by Jillian Butler, Ampersandology
Autumn plays strange tricks on my mind. For one thing, my inner thoughts tend to have a lot of the following imagery:
So to soothe this latent fixation of mine, I listen to a lot of vintage Nine Inch Nails. Because quite frankly, Trent Reznor? Call me. You're never going to write a thinly-veiled ode to heroin about me if we don't get our act together and give it a go.
I can't even help it. One of these days, I'm going to wake up split into three, surrounded by dust-sewn, velvet curtains on an English moor. The Second Me will suggest we visit the Iciclist Bicyclist (who rides in place on a frozen puddle) and perhaps lay by the Wounded Lake. There'll be a giant foot and I'll find a kitten and name it Absinthe Darkly.
Best day ever!
In other news, as previously implied, my mind is sinking to Gothic depths. Mama Gothic, of an 1800s flavour, not this black nails and childish death worship habit. Mama Gothic is sick and twisted, yo, infinitely more perverted than anything Marilyn Manson dreams up. It's all about peeling back the layers of society and exposing it as broken.
Modern Gothic actually follows pretty closely to its original literary counterpart, exploiting a somewhat less Puritanical society to cash in on shock value. But the old guard Gothic wanted to coax you into believing everything is perfectly normal. In other words, our modern Gothic has become a little too self-aware of the genre, telegraphing certain tropes and counting on you, the viewer, to understand the subtext from the first frame. Would Dexter be so satisfying if we weren't cheering for the villain? Would True Blood be so addictive if it wasn't so happy to debase itself to shock us?
Yes, the Gothic wants you to lose sleep, you see, but it knows the true horror comes from waking up from a truly content slumber into a living nightmare.
As for these Gothic depths, I blame the chill in the air, the fact that Bloor Street vendors are selling pumpkins bigger than my entire being, but mostly I blame Rosemary's Baby (1968) and the company she keeps.
This happens almost every autumn, I have to admit. Ever since I was little, I loved depictions of Halloween more than the event itself: the dark undercurrents of sending children into the night to collect treasures. I'm fairly certain I wrote one of my first short story collections at the tender age of 12, all about the various adventures that a pair of sisters find themselves in on Halloweens throughout their lives (it sucked, but it makes my point).
Then one fall in my undergrad, I happened to take a class in Gothic Fiction (Dr. Lo shoutout!) and since then, the season puts me in permanent Gothic Mode. I see it everywhere and wear my fur-collared coat so I can feel like a manor Lord.
True story! I have strange preoccupations.
First, the basics.
In other words, this ain't your kid sister's Gothic. In fact, try taking modern Gothic seriously when you cut your teeth on the depravity of The Castle of Otranto or The Monk.
Gothic literature probably enjoyed its heyday somewhere between the late 1700s and 1800s--they weren't much of a high art form, but sold like hotcakes. After that, it filtered down into more "legitimate" forms of art--Charles Dickens was known to pillage the genre's atmospheric tendencies and otherworldly tropes from time to time.
Eventually, to the delight of darkly-minded cinephiles everywhere, it wasn't long before film took up the banner, embracing and modernizing the tropes of the genre.
Gothic is sinister, gruesome and darkly melancholy. It's also fixated on the grotesque, depicting decay and rot and ruin in literal, rather than superficial, terms. No Hot Topic cotton tees or striped socks here: this Gothic wants to destroy the family (through taboos like rape or incest) and community (through the warping and mistrust of authority figures). It's so juicy and politically ignorant that you cannot help but eat it up.
Right on cue every year, I power up the projector and turn to the Gothic in film. There's a certain period, from about 1960 to 1980, where films managed to seduce the Gothic into the modern world--think Chinatown (1969), The Exorcist (1973) or The Shining (1980). I could go on for days. Maybe there's something about that old grainy filmstock that helps to set the mood.
Hell, even Francis Ford Coppola had a go in the 90s with Bram Stoker's Dracula--some would argue less than successfully, but SOME OF US LIKED THE WOLF SCENE, OKAY?
