America the occult

SALUTATIONS ONCE AGAIN! As before, I am Vicky. This week's topic is to relate America's current pop-culture to the constant-everlasting obsession of the occult.

As a young child living outside of the U.S, my most memorable experiences were barely being at school (the rest of the world values childhood), eating products made with REAL sugar (it exists, I know- WEIRD), and watching Disney films. Since I moved to the U.S, and grown up, which apparently happens...ew, I have learned that school is a lifestyle that's forced upon everyone under 18, that high fructose corn syrup is in EVERY SINGLE FOOD ITEM MANUFACTURED HERE and that America does not equal Disney, sadly. Fortunately, although the sugar got worse and the school hours longer, my experiences with movies grew and all of a sudden it wasn't just princesses and talking animals. It was wizards, vampires, mythical creatures, hidden aliens, supernatural forces... It was too much to keep track of! It was like a new area or zone... It was the:

 

 

Rod Serling. He is everything we love to fear at the same time as being everything we fear to love. I have had nightmares with him in them, as well as dreams. In some episodes seeing him is a comfort blanket and in others it's the opposite. The little introduction to every episode taps into every single nerve and emotion we have. The scene just fades into him and he does his business creeping you out and then he is gone. You know just a little bit of what is going to happen and you are already nervous or scared out of your mind (depends how low your scare-tolerance level is and how scary the episode actually is).

 





 

 

The Twilight Zone is the first TV programme to introduce America to science-fiction horror. None of the episodes correlate with each other making the idea of horror sci-fi a little like modern day reality tv; fake enough to shake off, but with a certain element of reality to make you wonder. The show has a wide variety; episodes include apocalypse, body swapping, time travel, ghosts, immortality, haunted inanimate objects. You name it it's there.

But that's not the only effect that the TWILIGHT ZONE had on our society. The show ran from 1959 to 1964 and had 5 seasons with over 150 episodes. PEOPLE WATCHED THIS SHOW. And not only that, they craved it. They wanted more. They wanted it SOOO much they wrote books, made movies and made more seasons, not to mention Walt Disney World's Tower of Terror attraction.

Most of the modern-day fears are derived from episodes in this show.

The fear of talking dolls or dolls that are "out to get you" can be accredited to an episode called "Living Doll". It is one of the most famous ones and definitely has had its toll on everyone since. Preceding Chucky by about two decades, Talking Tina is INVINCIBLE, SCARY and slightly passive. She plays with the possibility of rather than the manslaughter Chucky is responsible for making her even more creepy. Anyone that has watched this episode can tell you that their fear of dolls came from here... (Other similar episodes are "The After Hours" and "The Dummy")

 

Another episode with a long-lasting effect on our minds and media is the  "The Monsters Are Due On Maple Street" so yes, murders and monsters-figural and literal. This episode is apparently meant to have influenced Steven King, he was a big fan of the show, into writing The Mist. A lot of the episodes are developed around the theme of aliens, but this one does it differently. It plays with your emotions, you aren't sure whether they're responsible or not; this forms the basis of mystery in many stories created after the Twilight Zone.

 

The Twilight Zone episodes tended to have a sick plot twist at the end, being the first of its kind it really set the bar for future branches of this new section in pop culture. it was a further push into being deeper and deeper in an addicting obsession of the unexplainable darkness.

 

I'll show you to the door

 

SALUTATIONS! I am Vicky and this is the blog I have created for my AP Language and Composition class! This week's assigned topic was to analyze a modern day antihero and relate him to Ichabod Crane from The Legend of Sleepy Hollow by Washington Irving. My favorite book (so far) is The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway, so I have decided to make this blogpost about Jake Barnes, the protagonist of the story. I shall begin.
(Quickly though, I hate the fact that whenever I press the tab key nothing productive happens.) I will start with some background on our wonderful Jake. Jake Barnes is an expatriate, its just a fancy word for someone that is living in a country that is not where they grew up or were born in, that lives in Paris, France. He is a journalist that likes to drink, party and stay out late- Hemingway created him, what else would you expect? However, life isn't all fun and games for him. He is a veteran of the first World War and due to an injury on the field he was left impotent (a.k.a castrated). This frustrates him terribly when it comes to Lady Brett Ashley, the love of his life!!! (They're way too cute together,  she totally digs him too) But whatever, this isn't a Nicholas Sparks novel.

