Ellie Scholl- Scream Franchise

  While on spring break, I saw the newly released movie Scream 7 in theaters. It was my first time watching one of these movies in its franchise, so I decided to have a screamathon and watch all other 6 back to back. Every movie follows the same plot, making it a fun game to try to guess who the killer is before it's revealed at the end of the movie. At its core, the Scream movies follows typical slasher formula: a masked killer (Ghostface), a group of teens, and a string of brutally bloody murders..What sticks out to me, however, is the way that these movies make fun of themselves by having characters know the “rules of horror movies,” which they try to follow but always end up being the reason they get killed. The franchise is also known for its memorable cast, bringing its main characters back every movie after somehow miraculously surviving 22 stab wounds and 3 gunshots in the movie before, (which is where the supernatural feeling comes in since the characters are ordinary humans, most of the characters should have died by now due to the injuries they sustained, but they always end up being perfectly fine in the end.) But recently, the last few movies have been killing off original characters, making the endings of the movies extremely unreliable. Each movie is set in the year it is made, making the most recent ones extremely modern and connected to my generation, while the earlier ones are more closely connected to the generation that came before, which makes the franchise able to never get old. It also helps that they bring in very well-known actors of that time to be in the movies. Actors like Drew Barrymore, Patrick Dempsey, Jada Smith, Scott Foley, and Jenna Ortega have all shown up in one or two movies. All of these reasons are examples of why a movie that seemingly has the same thing happen over and over again keeps getting fans wanting more. I was able to correctly guess the killers in movies 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, and 7, whether that's because I was able to pick up on the odd behaviors of the characters or I have some sort of psychic ability, I'm not sure… 

Aedan Macken - FAITH (the video game)

 The video game series FAITH: The Unholy Trilogy is a (in my opinion) fantastic and fun series that focuses on the question if it is ever truly possible to atone for past mistakes. The player character is John Ward, a catholic priest who has been plagued with nightmares and guilt after a failed exorcism the year before the game is set. The first game takes you through his second attempted exorcism of the same possessed girl, Amy Martin, the second a nightmare about the demon-worshipping cult that summoned the being that possessed her, and the third on putting an end to the cult's actions and stopping the "Profane Sabbath".

The game is styled to look like an old ATARI game designed, developed, and imagined all by one creator: AIRDORF. The eight-bit pixels still manage to be effectively scary! There are a few segments in the game with rotoscoped animations, but the limited color palette and robotic and often distorted text to speech audio adds an unsettling feel to the games. John Ward is a physically weak character and for all but one moment in the third game, he dies upon a single hit. This makes fighting back against the demons, thralls, possessed characters, and the ultimate demon at the end of the game difficult but very rewarding once completed. There is even an achievement called "Good Christian Boy" for players who play through all three games at once without dying a single time.

The demons in the game are interesting. The cult that is behind their presence shows off its different ways of gathering people and victims. Some people are drawn in by family members, others are suffering from difficult situations, and some are searching for forms of power. The cult mimics a lot of Christian behaviors from the titular "Unholy Trinity" that is a parallel of the father, son, and holy spirit, as John Ward has to fight the mother, the daughter, and the unholy spirit, to the leader of the cult's parting message being "Gary loves you" in reference to "Jesus loves you". There are also references to demonology in the head of the cult likely being a reference or connection to Astaroth, as he has the same crown wings and whose "job" is to serve as the antithesis to an angel that spreads the holy word in Christianity. 

To anyone interested in a new video game, I highly recommend FAITH! It's never too scary for people who aren't often horror players, but it provides enough spooks and lore to intrigue seasoned fans of the genre.

Weapons (2025) Movie - Devan

 

This past week, I watched the movie Weapons, which had an actress win an Oscar for best supporting actress. It is available to watch on HBO Max, I highly recommend you do, this post will contain slight spoilers but nothing too significant.