There's so much here, I could do a ten-part series. Instead, I'll settle for three. Onward, my wicked ripe plums, to the PerversityMobile!
Autumn plays strange tricks on my mind. For one thing, my inner thoughts tend to have a lot of the following imagery:
So to soothe this latent fixation of mine, I listen to a lot of vintage Nine Inch Nails. Because quite frankly, Trent Reznor? Call me. You're never going to write a thinly-veiled ode to heroin about me if we don't get our act together and give it a go.
I can't even help it. One of these days, I'm going to wake up split into three, surrounded by dust-sewn, velvet curtains on an English moor. The Second Me will suggest we visit the Iciclist Bicyclist (who rides in place on a frozen puddle) and perhaps lay by the Wounded Lake. There'll be a giant foot and I'll find a kitten and name it Absinthe Darkly.
Best day ever!
*
In other news, as previously implied, my mind is sinking to Gothic depths. Mama Gothic, of an 1800s flavour, not this black nails and childish death worship habit. Mama Gothic is sick and twisted, yo, infinitely more perverted than anything Marilyn Manson dreams up. It's all about peeling back the layers of society and exposing it as broken.
 |
| HBO's True Blood: The modern Gothic? |
Yes, the Gothic wants you to lose sleep, you see, but it knows the true horror comes from waking up from a truly content slumber into a living nightmare.
As for these Gothic depths, I blame the chill in the air, the fact that Bloor Street vendors are selling pumpkins bigger than my entire being, but mostly I blame Rosemary's Baby (1968) and the company she keeps.
This happens almost every autumn, I have to admit. Ever since I was little, I loved depictions of Halloween more than the event itself: the dark undercurrents of sending children into the night to collect treasures. I'm fairly certain I wrote one of my first short story collections at the tender age of 12, all about the various adventures that a pair of sisters find themselves in on Halloweens throughout their lives (it sucked, but it makes my point).
Then one fall in my undergrad, I happened to take a class in Gothic Fiction (Dr. Lo shoutout!) and since then, the season puts me in permanent Gothic Mode. I see it everywhere and wear my fur-collared coat so I can feel like a manor Lord.
True story! I have strange preoccupations.
THE FACTS
First, the basics.
Gothic fiction (sometimes referred to as Gothic horror) is a genre of literature that combines elements of both horror and romance.
Prominent features of Gothic fiction include terror (both psychological and physical), mystery, the supernatural, ghosts, haunted houses and Gothic architecture, castles, darkness, death, decay, doubles, madness, secrets, and hereditary curses.
 |
| Dark castles and eternal nights: standard Gothic. |
Gothic literature probably enjoyed its heyday somewhere between the late 1700s and 1800s--they weren't much of a high art form, but sold like hotcakes. After that, it filtered down into more "legitimate" forms of art--Charles Dickens was known to pillage the genre's atmospheric tendencies and otherworldly tropes from time to time.
Eventually, to the delight of darkly-minded cinephiles everywhere, it wasn't long before film took up the banner, embracing and modernizing the tropes of the genre.
Gothic is sinister, gruesome and darkly melancholy. It's also fixated on the grotesque, depicting decay and rot and ruin in literal, rather than superficial, terms. No Hot Topic cotton tees or striped socks here: this Gothic wants to destroy the family (through taboos like rape or incest) and community (through the warping and mistrust of authority figures). It's so juicy and politically ignorant that you cannot help but eat it up.
Right on cue every year, I power up the projector and turn to the Gothic in film. There's a certain period, from about 1960 to 1980, where films managed to seduce the Gothic into the modern world--think Chinatown (1969), The Exorcist (1973) or The Shining (1980). I could go on for days. Maybe there's something about that old grainy filmstock that helps to set the mood.
Hell, even Francis Ford Coppola had a go in the 90s with Bram Stoker's Dracula--some would argue less than successfully, but SOME OF US LIKED THE WOLF SCENE, OKAY?
There's so much here, I could do a ten-part series. Instead, I'll settle for three. Onward, my wicked ripe plums, to the PerversityMobile!
Next in the Series:
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