Okay, so what exactly makes up a hero? I see a hero as someone you WANT to be like, an idol. In order to be considered a hero the character has to do something Great! He should be flocked by women, men should admire him, cities named after him. A hero's story should be his legend. But not Jake. He tells his own story, the only woman is a prostitute he ditches, and while he is respected by most of the men he meets, none of them would trade shoes. On the other hand, there is Ichabod Crane, a greedy, insolent and sneaky man. Although it seems that they don't have much in common, they do.
The firsts anti-hero characteristic they share is being a hopeless romantic- neither of them has a partner. In fact, they both spend most of their story trekking after some girl that they don't end up with. For Ichabod it is Katrina, the daughter of a wealthy Dutch man, but because he is an anti-hero he doesn't get her instead he dies and the town-stud wins. But either way, his motives were not too Great, he was just a greedy kid.

Similarly, in the other hand, Jake Barnes is SUPER in love with Lady Brett Ashley but because of his war injuries the whole relationship would not work. Brett is young and she is MARRIED/ENGAGED throughout the whole story. So if anything Jake's situation is worse because he has a need that can never be satisfied and Brett knew that. Jake is in love with Brett and Brett likes Jake but because of his impotence their love can't go farther than, basically, that. Anyway, Jake invites his friends Robert Cohn, he is this guy that thinks he is the coolest but really he is sort of lame (plus he says that he is in love with Brett too), and Bill Gorton, he is very similar to Jake, to go to the Bullfights in Pamplona. Brett and Mike, her Scottish fiancée, decide to tag along which causes some trouble for Jake as the story progresses.

Another characteristic that they share is laziness. Both men are more lazy than not. Ichabod just picked teaching because all he has to do is pretend to be authoritative, and in return, get a bunch of bribes. (Which sounds like a couple of teachers I have had in my life- NOT Mr.Thos) Once he gets what he wants, which is most likely a place to eat excessively and sleep he is unmotivated until the needs arise again.

Jake is the same. At the beginning of the story he just constantly leaves work to hang out at bars and cafes, he blatantly says that he can leave whenever and go off wherever. Which he does, he goes fishing and then he goes to Pamplona for the bullfights and then he comes back home like no big deal. (His only true passions are fishing and bullfighting.) Neither of them is lazy in the sense that they don't do anything, they just do what they please. Its the equivalent of not doing your homework so you can go on tumblr. You are still doing something, but not really what you are supposed to do.

 

Lastly, this one is a stretch because it more symbolic, neither of them are "manly" in the sense a hero should be. Ichabod is a tall and lanky guy that does not like to solve his own problems realistically and instead runs from them and still does not blame himself for his situation. Jake, as much as I love him, he drinks his problems "away" which result in bigger problems and even more drinking. And symbolically, the WW1 injury he suffered (which ,ironically, is where he met Brett)  takes away/decreases his manhood. This leads to the whole theme of the book and the plot and the subliminal messages-just kidding, but kind of not.- and the whole "Lost Generation" thing.

In conclusion, anti-heroes can still be interesting protagonists, but once you break them down you  begin to realize that there is nothing truly heroic about them. That is when they fall into the category of anti-heroes. Personally, I love the idea of the anti-hero, it gives the story some sort of honesty. Not everyone can be a Hercules, but no one is stopping you from being a Tyler Durdend. In reality, anti-heroes are just realistic main characters, sure they may not do something Great, but they make US feel Great! on that note...

 

 

Enjoy this picture of Brett and Jake.