[Week 3] Reflection-We define "UNCANNY" in order to certain the "CANNY"
I personally really enjoy both the readings and the film for this week. Digging into the psychoanalysis perspective of film truly helps me understand why does audience feel certain way about certain type of scene.
In The Texas Chain Saw Massacre(1974), the story reveals a dysfunctional family which lack of the presenting of a female role, on the contrary, in Babadook (2014), the story shows a family with the love from the mom but in an abnormal form. The tragic accident happened to Samuel's father lead to a fragmentary family composition from the first place in Sam's childhood. The trauma of losing the love one bring the pressure to both Sam's mom Amelia and Sam. Babadook shows a vicious spiral between an insecure mother and oversensitive kid. The negative influence they bring to each other become more and more harmful psychologically. However, my favorite scene of the film is when Babadook is inside Sam's mom is body and trying to shock sam to death, instead of giving up struggling, Sam raises his hand and carefully caressed his mom cheek to show all his love and trust to her. I almost cry seeing that scene because how beautiful the pure love is!!!! The power of love is so amazing that can cure everything!!!
Babadook is a symbol of Amelia's abnormal think of Sam's father. Some people says that in the end trapping the babadook inside the basement means mom doesn't get over with the twisted thoughts, the mom and son relationship seems getting better but the demon hidden inside the heart is still there. I do not fully agree with this commentary, because in my opinion, Yes the missing of the father will not go away, the trauma of losing the love one won't cure. But it is being locked deep inside the heart, Amelia and Sam are not gonna get over it, but they just need to live with it, cherish what they still have and move forward.
When talking about the uncanny feeling through the whole film, the scene which cannot be toletence for the audience the most must be the scene when Amelia says "sometimes I really hope to smash your face on to the wall and never see you again". As Barbara Creed illustrates in her reading, "the monstrous-feminine in the horror film in relation to the maternal figure and what Kristeva terms ‘abjection’, that which does not ‘respect borders, positions, rules’"(2, Creed). Amelia's expression of view is not acceptable for the society, if a mom ever think about things like this, it means she is not accomplish the "rule" as being a mom who should always show the love and support to their kids. When the feminine start acting aggressive and threatened, it will be defined as some type of mental disorder. However, as Creed argues, "the central problem with Kristeva’s theory is that it can be read in a prescriptive rather than a descriptive sense" (9, Creed), I am wondering why is there"social role" at the first place? Why do people have to love their kids regardless how terrible the kids are? It is true that bad parenting will grow up horrible kids, in this case, since Amelia's mental is not stable at the first place, the kid who grow up in the abnormal family will just get worse and worse. So it might be the parents responsibility to solve the "issue" of the kids which created by themselves. But no one is perfect, everyone should have the right to express, and it is nothing to blame if feminine acts a little bit out of their "social role", just not in a too cruel way...
"abjection itself is a composite of judgement and affect, of condemnation and yearning, of signs and drives" (5, Creed). Just as I mentioned before, why is there a role at the beginning anyway? Why do we have to seek for a specific role to put ourselves into it in order to maintain the order of the society. This idea of seeking of "uncanny" in order to prove we are normally "canny" comes form the book Simulations that I am reading for my another class..we are always seeking for comparison but we shouldn't, because Yin is Yang, Yang is Yin, everything is everything.
After all, regardless of the uncomfortable feeling of the abnormal mom in Babadook brings us. There are still some pleasure we find to enjoy right? Another interesting topic in Barbara Creed's reading is the discussion of the "consciousness" of the abject things:
This quote is quite thought-provoking when it suggests that the adjective subject doesn't even feel free when they are showing the abnormal reaction. For example, In Babadook, when Amelia says the cruel words to Samuel, I think the director is trying to show that this type of mean words does not really come from the mom's heart, because she is being possessed by the evil babadook, her body and mind is out of control and then start a harmful talk. Maybe those mean words does represent Amelia's deeper opinion that she has to her son, but the audience will never know. Just as Creed states, when everything is ambiguous, it becomes creepy. The contradiction and uncertain of what is going on inside people's mind is the most creepy thing for me.
Last but not least, Sigmund Freud is always my favorite because I love psychology! But I am so angry when read his "Uncanny" reading, because he is keeping showing us some phenomenon but never provide any answer. For example, why do we have to scare the kids before they go to bed? Why when kids live in fear will make them become quiet? why do we scared of zombie but when Snow White resurgent, we are all happy to see her become alive again? For Snow White, I do understand the answer that because the background is different, fairytale is beautiful world of imagination. But do as ghost and zombie, they are "fantasy" aren't they? just more disgusting type when compare to Snow White. But what is the different of their essences?
