Dark Carnivals
Modern Horror and the Origins of American Empire
-
- $15.99
-
- $15.99
Publisher Description
The panoramic story of how the horror genre transformed into one of the most incisive critiques of unchecked American imperial power
The American empire emerged from the shadows of World War II. As the nation’s influence swept the globe with near impunity, a host of evil forces followed—from racism, exploitation, and military invasion to killer clowns, flying saucers, and monsters borne of a fear of the other. By viewing American imperial history through the prism of the horror genre, Dark Carnivals lays bare how the genre shaped us, distracted us, and gave form to a violence as American as apple pie.
A carnival ride that connects the mushroom clouds of 1945 to the beaches of Amity Island, Charles Manson to the massacre at My Lai, and John Wayne to John Wayne Gacy, the new book by acclaimed historian W. Scott Poole reveals how horror films and fictions have followed the course of America’s military and cultural empire and explores how the shadow of our national sins can take on the form of mass entertainment.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Poole (Wasteland), a history professor at the College of Charleston, delivers a mostly solid account of how horror films have "provided the legitimacy, the justifications, and the bread and circuses of American empire." Since the genre's beginnings as a "cry of anger and despair" after WWI, Poole writes, "there's always been something deeply political" about these films. White Zombie (1932) "probed Americans' fears about Haiti and legitimated them." The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974) drew on "the myth of the American frontier," he posits, while Jaws (1975) was a "hopeful message about a can-do America." And after 9/11, horror films began to "question American exceptionalism," as in The Devil's Rejects (2005). Throughout, the author offers fascinating tidbits of film history—readers will learn that in 1944, actor Bela Lugosi pleaded with the Roosevelt administration to end immigration restrictions on Hungarian Jews and was subsequently investigated by the House Un-American Activities Committee. At times, Poole's prose can be overwrought ("So, what if the American dream is a nightmare? What if, at the bottom of an ill-smelling barrel brimming with secrets coiled like snakes, we find a terrible truth?"), which can undercut the shrewd commentary. Even so, this is an insightful view of the genre through the lens of critical theory.
