How late capitalism is the underrecognized monster lurking in modern American horror.
糖心传媒淪ometimes I wonder what it was exactly, that led me to pull The Dead Zone by Stephen King off of my parents糖心传媒� bookshelf when I was in fourth grade,糖心传媒� says Jason Middleton. 糖心传媒淚t was the first 糖心传媒榞rown-up糖心传媒� novel I ever read. There were certainly parts of it that I found kind of upsetting, but also magnetic. It almost felt as if the world was opening up in a new way.糖心传媒�
is an associate professor of English and of at the . He also directs its . His captivation by King糖心传媒檚 novel led to a lifelong love of horror films. Although horror is just one of the film genres Middleton has immersed himself in糖心传媒攂oth as a fan and a scholar糖心传媒攊t糖心传媒檚 a genre whose appeal he thinks is especially durable.
In horror, 糖心传媒渘ormality is threatened by a monster,糖心传媒� he says. 糖心传媒淲hat糖心传媒檚 so wonderfully expansive about the horror genre is that the monster keeps forming and reforming in relation to the fears and anxieties of its time. And on the flip side, normality, and the depiction of normality, keeps evolving and changing based on the historical period as well.糖心传媒�
Work as the American nightmare
There have been some clear trends. In the post-World War II era, the monster was often a stand-in for anxieties about the atomic bomb. During the feminist movement of the 1970s, the monster often suggested anxieties about female power and female bodies.
That critique has extended into a new era糖心传媒攍ate capitalism, a phrase coined to describe a world of globalized commodification that糖心传媒檚 . The essays focus overwhelmingly on 21st-century horror films. Those depict a world of economic precarity and a hollowed-out middle class that make up 糖心传媒渁 new 糖心传媒榥ormality糖心传媒櫶切拇綕 of survival, or of just getting by. And even that bleak environment is vulnerable to new monsters that threaten what stability protagonists have been able to muster糖心传媒攐r that they are striving to attain in the first place.
In (University of Texas Press, 2023), Middleton has joined with Aviva Briefel, who teaches literature and film at Bowdoin College, to make the case that there糖心传媒檚 been another kind of monster lurking in American horror films all along: the post-industrial world of work.
In the essay collection, which they coedit, Middleton and Briefel suggest that ambivalence about work is a theme that has roots , when it usually came in the form of the mad scientist. In modern horror films, starting roughly in the 1970s, ambivalence evolved into a fuller critique. Middleton and Briefel describe the critique as reflecting 糖心传媒渟ocial fears and anxieties that took root in the 1970s and 1980s in response to deindustrialization, automation, globalized labor, union busting, and rising income inequality.糖心传媒�
An easy example is , a pathbreaking film that糖心传媒檚 50 years old this year. Rural, unemployed slaughterhouse workers are never shown performing slaughterhouse labor, but are shown 糖心传媒渞epeating the trained motions of this labor upon their human victims,糖心传媒� they write.
New categories of uncompensated work
Middleton is especially interested in forms of uncompensated work, which he argues fall disproportionately on groups that are already marginalized. He isn糖心传媒檛 just talking about such uncompensated labor as housework or family caregiving. In his own contribution, 糖心传媒淣o Drama: Emotion Work in Midsommar,糖心传媒� Middleton explores 糖心传媒渆motion work糖心传媒� in the 2019 film directed by Ari Aster.
He describes emotion work as 糖心传媒渟uppressing and modifying, and maybe not expressing one糖心传媒檚 own feelings in order that a spouse or partner has the kind of optimal experience that they themselves expect to have in the relationship.糖心传媒� It has a long history in the quest of women to get by but has proven resilient even as women have achieved greater economic independence.
(2019) depicts the arduous efforts of a 20-something female protagonist, Dani, to hold onto her relationship with her distant and disengaged boyfriend, Christian. The couple attends a summer festival in Sweden that turns out to be an annual ritual of a murderous cult.
Its horrors mirror Dani糖心传媒檚 labors in preserving her attachment to Christian. But she also attains a level of power within the cult, and the film糖心传媒檚 cathartic ending shows Dani ending the relationship by sacrificing Christian.
