Of Being Unheard
Youth has become a commodity that is at the same time both highly desired and drastically devalued. On one hand, pop culture and the media fawns over young beautiful celebrities. They're attractive, they're sexy, they're better than the average person. But we also make out the young to be unenlightened, uninformed and foolish. They lie and make up stories for attention, and are painted as ignorant simply because of a lack of "life experience."
Young people lack credibility in the eyes of older adults-- young women even moreso. Men are still thought of as more worldly, even as teenagers. Femininity and youth both share a perceived lack of credibility and objectivity, the former mostly due to their biology and the latter because of inexperience.
Society warns us not to make up stories, not to overreact and cause panic among our communities. Cry wolf, and you will pay dearly for it later. But the cynicism that story encourages creates people who will assume a lie quickly and unapologetically. Combine an unlikely story with a young face or a female build and you'll have "liar" written all over you. You're exaggerating, you're lying, you're imagining things.
In horror no one believes you until it's too late. Demons, homicidal maniacs, ghosts, vampires, zombies; impossible, they couldn't be true. The NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET series is a perfect example of teenagers facing both evil and the terror of not being truly heard and believed. In every installment it's the children of Elm Street who are targets of Freddy's cruelty. Everytime they try to tell others what's happening to them, no one believes them-- particularly adults. The irony is that adults unintentionally created the monster, yet they don't believe it when he comes back for their children. And of course their unwillingness to believe that such a thing could exist eventually kills them and others.
Even adult women are not necessarily immune to this disease despite their years of experience. If you look at movies like THE EXORCIST, ROSEMARY'S BABY, THE HAUNTING and LET'S SCARE JESSICA TO DEATH you see adult women facing a supernatural foe as well as a struggle to find one soul who will believe them and help them. Instead the men they look to for help brand them as mentally ill, hysterical or otherwise not of clear mind.
THE EXORCIST points out a specific area where credibility is often questioned: in the doctor's office. In the movie Reagan's doctors keep finding no evidence to support their theories about her mysterious illness, yet they will not give up on them and refuse to listen to Reagan or her mother. In WES CRAVEN'S NEW NIGHTMARE, a similar situation is seen in Heather and her son. The doctors, stuck in their rigid paradigm with no will to leave it, cannot accept the possibility that the boy's problem is not physiological. They even go so far as to believe his mother is abusing them before they'll believe that something supernatural is happening. And this film is unique in that it mirrors the real world where the characters are aware of the NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET movies and that nobody ever believes it's Freddy until it's too late. But still, when faced with a fantastical circumstance that could very well be out of one of those movies, they cling to a mindset where those things are not real, where it is just a movie and there is no explanation that is not scientific and tangible.
As you can see, this is a fairly common plot device in horror. There are many others which feature characters facing similar challenges in credibility and quite often it's young people or adult women who are disbelieved. I believe this reveals something about ourselves, that we and society are less likely to believe the claims of certain types of people simply because of a perceived lack of knowledge or experience. An incredible claim doesn't not necessarily mean it isn't true, but I suppose we would rather it not be true than face what it would mean for monsters, ghosts and ghouls to be such a real threat.
Young people lack credibility in the eyes of older adults-- young women even moreso. Men are still thought of as more worldly, even as teenagers. Femininity and youth both share a perceived lack of credibility and objectivity, the former mostly due to their biology and the latter because of inexperience.
Society warns us not to make up stories, not to overreact and cause panic among our communities. Cry wolf, and you will pay dearly for it later. But the cynicism that story encourages creates people who will assume a lie quickly and unapologetically. Combine an unlikely story with a young face or a female build and you'll have "liar" written all over you. You're exaggerating, you're lying, you're imagining things.
In horror no one believes you until it's too late. Demons, homicidal maniacs, ghosts, vampires, zombies; impossible, they couldn't be true. The NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET series is a perfect example of teenagers facing both evil and the terror of not being truly heard and believed. In every installment it's the children of Elm Street who are targets of Freddy's cruelty. Everytime they try to tell others what's happening to them, no one believes them-- particularly adults. The irony is that adults unintentionally created the monster, yet they don't believe it when he comes back for their children. And of course their unwillingness to believe that such a thing could exist eventually kills them and others.
Even adult women are not necessarily immune to this disease despite their years of experience. If you look at movies like THE EXORCIST, ROSEMARY'S BABY, THE HAUNTING and LET'S SCARE JESSICA TO DEATH you see adult women facing a supernatural foe as well as a struggle to find one soul who will believe them and help them. Instead the men they look to for help brand them as mentally ill, hysterical or otherwise not of clear mind.
THE EXORCIST points out a specific area where credibility is often questioned: in the doctor's office. In the movie Reagan's doctors keep finding no evidence to support their theories about her mysterious illness, yet they will not give up on them and refuse to listen to Reagan or her mother. In WES CRAVEN'S NEW NIGHTMARE, a similar situation is seen in Heather and her son. The doctors, stuck in their rigid paradigm with no will to leave it, cannot accept the possibility that the boy's problem is not physiological. They even go so far as to believe his mother is abusing them before they'll believe that something supernatural is happening. And this film is unique in that it mirrors the real world where the characters are aware of the NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET movies and that nobody ever believes it's Freddy until it's too late. But still, when faced with a fantastical circumstance that could very well be out of one of those movies, they cling to a mindset where those things are not real, where it is just a movie and there is no explanation that is not scientific and tangible.
As you can see, this is a fairly common plot device in horror. There are many others which feature characters facing similar challenges in credibility and quite often it's young people or adult women who are disbelieved. I believe this reveals something about ourselves, that we and society are less likely to believe the claims of certain types of people simply because of a perceived lack of knowledge or experience. An incredible claim doesn't not necessarily mean it isn't true, but I suppose we would rather it not be true than face what it would mean for monsters, ghosts and ghouls to be such a real threat.
posted by Rachel Storm at
8:24 PM
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