Popular Pleasures An Introduction To The Aesthetics of Popular Visual Culture (Paul Duncum)

Popular
Pleasures
i
ALSO BY PAUL DUNCUM AND ALSO PUBLISHED BY BLOOMSBURY
Picture Pedagogy: Visual Culture Concepts to Enhance the Curriculum
ii
Popular
Pleasures
An Introduction to
the Aesthetics of
Popular Visual Culture
Paul Duncum
iii
BLOOMSBURY VISUAL ARTS
Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
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Copyright © Paul Duncum, 2021
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Title: Popular pleasures : an introduction to the aesthetics of
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Description: London ; New York : Bloomsbury Visual Arts, 2021. |
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iv
Contents
List of Illustrations xii
Introduction 1
But What is Aesthetics? 2
And What is Popular? 2
Popular Pleasures and Politics 3
Previous Attempts 4
So What’s Different Here? 5
The Mind/Body Context 7
Scope and Outline 7
1 A Realistic Style 9
What is Realism? 9
Idolatry and Ideology 10
The Search for Realism 11
Painting 11
Printing and Photography 13
Screen Imagery 14
The Pleasures of Realism 15
Making Comparisons 16
Appreciating the Skill 16
Evaluating Realism is Easy 17
Pulling Back the Curtain 17
Realism and Reality 18
When Too Much Realism is Bad 18
When Seeing Shouldn’t be Believing 18
Fake versus the Bona Fide 19
Veridical, Virtual, and Verifiable 19
2 The Illusionistic 21
Illusion versus Realism 21
Magic, Miracles, and the Devil 22
v
vi Contents
The Persistence of Illusion 22

Trompe l’oeil 22
Three-Dimensional Movies 24
Optical Illusion Devices 24
Stage Magic 26
Magic, Wonder, and Mischief 26
Being Deceived 26
Being in the Know 27
Conflating Realism with Illusion 27
Illusion and Delusion 29
Illusion and Life 29
3 The Bright and Busy 31

Terms and Taste 32
The Doctrine of Decorum 33
Reason and Restraint 35
Modernist Minimalism 36
The Relativity of Restraint 37
Serious versus Superficial Purpose 39
Brightness and Business 40
Delighting the Eye 41
Enhancing the Ordinary 41
Resisting Restraint 42
Bright, Busy, and Biology 43
The Seriousness of Selling 44
Bright, Busy, and Business 44
4 The Highly Emotional 45

An Empire of Emotions 46
Emotion versus Emotionalism 47
The Rhetoric of Emotions versus the Aesthetics of Emotions 48
The Theory of Emotional Rhetoric 48
The Pictorial Practice of Rhetoric 49
The Rise of Sentiment 51
Rejecting Rhetoric 52
The Rise of Romanticism 53
Expression versus Imitation 53
Fine Art and Popular Entertainment 54
What Arouses Emotion? 54
Why Do Emotional Lures Work? 55
Catharsis versus Cognitive Coping 56
Contents vii
Escaping 56
Identifying 57
Searching for Authenticity 58
Seeking Attachment 59
Participating 60
For Better or Worse 61
5 The Sentimental 63
Surveying Sentimentality 63
A Discourse of Abuse 64
A Sentimental Journey 65
The Sugar of Sentimentality 67
The Comfort of an Aestheticized Sanctuary 67
Longing for a Past as Pleasant 69
Love and Compassion as their Own Rewards 71
The Ironic Distance of Camp and Kitsch 71
Social Progress 72
Exercising Power 73
The Sins of Sentimentality 73
Disempowering and Harming Sentimentality’s Subjects 74
Disempowering and Infantilizing Viewers 74
Falsification 74
Poor Public Policy 75
Sense and Sentimentality 76
6 The Vulgar 77
Vulgarity and its Variants 78
Vulgarity and Fine Art 78
A Historical Perspective 79
Grotesques and Carnival 79
Vulgar Porn 81
Scatology 81
Vulgarity and Reform 82
Viva Vulgarity! 85
Disgust and Delight 85
Transgression 87
Social Bonding 87
Joyful Resistance 88
Haunting and Humanness 88
Vile Vulgarity 89
Transgression and Suppression 89
viii Contents
Ridicule and Reaction 90

Vexing Vulgarity 90
7 The Violent 91
Violence and its Variants 91
A Violent Present 93
A Violent Past 93
Explaining Violent Entertainment 96
Making Moral Judgments 97
Excitation Transfer 97
Simultaneous Emotional Pleasures 98
Fear and Mastery 98
Seeking Stimulus 99
Everything But Violence 99
Algorithmic Allure 100
The Problems of Violence 101
Purgation Does Not Work 102
Diminishing Returns 103
Mental Scripts of a Hostile World 104
A Cycle of Violence 104
An End to Violence? 105
8 The Horrific 107

Horror, Terror, and Dread 107
Sublime Terror versus Popular Horror 108
Horror Hedonism 110
Performative Pleasures 110
Escape and Stimulation 111
Transfixed Fascination 112
Making Moral Judgments 113
Wish Fulfillment and/or Recognition 114
Transgressive Liberation 115
Repetition 116
Horror and Humor 116
Horror, Hostility, and Hate 117
Repression 117
Unleashing Hatred 118
Uncanny Uncertainty 118
9 The Miraculous 121

Miracles and Marvels 121
Contents ix
The Skeptical Discourse 122

An Enchanted Universe of Miracles 123
The Many Lures of the Miraculous 125
Wonder 125
Curiosity 126
Creating Social Identity 126
Finding Patterns and Purpose 127
Debunking Absurdities 128
Parodying Absurdities 128
Escaping into Fantasy 129
Being Confounded 130
Spectacles of Wonder 131
Miracles and Mirage 131
Rejecting Rationality 131
Vulnerability and Vultures 132
The Wonder of it All 132
10 The Exotic 133

Exoticism Explored 133
The Exotic Discourse 134
Exotic Enchantment 134
Wonder 135
Spice Seasoning 135
Cultural Renewal 137
Defining Difference 137
Gaining Prestige by Association 139
Feeling Culturally Superior 139
Taking Symbolic Possession 141
Being Reassured 141
Distortion, Disparagement, and Denigration 142
Selectivity and Distortion 142
Inferiority Complexes 143
Superiority Complexes 144
Denial and Projection 145
Exiting the Exotic 146
11 The Erotic 147

Exploring the Erotic 147
Sexual Discourse 148
The High Culture Alibi 149
x Contents
Enjoying the Erotic 152

Voyeurism 152
Fetishism 153
Sadism, Masochism, and Sadomasochism 154
Identification 155
Exhibitionism 156
Queer and Queering 156
Prohibition, Permission, and Perfection 158
Permissiveness and Perfection 158
Pornification 158
Selling Sex 159
Sex, Sin, and Suppression 159
12 The Spectacular 161

Sizing Up the Spectacular 161
The Spectacular versus Sensationalism 163
Size Matters 163
Wonder 164
Thrills and Spills 164
Immersion 165
Ego Loss 166
Humor 167
Making Might Right 167
Requiring Submission 168
Failing to See/Failing to Feel 169
Ignoring the Unspectacular 169
Tedium 170
Summarizing the Spectacular 170
13 The Narrative 171

The Nature of Narrative 171
The Modernist Rejection of Narrative 172
Narrative Norms 172
Narrative’s Gratifications 175
Organizing Complexity 175
Satisfying Curiosity 177
Escaping into Alternative Realities 177
Emotional Identification 178
Everything Else 180
The Stories We Tell 180
The End 181
Contents xi
14 The Formulaic 183

Recipes and Road Maps 183
General versus Particular 184
Formulaic Fine Art 185
Formulae and Form 187
Why Formulas Work 188
Easy Communication 188
Reducing Complexity Further 191
Ongoing Comfort and Anxiety 192
Innovation 192
Reading Complexly 193
Formulae and their Challenges 193
Boredom 193
Formulae and Falsity 193
Finishing with Formulae 194
15 The Humorous 195

Humor and Mirth 195
Humor and the Haughty 196
Humor versus Gravitas 198
Why We Smile, Snigger, and Snort 199
Feeling Superior 199
Descending Incongruity 202
Emotional Release 203
Humor’s Disciplinary and Dark Side 205
Anesthesia of the Heart 205
Imposing Social Discipline 205
Ridicule and Repression 206
Humor and Hate 207
Humor and Hostility 208
References 209
Index 227
Illustrations
1.1 Giotto di Bondone, Scenes from the Life of Mary: 7. Nativity of the God Bearer, 1303–5. (a) 12
1.2 Los Bionicos, Sci-Fi D Character Prop for Augmented Reality and Video Games, 2016. (b) 15
2.1 Samuel Walter, Detail of Trompe l’oeil Painting after the style of William Michael Harnett,
2019. (b) 23
2.2 Étienne-Gaspart Robert, Detail of Phantasmagoria, Paris in 1797, 1831. (a) 25
3.1 Thomas Del Coro, Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas, Nevada, 2019. (c) 32
3.2 Miaow Miaow, Adolf Loos’s Villa Müller, Prague, 1930, 2007. (d) 37
3.3 Johann Nilson, Neues Caffehaus, 1756. Rijksmuseum. (a) 38
3.4 Johann Nilson, Tearing Up the Rocaille, c. 1770. (a) 39
4.1 Russell-Morgan, Lost in the Desert Theatrical Poster, 1900. (a) 46
4.2 Gilbert Austin, Chironomia, or a Treatise on Rhetorical Delivery, Plate 9, 1806. (a) 50
4.3 Jean-Baptiste Greuze, Spoiled Child, early 1760s. Hermitage Museum. (a) 52
5.1 Jean-Honoré Fragonard, Diana and Endymion, c. 1753/6. Milwaukee Art Museum. (a) 66
5.2 Unknown, Sacred Heart of Jesus, 19th century. (a) 69
6.1 Poliphilo, Sheela-na-gig, Church of St. Mary and St. David, Kilpeck, c. 1140. (e) 80
6.2 Brandon Oliver, Falla Bahh, 2018. (c) 82
6.3 Unknown, A Jesuit Inspects Buttocks of a Urinating Woman, 1735. (a) 86
7.1 Unknown, The Execution of Pirates in Hamburg, 1573. (a) 95
7.2 Unknown, Iraqi Soldiers and Bombing, 2007. (g) 101
8.1 Caravaggio, Judith Beheading Holofernes,1598. National Gallery of Ancient Art. (a) 109
8.2 Coppo di Marcovaldo, Inferno, c. 1225. (a) 114
8.3 Henry Fuseli, The Nightmare, 1782. Detroit Museum of Art. (a) 119
9.1 Phgcom, Reliquary Holding the Holy Crown of Jesus Christ, Notre Dame, Paris,
c. 19th century. (b) 124
9.2 Daniel X. O’Neil, Salt Stain Mary, Chicago, 2007. (c) 129
10.1 Lobozpics, Swiss Guard at the Vatican, 2013. (e) 136
10.2 Jodocus Hondius, Blemmyae, Headless People of Guiana, 1599. (a) 138
10.3 Unknown, Plate with Chinoiserie Decoration, c. 1725–50. Rijksmuseum. (e) 140
11.1 Albert von Keller, The Judgement of Paris, 1891. Kunstmuseum Basel. (a) 151
11.2 Micadew, White Lingerie Worn by Beautiful Caucasian Woman, 2019. (c) 157
12.1 Blarandion, Leshan Giant Buddha from Below, c. 713–803 CE. (b) 162
12.2 Laika, The View from the Top of Burj Khalifa with Its Shadow, 2015. (c) 165
13.1 Israhel van Meckenem, The Annunciation, from the Life of the Virgin, c. late 1400s.
Metropolitan Museum of Art. (e) 174
xii
Illustrations xiii
13.2 Masaccio, The Tribute Money, 1427. (a) 175

14.1 Heinrich Lautensack, Skeleton Front View, and Sterometric Figure of a Man,
From Geometry, Proportion and Person, 1610. Saxon State Library. (a) 186
14.2 Leonardo da Vinci, Annunciation, 1492–5. Uffizi Museum. (b) 187
14.3 George Seurat, Circus Sideshow, 1887–8. Metropolitan Museum of Art. (a) 188
14.4 Yemima Calistra, Human Puppets—The Love Story of Sita and Rama, 2020. (d) 189
15.1 Adriaen van Ostade, A Sense of Taste, 1635. Hermitage Museum. (a) 199
15.2 James Gillray, A Voluptuary Under the Horrors of Digestion, 1792. Library of
Congress. (a) 201
Copyright Key
(a) Public Domain in its country of origin and other countries and areas where the copyright term
is the author’s life plus 100 years or fewer.
(b) Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International.
(c) Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic.
(d) I, the copyright holder of this work, release this work into the public domain. This applies
worldwide.
(e) Creative Commons 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication.
(f) Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported.
(g) This work is in the public domain in the United States because it is a work prepared by an
officer or employee of the United States Government as part of that person’s official duties
under the terms of Title 17, Chapter 1, Section 105 of the US Code.
xiv
Introduction
Chapter Outline
But What is Aesthetics? 2
And What is Popular? 2
Popular Pleasures and Politics 3
Previous Attempts 4
So What’s Different Here? 5
The Mind/Body Context 7
Scope and Outline 7
For modernist aesthetic theorists, the term popular aesthetics was an oxymoron. When they
bothered to consider popular aesthetics at all, the word popular implied the masses and the
debasement of taste, whereas aesthetics referred to a quasi-spiritual experience associated with the
fine arts. Popular meant crassness, tackiness, or vulgarity; aesthetics involved refinement and good
taste and spoke to noble aspirations. Fine art celebrated what was indisputably human—love,
passion, and an appreciation of beauty—and it was set apart from all mundane considerations,
an autonomous realm unto itself, while popular imagery was motivated by nothing but grubby
monetary gain. For Immanuel Kant ([1790] 1952), who more than anyone else laid the foundations
of modernist aesthetics, aesthetic experience was uncontaminated by concerns beyond itself. We
were to delight in aesthetic pleasure entirely for its own sake, or as he put it, “the delight which
determines judgements of taste is independent of all intent” (42). He advised that in order to judge
in matters of taste one “must preserve complete indifference” (43). Objects viewed as beautiful or
sublime neither relied upon nor created utilitarian interest; they simply were. While useful things
please as a means to an end, things that please on their own account are good in themselves.
By contrast, in the pages that follow it is assumed that when we experience cultural sites like
theme parks, shopping malls, and casinos, we experience them aesthetically. When we enter fast-
food restaurants, attend football matches, drive past billboards along the highway, collect souvenirs,
surf the net, watch movies, and play video games we are subject to aesthetic appeals no less than
in the presence of fine art. For the most part, most people enjoy such appeals because they satisfy
what Miron (2002) calls the “human greed for pleasure” (458).
1
2 Popular Pleasures
But What is Aesthetics?

Aesthetics commonly refers both to a particular kind of experience and a branch of philosophy
dedicated to the study of that experience. This book is concerned with both; it is a study in what
people commonly experience with popular imagery.
The word aesthetics is derived from the ancient Greek term aesthesis, which meant sensation or
sense data. Aesthesis pertained to things perceptible by the senses, things material, as opposed to
things only thinkable or immaterial (Dickie 1997). It was used to distinguish between things that
could be perceived through the senses and things that could only be imagined. Aesthesis referred to
both pleasant and unpleasant sensations. Its opposite was anaesthetic—the lack of sensation—so
that to experience aesthesis simply meant being awake and aware of one’s surroundings.
By contrast to the narrow, modernist focus on only uplifting, ennobling experience, it is the
original, highly inclusive definition of aesthetics that informs current, popular usage, and it is this
broad definition that informs this book. Aesthetics here refers to the specifically visual features of
imagery as well as the psychological intensities associated with them. A range of experiences is
engaged: the desires we bring to images; conscious, cognitive reflection; and sensory and emotional
responses—often as densely woven entanglements with each other. And often how we are affected
need not be entirely conscious. Affects can include the ineffable, miniscule, visceral intensities
that operate beneath consciousness (Anable 2018). At times, images cause us primarily to think,
sometimes to feel something specific, and sometimes our responses are so subtle they defy naming.
Popular aesthetics include the body’s and the embodied mind’s ongoing immersion in all that is
going on when viewing imagery: the affective, psychological states as responses to, and desires
associated with, popular culture.
And What is Popular?

Popular culture is what appeals to a broad cross section of people, produced by trained professionals
on their behalf, or alternatively, imagery produced by ordinary untrained people for their own
enjoyment (Williams 1976). The latter is often called vernacular culture. In this book the primary
concern is with the first kind: professionally produced mass culture. Mass culture is our dominant
culture, partly, because there is more of it than any other kind; partly, because its production is
closely tied to the dominant economic arrangements of our society, namely consumer capitalism;
and, partly, because it mostly embodies mainstream social views and values (Williams 1977).
Today, most mass popular culture is produced by global corporations as a capitalist enterprise and
linked closely to, and reliant upon, other capitalist enterprises. Additionally, and significantly, mass
popular culture typically reproduces the widely shared beliefs and major preoccupations of a
society. Mass popular culture is top-down; vernacular culture is bottom-up, although there is some
convergence where one influences the other (Firestone and Clark 2018).
The specific social arrangements associated with the production of popular culture have changed
over the years. Yet the basic distinction made above between an officially sanctioned culture for
Introduction 3
people and an unofficial culture of people is perennial. It is often proposed that popular culture
emerged during the nineteenth century as a consequence of new, mass technologies and newly
created class distinctions (Storey 2003), but the position taken here is that the lures of popular culture
are of much greater long-standing. Many of the attractions to premodern fine art conform to popular
preferences. This is not to equate premodern fine art with the popular culture of its day—fine art was
often used to distinguish between it and the popular—but premodern fine art appears to have excited
many of the same pleasures that have been popular over millennia. Often demarcations between the
fine and the popular appear to be more a matter of minor distinctions than substantive differences.
Popular culture is at once entirely dependent upon its specific time and place, and also to be what
Gilroy (2000) calls the “changing same,” not an “invariant essence” but something that is “ceaselessly
reprocessed” (129). Being substantially located in the body, popular lures have proven perennial.
Popular Pleasures and Politics

The significance of popular imagery lies not only in the pleasures it affords, but in its power to
influence and inculcate ideas of a sociopolitical nature. Making sense of our senses is important
because the seemingly most innocent of aesthetic experiences have ethical and political
consequences. As Ranciere (2004) claims, aesthetics is “at the core of politics” (13). As Walker and
Chaplin (1997) argue, “pleasure is a crucial ingredient of the subjective experience of visual culture
but . . . it is never innocent” (122–3).
The political right condemns popular imagery for undermining traditional values, and the
political left condemns it for maintaining an oppressive, inequitable social structure (Storey 2003).
On the one hand, consumer culture promotes the acquisition of material goods as the source of
happiness rather than through loyalty to traditional sources of authority. On the other hand, in
order to activate consumer markets, popular imagery reproduces as common sense the values
of sexism, racism, classism, and so on. As Karl Marx (1932) claimed, capitalism simultaneously
creates, breaks, and creates anew, but inequalities remain. Irrespective of one’s politics, popular
imagery is often politically incorrect.
Popular imagery arouses interest equally from the political right and left because both recognize
its power to both inform and form minds. To a large degree, it is the aesthetic attractions of popular
culture that are used to make ideas, values, and beliefs acceptable. Ideas, values, and beliefs—in a
word, ideology—are inculcated by being endlessly repeated, but also by being offered in highly
pleasurable forms. Rejecting, or even questioning, problematic ideology is made that much more
difficult because ideology comes packaged in aesthetic pleasure. To reject the ideology on offer means
either to reject the pleasure offered by attractive packaging or the creation of cognitive dissonance.
Thus, the power of aesthetic attraction is often insidious. Yuriko Saito (2007) notes that aesthetic
lures frequently operate at a low level of awareness yet frequently help determine social policies
with sometimes disastrous consequences. She rightly warns that the power of aesthetics can be
very dangerous. Affect theory takes this further, suggesting that it is in the utterly ineffable affects
that do not even rise to the level of consciousness that ideology is grounded, in feelings and moods
4 Popular Pleasures
that function beneath the threshold of conscious recognition as inarticulate subliminal sensations
(Anable 2018).
Although aesthetics as sensory, emotional lure has always been used to inculcate ideology, its
reach today is unprecedented. Aesthetics is now center stage, a major player of consumer culture.
Media images circulate globally and make up much of our localized daily lives, constituting much of
our shared experience of society as well as our own, private imaginings. Sometimes the profusion of
images is overwhelming, disorientating, and dislocating, though much of the time images simply
appear as a ubiquitous backdrop to our daily lives, as if in the nature of things. In a consumer culture,
everyday life is aestheticized to a historically unprecedented extent. Decades ago, Welsch (1997)
claimed that daily life had reached the point of “hyperaesthetization” in which aesthetic styling had
become “the main currency of society,” where even advocacy of social policies and political campaigns
had become aestheticized (25, 4). Welsch complained of “sugar coating the real with aesthetic flair,”
where “the cosmetics of reality” had become a central element in “an expanding culture of festivals
and fun” (3). His observations appear even more apparent today. More than ever before, the economy
is dependent upon aesthetic lures. Where early capitalism relied upon the production of relatively
stable goods, consumer capitalism relies upon the consumption of ephemeral services and easily
cannibalized goods like electronic images. With the safety of most consumer goods guaranteed
today, and where prices are competitive, it is aesthetic styling and packaging that makes the difference
between financial success or loss (Alvarez del Blanco 2020). Considering the aesthetic appeals of
popular culture is therefore central to understanding contemporary society.
Popular aesthetics provides many kinds of pleasure while also being the means of inculcating
ideologies, often in beguiling ways that have very unhappy consequences. Aesthetics and ideology
operate together. Apart from repeated exposure to ideology, it is aesthetics as a sensory, emotional
lure that inculcates ideology. Aesthetic experience is the servant of ideology.
Consequently, evaluation needs to be addressed not in terms of taste, but in terms of sociopolitical
function. In what follows, critique is not directed at the aesthetic lures themselves, but the purposes
they are harnessed to serve. Aesthetic lures are treated descriptively, neither inherently praiseworthy
nor damnably, but with the potential for both positive good and serious harm. There is nothing
inherently wrong with highly emotional images, for example; while they can be employed for
diabolical purposes they also often serve as valuable sources of community bonding. The purposes
to which aesthetic lures are applied can be benign, or virtuous, or vile, but the appeals themselves are
treated here as value neutral. It is the causes that aesthetic lures serve that mark particular instances
as harmless, commendable, or damnable. This view differs, not only from modernist aesthetics, but
also from notable previous attempts to re-evaluate popular imagery in a sympathetic light.
Previous Attempts
Seemingly numerous books on popular genres such as B grade movies and trash talk TV as well as
specific, popular sites like Buffy the Vampire Killer describe their topic in aesthetic terms (Duncum
2010). Some aesthetic philosophers have also contributed general observations that, at least ostensibly,
Introduction 5
have been framed as descriptions rather than the common, prejudicial judgments. Popular culture
is described as intense though formalistically conservative (Shusterman 1992), and notable for its
emotion, action, and simplicity (Gans 1999; Novitz 1992) as well as pictorial realism, easy-to-follow
narratives, formulas, repetition, and use of near universal emotions such as fear, anger, disgust, and
happiness (Carroll 1998). Children’s commercial culture is described in terms of an aesthetics of the
cool and the cute (Cross 2004), and a more inclusive aesthetics of consumerism adds quaintness, the
romantic, zaniness, the futuristic, deliciousness, glamorousness, and cleanness (Harris 2000).
However, although professing sympathy for popular culture, apologists for popular culture
typically fail to consider it on its own terms, but instead judge it according to the criteria of good taste
as prescribed by high culture. While professing to defend popular imagery against modernist critics,
they continue to regard it, albeit implicitly, as inferior to fine art. They do so in a number of ways.
First, they expand the scope of what is to be regarded as legitimate art by calling popular imagery
popular art (Carroll 1998; Shusterman 1992). But if popular art shares a family resemblance with real
art it is only as a poor relation. While no longer the evil twin to fine art, popular art remains the black
sheep. As Storey (2003) asks, why do they bother to call it popular art? “Why not simply art? To use
the term popular art is to affirm the very reality and status of art—the very institution that would
insist on the qualifying term popular” (101). The terms used in this book are images or pictures.
Secondly, apologists continue to make prejudicial comparisons. Trenchant critics of popular
imagery have typically used comparisons to make their case against it, drawing upon high-end
examples of fine art and low-end examples of popular culture. Reversing this practice, Shusterman
(1992) and Novitz (1992) draw their comparisons from the low end of fine art and the high end of
popular art. For them, popular culture apparently consists of particular examples that have risen
above their origins but are, in effect, the exception rather than the rule. They ignore run-of-the-
mill popular imagery, thus undermining their stated agenda.
Third, apologists describe popular imagery in terms that are widely acknowledged to be prejudicial
yet they do no rebut the prejudice. Characteristics such as emotional and formulaic are used to contrast
popular imagery with fine art without recognizing that these lures often play worthwhile social roles.
Comparing popular culture with high culture, Gans (1999) describes how typical characteristics of
popular culture serves its audience less well in dealing with life issues. Similarly, for Carroll (1998), the
character of popular imagery is explained by the commercial requirement that it appeal to the largest
number of people; given its commercial restraints, it cannot help but be inferior. Harris (2000) is even
more explicit. While acknowledging the pleasure popular culture brings to many people, he denigrates
each of the lures he describes; for example, he claims that sentimental images “trigger, with Pavlovian
predictability, maternal feeling for a mythical condition of enduring naïveté” (2).
So What’s Different Here?

