![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
wingedbeastThe Cabin in the Woods is Joss Whedon's mix of horror movie and horror movie parody, in which the designated victims of a horror movie are actually the designated victims of a vast technological operation to make them horror movie victims. This is a good premise and it has the potential to be a good metaphor... Yeah, I'll get to that.
Much of my insight comes not from myself, but from two blogposts*. Feel free to read those as well or even read them first to get a good understanding of just how much I'm cribbing. Otherwise, spoilers ahead.
The movie starts out with our designated college-age victims. But, for horror movie tropes, they're not really our standard horror movie designated victims. What is both a good thing and, later on, a problem is that the various designated victims have to be manipulated into their respective roles. The good is that it does acknowledge that people are more complex than that and that the dichotomy between social ideas as to who is a "virgin" and who is a "whore" aren't even points on a spectrum. They're just social judgments that make no reference to a diverse and complex reality.
I'll get back to the problem in a bit.
The next problem comes dressed in the clothing of cleverness. The designated victims are given the hidden choice of deciding their own monster. There are objects about that they can pick up and, unknowingly, activate the monster appropriate to the scenario. As a metaphor for horror-movie production, this fails. Part of the reason horror movies tread so heavily upon stock character stereotypes is that the monster comes first. The monster is the one sold to the audience, sold to the producers before that, and imagined first. The rest is built around the monster/murder/killer.
You can have good characters in the victim role, even characters that make that great transformation from victim to hero. But, for all that we may love Ripley, we're still watching for the Alien(s).
The next problem I will go ahead and outright state that I didn't figure out until somethingshortandsnappy pointed it out in their blogpost. I'm actually a little angry with myself that I didn't notice it first.
Horror movies, along with their many problematic tropes, are relatively heavy with heroines. Usually, it's the ostensibly weak character, often times the designated "virgin" who learns some lesson, gains the resolve to unlock some strength and apply new knowledge and some chekov's gun, then becomes the hero that destroys the monster. This doesn't make up for all the problematic tropes, but a bit of empowerment is good.
In this movie, the character that was the designated "virgin", the one who ritual allowed to potentially survive, doesn't get to be a hero. The closest she comes is admitting, after the fact, regarding a choice that was taken away from her, that she wouldn't have killed someone. But, that choice was, indeed, taken away from her. To see how bad that is, consider the option in which she genuinely would have killed them, while she had the option, but they had to stop her in order to live. Making the choice but being thwarted would have left her a stronger character in a movie by Joss Whedon who self-identifies as a feminist.
Most of the problems surround the motivation behind the entire operation to ritualistically kill college students as metaphor for making horror movies.
Let's go back to that problem regarding manipulating the designated victims into place. In the movie, this is all to appease old, semi-Lovecraftian gods that prize this ritual and want the kills to take place with the stock characters. If they want this for their own sake, such that they will become angry and destroy the world if the designated fool dies before the designated virgin, shouldn't any such manipulation anger them?
In the movie, the one who is designated to be in the roll of "whore"... just doesn't fit that in reality. She's not even a blond by nature and doesn't dye it by her free choice but is manipulated into it. She doesn't want to have sex outside until dosed with some (I assume semi-magic semi-future-scientific) pheremones to directly manipulate her emotions... and I don't think the notion of that being rape is even commented upon.
Another problem, one I spotted almost immediately after having finished watching the movie on cable, is one about which I've already writen a Scene I'd Like to See**. The long and the short of it is that this constitutes a strategy of appeasement. But, historically, how does appeasement work out? The answer is not well.
Historically, the negotiations like this happen best when there's some balance of power. The old gods would have to have something at serious risk if they were to rise up, but still have something they want and/or need.
But, another issue is that the metaphor here just doesn't work. The metaphor is to the old gods as... us, the movie going audience.
Firstly, we're not the ones demanding things stick to pre-defined mold. Consider Alien, Predator, Scream, and, yes, The Cabin in the Woods. They were all enjoyed by audiences for the specific reason that they stepped out of the horror movie mold. Alien went after people doing their job. Predator went after highly competant soldiers. Scream and this movie both dissected horror movie tropes. If we're the old gods, the old gods like it when status quo gets upset.