This movie was about the disappearance of a classroom of children, except one child who was left behind. The movie follows different view points of specific characters then ties their stories together at the climax of the film. The main antagonist is Aunt Gladys played by Amy Madigan (She won an Oscar for her performance), Aunt Gladys is revealed to be a witch who uses her power to control and drain their energy from people. The movie connects to multiple topics we covered within class, it has underlying themes of the anti-Christ and concepts of possession through evil influence. After we recently viewed The Possession, I noticed the similarities between the two films; they both portray victims falling under evil spirits' control through the use of strange objects and possessed victims being used to feed energy to the evil spirit.

Overall, it is a very unique film that maintains the viewers attention the entire time and I highly recommend taking the time to watch it.

Dark Souls III and Mediterranean Religion -Jesse

        Monday's reading on the Roman's household deities, Vesta, and scared fire brought back memories of the classic video game Dark Souls III. The game is one entry in the larger Dark Souls franchise designed by FromSoftware (who are also the makers of Elden Ring, although Dark Souls is what originally put the studio on pop-culture map). It is set in a stagnant world centered around a Primordial Flame, Which must be constantly rekindled with the souls of great beings lest the Age of Fire come to an end. But what is the Age of Fire? Why would its end be a bad thing? The Age of Fire is what keeps the world of falling apart as the fire wains so the world decays. Like the scared fire in Rome if the fire completely goes out it is though the world will completely fall apart, and, like the Vestal Virgins, it is the duty of the all Women Fire keeps to make sure this doesn't happen.  Additionally, the Dark Soul of humanity bears striking similarities to Roman household deities. The Dark Soul is believed to give humans their humanity, but also, if untended to turn the humans its beasts and Hollows.  In a similar vein to Umbrae the Dark Soul of Humanity is a deeply ambivalent force which can both give and take away your humanity, and to avoid the latter regular offering are required. 

Monsters vs Demons

The Warhammer franchise is a legendary IP spanning three universe, hundreds of games, and thousands of books developed over forty-three years. Much has been introduced, retconned, or changed; the only true constant across the IP is the four Gods of Chaos and the deeply ambivalent realm the inhabit. Across  all three universes, there are four Gods of Chaos who exist in the Realm of Chaos and are sustained through negative the emotions of living beings. For example, the god Khorne was born from rage and is the god of war and bloodshed. the three other gods  are Tzeentch, the god of change; Slaanesh, the god of excess; and Nurgle, the god of stagnation. Within the Warhammer universes, each god is considered demonic, and while in some instances their powers could be used for good (for example, forcing a lesser demon to reveal secret knowledge) most of the time are evil. I mention this is because, to me, most of these gods fall outside Jeremy Cohen's Seven Theses, as they are more akin to forces of nature. Khorne represents to act of killing (something humans and animals do all the time), Tzeentch represents magic (which is natural in these universes), and Nurgle represents disease---all of which are naturally occurring. For me, this difference is what separates a monster from a demon: a monster is artificial and a demon is natural. 

Depiction of Satan in Dante's Inferno - Kayden Poteat

 The depiction of Satan in Dante’s The Divine Comedy acts as an antithesis to many other portrayals of Satan that I’ve seen in media, yet it simultaneously acts as a key inspirational work for depictions that came after it, especially in artwork. 

“He wept with all six eyes, and the tears fell over his three chins mingled with bloody foam. The teeth of each mouth held a sinner, kept as by a flax rake: thus he held three of them in agony.”

Within Dante’s Inferno, the first volume of The Divine Comedy, the protagonist, Dante (self-insert of the author), is guided through the nine circles of Hell by his idol, Virgil, to reach Purgatory and later, Heaven. Dante hilariously also inserts his real-life enemies (haters) into the various circles of Hell and depicts their eternal torment. The eight circles before Treachery are: Limbo, Lust, Gluttony, Greed, Wrath, Heresy, Violence, and Fraud. As the circles go further down, the punishments are intended to worsen. 

The final circle of Hell is intended for what Dante viewed as the ultimate sin: Treachery. In other works, Hell is typically depicted as extremely hot and fiery. While Dante’s Inferno does depict this within the other circles, the center of Hell (the ninth circle) is depicted as a frozen lake with the hulking figure of Satan in the center, trapped in ice. Unable to speak, he has three figures in his mouth, eating the heads of those who Dante viewed as the ultimate historical betrayers: Brutus, Cassius, and Judas Iscariot. 

This is an incredibly interesting twist, as rather than being depicted as an all-powerful ruler of Hell, Satan is being eternally punished alongside all other sinners. He is the greatest sinner as he rebelled against God, and thus faces what may be viewed as the worst punishment, as he is now entirely powerless. Lucifer is, of course, typically depicted as a fallen angel, yet I have not typically seen him depicted as entirely without autonomy. 

Within Dante’s Inferno, Satan doesn’t have his typical ability to manipulate or generate evil, yet his presence alone contributes to the torture souls are experiencing. His wings, which once gave him the ability to fly in heaven, now only serve to freeze over the lake, Cocytus, that he and other damned, treacherous souls are trapped in. He thus contributes to his own torment as well. Simultaneously, he also unwillingly engages in the torment of Brutus, Cassius, and Judas by eating them. 

Satan devouring these sinners is reminiscent of The Book of Watchers, which portrayed the Nephilim devouring humans before turning to eating each other. Perhaps this relates to cannibalism as a taboo within society as it is depicted as committing the ultimate sin within both works. 

"The First Evil" in Buffy the Vampire Slayer - Kayden Poteat

 "The First Evil" within the show Buffy the Vampire Slayer embodies exactly what it is named - it is the very first evil that appeared in the world. 

"You think you can fight me? I'm not a demon, little girl. I am something that you can't even conceive.The First Evil. Beyond sin, beyond death. I am the thing the darkness fears. You'll never see me, but I am everywhere. Every being, every thought, every drop of hate." - The First Evil

It fits many of Cohen's theses, most of all:

Thesis II: The Monster Always Escapes

• A key aspect of The First is that it does not hold a true corporeal form and thus is not able to hurt people physically, which is what leads it to utilizing followers and manipulation to achieve its goals. 
• The First, even after defeat, is implied to always return, even if it is weakened for the time being. 

Thesis III: The Monster is the Harbringer of Category Crisis

• The First, as the very embodiment of evil, is beyond categorization 
• When it does show a “physical” monstrous form, it is an amalgamation of a horrifying spider-like entity
• It brings with it panic and fear, leading people to flee and groups to break apart due to suspicion and manipulation.

Thesis IV: The Monster Dwells at the Gates of Difference

•  Buffy the Vampire Slayer is a show that highlights the strength of women through the Slayers, who are granted super strength and expected to fight the forces of evil. Yet, with these powers comes an expectation of responsibility and willingness to give up their lives simply because they are the “chosen ones”. In the last season, The First explicitly targets young teenage girls who are in the line of succession to be Slayers, highlighting femicide and misogyny against young women. 

Interestingly, its top devotee is a former preacher who became a misogynistic serial killer, acting on behalf of The First to eradicate the girls who were to become Slayers. This religious imagery asserts The First as a godly primordial being, or at the very least that is what Caleb views it as.

 

"You're everywhere. You're in the hearts of little children, in the souls of the rich, you're the fire that makes people kill and hate, the cleansing fire that will cure the world of weakness. They're just sinners. You are Sin."  - Caleb

Another interesting detail of The First is the various forms it takes on, embodying the fears and connections people have. It then utilizes its abilities to manipulate people to harm themselves or others. Some interesting forms it takes on are:

• The victims of a vampire who has turned good and now feels extreme guilt for his actions - This causes a mental breakdown
• The parental figures of various characters, either taking on an innocuous form, a demon, or strikingly, an angel-like character
• A doppelgänger - acting as a parallel to the hero to taunt and torture them

Ultimately, The First embodies evil and the fears humans express through monsters. It doesn’t need to be corporeal or even present to exert power as humans commit evil actions through their own volition. The First is primarily only present in the final season (although briefly in one episode in the 3rd season) and acts as the “final boss”, yet it is implied that it has always been present and watching through the 7 seasons, waiting for its opportunity.

Adam Diaz post 1, Adventure time, the Lich, and Satan

While rewatching a childhood classic, Adventure Time, I began to draw similarities between our course content and many characters, themes, and moments from the show. The theme of satan, demons, demonic practices, and spirit realms is present all throughout the show. Adventure time exists within a mystical universe of monsters and magic, and there is a clear association of good and evil with each.

The character that has the strongest presence as an evil demon, closely compared to modern ideas of Satan as an evil devil, is the Lich. The Lich is the main antagonist of the series and is an evil being dedicated to the extinction of all life. The Lich is slain in the show and trapped away, until he later escapes and wreaks havoc upon the world and the main characters in it. After a streak of terror and destruction, he is caught and turned into a harmless baby. This baby grows up to be a rather innocent character in the show, nicknamed Sweet P. But this character does have one fatal flaw. When the character is threatened, both physically and emotionally, the Lich’s evil power that still lurks inside is able to come out. 

I thought that this character was very interesting, and I made several connections to the class. The first and foremost connection is that between the Lich and the idea of Satan. I thought it was interesting how they chose to depict him as everything that people think Satan is (an evil monster, destructive, the enemy), and I was curious if the character would have had the same impact if he was depicted in a more figurative way, like Ha Satan. I also made the connection between this plot and Cohen’s thesis of “the monster always escapes.” We see several times that the Lich escapes, even when he is trapped inside a harmless baby's body; his evil still lies within. It is never truly destroyed. It is only trapped, changes forms, or is maintained by the forces of good. 

I grew up watching Adventure Time, and it is one of my comfort shows, so being able to watch it through the lens of our class was really interesting.

Mary Todd- "Agnes" by Mickey Reese : (

   

!!!Trigger warning: mentions of child loss, inappropriate/illegal relationships/intimacy, stupidity

  I watched a possession movie on Netflix called “Agnes” in order to get inspiration for this blog post and it did not work as expected. This movie is infuriating. I will never be the person I was before this movie. The two young nuns begin to be possessed once they become intimate with a man (a very unfunny comedian and former teacher ((huh!?!)) of Agnes, the first possessed nun). There is no explanation, proper conclusion, or catharsis for the characters or viewer whatsoever. 

    I will now describe the demon through Cohen’s Monster Culture. This demon always escapes, the priests were all too dumb (i am being very serious) to exorcise it. The monster’s body is a cultural body, from what I can gather, demonic possession as portrayed in this movie is something akin to the loss of innocence (or perhaps the spread of STIs???). The monster is the harbinger of crisis, in this case, the stereotype of a repressed nun partaking in rebellious behavior like smoking and seeking sexual pleasure, which also fits into the monster as a kind of desire thesis. This monster polices the borders of the possible as the movie portrays the consequences of virtuous women engaging in “bad” behaviors, Mary, the main character, loses her child she conceived as a teenager and Agnes becomes possessed for smoking (I guess???) and remaining emotionally attached to a man outside of the convent. The director’s attitude is intolerable and contributes to my frustrations with this portrayal of demonic possession.

