The Horror of Broadcast Television (or "Grendel Comes in Primetime"?)
I'm still working on my dissertation, but I've ended up concentrating on chapter four, the one dealing with theology, first, because I think if I can get that chapter to work, it'll give me enough of a confidence boost to complete the rest. However, even though I can see the ideas that I want to present in my mind, and even though I've got notes from Tillich and other sources up the proverbial bodily orifice, it's been slow going. If I get as much as a page of manuscript written for every few hours spent working each day, I'm doing pretty well -- even counting the 'boost' that I should have gotten from having usable portions of my Slayage paper from two years ago to recycle.
Okay, there endeth the whiny portion of today's lesson.
Meanwhile, I'm currently working on one small section which critiques one of my major non-Tillichian resources, a useful and entertaining book called Religion and Its Monsters written by Bible professor Timothy Beal. I hadn't intended to make this particular critique, but upon reviewing the book on Monday, I was struck all over again by the fact that Beal makes no mension of television in his extensive discussion of horror in film, literature, and even "Goth" music.
This omission seems awfully strange, considering that Beal makes a big deal out of the connection between horror, and particularly the monstrous, and the idea of something 'other' and 'uncanny' ("unheimlich," literally "unhomely" in Freud's terminology) invading your home, your sacred space, your comfort zone:
“...the unheimlich is that which invades one’s sense of personal, social or cosmic order and security-the feeling of being at home in oneself, one’s society and one’s world. The unheimlich is the other within, that which is ‘there’ in the house but cannot be comprehended by it or integrated into it.
“Monsters are personifications of the unheimlich. They stand for what endangers one’s sense of at-homeness, that is, one’s sense of security, stability, integrity, well-being, health and meaning. They make one feel not at home at home. They are figures of chaos and disorientation within order and orientation, revealing deep insecurities in one’s faith in oneself, one’s society and one’s world.” (Beal 2002, p. 5)
Yet, Beal deals only with music (particularly the concert-going experience), movies (the sacred space and time and liturgical behavior associated with the movie theater), and the literature which one must go out and procure (or order on Amazon!) and then read whenever and wherever one chooses. He never once deals with the concept of broadcast television, which -- according to countless concerned parents and conservative or religious watchdog groups -- has the horrifying ability to come into my house, at a time not of my choosing, and bring who-knows-what ungodly, immoral, or disturbingly alien, excessive, and therefore MONSTROUS content to pollute my home and my children's minds.
If you listen to the (often) honestly expressed fears of parents who say they favor more network censorship, it's hard NOT to hear echoes of the horror provoked by the monster Grendel who comes into the feasting hall in Beowulf or by the vampire who's been accidentally invited into one's house in the Buffyverse.
(And I'm also hearkening back to discussions with the literarily astute missmurchison who first pointed out to me several years ago that Beowulf was closer to contemporary horror than to The Iliad, because it starts out with the danger that comes upon you at home, as opposed to the "epic" poem in which you have to go out looking for trouble in distant places.)
Beal mentions in the acknowledgments section at the front of his book that his son had urged him to include "The Powerpuff Girls" in his discussion of monsters in popular culture, but he neglected to follow up on the young boy's very good advice. Too bad. He missed a great opportunity to make a good and useful book into a really good and extremely useful book . . . at least from where I'm sitting right now.
Back to work.
Okay, there endeth the whiny portion of today's lesson.
Meanwhile, I'm currently working on one small section which critiques one of my major non-Tillichian resources, a useful and entertaining book called Religion and Its Monsters written by Bible professor Timothy Beal. I hadn't intended to make this particular critique, but upon reviewing the book on Monday, I was struck all over again by the fact that Beal makes no mension of television in his extensive discussion of horror in film, literature, and even "Goth" music.
This omission seems awfully strange, considering that Beal makes a big deal out of the connection between horror, and particularly the monstrous, and the idea of something 'other' and 'uncanny' ("unheimlich," literally "unhomely" in Freud's terminology) invading your home, your sacred space, your comfort zone:
“...the unheimlich is that which invades one’s sense of personal, social or cosmic order and security-the feeling of being at home in oneself, one’s society and one’s world. The unheimlich is the other within, that which is ‘there’ in the house but cannot be comprehended by it or integrated into it.
“Monsters are personifications of the unheimlich. They stand for what endangers one’s sense of at-homeness, that is, one’s sense of security, stability, integrity, well-being, health and meaning. They make one feel not at home at home. They are figures of chaos and disorientation within order and orientation, revealing deep insecurities in one’s faith in oneself, one’s society and one’s world.” (Beal 2002, p. 5)
Yet, Beal deals only with music (particularly the concert-going experience), movies (the sacred space and time and liturgical behavior associated with the movie theater), and the literature which one must go out and procure (or order on Amazon!) and then read whenever and wherever one chooses. He never once deals with the concept of broadcast television, which -- according to countless concerned parents and conservative or religious watchdog groups -- has the horrifying ability to come into my house, at a time not of my choosing, and bring who-knows-what ungodly, immoral, or disturbingly alien, excessive, and therefore MONSTROUS content to pollute my home and my children's minds.
If you listen to the (often) honestly expressed fears of parents who say they favor more network censorship, it's hard NOT to hear echoes of the horror provoked by the monster Grendel who comes into the feasting hall in Beowulf or by the vampire who's been accidentally invited into one's house in the Buffyverse.
(And I'm also hearkening back to discussions with the literarily astute missmurchison who first pointed out to me several years ago that Beowulf was closer to contemporary horror than to The Iliad, because it starts out with the danger that comes upon you at home, as opposed to the "epic" poem in which you have to go out looking for trouble in distant places.)
Beal mentions in the acknowledgments section at the front of his book that his son had urged him to include "The Powerpuff Girls" in his discussion of monsters in popular culture, but he neglected to follow up on the young boy's very good advice. Too bad. He missed a great opportunity to make a good and useful book into a really good and extremely useful book . . . at least from where I'm sitting right now.
Back to work.