Popular Culture
Pop culture plays an important role in today’s society; from the TV shows we follow to the sport teams we support, or from the books that we’ve been reading over and over again to the favorite celebrities that we follow every day. Though it doesn’t seem like these aspects of our life matter, but each can have an impact on the way we think and act. Pop culture has played both a role in shaping our country’s history and influencing the thoughts and actions of teenagers today. One of interesting aspects of popular culture is the focus in horror movies which is a very visceral genre that some people are so curious and find it very interesting. In Stephen King’s essay “Why We Cave Horror Movies”, he talked about the ideas why we
…show more content…
People also watch horror movies for fun. King talks about how horror movies are like roller coasters, in that they keep us guessing and can make us scream at various parts of the ride. He says that on the surface level, we watch horror movies for that level of fun. He suggests that we go for the dare of it, to see how far it can push us, and that is what makes the experience so fun. “Why We Cave Horror Movies?” by Stephen King, “we pay… and seat ourselves… in a theater showing a horror movie… Why? Some of the reasons are simple and obvious. To show that we can that we are not afraid, that we can ride this roller …show more content…
What Klosteman is attempting to accomplish is that we are all the same, no one wants to stick out from a group of people. We never necessarily realize what we do, when we are doing it. If we don't take control of what we are actually doing, we might just end up like zombies. “My Zombie, Myself: Why Modern Life Feels Rather Undead” by Chuck Klosterman, “The more you fill them with bullets, the more interesting they become.”
“a creature who can’t talk, doesn’t think and whose only motive is the consumption of flesh.”
“Something about zombies is becoming more intriguing to us.”
“A lot of modern life is exactly like slaughtering zombies”
“Every zombie war is a war of attrition… more repetitive than complex.”
“principal downside to any zombie attack is that the zombies will never stop coming; the principal downside to life is that you will never be finished with whatever it is you do.”
“All of it comes at us endlessly… if we surrender—we will be overtaken and absorbed. Yet this war is manageable,… As long we keep deleting whatever’s directly in front of us, we survive. We live to eliminate the zombies of tomorrow. We are able to remain human,…”
“Battling zombies is like battling anything… or
Klosterman proposes that he knows why the interest in zombies has grown so much. He attributes this to zombies being very easy to kill, come in large quantities, and have no depth of character. Klosterman’s explanation for such intrigue in zombies is their parallel to our day to day existence. He relates zombies to many real life activities, like going through a weekends worth of emails on Monday. Along with the constant saturation of news we can get from the internet, the concept of it being easy to close, or kill, and come in large quantities are very similar to zombies. Klosterman provides this as a better exploitation of the popularity of
“Zombies are like the Internet and the media and every conversation we don’t want to have. All of it comes at us endlessly (and thoughtlessly), and – if we surrender – we will be overtaken
Zombies aren’t supposed to exist. But what if they do, and we interact with them every day? Chuck Klosterman’s essay, “My Zombie, Myself”, compares everyday life to the task of killing zombies. Through elaborate metaphors, quotes from zombie experts, and a strong call to action, he successfully appeals to pathos, ethos and logos to convince his readers. Klosterman argues that even though modern life is monotonous, it is possible to escape the monotony.
Do you ever fear a zombie apocalypse; well in this book Plague of the Dead by Z.A. Recht it’s happening. The dead is slowly infecting the streets around the world the police forces tries to suppress the insuperable zombie horde. After a few months pass by the small an amount of the living try to survive with millions of flesh eating zombies. A military general and his group try to fight off the oncoming waves of the dead. Do they make it read to find out? This journal I will be living vs. zombies, time vs. everything and zombies vs. zombies.
Come to find out we as humans do have a dark side to our personality. In fact, our brains make imaginary monsters, demons, witches, and other crazy scary figures you can think of. We are all plugged in with the positives and negatives. In why we crave horror Stephen King is correct because he states that humans crave horror to face our fears; however, he is also wrong by claiming that we as humans crave horror to establish our feelings of normalcy and to experience a peculiar way of fun.
Why We Crave Horror Movies,” Steven King shares his opinion for why society enjoys watching horror films. He is a very well-known author and is very good at what he does. Let’s take a closer look at his article to examine his use of rhetoric to bring his readers to a point of considering a new perspective about themselves. Mr. King takes his reader on a journey of a mix of reasoning and emotions to help guide him or her from one perspective to the other side of a new perspective.