The approach adopted here is different in four significant ways. First, as mentioned earlier,
the approach is consistently descriptive rather than evaluative of aesthetic lures. The ends that
aesthetic pleasures serve are viewed as often deeply problematic but not the pleasures themselves.
6 Popular Pleasures
Aesthetic categories are treated as ethically neutral by directing critique not to aesthetic
qualities, but to their social consequences. Popular pictures are often sentimental, are typically less
demanding of the intellect than some fine art, and so on, but this does not cast them as inherently
inferior.
Secondly, popular culture is often considered to be a relatively recent development having
emerged as a consequence of mass production and distribution during the nineteenth century
(Storey 2003). Yet, popular culture existed long before it was put onto an industrial basis (Gowans
1981) and, in response to its attractions, it has a long history of critical abuse, starting with Plato.
Although the modernist discourse on popular culture has often been especially hysterical, popular
culture has long been accused of dumbing down society, eroding civil standards, and the ruin of us
all. A historical approach acts as a crucial counter to the often ahistorical criticism of popular
culture. It indicates that the aesthetic pleasures of today’s popular culture are long-standing
and, moreover, apparently without the disastrous consequences frequently predicted. While the
contemporary uses to which popular imagery are put may not offer grounds for optimism, nor do
they justify pessimism.
Third, where previous attempts to characterize popular aesthetics drew upon fine art criteria,
the contrary approach is adopted here. A great deal of fine art is considered in terms of popular
aesthetic appeals. This is possible because, until modernism, images that are now regarded as fine
art often appealed to the popular taste of their time. Only subsequently were they adopted by fine
art historians and aesthetic philosophers as exemplars of good taste and spiritual elevation. Most
members of the social elites for which most fine art was produced evidently shared a taste for
violence, sex, sentimentality, horror, the formulaic, and so on, that people do today. From the time
of the Renaissance onwards, artists may have aspired to a higher calling, and along with art
theorists, historians, and critics, justified their efforts with elevated prose, but as most artists were
jobbing tradespeople with families to support, they labored to produce whatever their patrons
required (Williams 1976). For the most part, what their patrons were evidently prepared to pay for
is what has proven in every era to be popular. This holds true whether the patrons were religious,
secular, aristocratic, or middle class.
This is not to claim that premodern fine art was simply the popular culture of its time. The
distinction between elite and the popular was frequently used to demarcate levels of society on the
basis of taste. But as described in the following chapters, these demarcations were often distinctions
without a difference. Patrons of fine art often betrayed a preference for lures that are indistinguishable
from those of popular culture. So-called high and low culture have always existed, perceived as one
beneath the other, yet high culture, though often in denial, has frequently catered to the same
pleasures as low culture.
Fourth, a major reason for treating fine art and popular culture as equals is the rejection of the
common practice of treating images as mere texts unrelated to context. To grasp the meaning of
images it is necessary to consider them in the context of the lives of the people who appreciate
them. Images are conceived here as texts within the contexts of their viewing and use. Adopting
this approach often means that images that appear to elite critics as simple appear as anything but
simple to their actual audiences, and the same disjunction between critics and actual audiences
applies to many of the different lures offered by popular culture.
Introduction 7
The Mind/Body Context

The separation of fine art from popular culture is a specific example of an age-old split between the
mind and the body, fine art emphasizing the mind and popular imagery stressing the body. This
mind/body split has been foundational to Western philosophy since Plato (Westphal 2016). It has
taken many forms, including a separation between the intellect and the emotions, between reason
and unreason, with the former invariably cast as superior to the latter. The split was developed by
many philosophers, fine-tuned by theologians, promoted by moral reformers, and assumed by
early capitalists. Modernist aesthetics, although dealing with sensory, emotional experience, and
set against propositional knowledge, was nevertheless framed by this fundamental split between
the body and the mind (Eagleton 1990). For modernist aestheticians, fine art represented the
rational, reasoning mind, whereas popular aesthetics represented an indulgence in bodily excess,
and the irrational unreason of the emotions. Fine art evoked emotion, but popular culture was
overly emotional. Fine art evoked sentiment, but was never sentimental. Fine art was always
mindful to be in good taste.
The struggle between the intellect and popular taste has been a very long and hard-fought one,
and on the side of the reasoning mind the struggle has enjoyed prestigious guardians. The critics of
popular imagery have included many prominent names of impressive credentials. Yet one of the
prime reasons the struggle has been so hard fought is that in every era those who railed against the
popular were in the minority (Gans 1999). The great majority of the critics’ own contemporaries
were drawn to what was popular. For most people, the contrast between the mind and the body, the
intellect and the emotions, appears never to have been so decided as critics of popular pleasures
desired. Only in the minds of elite critics has the distinction been so clear; in the practice of both
making and viewing images, evidently it always has been blurred.
Scope and Outline

Each of the popular aesthetic attractions discussed in the following chapters is multifaceted, not
one thing but many. Given this diversity no single theoretical position is adopted; it would be false
to do so. Any study of popular culture invariably draws upon multiple disciplines, and this book is
informed by Philosophical Aesthetics, Art History, Cultural Studies, Psychoanalytic theory, and
Media Studies. Insights are drawn from ancient philosophers as much as contemporary theory and
the findings of recent research. As illustrative, historical as well as contemporary, cross-cultural
examples are also employed.
Each chapter addresses a particular aesthetic, although inevitably there is some overlap. A
high degree of illusion can appear miraculous, for example. The exotic and the erotic are often
indistinguishable as is violence from horror, and so on, and in what follows many connections are
made. Also, the lures are of different kinds. Most lures involve a theme or topic such as violence and
humor, but a realistic style and illusion address visual appearance, while the formulaic and narration
deal with structure.
8 Popular Pleasures
Chapters follow a generally similar pattern. Each begins with introductory examples. A description
of the lure follows, surveying its different forms and associated psychological and physiological
effects. This is followed by the historical, critical discourse of the particular aesthetic. The question
is then posed: What is the attraction? The lures are described with examples, and finally problematic,
sociopolitical issues are addressed. Throughout, the aim is to counter the condemnation of popular
pleasures by conceiving them as legitimate in themselves. Popular pleasures are celebrated for the joy
they offer and the beneficial social roles they play, but at the same time warnings are posted about
how often they are used in the pursuit of reactionary sociopolitical agendas.
1
A Realistic Style
Chapter Outline
What is Realism? 9
Idolatry and Ideology 10
The Search for Realism 11
The Pleasures of Realism 15
Realism and Reality 18
Veridical, Virtual, and Verifiable 19
The Pokémon Go phenomenon of recent years brought augmented reality into the mainstream.
Throughout much of the world, people delighted at being able to superimpose a computer-
generated image on the real world. Yet augmented reality is only the most recent example in a long
history of attempts to create either new levels or different kinds of visual realism. Among painters
and sculptors, the attempt is clearly evident in ancient Greece and Rome, and while it later declined
under the influence of early Christianity, in the West it was rediscovered in the twelfth century. It
has continued unabated ever since. Toward the end of the nineteenth century modernist, avant-
garde artists turned their backs on the then centuries-old tradition of pictorial realism, but popular
taste has remained decidedly grounded in faithful representation.
What is Realism?
Realistic images mimic, imitate, or copy the appearance of things. They simulate or resemble
closely in such a way that viewers are happy to make believe that the imitation stands in for the
thing represented (Chilvers 2012). This is verisimilitude, a faithful rendering of the appearance of
something without any intent to confuse reality with representation. As viewers, we pretend in the
reality of the representation. Unlike illusionistic images discussed in the next chapter—images that
intentionally attempt to conflate images with reality—realistic-style pictures do not fool us. We
may be drawn in, but we are not taken in.
9
10 Popular Pleasures
Cinema audiences know that a giant ape or a dinosaur involves a deception. They cannot always
know that they are looking at a fabricated set or a computer-generated backdrop, but they know they
are looking at a film. A duel consciousness is evoked by realism in which viewers simultaneously
accept the picture as real while always remaining aware that a picture is a picture. Paintings are
framed and thus bracketed off from their surroundings, and with many, even highly realistic paintings
their material surface is not entirely transparent. Their surfaces reflect light, and as soon as a viewer
moves it is clear that the view a painting offers does not move with them. Photographs of lost loved
ones are sufficiently real to bring them to mind, but also sufficiently unreal to remind us that they are
gone (Hirsch 1997). Violent and horrific images are each sufficiently real to arouse anxiety while safe
enough to enjoy. There is no deliberate attempt actually to deceive on the part of the image-makers,
and on the part of viewers no mistaking realism for reality. We are delighted, not deceived.
The skills of realism can astonish and mystify. In the past, they have been equated with witchcraft
or at least believed to be magical. For two centuries prior to the invention of “movie magic” people
watched projected images by means of magic lanterns, and today the special effects company of
George Lucas is called “Industrial Light and Magic.” Even now, living in an age of photographic
realism, we can still be dumbstruck at an even more vivid rendering of reality than previous
experience had led us to expect.
Idolatry and Ideology

Yet such pleasures have long been subject to sharp criticism. To begin at the beginning: writing in
the early fourth century BCE, Plato held a low opinion of the visual arts in general, due partly to
their being imitative and partly because they offered pleasure without a serious purpose. Setting
himself against the visual arts of his day, that were seeking to satisfy the pleasures of imitation, he
argued that realism ignored the spiritual ideals of which things were mere manifestations. Imitating
only obvious, external appearances, pandered to base, popular taste and, more importantly, it was
dangerous because realistic images were unreliable as sources of knowledge. Knowledge was only
to be found by penetrating to the soul of a thing. The mere likeness of things was “a man-made
dream for waking eyes,” and dreams were notorious for their distortions of the true state of things
(cited in Gilbert and Kuhn 1953: 33). Plato wrote, “Mimetic art . . . is an inferior thing cohabitating
with inferior” (cited: 36). Imitation provided pleasure for its own sake, and pleasure alone could
never be justified. Imitation was both trivial and dangerous. Of the ten categories of human beings
he generated and arranged in descending order according to their worth, he categorized visual
artists as sixth. It could have been worse.
The Hebrew Bible also condemned realism not because it was trivial but because it was akin to
idolatry, of conflating images for the things God had created and thereby reducing God’s own work
to mere representations (Fumaroli 2011). The biblical injunction against realistic images is nothing
less than a legal contract between God and the Hebrews: “You shall not make for yourself a graven
image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is
in the water under the earth” (Exodus 20:4).
A Realistic Style 11
It was only by gradually rejecting the idea of realism as inherently evil that realistic imagery became
possible, though a fear of realism remains active today. Today, much of the criticism leveled against
popular imagery has at its heart the assumption that realistic representations are powerful for being
realistic. They hail us by seeming to represent the real and therefore to be true, wherein lies their power
to influence (Mirzoeff 2005). They are dangerous because false ideas and suspect values are the more
easily conveyed by them to a gullible public. As literary theorist Roland Barthes (1977) says of
photographic images, they appear a “lustral bath of innocence” (49). If danger does not lie with idolatry,
it lies with false ideology. Because realism helps signify ideas, beliefs, and values for the largest number
of people, totalitarian regimes have uniformly insisted on realistic styles in their attempt to propagate
their ideologies to the broadest possible number of citizens (Golomstock 2011). Similarly, commercial
enterprises employ pictorial realism to relate to the broadest possible range of consumers, thus
encouraging an ideology of consumption where the good life becomes a goods’ life.
On the other hand, photographic illusion was dismissed by modernist artists for showing
nothing but the obvious surface of things. It was rejected as unimaginative and trivial. The French
poet Charles Baudelaire declared that the publics thirst for “the exact reproduction of nature” spelt
the ruin of “whatever is left of the divine” (cited in Turner 1987: 60, 59). Compared to modernist
fine art, with its aspiration to express innermost feelings and reveal hidden truths, the camera was
simply a recording device and photographs mere trifles. Moreover, echoing Plato, more recent
pessimistic, postmodern critics conclude that the current plethora of imagery ends up signifying
nothing. In the “Evil Demon of Images,” French philosopher Jean Baudrillard (1987) claims that
because we now see everything we see nothing; we see only surface, not significance.
Thus, from ancient to recent times realistic images have been accused of being either too unimportant
to take seriously or dangerous. They are either trifles or terrors. Yet despite the longevity and harshness
of the criticisms leveled against realistic style imagery, none appear to have affected their popularity.
The Search for Realism

Ernst Gombrich’s (1972) classic text The Story of Art, the history of premodern art, from the twelfth
century to the nineteenth century, appears as largely a sequence of attempts to create either ever-
greater levels and/or different kinds of realism. And the attempts have not been confined to
painting. As different media were developed, they each took up the challenge: printing, photography,
the cinema, television, and computer games. From today’s perspective, the initial appearance of
realism in each of these media produced poor results, yet our current expectations for realism are
due to subsequent developments in these media. Each of these media trended toward a higher level
of realism or some new kind of realism.
Painting
Giotto di Bondone, working in twelfth-century Italy, is usually credited with the first major shift
from the medieval focus on spirituality expressed through abstraction to a more material-based
Figure 1.1 Giotto di Bondone, Scenes from the Life of Mary: 7. Nativity of the God Bearer,
1303–5.
view of the world explored thorough the close observation of nature. Giotto resurrected a long-
discarded sense of solidity for his figures, and although his figures do not strike us today as overly
realistic, they wowed his contemporaries. He established a new goal for artists, and a new
expectation for patrons and public. Henceforth artists would need to satisfy a desire for realism if
they were to succeed.
The drive for verisimilitude was often frustrated by artistic ability, the expense of materials and
processes, as well as available technologies, but the direction of development was set. The essential
nature of painting was imitation; imitation was both its single defining characteristic and its
primary value. Whatever ideas and values artists expressed, or truths they revealed, they did so by
means of a realistic style. Artists imitated the spirit of things by imitating their appearance in
physical matter, and the better the imitation, the better the art (Dickie 1997). Paintings were like
open windows through which the subject was seen, or a veil drawn to reveal the scene behind it
(Alberti [1435] 1972). The material surface on which paint was applied was a transparent membrane
behind which scenes were created.
In the business of pleasing private patrons, and later the public, artists were always in competition
with each other, and competition drove artists in search of different and better ways to achieve life-
likeness. Artists corrected their previous habits of working from age-old schema with what their
eyes told them, a process Gombrich (1960) called “schema and correction” or “formulae and
experience” (64, 126–52). They corrected their inherited schema for depicting things on the basis
of their perceptual experience, going beyond what they thought they knew by what they trained
themselves to see.
During the nineteenth century, artists split into two main camps. Academic artists maintained
the mimetic tradition, but avant-garde artists, explored in Chapter 4, broke away in favor
of expressing their own subjective experience. Modernist art historians and aestheticians sidelined
the former group, regarding them as pandering to low, popular taste (Clay 1978). By the end of the
nineteenth century, however, the position of mimetic painting as the dominant form of popular
imagery had already been relinquished to high-resolution print media and photography.
Printing and Photography

The illustration of books began in the fourteenth century with the crudity of woodcut, but it was
soon superseded by etching and engraving, both of which enabled far finer detail (Ivins 1953).
Engraving produced better results than etching but etching, being a simpler and far less expensive
process, prevailed, and, in turn, was overtaken by lithography. Aquatint, which offered fine
graduations of tone, was developed, and then color aquatint was soon introduced, which was then
superseded by half-tone printing with its even more subtle graduation of tone. Ivins (1953)
comments: “Always the exactly repeatable image that gave the most detail in the same space won
out” (123). By the 1920s most magazines and newspapers were regularly reproducing photographs.
Similar to modern print media, the development of photography was the culmination of many
technical developments. During the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries many devices were either
refined or introduced that created realistic images, or at least attempts thereof (Mannoni, Nekes,
and Warner 2004). They proved exceptionally popular in an emerging commercial economy based
on appealing to a broad public. For the first time in human history a large proportion of the
population was able to participate in the economy as serious players, and they immediately
gravitated to the magic of realistic imagery. The rising middle class of the early nineteenth century,
materialists to the bone, wanted their likenesses made. The stage was set for the invention,
simultaneously in 1839, of daguerreotypes, an early form of photography, and photography as we
know it today, “photogenic drawings,” as they were originally known (Warner 2014).
Unlike anything hand-drawn, photographs appeared to represent the way things actually
looked. Promoters of photography claimed that because it was a “chemical and physical process,”
photography was “not merely an instrument that serves to draw nature; it gives her the ability to
reproduce herself ” (cited in Nunberg 2007: 9). The truth of photography seemed self-evident; it
was the pencil of nature. The poet Edgar Allan Poe declared, “If we examine a work of art by means
of a powerful microscope, all traces of resemblance to nature disappear—but the closest scrutiny of
the photographic drawing discloses only a more accurate truth, a more perfect identity” (12). The
days of painting as the preferred medium of visual realism were numbered, and the development
of photographic technology has never stopped. Today, digital cameras are sold partly on the basis
of their megapixel count and ever higher resolution.
Screen Imagery
One of the many forerunners of the cinema were the appropriately called magic lanterns. Though
denounced by some as “the devil’s mischief,” they were immediately and immensely popular in the
eighteenth century (Warner 2004: 14). They projected images at a short distance in darkened
rooms by the use of candles placed behind painted glass slides (Gunning 2007).
Numerous other devices were invented to help create a suggestion of movement. They were
popular throughout the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries as fairground attractions and
magician’s props. Just as cinema is today, they were all based on the persistence of perception
whereby the mind momentarily retains an image after its source has gone. The illusion of realistic
movement is created by a series of still images only slightly different from each other shown in
rapid succession.
At first, cinema was not primarily a medium for telling stories as it is today (Leeder 2017). For
a decade, cinema remained largely a delightful toy, the pleasure being to see the realism of
photographic images combined with the reproduction of realistic movement. It was enough to
watch people leaving a factory, people dancing, or Niagara Falls in motion. Some films consisted
entirely of a single shot taken from a moving train or riding up and down an outdoor elevator. One
film consisted entirely of a person sneezing.
The primary draw for early audiences lay in the illusion of reality, and many films were advertised
according to the technology used, not their story titles. Until the mid 1900s, a full decade after its
invention, cinema remained primarily concerned with realism itself; it was a cinema of display and
exhibition, not storytelling. In keeping with how the films were shown—slotted in between
vaudeville acts—this was a cinema of attractions (Gunning 2007). Films often involved a direct
solicitation of the spectator’s attention with performers frequently acknowledging the audience
with a smile or a wink. They equate to a showman presenting an act. Focusing on surprise and
shock, they fascinated through the medium’s wholly new imitative power.
By the mid 1900s, narrative forms began to dominate as they have ever since, but the appeal of
the purely realistic remained either to compete with or compliment the narrative. In the 1920s,
Hollywood studios established separate special effects units. Their primary function then, as now,
was to insert into the narrative increasingly sophisticated monsters and spectacles of disaster that
were intended to astonish (Miller 2006).
Digitalization has revolutionized special effects, making them significantly crisper as well as
seamlessly integrated with the narrative. So called “synthetic realism” uses computer-generated
imagery, digital touch-up for actors, extensive use of green screen instead of locations, and
completely digitalized backdrops (Dixon 2019). The boundary between realism and illusion is
blurred with 3D, as discussed in the following chapter, and motion capture, which is commonly
used in combination with 3D, has radically changed animation from flat, hand-drawn cartoons to
something resembling real life (Miller 2006).
The development of television was also the culmination of many inventions and many years of
effort (Abramson 1987). From the first successful broadcast in 1936 with screens measuring only
a few inches, and offering fuzzy, grey images, screens now come in many sizes and offer high-
definition digital clarity and 3D.
Figure 1.2 Los Bionicos, Sci-Fi D Character Prop for Augmented Reality and Video Games, 2016.
In fifty years computer games have gone from using highly pixilated abstractions to the
same clarity as high-definition digital movies and television (Hansen 2016). The history of
computer games is told in terms of successive generations, each generation being measured in
the technological advances that have achieved ever greater realism. As with each of the media
previously discussed, the only thing holding back a higher level of realism from computer
games was the available technology and market cost. Today’s computer games are reviewed by
professionals and users alike partly in terms of how accurately they are able to represent something
as specific as sweat on a brow, a fine hair floating in the breeze, or the glint in a monster’s eye
(Wills 2019).
No matter the medium, since the twelfth century, there has been a steady, singular search for
ever greater and different kinds of realism.
The Pleasures of Realism

Why should a realistic style be so attractive? Although photography and film ensure that realism is
now the dominant style of picture-making worldwide, for most of human history realism was not
even considered desirable: in most human societies forms of abstraction have served well. Wherein
lie the pleasures of realism?
Making Comparisons
By contrast to Plato’s condemnation of realism, Aristotle ([335 BCE] 1981) extolled the virtues of
realism partly because it not only offered the opportunity to make comparisons with reality but
because it was pleasurable to do so. A young contemporary of Plato, Aristotle believed that pleasure
could be achieved by the gratification of the lower impulses and, unlike Plato, he was cautious
about dismissing them out of hand. Where Plato interpreted a life of pleasure as brutish and an
obstacle to reason, Aristotle made pleasure an ally of reason. Pleasure, he thought, could certainly
be asinine or rapacious, but pleasure could also accord with right reason and therefore be virtuous.
Consequently, he was slower than Plato to pass unfavorable moral judgments upon popular
entertainment.
For Aristotle, the pleasures to be derived from cultural forms were based on their particular
characteristics, so that the pleasures of the visual arts were specific to the visual arts. Each cultural
form had its own unique pleasures to offer based on their distinctive characteristics that set a form
apart from other forms. Where Plato had dismissed the visual arts because they were imitative,
Aristotle extolled the value of the visual arts precisely because of their unique ability to imitate
visual appearances. He claimed that it was natural to delight in works of imitation because, although
the objects may be painful to see, we delight to view the most realistic representation of them. In
enjoying the likeness of a portrait, for example, the reason we delight is that we make comparisons
between what is real and what is represented.
For eighteenth-century aestheticians, nature could be either sublime or beautiful but only art
provided the pleasure of discerning how faithful nature was rendered. For these premodern
theorists, the pleasure of art was based on its verisimilitude. Alexander Gerard wrote that there
is “among mankind a strong tendency to comparison” which “involves a gentle exertion of the
mind . . . [and] is on that account agreeable” (cited in Hipple 1957: 77). Echoing Aristotle, he claimed
that we delight in “discovering the original by the copy” (cited: 77). When the subjects of images are
terrifying they are nevertheless pleasurable because they are imitations and not the real thing. We
may, he says, “be greatly agitated while at the same time our implicit knowledge that the occasion
is remote or fictitious, enables the pleasure of imitation to relieve the pure torment which would
attend their primary operation” (77).
Appreciating the Skill