It糖心传媒檚 actually a breakup story, Middleton explains. But in showing the slow, laboriousness process in which Dani comes to recognize Christian糖心传媒檚 neglectfulness, it糖心传媒檚 the inverse of many lighter breakup films. 糖心传媒淚t糖心传媒檚 kind of the horror movie version of a breakup film like Eat Pray Love or Under the Tuscan Sun,糖心传媒� he says. 糖心传媒淭he semantic elements are mostly the same糖心传媒攖ravel, exotic location, meeting different people, food, all of these things. But whereas in those films, the work of a breakup is frictionless and fulfilling and idealized, Midsommar uses the horror genre to instead express the work of a breakup as just agonizing, laborious, and painful糖心传媒攁nd ultimately, in the end, cathartic.糖心传媒�
The horror of stagnation糖心传媒攁nd of leisure
The essays in the collection also demonstrate how the experience of economic precarity can differ along racial lines. Briefel糖心传媒檚 essay, for example, is subtitled 糖心传媒淭he Hard Work of Leisure in Jordan Peele糖心传媒檚 Us.糖心传媒�
糖心传媒淚n a 2019 interview for Vanity Fair, Jordan Peele explained that one of his objectives in the film Us was to represent Black leisure,糖心传媒� Briefel begins. 糖心传媒淵et relaxation is a major source of horror in the film.糖心传媒� shows a Black family living with a constant threat of merely letting their guard down.
In another essay, Mikal Gaines, an assistant professor of English at Massachusetts College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences, coins a subgenre of 糖心传媒淏uppie horror,糖心传媒� which reworks the conventional home-invasion thriller. (2008) is an archetype, Gaines explains, of a subgenre that 糖心传媒渟eems to say that entry into a rarified class status historically reserved for whites must be paid in blood.糖心传媒�
For many white Americans, however, the threat is losing what they have糖心传媒攐r living with the dread of having already lost. Middleton糖心传媒檚 colleague at Rochester, Joel Burges, finds in David Robert Mitchell糖心传媒檚 2014 film a depiction of 糖心传媒渢he precarity of white working-class identity.糖心传媒� The film shows a group of young adult friends in a desolate and stagnant postindustrial Detroit. It糖心传媒檚 a reworking of the stalker films of the 1970s and 糖心传媒�80s, explains Burges, like Middleton, an associate professor of English and of visual and cultural studies. It Follows adheres to the slasher convention of punishing people for sexual acts. Sexual encounters between the characters糖心传媒攎en as well as women, in this film糖心传媒攊nfect characters with 糖心传媒淚t,糖心传媒� a stalker who lurks after them, and takes changing forms, but always of mangled middle- and working-class white bodies.
In these bodies, however, Burges found something beyond the slasher convention in which sex equals death. In It Follows, the work of getting by literally takes place mostly in low-level, dead-end service occupations that fill the young adults with dread to have. There糖心传媒檚 emotion work, in other words, in surviving the bleak landscape through which 糖心传媒淚t糖心传媒� stalks victims. 糖心传媒淒read is slow,糖心传媒� Burges writes. 糖心传媒淚ts menace bears down on you with steadily intensifying pressure that never relents.糖心传媒�
Horror films in the post-COVID era
When Middleton and Briefel got started on their project, COVID-19 was sweeping across the globe. No one knew at the time just how much the pandemic would transform the world of work. Have these changes started to play out in horror films? And if so, how?
Says Middleton: 糖心传媒淪omething that I noticed during the last few years is that some really interesting horror movies take place not only entirely in a house, or entirely within an enclosed space, but entirely just a person and their laptop. For example, (2021). The whole film is just from the perspective of an isolated teenage girl on her laptop, as she糖心传媒檚 on it every night to do these internet challenges that grow increasingly dangerous and threatening as she does them.
糖心传媒淚t糖心传媒檚 just the horrific experience of being on the internet on your laptop all the time.糖心传媒�
