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horror and normality and deviance
Feb. 22nd, 2005 12:44 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
joysilenceLJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY dfordoom)
Caitlin Kiernan’s afterword to Poppy Z. Brite’s “Self-Made Man” (which I’ve just finished) is interesting. She makes the point that so much American horror over the past few decades has been about threats to Middle America. I think she’s right, and it’s the reason I find most commercial horror unreadable. A typical horror novel will start in a Norman Rockwell version of Small Town USA, then an evil appears from outside that threatens to destroy this idyllic wonderland, then the threat is destroyed and Niceness and Normality are restored and people can go back to their baking and washing their cars and whatever else it is that normal people do.
The difference with Brite (and Kiernan) is that they write about people who have never lived in Norman Rockwell World, and in fact they’re people who are considered to be by their very existence threats to Small Town USA. So in their stories you don’t get that progress from Niceness and Order to Threat to the Status Quo and than back to Niceness and Order restored.
So which kind of horror do you prefer?
dfordoom)Caitlin Kiernan’s afterword to Poppy Z. Brite’s “Self-Made Man” (which I’ve just finished) is interesting. She makes the point that so much American horror over the past few decades has been about threats to Middle America. I think she’s right, and it’s the reason I find most commercial horror unreadable. A typical horror novel will start in a Norman Rockwell version of Small Town USA, then an evil appears from outside that threatens to destroy this idyllic wonderland, then the threat is destroyed and Niceness and Normality are restored and people can go back to their baking and washing their cars and whatever else it is that normal people do.
The difference with Brite (and Kiernan) is that they write about people who have never lived in Norman Rockwell World, and in fact they’re people who are considered to be by their very existence threats to Small Town USA. So in their stories you don’t get that progress from Niceness and Order to Threat to the Status Quo and than back to Niceness and Order restored.
So which kind of horror do you prefer?