Comparisons are made possible because of the skills involved. And as mentioned earlier, realism
has often been equated with magic. To evoke magic is a way of speaking. We are captivated by a
picture that, although few today believe unnatural forces are at work, to speak of magic is to register
surprise and a sense of wonder, of astonished delight at what confounds us.
This is highlighted by stories of exceptional ability among child prodigies that seem to make
their later careers as artists preordained. A 10-year-old Thomas Gainsborough was reported to be
sketching in his father’s orchard when a robber appeared, but seeing the boy he ran way, though not
before young Gainsborough had included him in his sketch. The next morning, he showed the
drawing to his father. “The likeness was immediately recognized, and led to the conviction of the
thief, who, when it was shown him, at once ceased his protestations of innocence and pleaded for
mercy” (Bell 1897: 11). Young John Everett Millais drew a scene so admired by soldiers they took
it back to their barracks (Millais 1899). Their fellow soldiers refused to believe “it was by a boy of
six so bets were taken all around” (11). Millais was summoned and required to draw. “In fear and
trembling he came and showed them he had really done the drawing” and those who had disbelieved
lost their wager (11).
The first-century Roman historian Pliny the Elder ([77 CE] 1934) related several stories among
the ancient Greeks as if they were entirely reliable. The stories are based on the extraordinary skill
for fine detail achieved by some artists and also what astonishing things such skills can be used for.
He wrote,
[Apelles] painted portraits so absolutely lifelike that, incredible as it sounds, the grammarian Apio
has left it on record that one of those persons called “physiognomists” who prophesy people’s future
by their countenance, pronounces from their portraits either the year of the subject’s death hereafter
or the number of years they had already lived.
327
Evaluating Realism is Easy

It is easy to judge a highly realistic image. Anyone with normal vision can evaluate a realistic image
in terms of its degree of faithfulness to what it represents. Realistic images do not require specialist
training to appreciate as do the abstract and non-representational styles of modernist art. For
Renaissance artist Albrecht Durer, “The more closely thy work abideth by life in its form, so much
the better will it appear” (cited in Beardsley 1966: 128). His contemporary Leonardo da Vinci
advised, “The painting is most praiseworthy which conforms most to the object portrayed. . . . The
mirror, above all, should be taken as your master” (126). For eighteenth-century aesthetic theorist
Hugh Blair, the value of imitation was that it “is understood by all” (cited: 131). In this sense, a
realistic style is democratic.
Pulling Back the Curtain

Baroque paintings often included a curtain partly pulled back to reveal a scene beyond, and the
public has always wanted to pull back the curtain on the magic of realism. For centuries, the artist’s
studio was a minor painting genre that let the public in on something of the artistic process. Back
in the days of full movie programs, shorts were sometimes shown prior to the main feature that
revealed how Hollywood operated behind the camera. To this day, a popular theme park attraction
is visiting old studio backlots to see how realistic cinematic images are constructed. The increasing
level of on-screen realism that audiences have come to expect has gone hand in hand with a keen
interest in how even what appears entirely real is in fact manufactured. Making of a movie’s “bonus
extra” is only a more recent digital version of this phenomenon. The pleasure in allowing pictures
to stand in for what they represent keeps pace with the pleasure of knowing how pictures are made
to work, and the one is ceaselessly trying to outpace the other.
Realism and Reality

As a curious footnote to a realistic style, under certain circumstances it is possible for images to be
simultaneously too realistic and not sufficiently realistic. At the same time, the dangers identified
by the ancients of conflating realistic images with reality, far from being a quaint footnote from
history, is one of the most critical issues we now face.
When Too Much Realism is Bad

In the case of animation using motion capture, humans can look too real. The effect is not
pleasurable at all; it is quite repulsive. This is the “uncanny valley” phenomenon. For an image
of humans to be experienced as pleasurable it must either be misunderstood as real or understood
as a picture. For an image that appears to fall somewhere in between realism and reality,
the experience is decidedly unpleasant, as was the case with the 2007 animated film The Polar
Express. It was a box office flop, the human characters being described as “eerie” and “creepy” (Kelly
2012).
This is different from the uncanny of trompe l’oeil discussed in the following chapter. With
trompe l’oeil one is at first mistaken into thinking a painting is real, a doubt arises, and then one
seeks verification by getting up close and/or touching and finding one has been tricked. By contrast,
the unpleasant strangeness of the unhappy valley appears to be evoked because it does not involve
this kind of resolution but rather it continues to haunt. That the development of ever-more realistic
animated pictures of human beings in movement should lead not to pleasure but to repulsion is
surely ironic.
When Seeing Shouldn’t be Believing

Far more serious is the conflation of naive realism with photographic realism. Naive realism is the
belief that what we see of the world is objectively true and not directed by our desires, not influenced
by our biases, not a matter of interpretation. This is a widely shared, common-sense view but it is
seriously mistaken. In one way or another, all visual perception is agenda-driven and subject to
imperfect memories. When naive realism is extended to the evidential truth of photography, it
means that photographs are trusted as objective proof. Perhaps when photography first appeared,
this mistake was understandable, but hardly today. We should know better.
Using Photoshop and other programs like iMovie demonstrates the constructed nature of
photographic realism. They illustrate in practical ways how photographs are constructed to make
meaning. Through selectivity, juxtaposition, and words and music to anchor meaning, such
programs demonstrate how easy it is to manipulate photographs to suggest a wide variety of ideas.
Yet studies suggest that we are often not nearly as skeptical as we should be. Consider that adding
a photograph to a story lends validity to the story even when the picture provides no supportive
evidence; in short, an idea offered by a photograph may not be right, but it makes the idea feel right.
For example, giraffes do not jump, but add a photograph of giraffes not jumping to a story claiming
that giraffes do jump leads to more people accepting the story than without the photograph (Hayne
2018). And people appear unaware of how much they are influenced by pictures. This is especially
dangerous with social media where many viewers glance at a heading with an accompanying
photograph and, without reading the text, share it as though it is true even though the photograph
does not support the heading.
Between images and reason, our biological inheritance is pitted against reason. We favor our
eyes over both what we are told and our ability to reason. Our visual perceptual apparatus is over
400 million years old, while our prefrontal cortex—the part of our brain that comprehends and is
able to develop arguments—is perhaps only 2.5 million years, which in evolutionary terms is brand
new (Gilbert 2007).
Fake versus the Bona Fide

Taking advantage of the apparent truth of photography is the proliferation of news (McManus
2017). It is now possible for journalists not only to call in a story but to suggest what kind of
photograph should be created to accompany the story. Legitimate journalism rejects this practice,
but not so the numerous social media activists whose agendas override a concern with truth.
Detecting fakery is now an ongoing struggle, made even more difficult with digitalization. With
analogue photography there always existed an original that could, at least in principle, be examined
to determine if it had been altered. With digital photography, originals and reproductions are often
indistinguishable making the concept of an original obsolete and the ability to verify impossible.
This problem is especially acute when relying upon digital images to verify compliance with arms
agreements. Seeing should not be believing.
Veridical, Virtual, and Verifiable

Realism has been considered as either treacherous or trivial, as magic akin to idolatry or a mere toy,
but its history points to both persistent joys and difficulties. As a popular aesthetic, ever higher
levels of realism, or different kinds, have been consistently greeted as wondrous. And today the
search continues with the current development of both augmented reality and virtual reality.
Augmented reality is now being used in advertising, on magazine covers, and computer games.
Some forms merely add information to an existing picture, but other forms like the example with
which this chapter began, create an illusion in three dimensions by means of a PC or smartphone.
Virtual reality immerses the viewer, the more so with increasingly sophisticated realism. And as an
alternative to motion capture, animators are now also developing entirely synthetic worlds in
which the computer generates realistic, moving figures without the need for motion capture
(Kelly 2012).
Yet our biology biases us to believe in realistic images when it is not safe to do so. Being able to
verify the veridity of an image is one of the major challenges of our times. A further problem, the
repeated exposure to realistic-style stereotypes that help frame perceptions of real life, is taken up
in later chapters.
2
The Illusionistic
Chapter Outline
Illusion versus Realism 21
Magic, Miracles, and the Devil 22
The Persistence of Illusion 22
Magic, Wonder, and Mischief 26
Illusion and Life 29
Children love to catch out people with plastic spiders, snakes, scorpions, and the like, watching
them do a double take, perhaps even shriek. Spiders appear even more alarming when placed on
fake but optically life-like webs. Amazon sells a wide range, with one child commenting, “Great
spider prank. Took out 10 years of my friend’s growth. Now I am waiting for his revenge.” Optical
amusements form part of the culture of childhood. Two-way pictures, flick books, and puzzle
pictures are reproduced in many current books for juveniles, the very same kind of optical illusions
that once delighted adults in their parlors and in arcades (Sarcone and Waeber 2018). Other kinds
of illusion, like fake sky inside some casinos and stage magic, witness the continuing pleasure of
illusion for adults. It is pleasurable to fool people, and also fun to be fooled.
Illusion versus Realism

By contrast to realistic-style images, illusionistic images deceive by producing a false impression,
such as mistaking a picture for the real thing. An illusionist is like a conjurer or magician who
creates a false impression by sleight of hand. In deceiving, such illusion is the opposite of
illumination, which means to throw light upon, to enlighten. Realism involves mimicry; illusion
involves trickery. As described in the previous chapter, contrary to Plato, realistic images are often
used for serious purposes, but the point of illusionism is entirely based on its quality as an illusion.
Most illusions do not signify anything beyond themselves.
Illusions involving alleged paranormal phenomena, such as apparitions (Tomkins 2019). are
addressed in Chapter 9 on the miraculous. This chapter focuses on human-made, optical trickeries.
21
Magic, Miracles, and the Devil

The Bible repeatedly makes a distinction between visual magic and what it claims to be genuine,
supernatural interventions. It is a necessary distinction since to an ordinary observer what are
referred to as true miracles would appear to be indistinguishable from magic tricks well known at
the time; for example, Moses turning his staff into a snake and back again into a staff was the sort
of thing commonly practiced by Egyptian magicians. The Bible implies that magic tricks are all
very well, but not serious stuff. The medieval church though was not as dismissive. As described in
the previous chapter, during the Middle Ages, realistic-style imagery evoked fears of idolatry, and
in large measure this was because realism was frequently conflated with illusion. Illusion was the
work of the devil and his intimates, witches and demons (Warner 2004). God alone created what
was real, whereas the devil created illusions that led people into error and made sinners of them.
The devil could not perform real, supernatural miracles or alter reality, but he could conjure false
visions. He was the master of lies, of imitation, simulation, and pretense, and his medium was
illusion.
Alternatively, illusions have long been regarded as playthings, momentary amusements assigned
to carnivals, fairs, and seaside resorts (Nekes 2004). Plato’s condemnation of realism as serving no
serious purpose does usually apply to illusion. They are largely frivolous, a thing of the moment.
Even when artists took optical illusions seriously, critics were largely unimpressed. The Op Art of
the 1960s exploited after-images and consecutive movement; line interference; the effect of dazzle;
ambiguous figures and reversible perspective; color contrasts and chromatic vibrations. Op Art
was quite popular with the public, but critically it was often dismissed as mere tricks (Sesin 2008).
Like realism, illusions have been either dangerous or trivial.
The Persistence of Illusion

Fooling people with visual images was practiced in antiquity and has been a minor but doggedly
persistent pleasure of images ever since. Its diverting, inconsequential nature is a large part of its
attraction.
Trompe l’oeil
Trompe l’oeil—French for “deceiving the eye”—is a technique that creates the optical illusion that a
two-dimensional painting exists in three dimensions. Its whole aim is to confound the unwary
viewers’ powers of observation, undermining belief in what they see. It has never been more than a
minor genre of painting, but it has recurred many times, and is still a favorite on the side of buildings
and footpaths.
Trompe l’oeil was practiced by the ancient Greeks and Romans and revised late in the fifteenth
century. It reached the height of its popularity in the seventeenth century, though it never
The Illusionistic 23
disappeared (Giusti 2009). All sorts of subjects were represented, almost all of them everyday
items: crumpled paper, still-life ensembles, money, broken glass, trophies, bas-relief and sculpture,
pictures within pictures, and all kinds of surfaces such as marble, fur, and linen. To succeed, trompe
l’oeil follows a number of rules. The subjects must be inanimate, life-size, perfectly blended into
their surroundings, not cut off at the edges of the painting, and with no sign whatsoever of brush
strokes. Additionally, since the illusion will fail if the observer moves their position only marginally,
neither deep recesses nor pronounced projection are possible (Milman 2009). The practice
continues.
With realism, a scene is placed behind the surface of the picture, the picture plane: a wall, canvas,
paper, or screen. As described in Chapter 1, realistic images are like a window on the world, or a veil
drawn aside revealing the scene behind it. By contrast, a trompe l’oeil illusion also appears to come
forward, standing out from the material surface of the image, projecting out into real space. With
realism, the physical membrane is more or less transparent; with trompe l’oeil, it is opaque. An
especially confounding example is when trompe l’oeil is used in combination with ordinary realism;
for example, when a painting of a scene that is clearly situated behind its material surface appears
to have a fly resting upon it and the fly is only revealed to be painted when on attempting to brush
it off the fly refuses to move (Schiffman 1997).
Figure 2.1 Samuel Walter, Detail of Trompe l’oeil Painting after the style of William Michael
Harnett, 2019.
Three-Dimensional Movies
The same illusion of three dimensions on a two-dimensional surface continues to fascinate with 3D
movies. The image not only appears to recede into the distance but also to come forward, out toward
the theater audience. A notable, early, and playful example was used in the 1953 film House of Wax.
It involved a sideshow hustler repeatedly throwing a paddleball, ostensibly toward those gathered
around him on screen, but, breaking the screen surface, equally at the audience. As he throws the
paddleball, he says, “There’s someone with a bag of popcorn . . . it’s your bag I’m aiming at, not your
tonsils . . . here it comes” (De Toth 1953). Until recently 3D films remained a minor niche in theme
parks and IMAX theaters. Bubbles would appear to float into space and whole audiences would wave
hands trying to catch them but now 3D films are creating yet another level of cinematic illusion.
Optical Illusion Devices

Prior to the invention of photography and cinema, a wide assortment of optical illusion devices
developed were popular among adults (Nekes 2004). They surprised by means of unexpected
reversals and appearances, still images that appeared to move, or moving images that appeared to
stay still. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries there was a fashion for anthropomorphic and
zoomorphic landscapes. An ordinary-looking landscape when rotated 90 degrees turned into a
human or an animal figure. Upside-down puzzle pictures involved a reversal where, for example, a
picture of a young woman when turned 180 degrees turned into a skull, or a picture of a happy
young courting couple turned into an image of unhappy matrimony. These playthings can thus be
said to signify common conceptions about life, but they are the exception to the rule. Typically,
illusions do not signify—other than our fascination with them.
Two-way pictures first appeared in the seventeenth century when they were made of accordion-
pleaded card. Seen from one angle they showed a scene, and when turned to another angle they
showed a related but completely different scene. Often, they showed a sad face from one angle and
from another angle the same face smiling or winking. Then as now, they often represent religious
subjects where Mary morphs into Jesus, or Jesus with a serene face that then appears to cry.
Many other amusements were first developed during the nineteenth century. Phantasmagoria
remained popular until the invention of cinema. Phantasmagoria used elaborate combinations of
multiple, illuminated, colored images projected onto screens and accompanied with sound. Images
would suddenly loom up close to the audience and then as abruptly disappear. Using projections of
mirror reflections of actors out of an audience’s view, and projecting onto smoke, it was common
to represent animated ghosts and other supernatural apparitions onstage (Leeder 2017).
While some illusionistic amusements proved to be forerunners of photography and/or
the cinema, they were all “light hearted eye-twisters and visual jokes” (Warner 2004: 15). The
Myriorama consisted of a selection of cards that could be combined in any sequence and still create
a continuous, coherent scene. The Thaumatrope, or “turning wonder,” consisted of a round disc
threaded with string with different pictures on each side that when spun appeared to merge into
one picture; for example, a picture of a bird and a picture of an empty cage would appear as if the
Figure 2.2 Étienne-Gaspart Robert, Detail of Phantasmagoria in Paris in 1797, 1831.
bird was in the cage. Many of these popular devices fascinated because they created an illusion of
movement. Anorthoscopes managed the opposite; they used a moving image that appeared to stay
stationary. It consisted of two discs fixed to a single axis but made to rotate in opposite directions.
One disc had an anamorphous drawing; the other was black with four slits. When rotated at four
times the speed of the slit disc, the anaorthographic image appeared not only no longer distorted
but standing still.
Today, holograms feature in theme parks where they are sometimes used to represent ghosts or
spirits much in the way that Phantasmagoria did in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.
Holography involves recording light from an object that is later reconstructed so that when a camera
or an eye is placed in the reconstructed beam of light an image of the object is seen in 3D although the
object is not present. Unlike 3D cinema, most holograms create their illusion with an unaided eye.
Stage Magic
Realistic-style imagery may evoke magic, but only as a way of speaking, a way to express wonder.
Stage magic, which is practically synonymous with optical illusion, also evokes wonder but through
intentional deceit. Stage magic uses sleight of hand and/or deceptive devices.
Magicians have relied on basically the same repertoire for millennia: surprising appearances
and disappearances, things being destroyed and then reincarnated as whole, inexhaustible supplies
of something from a small container, and defiance of gravity through levitation. Magicians typically
employ a combination of misdirection, showmanship, and hardwired features of human perception.
They mislead viewers to look where they want them to look while not looking at something else.
Consider the elementary trick the “French Drop” where a magician throws a ball from one hand to
another that then inexplicably reappears in the original hand (Fitzkee 1987). The trick is managed
by misdirecting the observer’s attention. It relies upon two human instincts: to follow the direction
of movement and to follow the direction of someone else’s gaze, in this case the magician’s own eye
movements. Effectively, the magician interprets the action for the observer. Even knowing that the
trick is managed by the ball never having left the first hand is not enough to destroy either the
illusion or the pleasure of it because when practiced well the experience is like trompe l’oeil; however
hard one looks, it still appears to defy the rules of nature.
The same technique of misdirecting audience attention is used in the bodily illusion of mime;
again, a theatrical genre of great longevity. A performer can appear to pull on an invisible rope or
to appear to move forward while staying in the same spot. The effect is achieved through the
misdirection of a countermovement whereby part of the body moves in the direction that the
performer has an audience focus upon while the other half of their body moves in the opposite
direction (Schiffman 1997).
Magic, Wonder, and Mischief

If illusion is inherently confounding, why is it pleasurable? Ordinarily, people do not like to be
fooled, so why have optical illusions entertained children and adults alike for millennia?
Being Deceived
The pleasure of trompe l’oeil is entirely derived from the fact that viewers find their powers of
observation to be utterly at fault. Instead of knowingly agreeing to accept the illusion as fact, the
beholder is actually fooled into believing the illusion is part of their natural surroundings. And yet,
not quite fooled, because if trompe l’oeil was entirely integrated into the real world it would pass
unnoticed. At first glance trompe l’oeil deceives, but on further consideration doubts arise and an
observer typically puts out a hand to touch for verification only to find that they indeed have been
hoodwinked. Trompe l’oeil confounds the real with appearance; it creates an ambiguity between life
and artifice that invokes Sigmund Freud’s concept of the uncanny, the in-between, the not quite
this and the not quite that (Giusti 2009). Trompe l’oeil makes an observer doubt their own powers
of perception, but the cognitive dissonance is rewarded with a feeling of gratification. Once
understood as a two-dimensional image, the observer invariably appreciates the work’s exquisite
skill. Trompe l’oeil is a practical joke, a “gotcha game,” the pleasure of it being to find one its victim.
Much of the pleasure in a magic show also lies in thinking one knows how a trick is or could be
managed and then being bewildered when what one imagines is shown to be impossible. Knowing
that an audience is looking to see behind the magic, magicians often misdirect by showing nothing
is up their sleeves, or by having an audience volunteer testify that they have had no prior experience
with the performer. When the illusion is managed in spite of these “proofs” the pleasure of
amazement is that much greater. The wonder lies in not quite being able to believe one’s own eyes.
Chicanery confounds even when one knows it is chicanery.
Being in the Know

Counter to the delight in deception is the joy of being in the know about how illusions are created,
like knowing how realistic images are made except that this is greatly enhanced by the magical
nature of illusion.
Yet many of the tricks of illusion have been long known. In the first century CE the Greek
engineer Heron of Alexandria wrote exposing the mechanisms of Egyptian magic; for example,
how fire could be made to suddenly appear and disappear with the use of certain chemicals, and
how things could be made to appear and disappear using rods, pulleys, and trapdoors (Sorcar
1970). Using his knowledge of engineering, Heron also created tricks himself, the basic principles
of which thereafter became standard and remain to this day. His tricks included a fountain with an
apparently endless supply of water, and a horse’s head that despite having been decapitated before
everyone’s eyes was able to drink water and later to reappear on its body.
These and similar deceits are now available in the numerous books that take readers behind the
magic and illustrate how tricks are accomplished (Schiffman 1997). And the books invariably
justify letting the secrets out on the ground that the basic mechanisms are already widely known.
Similarly, television programs like Masters of Illusion, now in its tenth season, typically present an
illusion as it would appear onstage and then, usually after a station break for advertisements,
demonstrate how it was orchestrated. It is hard not to be impressed at how elaborate, elegant, and,
once the secret is out, how obvious was the set-up.
Conflating Realism with Illusion

Such is the pleasure of being fooled and/or fooling others, illusion and ordinary realism are often
conflated. Due to such conflation realism has been afforded a mythic status. Even when we are not
deceived, there is the pleasure in believing that others are.
The fourteenth-century Italian poet Boccaccio claimed of Giotto that “whatever he depicted has
the appearance, not of a reproduction, but the thing itself . . . people’s eyes are deceived and they
mistake the picture for the real thing” (cited in Ebert-Schifferer 2009: 38). It was even claimed that
his remarkable skill was already apparent as a youngster. As an apprentice, Giotto “painted flies
that fooled his master Cimabue who believed they were alive” (cited: 35). He was not the only one.
As mentioned in the previous chapter, stories are told of children’s prodigious abilities to produce
an exceptional degree of realism at an early age. But other stories, like the one about young Giotto,
go further, morphing realism with actual deception. No one would be fooled today by Giotto’s
figures, and it is impossible to say whether people were truly deceived at the time. But it appears
likely that enthusiastic advocates conflated actual deception with a greater degree of realism than
was hitherto common. Popular tales of prodigious ability were reworked for centuries. George
Moreland, an eighteenth-century English painter, is said at 4 years old to have drawn likenesses of
his toys so realistically that his father would step around them, mistaking them for the real thing
(Dawe 1904).
These stories had deep roots. In the previous chapter Pliny the Elder ([77 CE] 1934) identified
the pleasure of realism as lying in the artist’s skill, but Pliny also went further, morphing realism
with the illusionism of tromp l’oeil:
Parrahasius, as recorded, entered into a competition with Zeuxis who produced a picture of grapes
so successfully represented that birds flew up to the stage buildings; whereupon Parrahasius himself
produced such a realistic picture of a curtain that Zeuxis, as proof of the verdict of the birds, requested
that the curtain should now be drawn and the picture displayed, and when he realized his mistake,
with a modesty that did him honor he yielded up his prize, saying that whereas he had deceived
birds, Parrahasius had deceived him, an artist.
309–11
Pliny also tells us that horses began neighing when presented with pictures of horses, and that a
sculptor carved his own likeness in such a way that his dogs would not realize the absence of their
master (Sukla 1977: 19). This latter story was among those compiled by Leonardo da Vinci who,
using the authority of his own voice, wrote: “I have seen a picture that deceived a dog because of its
likeness to its master . . . likewise I have seen a monkey that did an infinite number of foolish things
with another pictured monkey” (cited in Mitchell 1995: 332). These animal stories suggest that
humans should not think themselves stupid for having been deceived, for the illusion is so good
that it even overrides the superior sense of smell of animals.
It is also legend that an 1890s movie audience screamed at the approach of a train thinking
themselves about to be run down (Gunning 2007). And one writer claims in 1925: “When scenes
from The Lost World were shown at a meeting of scientists, many of them believed they were
looking at film of real, living dinosaurs!” (Miller 2006: 18).
Perhaps these stories illustrate a cultural variation in the perception of illusion, or perhaps they
are simply unreliable folktales exaggerated in the retelling. Early movie audiences certainly appear
to have accepted a level of illusion that we would not accept today; even so, these stories appear
fantastical. No 4-year-old has ever drawn so realistically as to make the above story credible
(Feldman and Goldsmith 1991). Reports of the first film audiences appear to have been exaggerated
(Gunning 2007), and the least said the better regarding the story of the gullible scientists. To accept
the quality of an illusion in a particular medium because one has no prior experience of a better
attempt is understandable. To do a surprised double take, or to be dumbfounded over how an
illusion is managed are also common experiences. It is quite another matter to take the deceptive
quality of trompe l’oeil as representative of realistic imagery.
Illusion and Delusion

