Category Archives: Group 1
Comment on Blame Shifting by angrymurmurs
I think a main difference is the idea of pride. In the ’80’s, Americans are constantly reaffirmed their identity and supremacy as Americans, and being at fault even in a horror movie would not have gone well. If you look at other eighties movies, for the most part Americans are the victims of the North Koreans, Cubans, Soviets, etc. I think in 1938 there was as much of a sense of the American identity. The Depression was still on everyone’s minds and I think the unity WW2 brought was still far from everyone’s minds.
But that’s just my impression. I think it will be interesting to see how the newer movie deals with the ideas of national pride and fault, especially considering that there are going to be more nationalities represented than just the Norwegians. Continue reading
Comment on Blame Shifting by Jake Shapiro
How do you think theater audiences in 1982 would’ve reacted to The Thing if the Norwegians weren’t there? If we as Americans had to deal with the notion that it’s our fault we opened Pandora’s Box?
In 1938, Franklin Roosevelt was president. World War II was about to happen, and the U.S. was an up-and-coming world power recovering from the Great Depression.
In 1982, Ronald Reagan was president. America was going through its “new conservatism” phase as an established power fighting off the evil Soviets. In this time period, Americans are more… American. It couldn’t possibly be our fault, right?!
Perhaps I’m reading too much into the political side of this. But I think it’s incredibly telling that even though the U.S. was much more progressive in the ’80s than it was in the ’30s, Hollywood felt a need to avert American fault for the Thing. Continue reading
Response to “Blame Shifting”
In continuation of AngryMurmurs’ post, “Blame Shifting,” I wanted to apply some of her ideas to Peter Watts, “The Things.” Unlike “Who Goes There?” and the film version, the fault in this story lies with mankind’s unwillingness to adapt and change, (on on an even grander scale, ‘the world’), not specifically just Americans or Norwegians. […] Continue reading
Finale & Remnants
This might be a little late, but I would like to briefly go over the third section of Frankenstein before continuing onto the main topic, as I seem to feel that leaving a discussion post partway doesn’t seem correct. The third section of Frankenstein brought about some twists and how everything the once young and […]
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Too Unpleasant to Have Alive: The Racist Logic of “Who Goes There”
The explorers are certain from the first time they lay eyes upon the alien that it bears an expression of unspeakable fury, and that this itself is evidence of innate evil. But really now, who wouldn’t be extremely vexed to crash their spaceship and become trapped under Antarctic ice? Furthermore, why should the alien be […]
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Blame Shifting
One of the most interesting differences between The Thing and Who Goes There? is who is at fault. In the film version of this story, it’s the Norwegians who are irresponsible and dig up this alien evil and make it the other camp’s problem. However, in the original story it the Americans who dig up […] Continue reading
Fishing for some knowledge
After reading “The Comet”, all I could think about were the numerous disaster films that start off the same way. Guy gets lucky enough to be somewhere safe before the comet/asteroid hits, destroys humanity, and now it is a struggle for survival in a decimated world. It is a story that has been told numerous […] Continue reading
Comment on Sympathy for Victor? by Christina
I think my problem with having sympathy for Victor is he tried to hide, run from his problems for so long. He did nothing overt to save Justine and seems so self-centered to not have even considered it was Elizabeth, and not him, that would be killed. He really doesn’t try to do anything to confront, resolve the issues he’s created. His motivations while they may have been good, his lack of responsibility far overshadow his motivations. I did watch the 1994 Frankenstein. Like you, I found this to be the closest representation to the book, but there is still quite a lot of artistic interpretation going on. Nonetheless, I felt like the spirit of the book was kept fairly intact. Continue reading
Albatross! Albatross!
In Who Goes There, the thing is inhumanly human, where imitation is not only a form of flattery, but a means of survival and prosperity. Campbell presents his what if the world was overrun by this monster and poses the question how do you know if something is real or an imitation. Near the end […]
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What if the world ended as we knew it?
In the Comet, the comet signified a social leveling force, where for but a moment, “Death [the comet’s destruction became], the leveler! … And the revealer” (268) Du Bois presents his what if the world ended and there were only two very different people left, what might happen. In this new world, the black man […]
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