted [2]
- word salad [1]
- work-related [1]
y-mood
- annoyance [2]
- anxiety [3]
- closure [1]
- concern [1]
- embarrassment [1]
- fear of erring [1]
- freedom [1]
- judgment [1]
- powerlessness [1]
- shame [1]
y-plot
- act
  - attack [1]
  - avoid [1]
  - converse [2]
  - exercise [1]
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  - steal [2]
  - wait [1]
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- event
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  - discovery [1]
  - infestation [1]
  - oversleeping [1]
  - party [1]
y-role
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- female protector [1]
- male aggressor [1]
- mediator [2]
- rival [2]
- trickster [1]
- unseen aggressor [1]
y-set
- building
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- geo
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- space
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y-sigil
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y-sym
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  - thief [2]
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- sense
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y-theme
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y-type
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- dream [3]
- dreamlet [2]
- lucid
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- nightmare [3]
- stub [3]
you are my freight train [13]
ಠ_ಠ [21]