It is noteworthy that each of these stories appears motivated by particular social issues and debates.
Pliny appears to have wanted to demonstrate that the art of his own time was in decline, and as
evidence he offered the alleged power images once held by comparison with his own. Leonardo
used his examples as proof of the superiority of painting over sculpture, a controversial issue in his
day in which he was highly partisan (Mitchell 1995). Other legends of this kind, especially those
related to animals, have been used to support a view that vision is a natural phenomenon and not
a learned, signifying practice. Stories of audiences fleeing from an approaching train appear to have
been used as evidence by urban audiences of the gullibility of rural folk (Gunning 2007). The
stories do not suggest that pictures have the power to deceive oneself, but that pictures have this
power over others. Pictures lead people into error and are therefore dangerous. In short, the
suggestion that the initial, genuine deception of which trompe l’oeil is capable applies to all other
kinds of illusion appears always to have been agenda-driven. Ironically, the stories involve a
deception of their own.
Significantly, almost all the reports are second-hand, some having been recorded centuries after
the alleged event. No doubt, the tales have proved the more persuasive because they are grounded
in the pleasure they afford. They evoke the excitement of something that seems too good to be true
but just might be true. They are as wondrous as trompe l’oeil itself. The stories conflate trompe l’oeil
with other kinds of representational imagery, and they ignore the double consciousness with which
people view ordinary pictorial realism. Apocryphal they may be, but the stories are of great
longevity, and they help to underscore the popularity of pictorial illusion.
Illusion and Life

Since the illusionistic is rarely, and then only marginally, a signifying practice, it is an unproblematic
pleasure. Unlike all the other pleasures described in this book, it appears to have no negative
associations. But like all the other pleasures described here, it is a pleasure of great long-standing.
And we continue to find it pleasurable to be tricked, to be confounded by the ambiguity between
illusion and real life.
30
3
The Bright and Busy
Chapter Outline
Terms and Taste 32
The Doctrine of Decorum 33
Reason and Restraint 35
Modernist Minimalism 36
The Relativity of Restraint 37
Serious versus Superficial Purpose 39
Brightness and Business 40
The Seriousness of Selling 44
Bright, Busy, and Business 44
The quintessentially modernist architect Ludwick Mies van der Rohe’s maxim “less is more” (Blake
1976: 206) is flipped by an advertisement for a Las Vegas strip club: “The only place in Las Vegas
where less is more.” Van der Rohe and his contemporaries, architects and designers alike, advocated
a severe, elemental, and geometric style of which Las Vegas is its abrasive, in-your-face challenge.
Las Vegas represents a bright and busy aesthetic, one that characterizes much of popular taste.
Think of shopping malls with their spectacular, kaleidoscopic stimuli or the experience of moving
through a casino with all its glitter, shine, sparkle, and flashing lights. Think of Chinese dragons
and Bollywood movies, each with their multi-colors and constant movement (Bhutto 2019).
Fine artists have often employed a bright and busy aesthetic, but for many cultural critics
distinguishing between the worthy and unworthy has always been a matter of how bright, how
busy, and to what purpose? Such critics have consistently considered popular imagery too bright,
too busy, as well as lacking in serious intent, and frequently these aesthetic distinctions have been
used to make sociopolitical distinctions about people.
31
Figure 3.1 Thomas Del Coro, Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas, Nevada, 2019.
Terms and Taste

Bright and busy are used here as neutral descriptors, but for apologists of fine art these terms are
either terms of appreciation or condemnation depending upon what cultural forms are being
addressed. Bright means radiant or splendid, radiating or reflecting light; it is a synonym of
luminous or brilliant, but these qualities are easily turned into either positives or negatives. Bright
colors can be strong, vivid, or brilliant, or they can be considered garish, gaudy, and lurid. A
brilliant image can shine brightly, sparkle, glitter, or be lustrous, but it can shine too brightly, and
sparkle and glitter to no purpose other than to attract the eye. A busy image means ornate or
characterized by activity, full of action and interest, but seen in a negative light these same qualities
are over-ornate, fussy, or cluttered with unharmonious, trivial details.
These are just a few of the words frequently used to distinguish between good and bad taste,
but there are many others. Vivid, meaning intense, lively, strong, and full of life, contrasts
with lurid, meaning ghastly, sensationalist, or excessively dramatic. An image can be powerful,
graphic, or intense, or it can be flashy, gaudy, or garish, all the latter words meaning strikingly
conspicuous and indicating poor taste. Flashy suggests a glaring brightness and vulgar display.
Gaudy implies the cheap cost of materials. Garish means excessively bright, as well as crude and
tasteless.
The Bright and Busy 33
Descriptive or appreciative terms are commonly flipped into a term of abuse: vivid versus vulgar,
ornate versus ostentatious, sumptuous versus showy, and each positive characteristic can be taken
too far so that something is overly, unduly, or crudely colored, or unwarrantedly or excessively
decorated. One image is bright; another is overly bright. One is richly colorful; the other, crudely
colorful.
The felt need to make such distinctions is age-old. Although modernist architects and designers
took ascetic minimalism to an extreme, their aesthetic preferences owe their origins to the ancients.
The Doctrine of Decorum

In the first century BCE the Roman philosopher Cicero called for visual restraint in what has been
known as the doctrine of decorum and has been ever since used in battles against perceived excess
(Gombrich 1979). Cicero formalized a view earlier proposed by Plato: visual imagery should only
serve serious purposes. Plato approved of abstract geometric forms such as circles, straight lines,
and pure colors but only when they served a purpose beyond the pleasure they afforded. Raising
children among pleasing forms was legitimate, because pleasing forms helped to provide an ideal
environment for healthy development and instruction, but when pictures existed merely to amuse,
Plato was not. He condemned them as contemptible and even dangerous, for pleasure without
purpose weakened resistance to base instincts. For Plato, pleasure should attend only purposeful
activity such as eating and drinking; it could never be a legitimate end unto itself. When pleasure
was uncontrolled by wisdom it withered the reason by which we realized our higher selves (Gilbert
and Kuhn 1953).
Like Plato, Cicero decried the use of artifice, considering it both a wasteful indulgence and
an offense against reason. Unlike Plato, Cicero proposed that a certain amount of artifice was
admissible when held in check by a sense of good taste. With taste as the arbitrator, he urged a
simple, unadorned style, dignified and noble. Cicero’s advice was directed toward spoken rhetoric,
but his metaphors were visual, and they have proved highly influential, being repeated many times
over the past two millennia. He wrote:
For just as some women are said to be more beautiful when unadorned, because this suits them, so
the plain style delights, even though it lacks embellishment . . . In a ship, what is so indispensable as
the sides, the hold, the bow, the stern, the yards, the sails and the mast? Yet they all have such a
graceful appearance that they appear to have been invented not only for the purpose of safety but
also for the sake of giving pleasure.
cited in Gombrich 1979: 19–20
It was not as though Cicero objected to all ornament. Ornament was usually unnecessary, but
where it was employed, it should be restrained.
His fellow Roman and near contemporary Vitruvius applied Cicero’s dictums to architecture,
and Vitruvius’ own dictums became standard for classical architecture. Vitruvius attacked wall
murals that seemed to him capricious and irrational. While he approved of trompe l’oeil that sought
to create an illusion of real things and architectural motifs, he was incensed by decorations that
bore no relationship to reality. Of the murals that affronted, he wrote: “On the stucco are monsters
rather than definite representations taken from definite things. Instead of columns there rise up
stalks; instead of gables, stripped panels with curled leaves and volutes” (cited in Gombrich 1979:
20). Like Cicero, Vitruvius did not condemn all decoration, only what he regarded as fanciful and
excessive.
Over a millennium later, the then prevailing Gothic style was attacked by some as superfluous
and silly for reasons identical to those used by Vitruvius. Writing in twelfth-century France,
St. Bernard of Clairvaux ridiculed the “ridiculous monsters” decorating the then new Gothic
cathedrals. What was the point of such absurdities as half-men/half-animal motifs, bodies with
many heads, and heads with many bodies? He could see only waste, frivolity, and distraction.
“There is such a variety and such a diversity of strange shapes everywhere that we [monks] may
prefer to read the marbles rather than the books” (cited: 255).
In the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries Vitruvius’ views were employed to laud the virtues of
Renaissance classicism. The sixteenth-century art historian Vasari described the Gothic as
barbarous, and thankfully a thing of the past. The Renaissance he praised for its revival of what he
considered the classical ideal of decorous simplicity. Where Gothic architecture was an irregular
muddle of gables, pinnacles, finials, balustrades, statues, and statuettes, Renaissance architecture
was rationally ordered, symmetrical, and well proportioned.
It was the same for Renaissance sculpture. Where Gothic sculpture in wood was typically
painted in bright colors, Renaissance artists lauded the virtues of the white, unpainted marble they
found among Roman sculpture and Roman copies of earlier Greek sculpture. The naked appearance
of the statues seemed to emphasize form over color. Since Renaissance artists equated form with
the intellect and color with the emotions, and since they held aspirations to being more than mere
artisans, on a par with philosophers pursuing truth, they took the ancient sculptures as the model
for their own work.
What was then unknown was that in their original state these Greek and Roman icons of sobriety
were nothing of the kind; they had been elaborately decorated with bright, often complimentary
colors (Panzanelli 2008). In the mid 1700s, Pompeii and nearby Herculaneum were discovered
revealing, to the surprise and shock of the elite critics, that the Romans reveled in wall murals that
were highly decorated and brilliantly colored. However, instead of revising their aesthetic
preferences, they reframed Roman art as a debased decline from the model of restraint offered by
Greek architecture and sculpture. The influential eighteenth-century art historian Winckelmann
dismissed painted sculptures as a “barbaric custom” and wrote of the noble simplicity and quiet
grandeur of Greek art (cited: 26). He claimed to understand why Vitruvius had condemned the
murals of his time, and henceforth only Greek art could serve as the classical ideal. Regretfully, he
wrote, “true art was only to found among the Greeks” (cited: 26).
Alas, by the middle of the nineteenth century it had become apparent that both Greek statues
and buildings also had been originally either partially or fully covered in fully saturated, often
complimentary, colors, and also often decorated with busy patterns. As with the Roman statues, it
was only the march of time that had stripped them of their original color. Up until the mid fifth
century BCE, Greek artists even incised the outlines of motifs to guide the painter. But once again
artistic elites dismissed these revelations as examples of regrettable taste. Polychrome statues were
“quirky and not quite true to the essence of sculpture,” and “aesthetically offensive” (2). Their loss
of color was viewed as an improvement, and where small traces of color remained they were
sometimes deliberately washed off. Given the doctrine of decorum, color was the culprit of poor
taste. It was more important to preserve the perceived purity of Greek art than broaden their taste.
The philosopher George Hegel, so revolutionary in other matters, declared: “sculpture avails itself
not of a painter’s colors but only of the spatial forms” (cited: 10).
Even the frieze of the Parthenon, an icon of classical perfection, had not been spared (Neils
2001). The frieze had been painted and ornamented with gleaming metallic attachments, including
shinny bronze stirrups and gold wreaths. The figures had been painted in flesh colors and striking
reds and yellows, and a strong blue background helped to make the figures appear more three-
dimensional than otherwise.
Reason and Restraint

For eighteenth- and nineteenth-century aestheticians what mattered most was good taste, which
was variously expressed in terms of gender, nationalistic pride, aesthetics, and class. Ornamentation
was identified with feminine taste, which, in turn, was identified with the ephemerality of fashion,
and thus marked as inherently inferior to a masculine identification with reason and simplicity
(Gombrich 1979). Feminine taste was identified with the frilly and silly; masculine taste with
simplicity and seriousness. Additionally, English and German critics condemned a preference for
decoration as not only a mere fashion, but a French fashion, all things French being understood as
synonymous with triviality and moral decadence. One German critic wrote: “the decline of good
taste . . . is coupled with the decline in decency of manners” (cited: 40).
Good taste was equally expressed through the rational nature of the two primary aesthetic
categories of the eighteenth century: the beautiful and the sublime, which, while distinctly different,
were each framed by the rationality of the doctrine of decorum. The artistic elites were especially
motivated to establish the grounds of taste appropriate to their class and to contrast this with that
of the peasantry and, by the nineteenth century, the emerging proletariat. As will prove so often the
case in this book, the distinction between restraint and excess, decorum and revelry, was driven in
part by the desire of the emerging middle class to distinguish itself from the lower classes (Eagleton
1990).
The beautiful was considered small, domesticated, and pleasant (Beardsley 1982). It was
agreeableness, giving rise to inward joy, cheerfulness, and delight. For some, form referred to
specific agreeable proportions; for others, form was a more general balance between unity and
variation. Too much unity in a composition was tedious; too much variation and a composition fell
into chaos. For a form to be beautiful, it needed to strike a perfect balance between the two.
Edmund Burke listed the following as the sensible qualities of beauty: “comparatively small . . .
smooth, . . . parts not angular, but melted as it were into each other . . . delicate . . . without any
remarkable appearance of strength . . . colours bright, but not strong and glaring (cited in Carritt
1966: 92).
By contrast, the sublime involved quite different visual characteristics and psychological effects,
but it, too, observed the doctrine of decorum (Beardsley 1982). Unlike beauty, the sublime was
overwhelming, but since human beings were essentially sensible creatures, it was possible to remain
rational and master experiences that greatly stirred the passions.
For Burke, the sublime could even be terrifying because it evoked fear, and among Kant’s ([1764]
1965) many descriptions of the sublime are greatness and fearsome. Yet no matter the intensity
of sublime experiences, the mind could transcend the thought of danger and thus demonstrate
the moral dignity of humankind. Unlike beauty that had definite boundaries, the sublime was
boundlessness, yet even it was able to be grasped intellectually. The sublime was superior to beauty
because it required a greater exertion of reason to master it and thus better illustrated the mindful
control under which proper taste was exercised. Besides, the sublime, being closer to God, it was
only men who were capable of appreciating it; women could only appreciate the beautiful.
Modernist Minimalism
This was the intellectual background against which modernist architects and designers set
themselves against a popular taste for the bright and busy. Their buildings were intentionally free
from the “ornamental excrescences and accumulated barnacles of past art” (Scharf 1974: 161), and
interior and product design was similarly stripped of decoration. Modernist interiors typically
featured spare white walls, steel-rimmed windows, shiny chrome, and mirror-polished steel, all
arranged within strict geometric grids. A severe sobriety saw simple straight lines replace elaborately
curved lines, the use of minimum detail, and a subdued or limited use of color. Minimalism echoed
industrial, machine processes characteristic of modern production. Van Der Rohe called for “skin
and bones” architecture (Blake 1976: 243), and Adolf Loos called for “nude buildings” (Scharf
1974: 161). In his 1929 article Ornament and Crime, Loos (1998) wrote: “the evolution of culture is
synonymous with the removal of ornamentation from objects of everyday use” (167). He sought to
liberate humankind who “strain under the yoke of ornament,” claiming that ornament was “a waste
of human labor, money and materials,” and a “symptom of backwardness or degeneracy”;
ornamental artists were “pathological” and even “criminals” (16, 169, 170, 171). Le Corbusier
designed apartment houses as if they were factories and claimed that in the new industrial age
people would have to get used to the idea that “The house is a machine for living in” (cited in Blake
1976: 243).
The idea that buildings should provide a sympathetic sounding board for human feeling, a
resource for people’s inner lives, was dismissed as nothing but a lingering adherence to the “pathetic
fallacy” of a bygone Romantic era (Bann 1974: xix). Instead, these modernists saw themselves as
visionaries creating a new visual order that embodied the new realities of stripped-down, smooth-
running efficiency. The degree of aesthetic severity they demanded was historically unprecedented;
yet a historical survey indicates that there have been many degrees of decorum; restraint has always
been relative; and what modernists attacked as popular was often no different from fine art styles
of the past.
The Relativity of Restraint

To contemporary eyes what has been considered restrained in the past might easily be considered
today as frivolously playful and excessive. Consider the variability of a restrained aesthetic taste by
considering two engravings produced by Johann Nilson, one from 1756 and another from 1770
(Gombrich 1979). The first image is a riot of curved lines and fanciful scenes, a typical Rocaille
fancy—an exceptionally elaborate style—in which the eye refuses to settle on any particular place
but runs on quickly to the next thing. The second engraving, having come under the dictums of
neoclassicism, reduced the curved lines and introduces strong, straight lines. It is intended as an
aesthetic declaration, indicated by both the title and a figure tearing up sheets of paper, one of
which refers to Rocaille. Yet it still manages to include elaborate vases, fanciful half creatures such
as half women/half lions, elaborate patterns, and lots of decorative foliage.
Additionally, consider the following inconsistency—to our eyes—between espousing an
aesthetic of restrained tastefulness and actual practice. The designers of a publication from 1812
declare as their first principle: “To do everything for a reason and to make that reason apparent”
(cited: 32). To emphasize their intention they condemn mere fashion in favor of unchanging values.
Yet they reproduce as an exemplar of their principle a chair that includes multiple tassels, numerous
Figure 3.2 Miaow Miaow, Adolf Loos’s Villa Müller, Prague, 1930, 2007.
Figure 3.3 Johann Nilson, Neues Caffehaus, 1756.
plant and animal motifs covering every surface, small portraits, and arms held up by yet another
pair of half lion/half women, in this case with the addition of elaborate wings. A restrained taste is
clearly no absolute, or manifest as a particular style, but rather a sensibility that reacts to prevailing
taste. To contemporary eyes, even champions of restraint have approved decorative surfaces almost
as bright and busy as their predecessor.
Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel ceiling provides another example. Long admired for its sculptural
form and restrained use of color, when in the 1980s it underwent extensive restoration it was
revealed as a riotous celebration of color. Although known to have grown dirty from centuries of
carbon from candles, and more recently from cars, its restoration back to its original state shocked
many. The restoration was expected to brighten the fresco, but many were surprised at just how
bright it was, and some critics claimed a major mistake had been made. Critics denounced the
restoration. The genius of Michelangelo could not possibly have intended his masterpiece to be so
vivid. Instead of considering that Michelangelo might not have been as averse to bright colors as
themselves, they attacked the restorers’ methods. The restorers responded by arguing that the
fresco was not actually nearly so bright as the critics asserted. The Sistine Chapel now had more
natural light than in Michelangelo’s day and that viewing the original from the considerable
distance of the floor was quite different from viewing it in print from photographs that had been
taken up close (Shearman 1994). Thus, were the restorers equally indebted to the doctrine of
decorum as their critics; for the restorers Michelangelo’s genius remained intact because, while he
had used a brighter palette than anyone had expected, he had not gone too far.
Figure 3.4 Johann Nilson, Tearing Up the Rocaille, c. 1770.
Serious versus Superficial Purpose

Taste varies over time. What has not changed is the accusation that bright and busy imagery often
has either superficial or no purpose at all. This is the real crux of the doctrine of decorum. Although
frequently expressed purely in terms of visual qualities, the doctrine is primarily based on a
perceived seriousness of purpose. Recall that Plato did not object to brightly colored images, only
those that served no serious purpose, and St. Bernard objected to the fancies of Gothic grotesques
primarily because they distracted the monks from their studies.
The distinction between serious versus superficial purpose is especially striking with the medieval
concept of claritas, which is variously translated as clarity, brightness, light, or luster (Leddy 1997).
Bright, luminous light, whether colored or not, signified the mysteries of the divine realm. Claritas
revealed invisible beauty through visible beauty (Beardsley 1982). With stained-glass windows
partly in mind, St. Thomas Aquinas, writing in the thirteenth century, defined beauty as both a
harmony of proportions and by claritus, yet only when it served a spiritual function.
Eighteenth-century aestheticians were equally concerned with high seriousness. Kant ([1790]
1952) argued that the intrinsic value of aesthetic qualities was their reason for being. They
simultaneously elevated minds and conquered the passions, especially the sublime. Being the
common ground of all human beings—or at least for men—the sublime nature of human dignity
provided the glue that bound together in a unified whole the great diversity of human experience
and expression. Thus, for the single most influential aesthetician of modernism, aesthetic qualities
affected the most serious of purposes.
Consequently, while some styles of modernist painting celebrate a profusion of bright color and
others are characteristically busy, modernists justified such artworks by their seriousness of
purpose. Impressionists investigated the nature of vision, Fauves had sociopolitical or religious
goals, Expressionists explored the recesses of the human heart and spirit, and the Futurists
envisaged a wholly new kind of society (Gombrich 1972). As in the past, the issue for modernists
was whether the purposes they served were sufficiently serious. Fine art styles that employed the
bright and busy had an important underlying purpose whereas popular taste was dismissed as
mere spectacle, mere surface show, a theme developed in Chapter 13 on the spectacular. Visual
qualities condemned in popular images were lauded in fine art.
As Gombrich (1979) comments, “Few civilizations were disposed to deny that inner worth
should be acknowledged by an appropriate display of outward show. . . . No contemporary member
of the culture criticized . . . a Spanish Baroque Church . . . as over-ornate. The concept did not
exist” (17). The keyword here is appropriate. Gombrich continues: “When decoration is seen as a
form of celebration it can only become objectionable when it is inappropriate. Pomp becomes
pomposity, decoration mere gaudiness when the pretension of decoration is unfounded” (17).
The judgment that an image is too bright or too busy is often no more than another way of
saying either that its purpose is superficial or that it fails entirely to signify beyond itself. However,
the criterion of purpose is not only a way to demarcate good from bad taste. It has been consistently
employed to distinguish between people who claim to enjoy good taste, and people who evidently
do not, and by further extension between those who can be trusted with power and influence
because they share restrained tastes, and all others who cannot be trusted. The doctrine of decorum
distinguishes in order to exclude.
Brightness and Business

If most people in the past were aware of the doctrine of decorum, it appears that most have not cared
for it. The tastes of the people who lived in Le Corbusier’s apartment buildings were strikingly
different from his elemental and geometric, machine production aesthetic. In what he would have
regarded as the worst of taste, occupants filled their apartments with all kinds of ornaments, elaborate
furnishings, and wallpaper with intricate patterns. When one of his buildings was detonated in 1972,
Jencks (1984) hailed the event as marking the end of modernism and the arrival of the postmodern
as a triumph of ordinary people’s tastes for color and clutter over aesthetic austerity.
But what is it that draws people to the bright and busy? What is it that champions of decorum
since ancient times have had to contend with? What is it about fully saturated color, and things that
sparkle and shine, that delights us? And what is the lure of highly complex, busy displays?
Delighting the Eye