Secondly, we, the audience, don't have nearly that kind of power. People who displease us aren't getting destroyed in anything like a firey inferno... not even metaphorically. After the prequel trilogy, George Lucas's home has not been razed to the ground either literally or financially. Uwe Boll still has both a career and a heartbeat.
But, and here's where we can look at how to fix things, we do something that gods are often said to do, which is bless. We bless productions with our money and our positive reviews and our repeat viewings and our talking over plot points. We can offer our blessings of financial reward to movies.
It's the CEOs who can do the destructive work of making it so that you'll never work in this town again.
And, here we have our fix.
Much of this can be fixed just by making it so that this isn't *directly* about old semi-Lovecraftian gods. The gods don't have to manifest themselves directly in the movie, by making the earth shake or by reaching up a humanoid hand from the soil.
Instead, let it be the CEOs, in the form of High Priests to the Old Gods, who make the decisions. "The gods don't like it when..." "Is it really funny if..." Let the CEOs talk about the gods in glowing terms... but act as though the gods are stupid. "Listen, I know what the gods like, I've been doing this all my life. And, they like it when the slut gets killed."
Along with that, it can't be as easy, today, as it was in the 1980s, to get teens to act according to stock-type. Teens and college students today grew up with anti-bullying campaigns, learning phrases like "patriarchy", and, yes, with MRAs doing doing the important work of complaining about Max taking orders from a woman in a Mad Max movie. Geek culture has become, more and more, mainstream culture. My youngest brother, who was a highchool football player, was also a Mythbusters geek who wanted to talk about Avatar: The Last Airbender.
For all that the character types seen in movies weren't true, the expectations of those types were hard to shake, even in the depths of one's own mind. It can't be as easy to manipulate people into being the stock-jock who wants to split up and cover more ground.
So, what we have is a different two-yet-converging stories.
For the story of the horror-movie-makers, we have a High Priest making the executive decisions in conflict with the creative staff. The creative staff see a changing world and see the opportunity to tell a story that's a bit more real, a bit less artificial, something that they can use to beseech the gods for the power to make the world a better place. The priest isn't interested in taking those kinds of risks. The gods have to be mollified and financial success is their reward, "do what you can with that once it's done but don't let that get in the way of giving them what they want."
For the story of the designated victims, let's go a little farther afield from the standard horror movie. Oh, the effort on the "behind the scenes staff" should be the same (because of the CEO/High Priest). But, rather than be easily manipulated into part, it's a bit more difficult. People aren't feeling the pressure to conform to type... not as much anyway.
So, for the young woman who is manipulated into the designated roll of "whore", a bit of competance and self-control should move her, at least, to move the sexings indoors. When attacked, we find out that she's taken some self-defense classes... because martial arts are a fun way to get exercise and stay healthy. The monsters will come, but she'll figure it out after no more than three tries. They're attacking other people, but they're avoiding kill shots and avoiding that risk... all to focus on her.
Somewhere in there, we can throw in something like the conversation in my little scene and, potentially, end on a note something like Chris the Cynic's alternate ending*.
But, I would prefer to end on a note in which the tropes that are how the CEO/High Priest controls the behind-the-scenes-crew against said High Priest. Let the one who was the designated first victim point it out. "The story's changed. We know what you're trying to do and we're relatively blameless in all this. You're the bad guy, now. The story demands that we win and you lose."
With that, it could all end on a semi-open note. The CEO/High Priest's power is in enforcing the tropes. If the CEO/High Priest defies the tropes, that undermines their own power. But, if they don't, they have to lose/die/suffer. Will the behind-the-scenes crew change sides? Will they argue for a story in which the bad guys win? Will this be better a series rather than a movie? Possibilities open, this way.