We yearn for horror to re-establish our feelings of normalcy. For instance, some people would watch a movie and see people melting or in an ugly form, but then realize what King said,
One report by Bernie DeGroat says that watching horror movies can cause effects such as “inability to sleep through the night after exposure” to the graphic movie (DeGroat, par 3). After seeing the movie Jaws, one person said that the thing that scared him the most wasn’t the shark “or actual deaths that was frightening, but the blood” (DeGroat, par 9). According to the Greek philosopher Aristotle, people that watch horror movies are more prone to releasing their negative emotions, also called catharsis. Although, studies have shown that Aristotle is completely wrong, horror movies actually make people more aggressive than they were before watching the movie. Therefore, why would everyone crave horror movies when really they make us more
“World War Z” is a novel by Max Brooks that discusses the human reaction to a sudden and fast-spreading zombie outbreak. Brooks explores the perspectives of an assortment of individuals from varying backgrounds and cultures and displays the primitive, and sometimes immoral, ways in which humans deal with disasters and unprecedented situations. While the zombies are depicted as the major antagonist throughout the novel, Brooks primarily employs the undead as a backdrop to uncover how humans are inherently more evil and disastrous than a plague of the undead through examples of prejudice and greed. Even in a time of disaster, humans perpetuate prejudiced beliefs, such as classism and racism, and cling to bigoted views about unfamiliar cultures and people. During a zombie crisis, highly educated individuals
If somebody asked me what my favorite type of movie is I would probably say horror. I would say horror because it provides a thrill in me that no other type of movie sparks within me. When reading Stephen King’s article I realized there is more to a horror movie than just thrill, there is anticipation, and even suspense shown. In “Why We Crave Horror Movies”, Stephen King uses a mysterious tone and pathos to successfully persuade his audience of kids and adults into watching mysterious horror movies that will let you re-establish your feelings.
In the essay, “Why We Crave Horror Movies,” King explores his insight into why people enjoy and are fascinated watching horror movies. First, King points out “to show that we can, that we are not afraid, that we can ride this roller coaster”. He’s suggesting that horror movies are like roller coaster in that we search for the pleasurable, daring, lighter side of feeling fear and the thrill of trying to overcome it. King further states, horror movies “takes away the shades of grey,” giving the audience permission to return to children again, “seeing things in pure blacks and whites.” King goes on to explain that we go to “re-establish our feelings of normality”; providing psychological relief for the audience, allowing them to “lapse into simplicity, irrationality, and even outright madness." In my opinion, King’s reason for viewing horror films for psychological reasons is the most unsettling. He argues that horror movies gives the audience permission to return to childhood, viewing their emotions in a simple and madness way. I’m not sure everyone has the ability to differentiate these feelings. If we take a moment to observe the actual audience, we would discover that it’s mostly teens and young adults who have difficulty coping with their emotions and very impressionable.
Humans crave horror as a way to get out of facing our fears. There is a man in the story “Strawberry Spring” that is walking around killing college girls like it is a normal thing that people do. Did you know that people have been burying their dead for at least 200,000 years. Stephen King says in his article “Why We Crave Horror”, that we have certain feelings due to the “human condition”. Stephen King is correct because he states that we as humans crave horror; we watch and read horror to show that we can, to re-establish our feelings of normality, and for us to experience a peculiar sort of fun and experience and adrenaline rush.
sample, but it also appeals to population and emotion. To further explain why we crave
Stephen King wrote a very brief essay titled "Why we Crave Horror Movies", in which he explained some of the reasons that people choose to go to horror movies to be entertained. In his essay, King goes on to explain that we as a people need horror movies as a sort of release; to feed the darker elements within all of us without having to sacrifice our humanity (also, civility). King does this by comparing people based on their levels of sanity whereas some societal "eccentricities" are completely acceptable, while some will get you thrown right into the loony bin. It’s summed up pretty well in this quote:
Horror is designed to scare, cause alarm and dread, while also entertaining the audience at the same time in a cathartic experience (Dirk, 2016). Horror films are meant for a specific type of audience that enjoy scary films. Dirks (Tim, 2016) approach to genre horror, is that films went back as 100 years ago, from the earliest days our vivid imagination in seeing ghosts in the shadows to be connected emotionally of the unknown, and fear things that are improbable. You watch a horror film, it makes you aware of the scary surroundings, the essence of fear itself, without actually being in any sorts of danger. Dirks argues that there is a fun and thrill factor in being frightened, or watching something disturbing. It gives you that feeling of an adrenaline rush, as well as having that feeling someone is actually next to you lurking in the dark (Dirk, 2016).