Karma-2nd post- The Magnus Archives episode 111

So basically the Magnus Archives is a British horror podcast that revolves around the supernatural and the people who document other peoples paranormal encounters work at this archive called the Magnus Institute. (SPOILERS AHEAD) 

    The episode that I really liked was episode 111, because it's when some more things get explained a bit more and start making sense. I'll give a summary of basically all 110 episodes before this one; the idea is that all or most of the supernatural/ weird/ evil things all come from these great eldritch type beings, Entities, that each represent a different fear. The fear doesn't stay the same either, it shifts with time and with what people fear. There's no true way to get rid of them because fear is, you know, a biologically response that every living thing feels. They can only be stalled from completing their rituals to remake the world as they want it to be. So, its a never ending tug of war that just keeps going in circles. There's no "good" Entity trying to stop the end of the world, they just keep canceling each other out and trying again. 

    There are 14 of these entities that represent specific fears: (and they all have avatars that do the work for them)

The Eye/Beholding- being watched

Spiral/Distortion- lies and unreality

The Stranger- things that are not quite human (uncanny valley)

The End- death and what could be after death

The Lonely- isolation, feeling abandoned 

The Desolation- destruction just for the love of the game (tied to fire)

The Slaughter- unpredictable/senseless violence (think war)

The Vast- open emptiness, being exposed in a large void

The Buried- claustrophobia, enclosed spaces

The Dark- fear of the unknown/unseen

The Corruption- disease/decay

The Web- being controlled, trapped without knowing

The Hunt- being prey/chased

The Flesh- being consumed (animals feel fear too)

    This ended up being longer than I thought it would be but it's fun to watch horror movies and try to match the fear to one of the Entities. I was reminded of this when we were taking about Cohen's Monster Thesis, specifically the monster as a cultural body. The whole podcast is very interesting and I highly recommend it.

Mary Todd- Carmilla "by" Le Fanu

 !!!This blog post will spoil both the story and real world context behind Le Fanu’s Carmilla!!!

( If you’d like to read the story as well as the context regarding the real story it was based on please find an edited copy, for example mine is the version edited by Carmen Maria Machado, I highly recommend it, pictures are included and the editing is lovely). 

Carmilla, a vampire novella published in 1872, depicts the transgression of gender binaries, love between two women, and foreign culture and people as monstrous. Carmilla, a centuries old vampire who returns with a new identity to hunt young women, embodies the antithesis of proper womanhood and poses an active threat to innocent unmarried young women. The main character, Laura, expresses both an unexpected desire to be close to Carmilla and deep disgust with her assertive and masculine nature. Laura, who now lives in a country foreign to her, ascribes Carmilla’s odd behavior (hatred of christianity, sharp teeth, waking very late into the afternoon) to cultural differences. 

It was discovered in 1973 that the author had stolen real letters written by a woman recounting her tumultuous romantic relationship with another woman, who in the end is killed for doing so. The real world “Laura” expresses sadness following her lover's death. Her letters make it clear that their relationship was consensual, romantic, and sexual, information that Le Fanu does not include in his stolen version of her story. Instead their romance is depicted as unnatural and predatory on Carmilla’s part and is reinforced by her biological need to prey on others to survive. Similarly to Lilith, Carmilla disrupts God’s intention for women as mothers. She takes their innocence while engaging in an intimate relationship that cannot produce offspring. In the end when Carmilla dies Laura is relieved, this contributes to the long list of queer love stories that (must) end in tragedy.

Lucifer in Hazbin hotel.-Max

 Lucifer in Hazbin hotel.

The main character of our show is Charlie Morningstar, Lucifer’s daughter. In contrast to being the heir to the throne of hell, Charlie is essentially a stereotypical princess - albeit much more accustomed to violence and depravity. Charlie’s goal is to rehabilitate sinners, attempting to get them to heaven. Much of her view is inspired by her father, Lucifer himself. When we finally meet Lucifer, he perhaps isn’t what most people expect.

Lucifer is clearly neurodivergent, shown in many ways, including a hyperfixation with ducks, a struggle to identify social cues, and many minor habits. He really likes ducks. He’s shown as an absentee ruler, who would simply rather ignore the fact that hell and sinners exist. His and Charlie’s relationship is strained as well, as he rarely reaches out and simply doesn’t know how to communicate well - but being incredibly excited when invited over to see her.

