Current Forum: Session 9: Horror and Race	Read 19 times 	
Date: 09-Mar-2001 15:17:51	
Author: FRANK, KYLE G. <kgf4068@garnet.acns.fsu.edu>	
Subject: Are fixing or creating problems? 	
 [Remove]	
		
       After reading the Bordwell and Thompson article “The Horror Film”, I paused to think about the ideas put forth and how they might relate to this week’s Blackboard post question.  Without even considering the specific filmmaking techniques found in King Kong, I considered the question’s implications in a broader, more genre-oriented position.  Do the conventions of the horror genre in general “reify or strengthen ideologies of race, gender, and class”?  Is there a necessary connection between the conventions of Hollywood’s horror genre and the ideologies of race, gender, and class?
       I pose this question after considering Bordwell and Thompson’s description of the horror genre: “The horror film aims to shock, disgust, repel—in short to horrify . . . What can horrify us?  Typically, a monster” (185).  They then go on to examine the nature—or rather “un-nature”—of the monster, which is conventionally a threat to “normal humans” and an attack on “normal life”.  In essence Bordwell and Thompson’s description of the monster alludes to how cultural theorists depict the “other” and their position in relation to the “dominant culture”.  If this is true, it allows film critics to overlap and combine “other” identities.
       Such is the attempt of James Snead in his article “Spectatorship and Capture in King Kong: The Guilty Look”.  Perhaps the most obvious overlapping identities in Snead’s interpretation are those of blacks and Kong.  Snead chooses to conflate both identities into one marked and depicted as “savages”, “black”, “uncivilized”, etc.  Furthermore, Snead asserts that both share the role of object in a colonialist expansion, both literally (in the actual trafficking of bodies) and figuratively (on the screen, or what Snead calls “optical colonization”) (193).  Furthermore, Snead draws parallels in behavior between Kong and the “Oceanic Negroids”.  They both desire and abduct Ann Barrow from the “civilized” group.  The sacrificial ceremony imitates Kong’s movement (Snead refers to the ape costumes) (194).  Finally, both are “futureless”, being stuck in a “land before time” that is still inhabited by dinosaurs.
       A second overlapping of identities that Snead identifies is between that of female and that of Kong.  Both have become objectified, serving the white male’s design: “[t]hey only exist to satisfy the viewer’s active erotic look” (195).  This interpretation is interesting when considering the numerous shots that juxtapose Ann and Kong.  While Kong has abducted there are several POV shots of “purely white” Ann in Kong’s hand.  However, the spectator does not watch Ann solely.  There is as much amusement in and observation of Kong’s behavior during these shots (consider when he tickles and sniffs Ann).
       Thus, for Snead King Kong is “about the white male’s ‘other’—other races, women . . .” (193).  His analysis shows how the conventions of horror film conflate and overlap the identities of the “other”, which seems to reinforce Bordwell and Thompkin’s description of the horror genre as a whole.  As a result, these two articles seem to work together to reinforcing the notion that there is a necessary connection between the monster of the screen and the ideologies of race, class, and gender.  
       However, this conclusion does not set well with me, especially when I consider Janeen’s earlier post for the first week.  In this post, Janeen pointed to the pitfalls that we tend to succumb to when describing the “other”.  For instance, last semester we discussed the monster of Frankenstein and its identity and relation to the ideologies of the “other” (under the categories of race, class, gender, and sexuality).  Janeen pointed out, and I believe rightly so, her disapproval of interpreting the monster as “black”.  She also suggested possibly interpreting the monster in terms of sexuality, due to the background of the filmmaker.  Interestingly, Janeen (and I must admit that I accepted her suggestion) suggested analyzing the monster in terms of another category of “otherness”.  Is this proof that the monster’s identity, and thus the filmic conventions used to portray that monster, must necessarily be linked to the ideologies of race, class, gender, and sexuality?  If so, are we supposed to accept Snead’s attempt to conflate and overlap the identities of all “others” (i.e. monster, female, blacks, etc.)?  Or, are we supposed to differentiate between “others”?  Furthermore, why do scholars tend to identify the monstrous with the “others” of ideology (i.e. the oppressed groups in categories of race, gender, class)?  Also, what is the result of this tendency?  It seems to me that it promulgates that which it is trying to overcome, because it does conflate the “others” into just that—“others”.  However, by doing so the plural “others” becomes singular “other”, which leads to the very thing that Janeen protested in her post.