Firework displays, torchlight parades, flashing disco lights, a street strip with neon signs one after
another, each signal excitement, the time and place to be, now, in the moment. The cacophonous
clutter of souvenir shops and market stalls, with each bright and shiny trinket competing for
attention, signal a seemingly infinite wealth of purchasing possibilities. Color; lots of color;
luminescent, glowing color; shining, intense, dazzling lights; intricate, complex patterns; highly
elaborate displays, each and every one appears to have delighted people for millennia.
As noted above, one of the principal reasons that art historians opposed a bright and busy aesthetic
was that they looked back, albeit selectively, to what they honestly believed to be paradigms of
restraint. But in defiance of Plato, Cicero, Vitruvius, and the like, the ancients apparently thought
there was inherent value in delighting the eye, and Michelangelo apparently thought so, too. He could
have chosen a far more subdued palette than he did, but he chose to achieve with tempera paint the
maximum luminosity the medium allowed. It is noteworthy that among the reasons oil painting was
even then the more common visual medium was its ability to achieve much greater luminosity than
could be attempted with tempera. Artists could even create the illusion of sparkle and shine.
For centuries, the power of illusionistic images often relied heavily on whether they included
surfaces that sparkled and shone (Leddy 1997). Because things in nature are hard to catch on
canvas with paint, capturing shining and sparkling surfaces was a matter of special pride among
painters, and patrons were prepared to pay for it. Portrait painters strove to capture the shine of
hair, and the sparkle of teeth and eyes. Landscape painters stove to capture the sparkle of waves,
bright light filtering through trees, and the shine of a pool of water. Still-life painters strove to
achieve the same effect: the glint on metal weapons, silver plates, porcelain bowls, and glass cups.
Mass-produced original paintings sold in department stores today employ exactly these same
qualities of sparkle and shine (Leddy 1997).
Enhancing the Ordinary

A bright and busy aesthetic is frequently employed to enhance what would otherwise be ordinary,
to embellish (Gowans 1981). Homo Sapiens are also Homo Aesheticus (Dissanayake 1991); but
using whatever was at hand to enhance through color even predates the development of modern
humans. Around 60,000 BCE in modern-day Turkey, a Neanderthaler was buried atop of evergreen
boughs heaped with flowers, including hollyhocks, which because they grow separately could not
have been there by accident. “Some person or persons once ranged the mountainside collecting
these flowers one by one” (Campbell 1988: 53).
Millennia later, the Puritans railed against the excesses of the Catholic Church’s love of luxurious
imagery, creating churches that almost rival the austerity of modernist buildings and industrial
design. Puritans based their beliefs on the Bible, yet consider how Moses reported God’s expectations
for his temple: “gold, silver, and bronze; blue and purple and scarlet stuff and fine twined linen;
goats’ hair, tanned rams’ skins, and goat skins; acacia wood . . . and onyx stones and stones for
setting . . .” (Exodus 35:5–9). As noted above, the idea of being over-ornate in the celebration of a
serious purpose did not exist.
Enhancing one’s body has always been important to the serious business of self-efficacy and
signifying status (Dissanayake 1991). Today, to enhance the sparkle of the eyes, women—and some
men—use eyeliner, and to enhance their lips, lipgloss and lipstick, and on their faces, glitter. Jewelry
around the neck and earrings at the side of the head are used to frame the face. Clothes use metallic
thread, small mirrors, shiny buttons, sequins, and bling. Bling, a term intended to evoke the “sound”
of light hitting silver, platinum, or diamonds, is worn as jewelry or attached to accessories like
handbags or cell phones, or even as tooth caps.
The shine of a new car is part of its attraction, and they are often regularly washed and waxed to
maintain a highly polished look. The shine signifies care, but many things are enhanced if they
sparkle and shine. And many household products promise to do just this, including Mr. Sheen floor
cleaner, Spic and Span all-purpose cleaner, and Ultrabrite and Gleem toothpaste.
Resisting Restraint
Just as sober restraint has been lauded by cultural elites as a marker of good taste, it is intriguing to
speculate that those who have a taste for the unrestrained use it as a mark of social resistance.
Could the bright and busy be attractive precisely because it is used to marginalize? For some people,
consciously or unconsciously, is it part of a resistant and even transgressive identity? Finding their
tastes denigrated, are their tastes adopted as a badge of honor?
Such a strategy of social distinction is suggested by children’s embrace of a “ket aesthetic”
(Thompson 2006). The word ket was originally used by adults to mean rubbish, an assortment of
useless things, but in the 1980s British children appropriated the term to refer to lollies they purchased
for themselves with their weekly allowance. While their parents also consumed lollies, they would
rarely if ever purchase the vividly colored and graphically named lollies favored by their children.
With names like Warheads and Gummy Worms, and especially bright colors, the consumption of
these lollies served as a way for children to assert their own cultural identity, one separate from the
culture of adults. Children’s culture is notoriously one of resistance; celebrating the scatological and
inane, it is highly transgressive of an adult culture of restrictions and appeals to reason. Between
children and their parents, the age-old, broad social tension between reason and unreason is fought
out daily within the domestic sphere, and an aesthetic preference for bright, vivid colors plays its part.
On a wider, social canvas, a bright and busy aesthetic was adopted by the hippies of the 1960s in
revolt against mainstream society, and more specifically in the 1960s by the use of psychedelic
colors, so much in revolt against the drab, grey of the 1950s. And is it only a coincidence that today
all the colors of the rainbow are adopted by coalitions of marginalized groups, including the
LGBTQI community?
Bright, Busy, and Biology

To speculate further, is it possible that a taste for the bright and busy is grounded in the evolutionary
history of our species, that it once served the foundational purpose of human survival? Could a
taste for busy detail have its origins in our ancestor’s need to pick out essential detail from a complex
pattern of stimuli? Failure to perceive danger in the distant approach of a predator in an otherwise
benign visual field would have been disastrous, as would the failure to discern danger in the
smallest detail of a predator in foliage close by.
Consider, too, that there is a universal association of glossy surfaces with wetness, an association
children make as early as 6 months, the significance of which is a further association of wet with
water (Coss 2003). The dispersal of early hominids would have been restricted to areas and climatic
conditions that offered regular supplies of water. Preventing dehydration by the ability to find
drinking water on a daily basis would have sensitized our forebears to both the static and dynamic
optical properties of water. Still water can act as a natural mirror, a glassy surface reflecting
the overhead environment. Turbulent water is foamy and luminous. The glinting properties of the
smooth rippling surface of a pond or stream would also have attracted attention as would
the glittering dew on leaves in the early morning. In short, the sparkling properties of water
constitute a historically consistent recognition cue that was easily detected at a distance both in full
view and when partly occluded (Coss 2003).
While this is only suggestive, it is a fact that our early ancestors were drawn to items that were
shiny and sparkled or could be polished to be so, and many of the items they chose were also
brilliantly colorful (Rapp 2009). The very first precious stones were probably polished pebbles
found in streams and rivers or heavily weathered aggregates. During Paleolithic times, amber, a
fossil resin, would have delighted with its golden yellow, orange, red, green, and violet varieties. The
first Neolithic peoples chose malleable materials like copper for jewelry, and later gold and silver.
Precious gemstones, metals, and shells of many kinds were used for beads, headdresses, necklaces
and sewn into clothing, as they continue to be among indigenous peoples living a traditional
lifestyle. Predynastic Egypt employed many materials: bright blue and apple green turquoise, the
many shades of emerald green quartz, amethyst with its various shades of purple or violet, and deep
blue lapis lazuli. Some of these materials were carved to enhance their optical properties by
hollowing out the back of items to encourage the transmission of light.
Perhaps the cues for water were so critical for our earliest ancestors’ survival that they were
reflected in a desire for gleaming, lustrous surfaces. While this must remain speculative, it is striking
how many of Kant’s ([1764] 1965) particular examples of the sublime relate to things that sparkle or
shine: reflections on the sea, waterfalls, fire, dew on a spider’s web, sunsets, rainbows, and stars.
The Seriousness of Selling

Perhaps, as Coss (2003) suggests, today’s continuing love of glinting, glistening surface finishes in
product design, and their simulation in advertising and computer graphics, has its origins in our
ancestors’ quest for water. Thus, the current consumer aesthetic of lustrous, gleaming surfaces with
vivid, fully saturated colors may not be so much a matter of taste, but grounded in our evolutionary
inheritance. Supermarket shelves are stacked with numerous competing products almost all
employing the emotive element of fully saturated color, producing what Moya (2017) calls our
“delirious consumption.” Most people report that they do buy items in supermarkets that they
never had any intention of buying upon entering, so that among the many other means of enticing
people to purchase, a hardwired attraction to the bright and busy seems cunningly exploited by
commercial interests. Color and clutter has the distinct purpose of selling goods. Far from being
superficial, a matter of mere surface, the economy partly relies on a bright and busy aesthetic for its
survival, making a bright and busy aesthetic highly problematic insofar as so much of what we buy
ends up as litter, killing animals that consume plastics, in landfill and polluting the oceans. The
production and consumption of consumer goods creates environmental hazards such as making
toxic water, the air, and the earth, and it contributes to global warming.
Bright, Busy, and Business

The battle between the doctrine of decorum and a bright and busy aesthetic has been fought for
thousands of years, being grounded in reason and restraint versus exuberance and resistance. It
continues unabated as those excluded by an insistence on restraint have adopted the lure of
cacophony and color as a marker of identity. While possibly grounded in our biology, having once
served the foundationally important function of daily survival, today the bright and busy aesthetic
is used to both resist mainstream values and to mobilize markets, to both resist and ensure the
maintenance of the status quo.
4
The Highly Emotional
Chapter Outline
An Empire of Emotions 46
Emotion versus Emotionalism 47
The Rhetoric of Emotions versus the Aesthetics of Emotions 48
Fine Art and Popular Entertainment 54
What Arouses Emotion? 54
Why Do Emotional Lures Work? 55
For Better or Worse 61
“Of all the slipshod, debasing, superficial, ignoble and utterly nonsensical forms of dramatic non-
art, the melodrama is the worst. . . . I hope [it] is gone forever, knocked down on its head, shoveled
up, dumped into a basket, and carried out to the ash heap” (cited in Singer 2001: 2). So wrote a critic
in 1912 a few years after stage melodrama had been killed off by its transference to the cinema. The
most popular form of stage entertainment during the nineteenth century, melodrama was often
condemned for its emotional exaggeration, sentimentality, sensationalism, and artificial happy
endings. It was ridiculed as a poor imitation of the real thing, as mere “would be tragedy” (Gallagher
1965: 215). Today, although melodrama has shed the flamboyant acting style of its early years, its
basic elements of pathos and action are a staple of television soap operas, and many other kinds of
popular fare, including westerns, detective, horror, fantasy, and action genres (Mercer and Shingler
2004).
In this chapter, the lure of emotion is addressed. Later chapters take up particular emotional
lures.
45
Figure 4.1 Russell-Morgan, Lost in the Desert Theatrical Poster, 1900.
An Empire of Emotions
A general definition of emotion is that it is a conscious mental state experienced as a strong feeling
directed toward a specific object and typically accompanied by physiological and behavioral
changes in the body (Niedenthal and Ric 2017). Emotions are coping mechanisms for situations
that have trigged the emotion; they help us appraise the significance of an event to our own well-
being. Emotions also help determine how we view the world. When sad, everything around us
looks grey and it is difficult to focus; when in love, the whole world seems to be in love.
Emotions are closely related to feelings, but usually feelings are considered milder than emotions,
more diffuse, and less publicly expressed. However, the line between emotions and feelings is often
unclear, as the above definition indicates, in which emotion is defined in part as a strong feeling.
Consequently, most discussions of emotion use feeling as a synonym, and this practice will be
followed here.
Emotions motivate action. It is sometimes claimed that at the root of all our numerous
motivations there are only two emotions: love and fear (Jampolsky and Cirincione 2011). Yet we
commonly experience love, hate, joy, and sorrow, and there are many others beside. For example,
just listing from the letter A, ablaze means highly excited, charged, or passionate; arching, deeply
The Highly Emotional 47
or acutely felt; and affect, a mental state, mood, or emotion. Arrah is a common expletive expressing
strong emotion. There is also is affection, angst, anguish, annoyance, anxiety, awe, and anger.
Aristotle poetically called anger “a boiling of the blood, and hot stuff around the heart” (cited in
Robinson 2005: 29).
Some psychologists claim that physiological changes cause emotions; others claim that emotions
cause physiological changes; and others still believe that emotions and physiological changes
provide feedback to each other (Keltner, Oatley, and Jenkins 2018). What is certain is that emotional
reactions are made apparent to both ourselves and others through a very wide range of physical
changes, and they can occur in numerous combinations. Just a few include heart pounding,
trembling, laughing, frowning, and lots of S words; for example, smirking, sniggering, smiling,
snarling, striking, and sweating. There are even many ways to cry, including cackling, bleating,
braying, howling, screeching, shrilling, sobbing, weeping, and wailing. One can cry quietly, out
loud, bitterly, or with joy.
Emotions play a major part in ruling our lives. Recent neuroscientific research indicates that
emotion is not a single and separate system of our brains, but rather emotions activate neural
circuits across our entire brain (Niedenthal and Ric 2017). Contrary to the long-held separation
between the head and the heart, emotions cannot be separated from cognition. We use emotions
to help us think and we use cognition to help us feel (Brooks 2011). In examining voting patterns,
it is apparent that people do not make rational choices based upon their economic interests, but
how candidates affirm their emotional lives. Successful candidates are not those who are necessarily
expected to deliver on promises but those who make voters feel as though they are understood
by them because they share similar emotional responses. “I feel your pain,” as Bill Clinton famously
said in a televised presidential debate in 1992.
Emotion versus Emotionalism

It is hardly surprising that pictures often represent emotions or that they often arouse an emotional
response in us. We have an inherited, instinctual habit of paying attention to the emotional state of
others, and often of involuntarily responding (Hirdman 2011).
Critics of popular culture do not object to emotion. Indeed, as explored below, one of the most
influential theories of fine art is based on emotional expression (Dickie 1971). What they object to
is emotionalism, an exaggerated, unwarranted display of emotion. Emotions are fine; emotionalism
is not.
Moreover, while fine art is alleged to exemplify subtlety and a wide range of emotions, popular
culture is accused of a limited range of predictable emotions. Fine art induces authentic tears;
popular culture induces only crocodile tears. For Elkins (2001) it is entirely appropriate to shed
tears in front of paintings, but the emotional stimulation of popular media triggers little more than
a reflex reaction and should be resisted. In crying over fine art we exhibit an entirely meditative
consciousness, but in crying at the screen we are reduced to animal conditioning. Similarly, for
Carroll (1998) fine art individualizes emotion; popular culture deals only with the most common,
generalized emotions. Popular culture “mobilizes innate responses” to qualities that are “virtually
immediately accessible to untutored audiences” (203, 192).
Such dismissive critique is often cast in gendered terms. Fine art is seen as masculine and
popular culture as feminine (Hollows 2000). Just as men’s tears are stereotypically considered
infrequent and “manly” and women’s tears come too readily, so fine art is considered emotional
with good reason and popular imagery is emotional without reason. Usually, this distinction relies
for its exemplars on popular genres that are specifically intended for women. They are dismissed
with such monikers as “women’s weepies,” and “five-handkerchief movies,” and dissing women’s
genres is then used to dismiss popular imagery as a whole (Warhol 2003). The gendering of the
arguments against popular culture is especially marked with the tender emotions of love and
affection, as explored in the following chapter, but it applies to emotions per se.
The Rhetoric of Emotions versus

the Aesthetics of Emotions
The lauding of emotional expression in fine art and the damnation of emotions in popular culture
is best understood in terms of the rhetoric of emotion, which informs premodern art, and continues
to inform popular culture, and an aesthetics of emotion which informs modernist fine art (Poulakos
2007). A rhetoric of emotion carefully calculates how best to use emotion to persuade an audience
on behalf of powerful patrons. By contrast, the modernist aesthetic of emotion champions
individual artists’ responses to their particular circumstances.
The Theory of Emotional Rhetoric

To begin at the beginning, rhetoric, the art of persuasion, was first theorized by the ancient Greeks,
being defined by Aristotle ([350 BCE] 2007) as “the faculty of observing in any given case the
available means of persuasion” (1355b). Aristotle optimistically assumed that emotion—pathos—
could be married to ethos, emotion with ethics, and he instructed the rhetorician to use emotional
appeals in the cause of virtue and wisdom. In unethical hands, rhetoric was dangerous, as Plato
believed; it could be used in pursuit of bad causes and to argue cases that were patently false. But
Aristotle believed that by exercising magnanimity and self-control rhetoric could be used in the
service of justice and good governance. He therefore advised speakers to appeal to an audience in
terms of what pleased its members and what they desired to hear. Rhetoric involved the deliberate
manipulation of an audience. To produce a desired outcome, it was necessary to understand what
would move a particular audience, so that the first task was to grasp what emotional causes lay
behind the concerns of an audience and then to adapt rhetoric accordingly. By working on the
emotions of an audience in this way, it was possible to change opinions. One should amplify, even
exaggerate, points in favor of one’s argument, and minimize and depreciate those against, always
moving an audience into emotional reactions. Use metaphor and simile, he advised, especially
visual metaphor because it aided learning, but avoid excess. Reject hyperbole, signs of superfluity,
and ambiguity. Everything should be as clear, simple, and direct as possible.
For Aristotle, rhetoric and the arts were similar. Both offered arguments that needed to be
internally consistent, used emotion to help secure their arguments, and relied upon the eloquence
of the delivery. (The latter two, we call aesthetics). The only difference between rhetoric and the arts
was that whereas rhetoric told, the arts showed. Rhetoric made a case through direct argumentation;
the arts argued indirectly through representing ideas, values, and beliefs as givens.
Some early Christian theologians distrusted such “pagan” learning, but St. Augustine ([426 CE]
1958) wrote: “the faculty of eloquence, which is of great value in urging either evil or justice . . . why
should it not be obtained for the uses of the good in the service of the truth . . .?” (118–19).
Augustine won the argument.
The Pictorial Practice of Rhetoric

The medieval church felt justified in employing the most savage of emotional appeals to maintain
and subjugate their flock. The patronage of sadomasochistic frescoes of hell described in Chapter
8 on the horrific became a primary tool of the Christian message of salvation. Frescos were used to
scare congregations into mute submission. At the same time, the production of devotional images
for home as well as public use formed the mainstay of many an artists’ guild. Turning out near
identical Madonna and Child and Christ Crucified images were staple subjects of artists’ workshops
for hundreds of years.
Medieval images of Christ hanging from the cross with bleeding open wounds provoked a
mixture of horror and pity from believers as well as gratitude for his suffering on their behalf
(Elkins 2001). Taking as an authoritative pretext the many passages in the Bible where people weep,
crying was an officially sanctioned form of worship. Believers were urged to weep with the joy and
sorrow of God. Tears were taken as better proof than words of remorse for one’s sins and one’s love
of God. With a mixture of love and fear, the two emotions often regarded as the most primary, the
church sought to consolidate its community of the faithful, prevent backsliding, and deter heretics.
Centuries later, the Catholic Church found itself challenged by the Protestant Reformation.
Forced to fight the Counter-Reformation, it encouraged a new style that nevertheless returned to
the previous use of extreme emotions. The Baroque of the seventeenth century was a direct style
that appealed to the greatest number of people through theatrical exhibitions of intense emotions.
Death and dying, piteous suffering, and religious ecstasy were adopted with relish. The goal was to
reaffirm the true faith, and, to succeed, the appeal was unequivocally to the emotions.
Baroque artists relied on the rediscovered advice of ancient rhetoricians, which proved
indispensable to drawing spectators into worlds of ecstatic religious joy, suffering, and pain.
Specifically, they employed such devices as the mutual gaze, in which a figure in a painting looks out
to directly engage the viewer, and they arranged their figures so as to incorporate the viewer within
the space of a painting rather than having them appear autonomous and separate from the viewer
(Minor 2006). They also created scenes without a fixed point of reference so that everything appears
in movement. By such means viewers were situated within paintings as “primed exercitants” (24).
Figure 4.2 Gilbert Austin, Chironomia, or a Treatise on Rhetorical Delivery, Plate 9, 1806.
Additionally, Baroque artists relied upon manuals called chironomia that categorized body
positions, facial expressions, and hand gestures in terms of their emotional meaning. Originally the
bodily positions were devised for stage actors, and the hand gestures were originally devised for the
deaf and mute, but almost all seventeenth-century artists also relied upon them. Numerous manuals
illustrated a great variety of hand and body gestures, their emotional import being well understood
by their intended audience. Whether it was images of horrifying, decapitated heads, violent murders,
or classical and biblical stories involving vulnerable, naked flesh, the appeal was unequivocally
emotional. It was visceral, and the more extreme the better to effect faith and obedience.
In time, the Baroque gave way to other styles. But emotions, though less extreme, not only
continued to be represented, their representation was extended to ordinary people. And chironomia
manuals continued to be published into the nineteenth century.
The Rise of Sentiment

During the eighteenth century there developed a widespread recognition regarding the value
of human sentiments among all classes. In philosophy, the arts, and in social life generally, the
eighteenth century witnessed an increasing awareness of the value of an internal life unique to each
individual. Aestheticians began to consider that instead of emotions serving the church, flattering
the aristocracy, or doing the bidding of the state, human sentiments were valuable in and for
themselves (Fried 1980).
Consistent with these developments, the then dominant school of philosophy known as
Rationalism, wherein the reasoning mind reigned supreme, was challenged by an acknowledgment
of the value of the affective, emotional life. Descartes’s rationalist credo of the previous century, “I
think therefore I am,” was challenged by the credo, “The more vividly I feel, the more I feel that I
am” (cited in Feilla 2010: 165).
It is no accident that it was precisely at this time that the discipline of Philosophical Aesthetics
emerged with its own distinctive subject and agenda. In the exact middle of the eighteenth
century—1750—Alexander Baumgarten brought into being what he called “the sensuous discourse”
of aesthetics as a separate and distinct branch of philosophy (cited in Gilbert and Kuhn 1953: 293).
He was responding to developments in philosophy in which reason alone was being called into
question as an inadequate means to arrive at truth. He realized that a full grasp of what there was
to know could only be achieved by recognizing the contribution to reason of human imagination,
the senses, and the emotions. Baumgarten’s reason showed him that reason was not enough. In his
1750 book Aesthetica he staked out a claim for the philosophical study of the “deliverances of the
senses . . .[and] the stirrings of the passions” (cited: 290).
Baumgarten’s proposal for aesthetics was part of a broad social development increasingly
given to democratic impulses. Uneven, confined to the middle class, and mostly held in check by
traditional hierarchies of power, the ideology of individual rights was both sociopolitical and
personal. Ordinary people were recognized as possessing an internal life, so much so that, unlike
our own time when tears are often viewed as a sign of weakness, the eighteenth century viewed
tears as a sign of moral strength (Elkins 2001). Tears were an indication of empathy, an essential
quality in a civilized and moral person.
Artists played their part. No longer confining emotions to the aristocracy and religious figures,
painters depicted the middle and lower social orders as if they too possessed an internal life. Believing
that the secrets of the heart could be read on the body, and that the language of the body was more
truthful than any words, artists represented ordinary people sighing, swooning, exclaiming, and,
above all, weeping. Artists as unlike as Jacques-Louis David with his high theatricality and Jean-
Baptiste Greuze with his domestic scenes of piety and familial affection responded to the influential
French critic Denis Diderot, who summoned artists to “First touch me, astonish me, tear me apart,
startle me, make me cry, shudder, arouse my indignation” (cited in Fried 1980: 79–80).
Figure 4.3 Jean-Baptiste Greuze, Spoiled Child, early 1760s.
Rejecting Rhetoric
One important consequence of this democratization of emotional expression was the rejection by
aesthetic theorists of the long-standing use of rhetoric. It was now conceived as inauthentic, a
betrayal of emotions that artists did not necessarily feel themselves. Kant ([1790] 1952) described
rhetoric as merely the “machinery of persuasion” that exists only to deceive. Rhetoric exists “for the
purpose of putting a fine gloss or cloak upon vice and error.” It is the means by which one is
“artfully hoodwinked” (193). By contrast, he advocated an aesthetic of emotion in which real art
came from individual artists expressing their own unique response to their conditions of life. Art
offered “a wealth of thought to which no verbal expression is completely adequate.” Art “invigorates
the mind by letting it feel it’s faculty-free, spontaneous, and independent” (191–2). It went beyond
all intent and all rules. Furthermore, real artists did not make arguments as Aristotle had claimed.
Artists were geniuses who intuited the divine. For fellow German aesthetician Arthur Schopenhauer,
artistic geniuses followed no determinate rules, only their own unique ideas, imagination, and
understanding. Artists intuited eternity: “to the ordinary man his faculty of knowledge is a lamp to
lighten his path; to the man of genius, it is the sun which reveals the world” (cited in Gilbert and
Kuhn: 468).
The Rise of Romanticism