* http://somethingshortandsnappy.blogspot.com/2015/10/the-cabin-in-woods-joss-whedon-doesnt.html
http://stealingcommas.blogspot.com/2015/12/proposed-alternate-ending-to-cabin-in.html
** http://wingedbeast.dreamwidth.org/25298.html
Much of my insight comes not from myself, but from two blogposts*. Feel free to read those as well or even read them first to get a good understanding of just how much I'm cribbing. Otherwise, spoilers ahead.
The movie starts out with our designated college-age victims. But, for horror movie tropes, they're not really our standard horror movie designated victims. What is both a good thing and, later on, a problem is that the various designated victims have to be manipulated into their respective roles. The good is that it does acknowledge that people are more complex than that and that the dichotomy between social ideas as to who is a "virgin" and who is a "whore" aren't even points on a spectrum. They're just social judgments that make no reference to a diverse and complex reality.
I'll get back to the problem in a bit.
The next problem comes dressed in the clothing of cleverness. The designated victims are given the hidden choice of deciding their own monster. There are objects about that they can pick up and, unknowingly, activate the monster appropriate to the scenario. As a metaphor for horror-movie production, this fails. Part of the reason horror movies tread so heavily upon stock character stereotypes is that the monster comes first. The monster is the one sold to the audience, sold to the producers before that, and imagined first. The rest is built around the monster/murder/killer.
You can have good characters in the victim role, even characters that make that great transformation from victim to hero. But, for all that we may love Ripley, we're still watching for the Alien(s).
The next problem I will go ahead and outright state that I didn't figure out until somethingshortandsnappy pointed it out in their blogpost. I'm actually a little angry with myself that I didn't notice it first.
Horror movies, along with their many problematic tropes, are relatively heavy with heroines. Usually, it's the ostensibly weak character, often times the designated "virgin" who learns some lesson, gains the resolve to unlock some strength and apply new knowledge and some chekov's gun, then becomes the hero that destroys the monster. This doesn't make up for all the problematic tropes, but a bit of empowerment is good.
In this movie, the character that was the designated "virgin", the one who ritual allowed to potentially survive, doesn't get to be a hero. The closest she comes is admitting, after the fact, regarding a choice that was taken away from her, that she wouldn't have killed someone. But, that choice was, indeed, taken away from her. To see how bad that is, consider the option in which she genuinely would have killed them, while she had the option, but they had to stop her in order to live. Making the choice but being thwarted would have left her a stronger character in a movie by Joss Whedon who self-identifies as a feminist.
Most of the problems surround the motivation behind the entire operation to ritualistically kill college students as metaphor for making horror movies.
Let's go back to that problem regarding manipulating the designated victims into place. In the movie, this is all to appease old, semi-Lovecraftian gods that prize this ritual and want the kills to take place with the stock characters. If they want this for their own sake, such that they will become angry and destroy the world if the designated fool dies before the designated virgin, shouldn't any such manipulation anger them?
In the movie, the one who is designated to be in the roll of "whore"... just doesn't fit that in reality. She's not even a blond by nature and doesn't dye it by her free choice but is manipulated into it. She doesn't want to have sex outside until dosed with some (I assume semi-magic semi-future-scientific) pheremones to directly manipulate her emotions... and I don't think the notion of that being rape is even commented upon.
Another problem, one I spotted almost immediately after having finished watching the movie on cable, is one about which I've already writen a Scene I'd Like to See**. The long and the short of it is that this constitutes a strategy of appeasement. But, historically, how does appeasement work out? The answer is not well.
Historically, the negotiations like this happen best when there's some balance of power. The old gods would have to have something at serious risk if they were to rise up, but still have something they want and/or need.
But, another issue is that the metaphor here just doesn't work. The metaphor is to the old gods as... us, the movie going audience.
Firstly, we're not the ones demanding things stick to pre-defined mold. Consider Alien, Predator, Scream, and, yes, The Cabin in the Woods. They were all enjoyed by audiences for the specific reason that they stepped out of the horror movie mold. Alien went after people doing their job. Predator went after highly competant soldiers. Scream and this movie both dissected horror movie tropes. If we're the old gods, the old gods like it when status quo gets upset.
Secondly, we, the audience, don't have nearly that kind of power. People who displease us aren't getting destroyed in anything like a firey inferno... not even metaphorically. After the prequel trilogy, George Lucas's home has not been razed to the ground either literally or financially. Uwe Boll still has both a career and a heartbeat.
But, and here's where we can look at how to fix things, we do something that gods are often said to do, which is bless. We bless productions with our money and our positive reviews and our repeat viewings and our talking over plot points. We can offer our blessings of financial reward to movies.
It's the CEOs who can do the destructive work of making it so that you'll never work in this town again.
And, here we have our fix.
Much of this can be fixed just by making it so that this isn't *directly* about old semi-Lovecraftian gods. The gods don't have to manifest themselves directly in the movie, by making the earth shake or by reaching up a humanoid hand from the soil.
Instead, let it be the CEOs, in the form of High Priests to the Old Gods, who make the decisions. "The gods don't like it when..." "Is it really funny if..." Let the CEOs talk about the gods in glowing terms... but act as though the gods are stupid. "Listen, I know what the gods like, I've been doing this all my life. And, they like it when the slut gets killed."
Along with that, it can't be as easy, today, as it was in the 1980s, to get teens to act according to stock-type. Teens and college students today grew up with anti-bullying campaigns, learning phrases like "patriarchy", and, yes, with MRAs doing doing the important work of complaining about Max taking orders from a woman in a Mad Max movie. Geek culture has become, more and more, mainstream culture. My youngest brother, who was a highchool football player, was also a Mythbusters geek who wanted to talk about Avatar: The Last Airbender.
For all that the character types seen in movies weren't true, the expectations of those types were hard to shake, even in the depths of one's own mind. It can't be as easy to manipulate people into being the stock-jock who wants to split up and cover more ground.
So, what we have is a different two-yet-converging stories.
For the story of the horror-movie-makers, we have a High Priest making the executive decisions in conflict with the creative staff. The creative staff see a changing world and see the opportunity to tell a story that's a bit more real, a bit less artificial, something that they can use to beseech the gods for the power to make the world a better place. The priest isn't interested in taking those kinds of risks. The gods have to be mollified and financial success is their reward, "do what you can with that once it's done but don't let that get in the way of giving them what they want."
For the story of the designated victims, let's go a little farther afield from the standard horror movie. Oh, the effort on the "behind the scenes staff" should be the same (because of the CEO/High Priest). But, rather than be easily manipulated into part, it's a bit more difficult. People aren't feeling the pressure to conform to type... not as much anyway.
So, for the young woman who is manipulated into the designated roll of "whore", a bit of competance and self-control should move her, at least, to move the sexings indoors. When attacked, we find out that she's taken some self-defense classes... because martial arts are a fun way to get exercise and stay healthy. The monsters will come, but she'll figure it out after no more than three tries. They're attacking other people, but they're avoiding kill shots and avoiding that risk... all to focus on her.
Somewhere in there, we can throw in something like the conversation in my little scene and, potentially, end on a note something like Chris the Cynic's alternate ending*.
But, I would prefer to end on a note in which the tropes that are how the CEO/High Priest controls the behind-the-scenes-crew against said High Priest. Let the one who was the designated first victim point it out. "The story's changed. We know what you're trying to do and we're relatively blameless in all this. You're the bad guy, now. The story demands that we win and you lose."
With that, it could all end on a semi-open note. The CEO/High Priest's power is in enforcing the tropes. If the CEO/High Priest defies the tropes, that undermines their own power. But, if they don't, they have to lose/die/suffer. Will the behind-the-scenes crew change sides? Will they argue for a story in which the bad guys win? Will this be better a series rather than a movie? Possibilities open, this way.
* http://somethingshortandsnappy.blogspot.com/2015/10/the-cabin-in-woods-joss-whedon-doesnt.html
http://stealingcommas.blogspot.com/2015/12/proposed-alternate-ending-to-cabin-in.html
** http://wingedbeast.dreamwidth.org/25298.html