When Lucifer’s tale is told in the show, he’s described as an idealistic dreamer with big grand ideas, but heaven shuts him down.

I think the portrayal of Lucifer as a neurodivergent dreamer that didn’t fit with heaven’s perfect order and harmony is a clear connection to how neurodivergent individuals are often treated in the real world. Portraying Lucifer as misunderstood in this light is another tie to the struggles that can specifically come from organized religion and power institutions, and how people who don’t align with the perceived social norm can be villainized.

Heaven in Hazbin Hotel-Max

 Heaven in Hazbin Hotel

A recent musical show that has taken the internet by storm, both with avid fans and resounding criticism, is set in hell. The setting portrayed in the show is inspired by Dante’s Inferno, with 9 rings of hell as locations based on specific sins. In this show, the Pride ring is the focus, as that is where all the sinners are located. The driving force of plot for the first season are the exterminations: it’s established that hell had been gaining power, and heaven, scared hell would rise against them, began yearly genocides against the populace of hell, sending down armies of (supposedly) indestructible exorcists (angelic warriors) to slaughter sinners for on scheduled day every year, lead by the first man, Adam.

The leaders of heaven we meet in season one are Adam, leader of the army, and two high seraphims, Emily and Sera. Adam is portrayed as a horrible person. He mocks and makes fun of the protagonist(Lucifer’s daughter) for wanting to save her people, refers to the extermination as “entertainment,” and acts entitled. Emily is the high seraphim in charge of keeping the people of heaven happy, and is portrayed as the optimistic and perhaps naive “younger” of the two, while Sera is the guardian and enforcer of heaven - who without Emily’s knowledge, ordered the start of the exterminations as a morally grey decision to protect heaven.

The show portrays heaven as not all knowing and not all perfect. When asked, angels simply don’t know what actually gets somebody into heaven, and haven’t explored the possibility of souls getting redeemed. Heaven is shown to make heartless decisions, such as the slaughter of sinners, and judgement is shown to be flawed. I think a reason why this show resonates with a large audience is because it focuses on humanizing those that are outcast, and challenging the notion that one judgement defines a being. I think the portrayal of heaven criticizes the existing power structures of religious institutions and their oppression of groups they disagree with.

A depiction of the angelic army during an extermination.

 

Why I think my house Haunted: Brooke-shea McKinney 

Hopefully I caught your attention there because that was the goal and it's not bait I swear. I myself along with many others believe my house is haunted and let me tell you why. 

For starters it should probably be noted that my house is a very old restored farm house that was inherited through my family so it is creepy enough on its own. Over the years there have been multiple instances that could be deemed odd coincidences but they are what I believe to be ghost stories. When I was younger my father told my mother that one night he had seen his grandmother walking down our hallway. She had been dead for years. Sometimes even my dogs bark at things like it is right in front of them and no noise or people have warranted them to do so. It is reasons like these along with the next few that I’m almost positive there is a ghost in my house. 

The first I can remember is shortly after my father had passed I went on a field trip in elementary school and brought back two small figurines for my mother that were turtles. One was supposed to be my mom and the other my dad. My mother kept them on her jewelry box in her bedroom ever since I had given them to her and they didn’t move unless they were being cleaned. One day I walked into my mothers bedroom after talking with her about my father and as I was standing looking in her mirror the figurine fell off the jewelry box and onto the floor facing right side up. I know not to crazy but to a nine year old it was spooky. 

The next I can think of is when we were away on vacation and we got a family friend to come feed our dogs while we were away. The friend had already been by there a couple of days when on the fifth or so day she went into a silent house to let our dogs out and when she came back the faucet in our hallway bathroom was running wide open and she hadn’t been in that room. It freaked her out so bad she wouldn’t come back to our house alone. 