Informed by such high ideals, the Romantic artists of the early nineteenth century sought to express
their own, unique emotional responses to their subjects. With Romanticism, emotional truth lay
not with its imitation, but its expression. Romanticism celebrated the individual, emotional
response of artists to the life around them (Dickie 1970). The English Romantic poet William
Wordsworth wrote that art was either the outcome of “a spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings”
or “emotions recollected in tranquility” (cited in Khatchadourian 1965: 335, 340). The whole point
of painting and sculpture was to express the central emotional core of experience.
Later in the nineteenth century avant-garde artists—the Realists and Impressionists and Post-
Impressionists—broke entirely with pandering to public taste. Rejecting the academic artists who
continued in the mimetic tradition, the avant-garde expressed their individuality through a series
of increasingly abstract and non-representational styles that increasingly cut them off from the
general public.
Expression versus Imitation

These developments saw a shift in the way fine art was defined. Since antiquity the essential nature
of fine art had been imitation. Whether it was representing nature faithfully or attempting to
represent the spirit of material things, art imitated. Now art was defined as expression; moreover,
as the emotional expression of individual artists, and even today this probably remains the most
popular understanding of fine art.
One of the most influential proponents of art as expression was the English aesthetic theorist,
R. G. Collingwood (1938). Drawing upon the concept of artistic genius as advanced by Kant and
others, Collingwood distinguished what he called “art properly so-called” from art that was only
“conventionally so-called,” and the latter he claimed included almost all the art of the past. Real
artists expressed their own, unique emotional responses; what the public saw was a record of their
emotional journey. And, since such artists came to understand their feelings at particular times
and in response to particular circumstances, their emotions were particularly fitted to the
circumstances that gave rise to them. Consequently, their expressed emotions were highly
individualized. For a real artist, an expression of anger was not merely an instance of anger, but a
particularized anger. All real artistic expressions of emotion were differentiated from every other
emotion of the same sort. He distinguished such expression of emotion from the mere exhibition
or betrayal of emotion, as well as emotional arousal. With a deliberate attempt to arouse emotion
in others, most premodern artists had merely followed tried and true conventions well known
to produce emotional affects. Genuine expression was not to be confused with exhibiting the
symptoms or signs of emotion. Most artists of the past were like actors who typically show
visible signs of emotion without necessarily feeling the emotion they display. Thus, Collingwood
disqualified most of the history of fine art as not the real thing. For most of human history image-
making had meant making images that were largely undifferentiated from many others, and whose
intended affects upon viewers were carefully predetermined. As a consequence, most premodern
fine art had been a form of amusement.
By contrast, most art historians revisioned the history of fine art in modernist terms, celebrating
the unique expressions of exceptional, individual artists. They downplayed the utilitarian purposes
that art had always served and damned popular culture for its subservience to commercial interests.
Collingwood’s views on the history of premodern fine art looked not to the exceptional but to the
general rule.
Fine Art and Popular Entertainment

Collingwood rightly acknowledged that almost all fine art has involved the attempt to create
emotional scenes with the deliberate intention of arousing emotions in viewers. In these respects,
both in intention and affect, most fine art is indistinguishable from popular art. Most fine art was
produced to order, in the same way a cabinet-maker produces a cabinet for a client, a work of a
certain kind, in a well-defined style, and for a particular purpose. With rare exceptions, and despite
their aspirations to a higher calling, artists were treated as tradespeople, fulfilling a service on
behalf of their clients (Williams 1976). They worked much like popular artists do today.
In the long history of human picture-making, the aesthetic of emotions was an aberration.
For most of human history, and continuing today with popular culture, the principal way of
conceptualizing imagery was not in terms of an aesthetic of emotion, but as a rhetoric of emotions
in which emotions were, and are, deliberately aroused by well-known means.
What Arouses Emotion?

Irrespective of what kinds of images are viewed, an emotional response is frequently elicited by
love vanquishing evil, good triumphing over bad, self-sacrifice, heroism, patriotism, disease, and
death (Masson 2010). We are especially moved when we are taken somewhere we do not expect;
and when characters are unable to articulate their own feelings, they unsettle us, making us shift
through our own personal histories knowing that they hint at feelings we ourselves may not be able
to name. We cheer, loath, feel the pain of, and weep for characters like us, or who we recognize we
have become, or not become, may never become, or fear we might become (Nathan-Garner 2010).
We cry with characters that remind us of the relationships in our lives we lack, and we are filled
with gratitude for the relationships we do have.
Moreover, we can sometimes be deeply moved, even cry extensively, at imagery we know to
be manipulative, even while resenting the affect (Elkins 2001). As described in Chapter 12 on the
formulaic, the stalest formulae can sometimes work havoc on the heart (Nelson 2005). This is
epitomized by early forms of melodrama in which the narrative elements were presented in a
stripped-down, naked fashion. On the nineteenth-century stage and in silent movies, characters
were clearly marked from the outset as either a heroine in distress, a fearless hero, a comic figure,
or a villain. With its highly flamboyant acting style, early melodrama employed a very emotional
address with plots that invariably revolved around love and murder. It consisted of sentiment,
thrilling action, and extremes of good and bad characters. Typically, protagonists were subject to
unjustified harm of some kind, their motives were misunderstood, or their good character was
unrecognized. Due to their good nature, good characters were unable to counter their evil
antagonists by underhanded means and so became victims to villainy. The injustice aroused pity
for the protagonist and anger at the antagonist, but when all seemed futile, the tables turned and all
was set right (Stedman 1977). The theatrical acting, which strikes us today as ludicrous, has given
way to something much more realistic, but both the plots and the emotional register remain
essentially the same, especially in action films. As a sensibility, rather than just a particular genre,
melodrama is just as pervasive as it ever was (Mercer and Schingler 2005). The early melodramas
did not pretend to be realistic, and neither do their numerous contemporary successors that employ
only specific elements of realism. The basic idea of suffering virtue remains. Exactly when and how
will the tables turn and the worthiness of the protagonist be recognized remains the primary
tension.
Why Do Emotional Lures Work?

None of the above answers the question: Why are we attracted to images that arouse our emotions,
including emotions we may not fully recognize or understand, or, in recognizing them, wish we
did not? It is the question St. Augustine agonized over: “. . . why does a man like to be made sad
by viewing something doleful and tragic scenes, which he himself could not by any means endure?
. . . What is this wretched madness?” (cited in Elkins 2001: 130). It makes intuitive sense that we
seek entertainment that maximizes pleasure and minimizes pain, but what sense is there in
choosing entertainment with counter-hedonistic emotions like fear and sadness (Olivia 2003)?
Why is it pleasant to feel unpleasant emotions like fear, sadness, and grief? And this is not the only
puzzle. In watching a narrative unfold, how can we be all joyful one minute and profoundly sad
the next? Why can the same event make us feel simultaneously joyful and sad? Why do some
images evoke emotions and not others? And why are different people moved so differently by the
same imagery?
Catharsis versus Cognitive Coping

Attempts to answer these questions again begin with Aristotle ([335 BCE] 1981). His central idea
was catharsis. He began by noting the heady mixture of Greek tragic drama: violence, horror, and
fear, on the one hand, and grief, suffering, and pity, on the other. He famously wrote that tragedy
“achieves, through representation of pitiable and fearful incidents, the catharsis of such pitiable
and fearful incidents” (11). He is usually interpreted to mean that pity and fear were purged by pity
driving out pity, and fear expunging fear. For this to work the purged pity or fear were not the same
pity or fear responsible for the purging. One was either excessive or deficient but always it was
indiscriminate; the other was considered and reasonable. An excess of unreflective, indiscriminate
emotion was poisonous to body and soul, but it could be purged by exposure to a well-organized,
considered experience of these same emotions. For Aristotle, disease and cure were two sides of
the same coin. Pity worked on pity, fear on fear, ill humor on ill humor, and so on. Dramatic
performances made otherwise incoherent emotions reasonable, and by such means audiences
purged their emotions. Whether he understood purging being affected by a massive dose of the
emotion in question or by a homeopathic dose is unclear. But the general idea of purging unhealthy
emotions to gain a healthy balance of body and soul has been enormously influential. A cathartic
release has appeared to explain why people are attracted to cultural forms that one would not
expect to be pleasurable.
Freud revived the idea of catharsis as sublimation. For Freud, potentially destructive psychic
forces were sublimated into socially acceptable, productive forms. Pent-up rage, anxiety, and fear
were transformed through exposure to cultural forms. With such cultural cachet, it is not surprising
that catharsis is frequently employed by both media critics (Tamborini 2003) and aestheticians
(Carroll 1990).
However, a substantial body of empirical research suggests that catharsis is problematic
(Tamborini 2003). While it may be useful in relation to sadness (Nelson 2005), as explored in
Chapter 7 on violence, it does not appear to operate with regard to fear, hate, or anxiety. Numerous
studies indicate that exposure to violent scenes raises anxiety rather than purging it.
On the other hand, catharsis appears to operate with emotions that are more susceptible to
cognitive coping mechanisms (Nelson 2005). We may learn to cope by relabeling our fears or our
sadness. This is possible because emotions are always subject to cognitive appraisal. As described
earlier, emotions and thought work together; emotions work on thought but also thoughts work
on emotions. By relabeling what initially appear as negative emotions as positive emotions, the
experience is transformed into something that is gratifying.
Escaping
Highly emotional mediated experience can also act as an escape from one’s actual circumstances.
We may seek to experience pain that is about, yet not about, our own losses, “the pain of love lost,
roads not taken, secure if sparkless marriages endured, or romances kindled and floundered”
(215). We may even use popular media to sustain feeling blue in the belief that by such means we
will learn from the experience, thus avoiding immediate pleasure for the sake of longer-term
positive outcomes (Olivia 2003). Or perhaps there is a need to escape either physical or psychic
pain. As Lutz (1999) says, “One’s world can be dissolved in tears and virtually disappear. . . . Tears
are a luxurious respite, even for many who suffer” (235, 237). This is where the concept of aesthetic
distance is valuable (Nelson 2005). To effect escape, we strike a balance between being both a
participant and an observer of mediated experience. Too much distance and no emotion is felt; too
little distance and the experience remains overwhelming. By establishing an optimum distance, we
simultaneously retain our own identity yet also identify.
Identifying
It is commonplace that pictures offer the opportunity to imagine ourselves in them. We project
ourselves onto figures. While fictional characters are known to be constructed, to be products of
writers and realized by actors, we follow them as if they were real people and feel able to imaginatively
enter into their worlds. It is comforting to realize that others experience similar things and respond
with similar emotions as ourselves.
We often cultivate emotional experiences in order to have our emotional attachment about the
world confirmed. For example, many people believe that justice ultimately prevails, and numerous
popular narrative fare reinforces this view by ending happily. Viewers suffer along with the
protagonist with the understanding that eventually the tables will turn (Olivia 2003). On the other
hand, many current US television dramas like Law & Order and the CSI series usually end
ambiguously, which appears to echo the now pervasive pessimism and lack of certainty that
characterizes the postmodern condition. Either way, whether seeing the world in terms of the
ultimate triumph of justice or of uncertainty, there is comfort in having one’s worldview confirmed.
Consider soap operas. Women are the primary audience, and surveys suggest that many women
tend to regard the most realistic narratives as those that contain events similar to their own lives,
and, further, narratives that evoke the strongest emotions are those that replicate their own family
dynamics (Masson 2010). Soaps are a major television genre, with many countries producing their
own indigenous kinds, but despite national differences soaps typically employ the same tropes:
multiple, convoluted plots involving romance, secret relationships, extra-marital affairs, real love,
chance meetings, coincidences, mysterious strangers, unexpected calamities, crime, and last-minute
rescues, each having their own emotional charge (Levin 2020). Viewers identify with the characters
by seeing in them something of themselves. And viewers participate in the fictional characters’ lives
by making ongoing decisions about their behavior. Has a character made the right decision? Should
he or she have left the relationship? made that offer? taken that job? started that affair?
Around the world, TV wrestling is a soap opera for men (Jenkins 2007). While known to its
audience to be faked, it nevertheless provides profoundly affective identification. Wrestlers spend
a minimum of nine months training before appearing on television learning not only how to move
without hurting either themselves or others, but how to emote for the camera (Jeffries 2019). They
must learn how to communicate the effects of torture, abasement, outraged fury, abjection,
cowardice, triumph, and contempt. Like women’s soaps, TV wrestling tells complexly plotted
narratives of personal suffering, friendships, alliances, betrayals, and reverses of fortune, for which
there is no better snapshot than as often happens with a tag team: one wrestler is beaten to a pulp
and is unable to manage without help. As Jenkins (2007) writes, “Struggling to the ropes, he must
admit that he needs another man. His partner reaches out to him while he crawls along the floor,
inching towards that embrace” (94). One fan claimed: “It’s not about motion, it’s about emotion,” or
more graphically, “Moves without the proper psychology mean SHIT ALL!” (Chang 2012).
The US audience demographic for TV wrestling is largely adolescent males, and among young
adults, poorly educated whites and African Americans and Hispanics (Indeed Wrestling 2019). This
demographic of working-class and ethnic minorities finds an echo of their own experience in the
determination of fate through physical rather than intellectual trails, and, moreover, the defeat of
good guy wrestlers and the ineffectiveness of referees further reflects their own lives (Campbell
1996). For the losers of society, TV wresting represents their own lived experience. Understanding
that they have little chance of ever being respected by the winners in society, they don’t necessarily
admire the winners. TV wrestling offers an opportunity to demonstrate who they are through a
celebration of a resistant cultural form. It is no coincidence that the bad guys of wrestling often win;
the audience identifies with the “baddies.” Like women’s soap operas, the narratives of TV wrestling
are multiple and overlapping and so, while individual narratives have some degree of closure, as a
whole the structure is open-ended. There is no end to either the desire for emotional identification
or its gratification.
The above examples apply to whole demographics, but identification can also be highly personal.
Crying over popular media is often inexplicable. Initially, there may appear to be no relationship
between particular images and a strong emotional response, and it is only on reflection that there
emerges a connection. For some people, such links are to scenes of death and departure, specifically
members of families saying goodbye; for others the link is the determination to live (Nelson 2005).
Having suffered and survived trauma, the trigger for tears can be the determined choice to remain
part of life. For others, the link is the pain experienced by those left behind. Also, while viewers are
accustomed to the demise of peripheral characters, the death of a central figure, especially a beloved
one, ruptures expectations (Byers and Lavery 2010). The latter was repeatedly exploited in Game of
Thrones.
Today, melodrama appears in many forms: soap operas, TV wrestling, and numerous dramas on
television and in the cinema. They are each based on their audience recognizing the dilemmas
faced by fictional characters. The location of authenticity lies in the situation faced by the characters
and the appropriateness of their expression of emotion.
Searching for Authenticity

Even so, in the search for authenticity fictional dramas are challenged by so-called Reality TV
that ostensibly locates authenticity in the genuine corporeal reactions of real people (Hirdman
2011). Tears and other involuntary bodily behaviors are made to indicate the truthfulness of the
emotions on display. Reality TV claims to present real emotions, their authenticity residing in what
is considered to be our raw, emotional core.
This is despite the fact that Reality TV constructs artificial situations that practically guarantee
an emotional display, and to this extent it conforms to the rhetoric of emotional exhibitionism.
Reality TV is a complex hybrid of what it claims to be—reality—and what Collingwood called the
betrayal of manufactured emotions. It combines the high-strung emotions of classic melodrama
with a display of authentic emotions by ordinary people.
Since the mid 1990s many forms of Reality TV have developed, but they all have in common the
one-person, confessional interview. Onstage the monologue is the traditional single-person speech
that reveals the inner life, the secret thoughts and feelings of a character. Reality TV has reintroduced
this largely out-of-date stage talk of emotional self-confession. In close-up, so that audiences
can see every nuance of facial gesture, contestants reflect on how important being on the show is
to them and how it could change their lives. How did it feel to date that person, be accepted
or rejected, achieve or fail to achieve their goal, being voted to stay or voted off? Whether
participants turn out to be winners or losers they often attempt to suppress their emotions with a
forced smile or emit involuntary disgust sounds, in what Ekman and Friesen (1969) call “non-
verbal leakage” (88). Just as often participants cry, and the audience gets to observe the extraordinary
range of emotional expression that the forty-three muscles of the human face are able to produce.
Contestants cry because they couldn’t lose weight, they did lose weight, met the right partner,
won the competition. The most notable of these “money shots” are then reused in promotional
advertisements.
Yet as popular and pervasive as Reality TV has become, it is only part of what Hirdman (2011)
calls “the authenticity industry” (20). As in medieval times and during the eighteenth century, tears
are the litmus of what is real. People now cry on television news, in documentary interviews, talk
shows, even sports programs, in a bodily inscribed understanding of authenticity.
Seeking Attachment
Emotional expression is not only an individual behavior; it is also reciprocal. Emoting is often
intended to call forth a response from others and usually it succeeds (Nelson 2005). Emotions,
being critically important to our species every bit as much as logical reasoning, and perhaps more
so, means that showing emotion is part of an inherited, inborn method of establishing and
maintaining bonds between people. Crying, for example, helps develop child/parent bonds, and
this symbiotic relationship thereafter continues throughout our lives by means of shedding tears.
The hardwired cry of infants finds its adult counterpart in calling out to friends and family for
support, and the corresponding response of caregivers to an infant’s cry is replayed in adult empathy
toward others. We are highly dependent on the support of others, not only at birth, but also
throughout our lives, so it is biologically sensible that in healthy humans closeness is pleasurable
and separation is painful. We rely on behaviors that incline us toward each other and keep us there.
Or alternatively, considering this idea from a hedonistic perspective, feeling compassionate for a
suffering victim or empathizing at another’s loss means being able to feel a desirable social trait
(Olivia 2003). Although almost anything can make us cry, like other emotional expressions, crying
is almost always related to attachment, either gaining it or losing it (Nelson 2005). People cry over
images, that are either too full or too empty of emotion (Elkins 2001). Either images overflow with
emotion and overwhelm us, or there is a deficit of emotion and we feel bereft.
In today’s rationally ordered society, one of the few places it is socially permissible to cry is in
front of media. Crying helps establish bonds of community through a mutual recognition of love
and loss. Classic melodrama worked on alternating between these polar opposites; one minute
characters were connected with each other and the next minute they were torn apart, and often just
as quickly they were reunited. In the many forms that melodrama takes today, this oscillation
continues to work because it dramatizes attachment and its lack, the foundation of our very being,
the basic tension that structures our lives as both individuals and as social animals.
Participating
Emotional scenes dramatize our own need for attachment but they also call forth an emotional
reciprocity. The reciprocal relationship between characters represented in pictures is repeated between
them and ourselves as viewers. We fall into imagery; we participate in what Feilla (2010) calls an
“‘aesthetics’ of absorption,” watching “a moving scene slips into acting in a moving scene” (166, 167).
Pictures welcome the participation of viewers, and, in turn, viewers play an active part, entering
into the emotional reality of pictures. Narratives are often structured with the spectator in mind.
Just as with Baroque paintings, a space is deliberately left open for viewers to enter in and participate
in screen narratives. Sometimes fictional characters engage us with a mutual gaze, though in the
same way that Greuze’s paintings did, more often figures appear self-absorbed in their own lives.
Fried (1980) refers to the latter as a “supreme fiction” since their self-absorption acts as an invitation
to empathically join a scene and engage with its characters with our own emotions (71).
This is why a textual analysis of melodramas and other forms of explicit emotional expression is
never adequate. While it is easy to dismiss the hyper-emotional register of melodramatic forms as
simplistic and manipulative, understanding of what they call forth in viewers is needed. When
audience response is considered, melodrama invariably turns out to be infinitely more complex,
ambiguous, and multilayered than one would gather from a purely textual study.
Warhol (2003) found that the emotions expressed in daytime soaps were not necessarily those
the audience experienced. Where the emotions expressed by the soaps were often simplistic, the
audience’s response was often multilayered. She described soaps as following a wave pattern,
building affective peaks, followed by an undertow, but although the emotions of the audience also
typically followed a wave structure, they were often quite different waves. A typical response to
characters expressing angst was irritation, impatience, or annoyance, not empathy. While the
programs structured the affective responses of the audience, the programs did not dictate them.
The same emotional participation is evident with Reality TV. Much of the audience’s pleasure in
Reality TV lies in attempting to evaluate participants’ feelings by judging whether their body
language accords with the feelings they express verbally (Hirdman 2011). Audiences ask: Are they
faking? Are they for real? And if the emotions are deemed real, to what degree are they due to
having internalized the conventions of the genre? With such questioning involvement, Reality TV
is more than an emotional text; for its audience, it is a multilayered emotional interaction with
a text. Viewers are not passive observers, but active participants entering into situations and
connecting with characters as invited guests.
No matter what form melodrama takes today, it is at root an excessive mode that articulates
moral conflicts in a “post-sacred” society (Brooks 1976: 43). A specifically modern sensibility,
melodrama represents a lack of faith in a divine order that has been replaced by a “moral occult”
where the private and personal spheres have become the entire realm of personal significance (6).
Yet long before the invention of melodrama as a genre, the essential idea of the genre, suffering
virtue, had been employed for millennia. Numerous paintings and narratives have been based
on innocents betrayed, undeserved pain, unrecognized worthiness, and so on, including many
exemplars of high culture, Greek tragic drama and much of Shakespeare among them. As Diderot
observed in 1767, in fiction we reverse the values we hold in life: in fiction “we prefer to see the
righteous man suffering rather than the wicked man punished . . . the spectacle of virtue undergoing
great ordeals is a beautiful one; the most dreadful efforts directed against virtue do not displease
us” (cited in Fried 1980: 80–1).
For centuries, the suffering virtue of martyred saints was a staple subject for European painters,
and the martyrdom of saints is still lauded by the Catholic Church as exemplars of virtue (Salisbury
2004). The original suffering virtue narrative of Christianity is even called “the passion.” In painting
and sculpture, the narrative continues to adorn every Catholic church, and it is annually re-enacted
in many parts of the world. Many feature on YouTube. And until 2019 the Holy Land Experience
theme park in Orlando, Florida, featured the crucifixion re-enacted with live actors at 4 p.m. every
day. Although today’s numerous melodramatic forms in popular media have largely replaced the
emotional expression of religious fervor, they rely upon very much the same appeals.
For Better or Worse