In The Texas Chain Saw Massacre(1974), the story reveals a dysfunctional family which lack of the presenting of a female role, on the contrary, in Babadook (2014), the story shows a family with the love from the mom but in an abnormal form. The tragic accident happened to Samuel's father lead to a fragmentary family composition from the first place in Sam's childhood. The trauma of losing the love one bring the pressure to both Sam's mom Amelia and Sam. Babadook shows a vicious spiral between an insecure mother and oversensitive kid. The negative influence they bring to each other become more and more harmful psychologically. However, my favorite scene of the film is when Babadook is inside Sam's mom is body and trying to shock sam to death, instead of giving up struggling, Sam raises his hand and carefully caressed his mom cheek to show all his love and trust to her. I almost cry seeing that scene because how beautiful the pure love is!!!! The power of love is so amazing that can cure everything!!!
Babadook is a symbol of Amelia's abnormal think of Sam's father. Some people says that in the end trapping the babadook inside the basement means mom doesn't get over with the twisted thoughts, the mom and son relationship seems getting better but the demon hidden inside the heart is still there. I do not fully agree with this commentary, because in my opinion, Yes the missing of the father will not go away, the trauma of losing the love one won't cure. But it is being locked deep inside the heart, Amelia and Sam are not gonna get over it, but they just need to live with it, cherish what they still have and move forward.
When talking about the uncanny feeling through the whole film, the scene which cannot be toletence for the audience the most must be the scene when Amelia says "sometimes I really hope to smash your face on to the wall and never see you again". As Barbara Creed illustrates in her reading, "the monstrous-feminine in the horror film in relation to the maternal figure and what Kristeva terms ‘abjection’, that which does not ‘respect borders, positions, rules’"(2, Creed). Amelia's expression of view is not acceptable for the society, if a mom ever think about things like this, it means she is not accomplish the "rule" as being a mom who should always show the love and support to their kids. When the feminine start acting aggressive and threatened, it will be defined as some type of mental disorder. However, as Creed argues, "the central problem with Kristeva’s theory is that it can be read in a prescriptive rather than a descriptive sense" (9, Creed), I am wondering why is there"social role" at the first place? Why do people have to love their kids regardless how terrible the kids are? It is true that bad parenting will grow up horrible kids, in this case, since Amelia's mental is not stable at the first place, the kid who grow up in the abnormal family will just get worse and worse. So it might be the parents responsibility to solve the "issue" of the kids which created by themselves. But no one is perfect, everyone should have the right to express, and it is nothing to blame if feminine acts a little bit out of their "social role", just not in a too cruel way...
"abjection itself is a composite of judgement and affect, of condemnation and yearning, of signs and drives" (5, Creed). Just as I mentioned before, why is there a role at the beginning anyway? Why do we have to seek for a specific role to put ourselves into it in order to maintain the order of the society. This idea of seeking of "uncanny" in order to prove we are normally "canny" comes form the book Simulations that I am reading for my another class..we are always seeking for comparison but we shouldn't, because Yin is Yang, Yang is Yin, everything is everything.
After all, regardless of the uncomfortable feeling of the abnormal mom in Babadook brings us. There are still some pleasure we find to enjoy right? Another interesting topic in Barbara Creed's reading is the discussion of the "consciousness" of the abject things:
"Thus, abject things are those which highlight the ‘fragility of the law’ and which exist on the other side of the border which separates out the living subject from that which threatens its extinction. But abjection is not something of which the subject can ever feel free"(4, Creed).
This quote is quite thought-provoking when it suggests that the adjective subject doesn't even feel free when they are showing the abnormal reaction. For example, In Babadook, when Amelia says the cruel words to Samuel, I think the director is trying to show that this type of mean words does not really come from the mom's heart, because she is being possessed by the evil babadook, her body and mind is out of control and then start a harmful talk. Maybe those mean words does represent Amelia's deeper opinion that she has to her son, but the audience will never know. Just as Creed states, when everything is ambiguous, it becomes creepy. The contradiction and uncertain of what is going on inside people's mind is the most creepy thing for me.
Last but not least, Sigmund Freud is always my favorite because I love psychology! But I am so angry when read his "Uncanny" reading, because he is keeping showing us some phenomenon but never provide any answer. For example, why do we have to scare the kids before they go to bed? Why when kids live in fear will make them become quiet? why do we scared of zombie but when Snow White resurgent, we are all happy to see her become alive again? For Snow White, I do understand the answer that because the background is different, fairytale is beautiful world of imagination. But do as ghost and zombie, they are "fantasy" aren't they? just more disgusting type when compare to Snow White. But what is the different of their essences?
You raise SO many good questions here and I hope that we can address some of them during discussions on zoom. I think your questions about the film's depiction of parenting are very intriguing because in some ways its hard to exactly locate the monster in this film. Is it Sam? Is it his mother? Is it the Babadook and what is the Babadook anyway? Is it really just a grief projection or a projection of the ways that Sam and his mother's relationship has become warped by that grief? Or is it something else entirely? I think as you say ambiguity is the scariest sensation of all and this film offers up a lot of ambiguity.
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