The third is when my sister's high school boyfriend had come to our house one evening to pick my sister up for something. While he was standing at our back door he felt a hand on his shoulder almost nudging him. He was scared to death after that as well. 

The fourth being from a previous boyfriend of my own when he decided to tell me years after the occurrence happened that when he came to my house one night he had seen my father standing in the driveway. Foe backstory he obviously had never met him and had hardly seen him in photos at that point. What was more interesting is that he described him wearing an outfit that he was never pictured in and was only seen in by one person which wasn’t even me. My aunt had told me a story after he supposedly saw my father but before he told me had. Another part of the scene that he claims he saw was that he was smoking a cigarette which my father hadn’t done since before we were born except after my moms sister got into a car accident right before his passing. All of this is to stay that he could recount a story to T without having any prior possibility of knowing what had happened. 

The fifth is when I was laying in my mothers bed because I was sick. This was around when I was around 16 or 17. My mother and father had their own side tables on either side of the bed and after his passing my mother never removed any of the contents from his side of drawers. I had been in her bed all day resting while she was on our living room couch and nothing odd had happened prior. Well while I was up watching a show suddenly the drawer to his dresser slid open so I assumed maybe the drawer wasn’t shut all the way and it finally came loose, or that since the floors in our house are uneven that its possible that it opened So I closed it and it opened again, already slightly freaked out I closed it again and made sure it was secure and not anything nudging it open from the inside. I finally settled back into the bed when like three minutes after it opened faster than it had any of the prior times. It freaked me out so bad I sprinted down the hall and back upstairs to my room. 

In theory all of these things could be explained by totally normal reasons and not at all paranormal but I personally always get an odd feeling when I'm there and I'm not the only one. 

Mason - Post 2: The Lost Highway and the Devil in American Country Music

 We all know about "The Devil Went Down to Georgia" by country musician Charlie Daniels, as it was mentioned before at the beginning of class. Well, country music is packed in with the Devil and demonic imagery, especially from the origins to the 1970s and 1980s.

To begin, we must look back to folk songs of the British Isles (and later of the South and Appalachia) that were later incorporated into country music. Examples of songs that mention the Devil or have demonic themes in this regard include "The Devil's Nine Questions", a Child ballad that is famously designated as Child Ballad 1 (under the name of "Riddles Wisely Expounded"). The ballads themselves are collected from across Europe, but especially in England, Ireland, and Scotland. That song itself dates back to at least the 15th century, and is still recorded often. A favorite recording of mine is Jean Ritchie's recording with Oscar Brand from the 1960s.

Later, and in common place in the country music scene during the early years, came songs describing sin, temptation, and the Fall of Man at the hands of both. Musicians like Hank Williams composed songs, like the song in the title of this post, that quiet refer to these ideas. They also assist as being "alerts" against moving to a life of sin. An excerpt from "Lost Highway" (recorded in 1949) is below:

Now, boys, don't start your ramblin' round

On this road of sin or you're sorrow bound

Take my advice or you'll curse the day

You started rollin' down that lost highway

As American society became more hyper-focused on "warding off" Satan and the demonic from our own soil, other songs, including the beautifully-written "Go to Hell" by Dolly Parton, showcased this preoccupation with rejecting Satan:

Go to Hell, go to Hell, go back where you belong 

Get thee behind me Satan, just leave me the Hell alone 

Take your wars and your politics, your lust and your greed 

And go to Hell in a handbasket 'cause heaven waits for me

Even now, that preoccupation remains, even across genres.

Are there other songs you guys know of that deal with similar themes? Are we as a society moving away from that? Let me know what you think! 