Ever since the rise of Romanticism, the authentic self has been grounded in human emotions. Reality
has been measured by emotional connection, the affective life being the very cornerstone of the
authentic self. Soap operas, TV wrestling, and all other contemporary forms of melodrama are
enjoyed despite not equating to real life. Their attraction is not that they perfectly echo ordinary life,
but that they pull upon key emotional chords. Storylines are often fantastical and sometimes
nonsensical, but they seem emotionally real. Audiences feel they know what fictional characters feel.
Even when emotional expressions are judged inappropriate, they indicate the depth of our desire
to connect with others of like minds and hearts. Since we think with our emotions, for good or ill,
highly emotional images show us who we are.
As further chapters indicate, particular emotions show us that we can be everything from
monsters filled with hate to the most sentimental softies. Emotions are powerful and thereby make
us vulnerable to arguments wrapped in their appeals. Emotions work for us, but also they can be
used against us. Crafting arguments with emotional appeal makes it the more difficult to think
issues through. As Plato feared and Aristotle acknowledged, arguments wrapped in emotional
pleasure are the better to circumvent reason.
62
5
The Sentimental
Chapter Outline
Surveying Sentimentality 63
A Discourse of Abuse 64
A Sentimental Journey 65
The Sugar of Sentimentality 67
The Sins of Sentimentality 73
Sense and Sentimentality 76
Hello Kitty, the perpetual third-grade fictional girl, with a red bow and no mouth, is embraced by
fans everywhere as an expression of the tender emotions of sentimentality. Originating in Japan,
she is a worldwide media franchise (Alt 2020). She has a pet cat called Charmmy Kitty and a twin
sister called Mimmy, and she loves apple pie. Still exceptionally popular in Japan, she is a dim sum
restaurant in Hong Kong and cafes in South Korea, Thailand, and China, and she appears on
airplanes in Taiwan. While especially beloved in Asia, Hello Kitty has long been a worldwide
marketing franchise in the “pink globalization” of the cute aesthetic (Yano 2013).
While the last chapter dealt with sentimentality as one among many emotions, a separate chapter
is needed to deal with sentimentality. If emotions in general are suspect, the tender emotions of
sentimentality are especially so. Attacks are ferocious.
Surveying Sentimentality
Originally, the word sentimentality was without pejorative connotations as simply “pertaining to
or characterized by sentiment” with the word sentiment referring to “one’s own feeling” (Online
Etymology Dictionary, or OED). In order to turn it into a negative and thus render its modern
meaning, it was necessary to add an adjective as with “sickly sentimental,” “foolishly sentimental,”
or “having too much sentiment.” Today, however the OED, while retaining a descriptive definition
of sentimentality, also immediately includes a pejorative definition, the previously employed
63
qualifying adjective no longer being necessary: “1 deriving from or prone to feelings of tenderness,
sadness, or nostalgia. 2 having or arousing such feelings in an exaggerated and self-indulgent way.”
Common synonyms for the sentimental include mawkish, maudlin, mushy, sappy, syrupy, schmaltzy,
gushy, corny, weepy, and, simply, over-emotional, all of which are made to stand in opposition to an
alleged rational norm, or at least to an appropriately restrained emotional response. Indeed, it is
difficult to think of sentimentality in positive terms when the common words used in association
with it are almost all prejudicial.
The contemporary iconography of sentimentality is extensive: soft, furry animals (especially
puppies and kittens); wide-eyed children both naughty and nice; flowers; sunny, idealized
landscapes; hearts; decorative borders; cherubs; angels; cute figurines; Victorian-inspired mementos,
babies, children of all ages, old men, old women, mothers, motherhood itself, apple pie, and God
and country (Reyes 2011).
Births, christenings, birthdays, weddings, Mother’s Day, Valentine’s Day, illness and deaths—all
the major events of one’s life are celebrated today with cards, floral decorations, or mementos. Each
play on the emotions of love, sympathy, and happiness; the desire for beauty, comfort, and security;
the presumption of innocence; and the bittersweet melancholy of nostalgia (Solomon 2004).
In formal terms, today’s sentimental imagery typically employs a pastel or sepia palette, with an
intimate scale, and with much use made of repetition, pattern, and decorative intricacy. Surfaces
are typically soft or shiny, and in addition to the normal materials of paint, pencil, and paper,
extensive use is often made of fake fur and feathers, linens, needle cloth, and wallpaper. Traditional
ideas of beauty prevail. Sentimental aesthetics typically value clarity, cleanliness, purity, harmony,
symmetry, and a highly skillful finish. Technical perfection is prized (Solomon 2004). Physical
reactions to sentimentality are often manifest in tears and sighing, and “ooohing” and “awing” are
typical auditory responses.
Sentimentality though is not just a style. It is also a sensibility marked by compassion, sympathy,
empathy, and love. It is gentle, benevolent, and kind, and it casts an entirely pleasing perspective on
its subject matter. Everything is viewed through rose-tinted glasses even when the subject matter is
sad. Indeed, melancholy is one of its principal attributes. Sadness and sentimentality are sometimes
synonymous.
A Discourse of Abuse
Condemning sentimentality as both a style and a sensibility has been and remains remorseless. It
is variously condemned as a tearful, emotional exaggeration, a false coloring of its subjects. Because
sentimental emotions are a fabrication, merely an affectation, of real emotion, sentimentality is “a
specifically aesthetic form of lying” (Calinescu 1987: 229). Sentimentality is “toxic” (Darlrymple
2011), with the subtitle of one book on sentimentality calling it “modern humanity’s greatest
psychological problem” (Ranete 2020). It “misrepresents the world in order to feel unconditionally
warm-hearted about bits of it” and so undermines rationality (Jefferson 1983: 524). Sentimentality
is a “manipulative aesthetic” which relies on pity for “loveable inferiors” that “trigger, with Pavlovian
The Sentimental 65
predictability, maternal feeling for a mythical condition of enduring naïveté” (Harris 2000: 2). And
on and on.
Sentimentality is used to marginalize women, the lower classes, foreigners, and children, casting
each group as childish. Where reason is equated with men, the middle class, Westerners, and adults,
quintessentially white, middle-class, male adults, their counterparts are invariably denigrated.
Being considered to be overly prone to emotionalism, women are equated with soft-heartedness,
which, in turn, is equated with soft-mindedness. Alternatively, sentimentality as female is feared
because it is overly powerful. “Sentimentality is a womanish—and at the end of the day, a sluttish—
attitude” (Knight 1990: 418). “Sentimentality is a femme fatale, only she wields a contagion rather
than a gun” (418). By masquerading as an innocent and “working on the inside, it is the undoing
of the rational self ” (418). Having it both ways, sentimentality is either too weak as feminine or, as
a femme fatale, too powerful.
The same all-purpose means of condemning others is apparent when criticism is class-based
because the criticism operates both up and down the class hierarchy (Solomon 2004). The word
cheap is used to describe the mass-produced nature of sentimental images that appeal to the lower
classes, but it is also applied to the nouveau riche who are condemned for having more money than
taste. People prone to sentimental imagery are thereby accused of having either too little or too
much money (Knight 1999). Either way, they are considered morally deficient, sharing in all the
defects alleged against the sentimental images themselves.
These views were echoed by modernist art. With the notable exception of Renoir, the modernist
avant-garde artists of the nineteenth century resolutely set themselves against all forms of
sentimentality (Novina 2005). The Impressionists pursued optical investigations and the Expressionists
were fully angst-ridden. None of the twentieth-century art movements, from Cubism to Abstract
Expressionism, were notably cheerful. While sentimentality sometimes made cameo appearances in
Dada, Surrealism, and Pop Art, it was always as the object of derision, satire, or irony (Capasso 2005).
Under modernism, sentimentalism was employed as a primary feature to distinguish fine art from
popular art and by extension cultural elites from the masses (Eagleton 1990).
Yet sentimentality “is a recent newcomer in the vocabulary of abuse” (Jefferson 1983: 519). If
a longer view is taken of the historical narrative of Western art, the modernist disavowal of
sentimentality is of relatively recent origin.
A Sentimental Journey
During the eighteenth century philosophical rationalism dominated, but it was counterbalanced by
expressions of sentiment that were taken to indicate a benevolent nature (Reyes 2011). To be a
sentimentalist was to show heightened sensitivity to things delicate and fragile. Men as well as
women were apt to express themselves in the most heartfelt terms, including crying openly. This was
not considered self-indulgent but a sign of moral strength and its cultivation necessary for civil life.
The art of the eighteenth century was correspondingly renowned for its sentiment. Whereas the
art of previous centuries had dealt with the emotions of heroic and noble lives, during the course
of the eighteenth century the visual arts stressed the internal life of ordinary individuals. One
group, who were actually called The Sentimental Painters, focused on conflict and loss among
ordinary families in domestic situations (Barker 2005). Deathbed scenes showed distraught
relatives wailing; relatives overcome with joy at the return of a long-lost family member; young,
simple country girls, presumed to have fallen victim to aristocratic seducers, wear plaintive,
melancholic expressions; and young girls lovingly cradle their pet rabbits and kittens, sometimes
with their eyes lifted heavenward in gratitude. The rhetorical means of emotional expression,
employed since ancient times, were intentionally marshaled by the sentimental painters to arouse
viewers’ sympathies.
Contemporaneously, Rococo artists similarly stressed amiability and the triumph of virtue. The
Rococo was an opulent, graceful style, preferring delicate, shell-like curves, pastel colors and vague,
atmospheric effects. If today’s sentimental imagery has a principal stylistic European precursor it is
the Rococo. Artists painted scenes of a carefree aristocracy playing at romance in idyllic, flower-
strewn landscapes, or, drawing upon classical mythology, innumerable, playfully cheerful putti.
Picnics and musical parties in fairy parks proliferated. It never rained, all the women had perfect,
beautiful skin, all the men were handsome, and all the lovers were elegant. Everyone was dressed
in sparkling silk, and “the life of shepherd and shepherdess seems to be a succession of minuets”
(Gombrich 1972: 358). The Rococo was lighthearted, optimistic, and charming.
Figure 5.1 Jean-Honoré Fragonard, Diana and Endymion, c. 1753/6.

The Sentimental 67
If the eighteenth century was the age of sentiments, it prefigured the Romanticism and Academic
art of the nineteenth which witnessed an ever-greater emphasis on the domestic sphere that
idealized young women as otherworldly, viewed children as pure innocents, and celebrated rural
life. As counter to ugly cities and dehumanizing working and living conditions, there arose in
active opposition the desire for calm spaces where indisputably human qualities could still be
cherished. Wholly new emotional investments were placed on tender human feelings. Children are
pictured as purity itself (Cunningham 2020). While everything else seemed to be in turmoil,
children were imagined to be untouched, uncontaminated, innocent. As the mid-nineteenth-
century Pre-Raphaelite painter Edward Burne-Jones wrote, children echo “a beautiful romantic
dream of something that never was, never will be—in a better light than any light that ever shone—
in a land no one can define or remember, only desire” (cited in Time Life Editors 1971: 39).
The Sugar of Sentimentality

Sentimentality remains powerfully attractive, and the degree to which it is condemned appears in
direct proportion to its popularity. Pervading popular culture and political discourse (Reyes 2011),
it is used to sell everything from telecommunications to political programs, soap, soup, and social
programs. What then is the sugar of sentimentality? With so many complaints against it, wherein
lies its attraction?
The Comfort of an Aestheticized Sanctuary

Sentimentality is accused of beautifying lies, but there are times when escape into an “aestheticized
sanctuary” is entirely beneficial for our mental health (Newman 1995: 233). Consider the continuing
emotional investment in childhood as a time of untrammeled purity. This is despite the knowledge
that some children are abused, that there are hundreds of thousands of child soldiers in the world,
hundreds of thousands of child slaves, and that none of these children can have escaped emotionally
unscarred. We are outraged when children are exploited and abused precisely because we continue
to equate the vulnerability of children with their innocence.
According to psychoanalytic theory, the world of our unconscious is the world of childhood, not
actual childhood, but a rich repository of infantile pleasures, including free play, spontaneity, and
imagination (Plastow 2015). As adults, we frequently deny ourselves what we assume are these
essential characteristics of childhood. We curtail a sense of wonder, awe, and excitement in the face
of new things, of limitless horizons stretching out before us. We still possess these qualities and
they can still be played out during leisure time, but mostly the pressures of a working life in
rationally ordered, highly competitive societies devalue these qualities in ourselves. Consequently,
we often construct ideal childhoods for ourselves that are viewed through the lens of a warm
nostalgic glow. Where one’s childhood has involved abuse or deprivation the construction of
childhood as an ideal is oftentimes especially invested. Childhood becomes a mythical time when
the characteristics adults deny themselves, or were denied in actual childhood, are lived out as in a
dream. What is denied the adult still seems achievable through childhood. Childhood becomes a
homage to the imaginary, a metaphor for all the qualities we adults desire but feel we cannot
indulge in for ourselves. Such ideas about childhood are not then altogether about actual children
or even our concepts of childhood; rather, they tell us about ourselves as adults (Plastow 2015).
Where we insist that childhood belongs to actual children, childhood is also a framework that
fulfills a need to place fantasies and desires somewhere out there in reality.
No wonder that pictures of sweet, unblemished children continue to be a mainstay of popular
culture. The standout popular photographer of children today is Australian Anne Geddes. Her
work appears on cards, calendars, date books, posters, and even wrapping paper. A small child
with bright eyes and chubby cheeks squats among lily pads framed by exotic flowers. A smiling,
naked baby rolls about on a bed of pink rose petals; another lies in a bowl of cherries. Babies
peak out from geranium pots, sporting hats in the form of colorful flowers. Naked newborns
wear wings, sleep in pea pods, and curl up amid strings of pearls on oyster beds. Many photographs
call upon common metaphors: peas in a pod, a bed of roses, a bowl of cherries, sleeping like
an angel.
Geddes photographs are a liminal fancy of children as nothing but adorably cute, yet all
representations offer a carefully edited view of their subject. This is as true of images of angst, pain,
and terror as it is of images of love and joy.
Critics of sentimentality often assume that there is a true reality of which sentimental
representations are a distortion. But there exists no fixed and true reality separate from its
interpretations, only many interpretations some of which are more complete, balanced, or nuanced
than others. Who wants always to be confronted with the butchery of war, the leaky bodies of
actual children, or the intractable complexities of poverty? Why single out the tender emotions for
failing to show unpleasant interpretations when other images show only unpleasant ones?
Instead of there being something inherently wrong with falsification, there is virtue in not
always telling the whole truth in every circumstance (Newman 1995). There are times when
compassion and kindness demand falsity. Circumstances may override the need for truth-telling;
sometimes saccharine is just what is needed (Jamison 2014). The idealization of a subject may help
rather than hinder coming to terms with painful realities; for example, when recalling a full account
of an experience may be so painful it would otherwise be completely avoided. Seeing a subject
through rose-tinted lenses may help, piecemeal or in part, to recall what would otherwise be met
with absolute suppression.
Sentimental religious imagery continues to offer sanctuary for some. Consider devotional
pictures of a meek and mild Jesus looking benignly upon adoring children and small animals. Also
consider the equally sentimental Scared Heart pictures of a dewy-eyed Jesus or of the Virgin Mary
holding a flaming heart shining with divine light, an icon of benevolence. In largely post-religious
societies solace is sought elsewhere. AIDS and breast cancer campaigns now produce a cornucopia
of comforting items: ribbons, candles, pins, broaches, scarves, and coffee mugs. Marketing breast
cancer awareness, Mattel produces Pink Ribbon Barbie.
Forms of public grief are now spontaneously commemorated with icons of sentiment; soft
toys, poems, hearts, and flowers. The sites of roadside fatalities and shootings are routinely
festooned with such icons. Deeply saddened by such inexplicable events, offering up icons of
The Sentimental 69
Figure 5.2 Unknown, Sacred Heart of Jesus, 19th century.
tender sentiment is a gesture of love that in turn offers some comfort in finding that one is not
alone in one’s grief.
Longing for a Past as Pleasant

Comfort is also often sought in a pleasant past, an agreeable time devoid of present difficulties as
well as the challenging difficulties of the past. History is replete with inconvenient truths, but
reworked as pleasant, history becomes heritage, history as sweet sentiment located in the past; for
example, wars long past are typically whitewashed of their atrocities (Lowenthal 1997). Heritage is
history seen through a prism in which disagreeable facts are downplayed or ignored in favor of
what is uplifting, wholesome, and efficacious. It is history as a narrative of noble and brave deeds,
idealistic visions, and heroic actions. Where history is loaded heavy with despicable motives and
atrocious acts, heritage is nostalgic. In recoiling from present challenges and fending off a fearful
future, we long for a past envisioned as benign. History is opaque—a foreign country—but heritage
serve our present purposes. National flags, war memorials, statues of heroes, re-enactments, iconic
buildings, paintings, family photographs and heirlooms, all play a part in maintaining present-day
emotional attachments, both personal and public. Lowenthal (1997) comments, “heritage consoles
us with tradition . . . it links us with ancestors and offspring, bonds neighbors and patriots, certifies
identity, roots us in time honored ways” (ix).
This is showcased by myths of national origin. They tend to garner mythological status, taking
on a life of their own by fusing fact with fiction. They contain accounts of general psychological,
cultural, or societal truths rather than accurate, historical accounts. One of the main annual
celebrations in the United States is Thanksgiving. It commemorates the first thanksgiving in 1621
when the first pilgrims offered their gratitude for their survival one year on from their landing on
the American continent. Many paintings recreate this event as scenes of happy co-operation
between the Puritans and the Indians. They are typically shown shaking hands and eating together
as if the Indians were as happy the Puritans survived as the Puritans were themselves. In the 1915
painting by Gerome Ferris, The First Thanksgiving 1621, the historical relationship between the
Indians and settlers is reversed with the settlers feeding the Indians. The settlers busy themselves,
while the Indians sit, like children, happy to receive the bounty the settlers provide. Though false
to the historical record, such images help to reinforce the view Americans have of themselves as
decent, generous, honorable people.
The origin story of Communist China is the story of the Long March, which is similarly a fusion
of verifiable facts and arguable falsehoods (Shuyun 2010). The Long March took place between
October 1934 and October 1935. It was a military retreat by the Red Army to avoid certain
annihilation by the far superior pursuing army of the Nationalist Party that had encircled it. The
route passed through exceptionally difficult terrain, requiring negotiation with local warlords,
but also gaining the respect and support of the peasants to whom the Communists promised land
reform. It required great physical endurance, and they overcame great odds to survive. The Long
March resulted in a huge human toll, but as a narrative of great emotional depth it serves to
bind people together. However, some of the most popular and heroic events of the Long March,
notably the battles, are disputed by historians. The battle for Luding Bridge has been long viewed as
a glorious, heroic event with volunteers from the Red Army fighting across a dangerous chain
bridge against vastly superior forces. In the face of a hail of bullets the Red Army volunteers secured
the bridge for the army to cross and escape certain annihilation. However, witness accounts
vary from the official view. Some say that local people led the assault; others say that there was
little resistance and that the enemy panicked and ran away. But the battle for Luding Bridge is
still celebrated in many prints, paintings, and films, an indispensable part of the narrative of
national origin.
The Sentimental 71
A sentimental longing for the past is age-old. For the Romans, the idea of a better time placed
somewhere in the past was expressed as the Golden Age; in the Bible, it is Eden before the Fall; and
for many Western scholars it has been democratic ancient Greece (Williams 1973). Since the
nineteenth century this time has often been imagined as prior to the Industrial Revolution in
which most people lived in small rural communities, a time before alienation from work, class
struggle, and—horror of horror—popular mass culture. In each case, the past was viewed as an
organic unity when all was right with the world, when people lived harmoniously with nature and
with one another.
Much of heritage is fabricated, some of it delusionary, yet by means of heritage “we tell ourselves
who we are, where we came from, and to what we belong” (Lowenthal 1997: xiii). There is comfort
in a pleasant past, and there is the pleasure of melancholy in longing for it.
Love and Compassion as their Own Rewards

Emotions connect us to each other, and this is no more evident than in sharing the tender emotions.
Sentimentality evokes loving, compassionate relationships, and love and compassion are their own
rewards. By offering love and showing compassion we give of ourselves and in giving we receive the
comfort of knowing that we are profoundly and positively connected to others. We are reminded
that we are not alone but part of a community capable of feeling as we do.
Such emotions, no less than negative ones, are grounded in our biological inheritance. We are
genetically programmed to care for babies with their large heads, large eyes, and small mouths
(Glocker et al. 2008). This appears to extend to some animals with their big eyes, and to baby animals
with their big heads (Saito 2007). Environmental campaigns attempting to protect endangered
species focus on baby or young animals, not adult animals, and, moreover, they are highly selective
with the animals they employ (Saito 2007). Their advertisements use soft, furry animals, not ones
with scales. Advertisements show baby bears cavorting happily in snow, bunnies rubbing noses,
fluffy ducklings tentatively taking their first swim.
The Ironic Distance of Camp and Kitsch

Sentimentality can also be approached with the ironic detachment of camp and kitsch aesthetics.
For many fans, Hello Kitty is not just cute but cute-cool, meaning fans have it both ways, consciously
relishing cute sentimentality but with inverted commas (Yano 2013).
Not all sentimental imagery lends itself to a taste either for camp or kitsch, but much of it does.
Viewed with a camp sensibility, sentimental images are loveable precisely because they are
ludicrous, ostentatious, affected, and theatrical. Consider the porcelain ornaments and memorabilia
marketed as Precious Moments. Sold as limited editions they draw on the cachet of high art, but
they employ the tropes of sentimentality with their soft, pastel colors and subject matter. Small
children with oversized eyes sit on soft sofas reading to cats; chihuahuas peek from teacups
emblazed with hearts; and droopy-eyed dachshunds wear pearl necklaces and oversized hats with
cascades of flowers. All the animals engage the viewer with eyes that say, “Love me, and I will love
you back.”
Camp celebrates a perverse sophistication that relishes the wildly exaggerated, or as cultural
critic Susan Sontag (1966) wrote, “the ‘off ’ of things-being-what-they-are-not” (279). Camp
rejoices in the difference between the real thing and pure artifice. Camp is “a private zany experience
of the thing” (281). As camp, sentimental images are good because they are awful.
The related concept of sentimental kitsch—tasteless, poor, and pretentious art—Henry
(1979) argues is to “fill odd corners of our lives with oddities” (206). As with camp, not all kitsch
items are sentimental, but “sweet kitsch” is characterized by an expression of tender sentiments
considered over the top (Solomon 2004). In celebrating “the curious, the bizarre, the unbelievable
. . . the stupefying,” Henry claims that it is sentimentality’s “heroic quest to give cachet—effortlessly—
to our lives” (206). What is wrong, at times, with what is easy? Why should easy emotions be
rejected from the broad tapestry of life? As Henry says, the Mona Lisa is so much more moving
when her eyes are made actually to move. It is a cheap and easy trick, designed to illicit a cheap
and easy response, but that is the point. What the critics condemn can be enjoyed as ironic
humor.
Social Progress
Sentimentality is often used as a sociopolitical strategy in a good cause. It is attractive to campaigners
because its use promises to change social conditions through empathy (Jamison 2014).
During the nineteenth century many Academic artists evoked sentimentality by painting
pictures of poor, penniless children. Homeless and bedraggled, these pathetic little mites beg, limp
on crutches, shelter from the cold, and huddle together for comfort (Rosenblum and Janson 2005).
The intention was to pull heartstrings and, as the ideology of childhood innocence was so pervasive,
it was a significant factor in gradually abolishing child labor. All the paintings and mass-produced
images of dewy-eyed children played a part (Cunningham 2020).
Being the most vulnerable members of society, the most easily victimized, and the least able to
defend themselves, children continue to be employed in the service of social reparation. Aid relief
agencies attract Western donors, initially through advertisements that include photographs of young,
appealing children. Individual children are either pictured alone or, as in some advertisements, a
child appears with a celebrity from the First World who represents the face of a caring, white, First
World. The children are usually well fed and cheerful, presumably the beneficiaries of aid. They
reassure that, with the support of the donor, a real difference can be made. Pictures of starving,
emaciated children always evoke the question: Can a financial donation really make a difference?
Instead, aid agencies banish the idea that the Third World is a frightening place behind the image of
the seemingly universal appeal of a young child.
Donors receive a picture of their child, the child’s name, a few personal details, an annual
Christmas report, and limited correspondence is encouraged. They are informed in the written
text that their donation is spent on the general well-being of the child’s community—on a
school building, a dam, a well—and it seems possible that most of the money is so spent, but the
The Sentimental 73
initial and primary appeal is made through the image of an innocent, vulnerable child. For the
donor, the rewards of extending compassion are supplemented by being placed in a position of
power.
The children look to donors as surrogate parents, as their source of help and succor, a relationship
that is reinforced by never showing the child’s actual parents or even siblings. With the exception
of the advertisements that include a celebrity, children are presented alone. Real parents are not
allowed to confuse the special relationship developed by foster parents. In this way, the normal
dependency of children on adults is reproduced and, by extension, to the dependency of the Third
World on the First World.
Exercising Power
The power of adults over vulnerable children is also made clear by the practice of dressing children
as adults. In a craze on gift cards during the 1990s, young boys were dressed in miniature suits
while young girls were dressed in evening gowns or wedding dresses (Holland 1992). Such was the
incongruity between the adult-style clothes and the children’s small, underdeveloped bodies that
their vulnerability and dependency were made patently clear.
The ironic stance of camp and kitsch also involves exercising power; it establishes a critical,
humorous, even dismissive, distance. Exercising power is equally part of the pleasure in condemning
sentimentality. Either in condemning sentimentality because it is viewed as dreadful or professing
it good because it is dreadful, there is pleasure in distancing oneself from it, and, by inference,
imagining oneself superior to those who relish sentimentality without such criticality.
Managing to feel some sense of personal power is especially important when traumatized.
Sturken (2007) observed that snow globes have a special place among the many consumer items
that proliferate following traumatic events. Following the 9/11 terrorist attack on New York in
2001, the city appeared in snow globes with everything still in place. When shaken, the globes were
enlivened with snow or stars, which offered “a kind of celebratory flurry” that settled and offered a
sense of time returned (2). They offered a sense of comfort that derived from the expectation that
things will return to their original state, but also the power inherent in being able to look into a
miniature world from a god-like position.
The Sins of Sentimentality

