[Editor’s Note: This is Part 1 in a four-part series on disability and horror.]
“Watching horror films is a disabling experience,” Angela M. Smith, Associate Professor of English and Gender Studies for the University of Utah and author of the book “Hideous Progeny: Disability, Eugenics, and Classic Horror Cinema,” said. “It’s a controlled encounter with discomfort, with the vulnerability of our minds and bodies to images and suggestions that opens us to unwilled transformations.”
The horror film revels in the world of deformity and grotesqueness and, to a disabled viewer, that can be confusing in how relatable it is. For many, to be disabled is also to look different, so how does a person with a disability approach the horror genre when the presented thing to fear is themselves?
Smith said people weren’t ready for “Freaks” in the 1930s, and she’s absolutely correct. “Freaks,” for better and worse, remains one of the only U.S. features to have a predominately disabled...
“Watching horror films is a disabling experience,” Angela M. Smith, Associate Professor of English and Gender Studies for the University of Utah and author of the book “Hideous Progeny: Disability, Eugenics, and Classic Horror Cinema,” said. “It’s a controlled encounter with discomfort, with the vulnerability of our minds and bodies to images and suggestions that opens us to unwilled transformations.”
The horror film revels in the world of deformity and grotesqueness and, to a disabled viewer, that can be confusing in how relatable it is. For many, to be disabled is also to look different, so how does a person with a disability approach the horror genre when the presented thing to fear is themselves?
Smith said people weren’t ready for “Freaks” in the 1930s, and she’s absolutely correct. “Freaks,” for better and worse, remains one of the only U.S. features to have a predominately disabled...
- 10/6/2020
- by Kristen Lopez
- Indiewire
How switched on are you when it comes to cinema's leading lights and darkest shades?
Back in 2002 Ikea launched the 60-second ad Lamp as part of its Unböring campaign. Directed by Spike Jonze, Lamp opens with a little red lamp sitting by the sofa. A melancholy piano piece hangs in the air. A woman unplugs the lamp, hoists it over her shoulder, and dumps it on the pavement in the pouring rain. Time passes, and shots of the lonely lamp are cut with others taken from its perspective, peering through the window at its former owner cosying up beside a brand new Ikea model. Then, from nowhere, a man walks into shot and says, "Many of you feel bad for this lamp. That is because you crazy. It has no feelings, and the new one is much better."
Maybe we crazy. Brick loves lamp, after all, and he killed a guy with a trident.
Back in 2002 Ikea launched the 60-second ad Lamp as part of its Unböring campaign. Directed by Spike Jonze, Lamp opens with a little red lamp sitting by the sofa. A melancholy piano piece hangs in the air. A woman unplugs the lamp, hoists it over her shoulder, and dumps it on the pavement in the pouring rain. Time passes, and shots of the lonely lamp are cut with others taken from its perspective, peering through the window at its former owner cosying up beside a brand new Ikea model. Then, from nowhere, a man walks into shot and says, "Many of you feel bad for this lamp. That is because you crazy. It has no feelings, and the new one is much better."
Maybe we crazy. Brick loves lamp, after all, and he killed a guy with a trident.
- 6/1/2011
- The Guardian - Film News
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