Michèle Lamy, “Witchcraft,” and Misunderstood Identity-Kaia

 Another modern example that connects to our class discussions about monsters and difference is Michèle Lamy, who is the wife and creative partner of Rick Owens. Many people online describe her as “witch-like” or even scary, especially because of her dark aesthetic, gold-covered teeth, and her hands, which are often covered in rings, tattoos, and gold-dipped fingers. At first glance, people might feel uncomfortable or confused by her appearance because it is so different from what society usually considers “normal.” This connects to Jeffrey Cohen’s idea that monsters are created from difference. Lamy’s hands, in particular, get a lot of attention because they look unusual, almost like something supernatural, which leads people to label her as a “witch.” However, I think this interpretation can be misleading. Instead of being something negative, her look is actually a form of artistic expression and identity. Her hands tell a story about creativity, culture, and individuality. Just like the “monsters” we’ve studied, the fear or discomfort people feel often comes from not understanding something unfamiliar. Overall, Michèle Lamy shows that being labeled as “monstrous” or “witch-like” doesn’t mean something is bad—it often just means it challenges what society expects.

The Spiritual Framework of Twin Peaks-Brett

 

The idea of a spiritual battle between “good” and “evil” as concepts is an idea found in many real-life spiritual frameworks. However, the spiritual battle I would like to focus on in this post is one whose origins are not in real-life religious dogma, but rather in a fictional television show. Created by David Lynch and Mark Frost, the groundbreaking television series Twin Peaks transcends the traditional boundaries of a mystery/detective show by explicitly diving into concepts about the supernatural under a very complex spiritual framework. Two of those said concepts are the White Lodge and the Black Lodge. These two realms are the centerpieces for the show’s depiction of spiritual war as they represent the shows perceptions of “good” and “evil”, respectively. 

Although we never get a definitive look at the white lodge as a realm in the show, it has received plenty of descriptive explanations through the show’s characters. As they describe it, the white lodge is the domain for all of the spirits responsible for what is good and beautiful in the world. In contrast, the black lodge serves as the domain for the spirits responsible for all the world’s evils. We do not see any supernatural entities which come from the White Lodge, but we see plenty of entities who originate in the black lodge such The Giant, MIKE, and BOB. Not all of the spirits that come out of the black lodge are purely evil beings, as a matter of fact The Giant serves as a rather helpful figure to the show’s main character Dale Cooper and his investigation into the death of Laura Palmer, and MIKE, after having a religious epiphany, devoted the rest of his life to stopping his former partner in crime, BOB. But when we get to the “evil” supernatural entities that come from the black lodge, the evil actions that they do are not solely blamed on them in the universe of the show. 

As with many of Lynch’s works, the definitive explanation for BOB is up to the audience’s interpretation, but it is more concrete than one would think. In season 2 episode 9 of the show, the characters discuss what BOB could be, and during this conversation, one interpretation from the character Albert Rosenfield which many fans have accepted as an explanation in accordance to what the show establishes in its universe, which is that BOB is “the evil that men do”. BOB’s most well known host is that of Leland Palmer, the father of Laura Palmer who abused her sexually for years before ultimately killing her. In the film prequel to the show, Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me, Leland is shown to commit acts of abuse towards Laura, which the film implies are not the works of BOB, and near the end of the film there is a certain line of dialogue which I don’t want to spoil for anyone which shows that Leland is aware of the fact that BOB is inside of him and is doing the evil acts that he is doing. This makes it so that BOB is not an evil entity who forces others to do wrongdoings but is rather a force which preys upon those already doing wrong and makes them worse. Therefore, the war between “good” and “evil” in the show’s spiritual framework is entirely fought in the material realm, and the spirits which inhabit both the White lodge and the Black Lodge can be thought of as mere administrators or agents subjugated to whatever humanities actions are. The latter interpretation is a very interesting role reversal as to what many evangelical Christians believe the spiritual war to be. 

 

My analysis here only scratches the surface of the show’s spiritual framework and the theories it provides about “good” and “evil” as concepts. So, I’m just going to end this post with encouraging everyone to watch the show in any way they can. Trust me, it’ll be worth it.