Among the criticisms of sentimentality many are based on taste and are premised on marginalizing
women, foreigners, the lower classes, and children, and they should not be entertained. But while
the single common feature of sentimentality is assumed innocence, sentimentality is not innocent.
At election time, and with the cameras rolling, politicians of every party run to the nearest baby, lift
it into the air, and kiss it as if it was their own. That the sentimental aesthetic is the lingua franca of
politicians should immediately give pause (Kundara 1984).
Disempowering and Harming

Sentimentality’s Subjects
Seeing children as simply sweet innocents in need of adult protection can rob them of the rights
they might otherwise be thought to possess (Holland 1992). To acknowledge that children have
rights undermines our privileged position as adults to extend our protection on our own terms. To
maintain our position, it is necessary to sentimentalize them and thereby disempower them.
Viewing children as utterly innocent can also beget in response an equally distorted, opposite
view of children. It can provoke a crude reaction when other realities intrude (Holland 1992).
Casting children as perfect angels helps generate its binary opposite, namely children as devils. For
example, in the press child murderers tend to be viewed as more terrible because they are children,
not less so. In the folk religion of childhood—childhood as adult fantasy—real children are unable
to match up, which leads to disappointment at best and may at worst be associated with abuse.
Kitzinger (1990) argues that “the notion of childhood innocence is itself a source of titillation for
abusers. . . . As one child abuser wrote, ‘It was so exciting, she was so young, so pure and clean’ ”
(160). The ideology of innocence stigmatizes the knowing child and violating “a knowing child
becomes a lesser offence than violating an ‘innocent’ child” (161).
The bifurcation of stereotypes is also apparent with ethnicities (Racial and Racist 2012). Sentimental
stereotypes offer a patronizing and disempowering perspective. American Indians appear as noble
savages, masters of stoic self-sufficiency who hunt, fish, and know the secrets of their tribe. African-
American stereotypes include the Sambo character who is happy, usually laughing, lazy, and, while
intellectually deficient, loves to dance. Being stereotyped as sweet and harmless, even cute, strips
people of their complex humanity and encourages patronizing and disempowering public policies.
Disempowering and Infantilizing Viewers

Sentimentality can equally disempower viewers (Kupfer 1996). It can involve no more than an
indulgence of emotional sympathy that otherwise might be directed to taking action to address the
issue over which sympathy is directed. It is always easier, and certainly safer, to shed a tear than
confront injustice. Sentimentality can be a way of feeling good about oneself as a sympathetic,
sensitive soul without any expense, a mere emotional self-indulgence (Knight 1999). Oscar Wilde
commented, “A sentimentalist is simply one who desires to have the luxury of an emotion without
paying for it” (cited in Newman 1995: 235–6).
When cancer sufferers embrace their status as survivors by purchasing teddy bears and
similar items, their fear and rage are negated (Sturken 2007). Thus do trauma victims embrace
sentimentality, which simultaneously acts to comfort them while encouraging their infantilization.
Falsification
The above example of the celebration of Thanksgiving offers a sense of efficacy, but it is utterly false.
When reinforced by other myths of goodness it makes facing present realities difficult. Disney’s
The Sentimental 75
view of American history is remarkable for its selectivity and distortion. The American Adventure
at Epscot (2012) in Orlando, Florida, is history filtered through the lens of Disney. Its central
attraction is a half-hour show presented in a theatre-like auditorium with the aid of movies and
animatronic figures that act as narrators. The early history of the United States is shown by
interspersing events with a map of the United States. The first time the map is shown it represents
the mid 1600s, and it is completely covered by clouds except for a small settlement on the east
coast. As events unfold over the next three centuries, the map is shown several times with the cloud
receding each time to mark the progress of European settlements across the continent. United
States history begins with the arrival of Europeans and its subsequent narrative arc is entirely that
of white settlement. The first reference to the Indians comes in 1872 when an Indian chief in the
form of an animatronic figure rises from the floor to declare that he is sad for his people and that
he will fight no more. The fate of the Indians is cast as historically inevitable, and for which we may
be sorry, but whatever difficulties once existed are now resolved, and for which Indians need not
be, and are not, mentioned again.
Disney’s animated movie Pocahontas (1995) tells the popular, heartwarming but historically
untrue story of a romance between a young Indian girl, Pocahontas, and a white settler with the
unlikely, though factually correct, name of John Smith. The film climaxes with a war between the
Indians and the Puritan settlers, which the film alleges to be due to nothing more than a failure to
get along together. A clash of cultures that later saw the ideology of manifest destiny justifying the
forced removal of Indians and multiple attempts at genocide is thereby reduced to the domestic
sphere in which siblings fight or neighbors bicker.
Poor Public Policy

Used in the service of political and social causes, the effects of sentimentality can be grave. When
people have responded to sentimental appeals rather than all the relevant facts, countless millions
have died in wars. And the mischaracterization of something as sweetness and light results in an
equally brutish mischaracterization that too often ends in violence and oppression (Kupfer 1996).
Citizens of the United States who readily accepted their own history as wholesome, family-friendly
fare, and consequently cast themselves as innocent victims when attacked on 9/11, 2001, had
neither the motive nor any basis for self-reflection. Constructing themselves as innocent, many
placed all the blame on others with what are now widely considered demonstratively disastrous
consequences (Sturken 2007). A culture of fear and trauma begets a culture of comfort that is
necessary for healing its trauma, but also helps evade culpability. A comfort culture undermines
hardheaded self-examination.
Constructing a sweet fantasy strengthens contemporary social bonds, but it also ignores harsher
realities that, if acknowledged, suggest that our own times represent a different but not necessarily
worse time than in the past. Cultural historian Raymond Williams (1973) claims that the idea of a
better society located in the past can be traced back in every generation to Roman times, when
even then it was thought to have passed. If there is one thing certain about the organic society, it
is that it has always past, suggesting that the past was never the past. Ancient Greece was
demonstratively undemocratic by contemporary standards. Pre-industrial, rural life was one of

long hours of hard physical labor and short lives. Sentimentalizing the past not only distorts the
past, it circuitously undermines confidence in the present where it is essential to believe that
current problems can be solved.
Not even our sentimental attachment to soft and furry, cute animals is entirely innocent. While
our love of such animals helps to protect them against eradication, it also means the neglect of
other less alluring animals with equally significant ecological roles to play. Baby polar bears get
protected; lizards and snakes do not. Conversely, what Saito (2007) calls “the Bambi syndrome”
means that the ecologically justified culling of deer can be obstructed (70). Whether in under- or
overprotecting these animals, our sentimental preferences stand in the way of environmental
sustainability.
Sense and Sentimentality

Sentimentality has a long and prestigious history in fine art. It can be a harmless joy, freely and
even reflexively entered upon, and as such it is a matter of taste, no more than an aesthetic
preference. Herein lies its life-enhancing potential. But in viewing everything as essentially
uncontaminated, as pure and good, it also has the potential not only for self-deception on the part
of viewers, but also for harming its subjects. In evading facts and undermining reason, it can have
dire sociopolitical and environmental consequences. While the servant of politics, it frequently
masquerades as mere taste. The hallmark of sentimentality is innocence but it is not innocent.
6
The Vulgar
Chapter Outline
Vulgarity and its Variants 78
Vulgarity and Fine Art 78
A Historical Perspective 79
Viva Vulgarity! 85
Vile Vulgarity 89
Vexing Vulgarity 90
Mr. Hankey, a character from the highly popular animated cartoon series South Park is a turd,
literally, or at least an animated one. The following is an extract from a song he sang to the tune of
Santa Claus is Coming to Town:
Mr. Hankey the Christmas poo,
Small and brown, he comes from you.
Sit on the toilet, here he comes,
Squeeze and tween your festive buns,
A present from down below,
Spread the joy with a howdy ho, . . .
He can be brown or greenish brown,
But if you eat fiber on Christmas Eve,
He might come to your town.
South Park 1999
Aired in an episode from 1999, the song also appeared on a DVD, Mr. Hankey’s Christmas Classics,
in which Mr. Hankey, sitting in his sewer home, acts as the host of a variety show that features other
South Park regulars singing songs with similar lyrics.
South Park vividly illustrates the vulgarity of base, bodily humor. It self-consciously transgresses the
norms of decency and decorum. In a 2005 episode entitled Bloody Mary, a statue of the Virgin released
copious amounts of menstrual blood from its rectum. The South Park characters declared it a miracle,
and when the Pope inspected the anal and vaginal regions of the statue he was showered with the blood.
77
Whether scatological or sexual, playing with poo or penises, South Park’s humor continues
a long if inglorious tradition in which the normal niceties of polite society are cast aside in a
celebration of our most animal, bodily nature. The fifth-century BCE Greek historian Herodotus
wrote, “The Egyptians celebrate the festival of Dionysus in much the same way as the Greeks,
except that instead of a phallus they use puppets whose genitals are as big as the puppet and are
made to move” (cited in Turner 2011: 50). From ancient Dionysian festivals to today’s novelty
shops that sell penis pasta, a taste for the vulgar is perennial.
Vulgarity and its Variants

Ordinary-language dictionaries define vulgarity in several ways: lacking in cultivation, perception,
or taste; gross, crude, or obscene; pretentious or ostentatious; morally underdeveloped or
unregenerate; common or ordinary; and the common view, tellingly, the common people. There is
a lot of slippage between these meanings so that uncultivated and lacking in taste is easily applied
to common or ordinary people as gross, crude, ostentatious, and morally unregenerate.
The particular kind of vulgarity focused on in this chapter has its basis in extreme bodies, body
parts, and body functions. Vulgarity refers here to the earthy, to the lewdly or profanely indecent
that at best involves innuendo but also involves what is gross, abject, and obscene. It is used as
synonymous with what Bakhtin (1994) identified as the carnivalesque body. Bakhtin contrasted
the closed, smooth body of classical fine art with the open, grotesque body celebrated by medieval
carnival. The grotesque, carnivalesque body comprised four qualities: general, corporeal bulk;
body parts, which are invariably either too large or two small; body openings, as in the mouth,
nostrils, and anus; and body functions such as vomiting, defecating, urinating, and copulation. The
lower part of the body is emphasized, principally the belly, the buttocks, and the genitals. The
abject qualities of the body, those that it emits, are also implicated: blood, puss, semen, vomit,
urine, and faeces (Kristiva 1982). This is what Bakhtin (1994) called “the material bodily lower
stratum” (212) and what Stallybrass and White (1986) called, perhaps punning, “the rock bottom of
symbolic form” (3). Such vulgarity involves a self-conscious transgression of social norms, an
indulgence in what is known to be offensive to others, of knowingly stepping over the line of
officially approved discourse. It represents a deliberate affront to all that is considered right and
respectable by both religious and secular authorities, as well as high-minded, modernist views of
fine art.
Vulgarity and Fine Art

Kant ([1764] 1965), the single most important forerunner of modernism, introduced his first work
on aesthetics by stating that, while he was aware of vulgar and crude tastes, he would not be
discussing them. They belonged to “stout persons, whose favorite authors are their cooks and
whose words of fine taste are in their cellars” (45). Such people “thrive on vulgar obscenities and on
The Vulgar 79
a coarse jest and . . . to that kind of feeling, which can take place without any thought whatever, I
shall pay no attention” (46).
Kant’s ([1790] 1952) focus was entirely on the finer feelings to be found in fine art. Fine art can
make ugly things in nature appear beautiful, he said, but “[o]ne kind of ugliness alone is incapable
of being represented conformably to nature without destroying all aesthetic delight and consequent
artistic beauty, namely that which excites disgust” (173–4). This is the heart of the opposition
between modernist conceptions of fine art and the vulgarity of popular culture, because disgust is
central to the complex attraction of vulgarity.
At the time Kant wrote, the English working class were actually called The Vulgar. It helped their
so-called betters to define themselves by contrast, as either The Middle Sort, what we call the middle
class, or The Quality, meaning the aristocracy. Vulgar was a byword for the common people, akin
to the views and uncultivated tastes of the mob, a mob being an unruly crowd governed by base
instincts. The word mob is the forerunner of the word mass, and its legacy remains active as in mass
media as a derogatory term for low, base entertainment (Williams 1976). Ever since the emergence
of mass media in the nineteenth century, it has been accused of lowering cultural standards (Gans
1999). Long before the highly popular 1994 film Dumb and Dumber—a heady mixture of stupidity,
sex, and scatology—critics had condemned society for being dumbed down to its most base, vulgar
elements (Storey 2003).
But this is an ahistorical evaluation. A brief historical account quickly puts paid to the idea that
ours is a uniquely vulgar culture. Indeed, contemporary culture is comparatively decorous.
A Historical Perspective
A historical perspective reveals that one of the principal ways in which the tension between elite
culture and popular culture has been played out over time is through the opposition of the mind
versus the body, especially of the vulgar body. Also, Norbert Elias ([1939] 2000) in his book The
Civilizing Process, which traced developments since the twelfth century until the middle of the
twenty-first century claims that we are like choir boys compared to people of the past.
Grotesques and Carnival

Consider Sheela-na-gigs. Common in the early Gothic period, Sheela-na-gigs were wood or stone
statues of nude, squatting old women who directly face the viewer, their legs wide apart, their
hands often emphasizing their greatly exaggerated genitalia (Goode 2017). With heads greatly
enlarged in proportion to their bodies, they have staring, owl-like eyes, gaping mouths, sometimes
with irregular teeth, and a prominent nose and ears. They explicitly emphasize the open vagina.
Whatever their original intent, by the 1600s, Sheela-na-gigs were viewed by the clergy as both
hideous and obscene and destroyed on this account, hacked away from church walls, buried or
thrown into rivers. Considered disgusting, they threatened pollution by their extreme, specific of
women’s, sexuality.
Figure 6.1 Poliphilo, Sheela-na-gig, Church of St. Mary and St. David, Kilpeck, c. 1140.
Contemporaneously however, medieval carnivals were tolerated, even at times encouraged, by

the church, and they were the epitome of vulgarity (Bakhtin 1994). Renowned for their obscene,
licentious, and scandalous plays, comedies, and farces, they celebrated unlawfulness and
drunkenness. Performers included giants, midgets, albinos, Siamese twins, and improbabilities like
a calf with a pig’s head. Lewd behavior and scatological humor were common (Stallybrass and
White 1986). Of the scatological humor, Bakhtin (1994) commented that excrement “is the most
suitable substance of the degrading of all that is exalted” (212).
The medieval yearly calendar was punctuated with periods—sometimes weeks—where all
the normal rules and obligations owed to landlord and church were set aside and carnival
The Vulgar 81
was given free rein. Both secular and religious authorities joined in the topsy-turvy festivities. In
France from the eleventh century until the sixteenth century, licentious ceremonies were actually
performed inside cathedrals. They included The Feast of Fools and The Holy Innocents, which
involved electing a pope or archbishop to whom everyone danced riotously in honor, grotesque
and impious masquerades, singing obscene songs, and even eating sausages on the high altar.
Priests, disguised in grotesque masks and sometimes as women, danced in the choir. In The Festival
of the Ass, an ass was ridden into the cathedral, fed and watered, and then taken to the nave where
the congregation danced around the beast while braying like asses (Bridaham 1930: xi).
Vulgar Porn
Until the nineteenth century, pornography was often used as much as a political weapon as it was
for sexual stimulation, and it was suppressed primarily not on moral grounds but the threat it posed
to church and state (Hunt 1993a). It was used as a weapon against one’s enemies. Pictures of people
performing base sexual acts allegedly revealed their true, wanton nature, and so ridiculed their
political legitimacy. By linking despotism with debauchery, and in a spirit that was simultaneously
condemnatory and indulgent, pornography allegedly demonstrated private perversions behind the
public mask. Sexual acts between clergy, politicians, aristocrats, and royalty were not only explicit,
they acquired an excessive, grotesque quality where “penises are always large, vaginas multiply in
number and sexual coupling takes place in a kind of frenzy” (38). Often figures were shown as
voyeurs. A banqueting scene from 1748 shows monks feasting, drinking, and toasting a priest
having sex with a woman while another priest sodomizes him (Hunt 1993c: 186). In another print
devils watch as a Jesuit sodomizes a young and apparently asleep woman, and in yet another print
a group of aristocratic ladies are depicted having sex with a donkey (Hunt 1993b: 336).
During the eighteenth century, as criticism of the monarch increased in France, pornographic
pamphlets attacked the court and eventually even the king and queen, especially the queen. Marie
Antoinette was singled out for special treatment. Illustrated pamphlets denounced her for allegedly
owning a brothel and they provided lurid, detailed images of her presumed orgies with any number
of aristocrats and clergymen. They also questioned the paternity of her children. The point was to
undermine the legitimacy of the crown; if the king could not control his own wife, how could he
lay claim to control the country. Even when the queen was imprisoned the pornographers insisted
that she was sexually available to everyone, including her valet, even her own son.
Scatology
Some of this propaganda was also scatological whereby clergy were associated, literally, with filth,
the direct opposite of the spiritual purity they preached. In a 1735 print a bespectacled Jesuit priest
inspects the buttocks of a young urinating woman. The Pope is shown serving faeces: Jews are
shown eating faeces (Stallybrass and White 1986: 54). The scatological strategy was the same as the
sexual: to show the degenerate and hypocritical nature of those in power or, in the case of the Jews,
also to denigrate those who were even more marginalized than the normative viewer.
This was a culture whose sociopolitical discourse was commonly expressed through bodily
functions, bodily desires, and the vulnerability of the body. It was a carnal culture, a culture of flesh
(Stallybrass and White 1986).
Vulgarity and Reform

In the long struggle between the mind and the body, with rationality, reason, and order on the one
hand, and the unruly, ungovernable body on the other, the progress of the former was negligible,
but all that changed during the nineteenth century. What had long existed as marginalized voices
calling for restraint took to center stage, and elements of popular culture that had persisted for
millennia were fundamentally changed. There was a marked reduction of eroticism, violence, and
bodily humor, developments discussed in their respective chapters.
Broadly, there was a severe repression of the body, including vulgar, bodily excess. Although
vulgar material continued to be printed, the general trend was one of suppression. Increasingly, the
revelry of carnivals and fairs was suppressed, curtailed by laws intent on rationalizing society and
a consequent domesticating of cultural and leisure activities (Fiske 2007). The demands of industrial
capitalism, the influence of Puritanism on mainstream churches, and the rise of a middle-class
culture of respectability each worked to suppress vulgarity.
Figure 6.2 Brandon Oliver, Falla Bahh, 2018.

The Vulgar 83
Industrialists waged war on all popular pursuits they felt impeded the discipline necessary for
industrial production. Efficient production was all they cared for and consequently they extolled
the moral virtues of gratification delayed. For nineteenth-century capitalists the entire purpose of
life was narrowed to the further accumulation of capital. So preoccupied were they by work, they
preferred the term recreation to leisure as better implying only a temporary respite from productive
activity (Williams 1976). At the same time, religious reformers attempted to make people more
godly—by which they meant reticent, sober, and thrifty—and reformers influenced by the
Enlightenment strove to make people more rational. Even political agitators, whose resistance had
previously taken ribald and rowdy means, now cleaned up. To gain credibility meant emulating
respectabilty (Storch 1982). Over the span of the nineteenth century, laws were introduced to
curtail behavior newly conceived as inappropriate, and modern police forces were developed to
enforce them (Golby and Purdue 1984). Respectability became the single most important definition
of social value (Ashby 2006).
The shift in the word taste charts this development. Taste, which had meant something people
possessed—one of the traditional senses—became, under the regulatory obsession of the middle
class, a matter of acquiring certain habits and internalizing the accepted rules of social etiquette
(Williams 1976). The following extract from a typical advice book on the etiquette appropriate to
the ballroom captures the flavor of these regulatory impositions:
Every thing there is regulated according to the strictest code of good-breeding, and as any departure
from this code becomes a grave offence, it is indispensable that the etiquette should be thoroughly
mastered. This etiquette dictates the forms of invitation and the forms in which they are to be
accepted; the appointments of the room, the toilets proper to it; the demeanour of those assembled;
and the manner in which the implied amusement shall be conducted.
Beadles 1868: 5
Popular culture both responded to and contributed to these developments, especially through
three closely related developments that resonate even today: the domestication, commercialization,
and the mediation of popular culture. Generally speaking, domestication and commercialization
were responses to the broad social developments of industrial capital and the culture of respectability,
and mediation was enabled by the adoption of new technologies.
Domestication was spurred on by ever-greater class divisions and the rise of the middle class.
While the eighteenth century closed with members of all classes, as distinct as they were in other
respects, reveling in the same popular pleasures, the nineteenth century saw a gradual specialization
of popular pleasures along class lines. The working class continued to be drawn to vulgar, bodily
pleasures while the middle class sought to distinguish themselves with more genteel amusements. As
owners of the means of production, the middle class were positioned to determine what cultural
forms were produced, and as they grew more numerous and powerful they increasingly asserted
their standards through legislation. Overwhelmingly, the momentum was to curtail the body. Public
executions, which had been riotous affairs and previously the most popular form of entertainment,
moved into private, controlled spaces. And blood sports such as cock fighting and dog throwing were
banned (Stallybrass and White 1986). The wild was tamed, the explicit made implicit, and a
millennium and more of carnival pleasures were marginalized, sent underground, or disappeared
altogether. Perhaps the most striking example of domestication was the reconfiguration of Christmas
celebrations. It was only during the early decades of the nineteenth century that Christmas customs
ceased to be disorderly affairs and a cause of fear and loathing among respectable people and became
the family gatherings they remain to this day (Storch 1982).
The reforming zeal of authorities, secular and religious alike, had significant impact, but the
domestication of popular culture was equally due to the introduction of new technologies that
enabled an unprecedented commercialization of culture. From a culture substantially created by
people for themselves and enjoyed face to face, a new culture emerged that was based on mass
circulation. Folk culture gave way to mass culture (Storey 2003). In order to reap the largest profits,
mass culture was designed to appeal to the broadest possible audience, meaning both the working
and middle classes, as well as both men and women. Since the means of producing mass culture lay
in the hands of the middle class, mass culture communicated and reinforced their values, and
made them appear normative. Mass culture was middle-of-the-road culture where appeals to the
body were always kept in check by middle-class expectations of respectability and the demands of
a rationally ordered society based on an increasingly industrialized economy.
The introduction of new technologies also enabled for the first time in human history for
popular culture to be mediated rather than performed live. Bodily participation gave way to
vicarious participation and the spontaneous response to a more measured one. Mediated experience
was far less visceral and contained no real threat; everything being simulated, everything was safe.
With a public hanging, for example, the accused might stare at the spectator, but with a photograph
there is an unbridgeable, material gulf. The spectator can look; the condemned can only appear to
look. The same is true of actors or dancers. In the theater footlights separated spectators from those
onstage, but performers and audience shared the same space in real time; in mediated forms
spectators are left to use their imaginations to enter into the same space and time as the performers.
Immediacy and intimacy are significantly reduced. The thrill of burlesque, for example, lay in part
in provocatively dancing near-naked women meeting and returning the male spectator’s gaze
(Allen 1991). But in photographs—either the cartes de visite or the stereographs that became
popular—such sexual fission was reduced to a frozen, silent consumable. The always-present
potential for being unsettled by a live performance was eliminated.
Notwithstanding these developments the cruder pleasures of the carnivalesque continued as
impropriety moved from one form to another (Fiske 2007). Moving peep shows known as “penny
vaudeville” allowed viewers to watch such risqué fare as young women undressing, and the first
movies attracted a predominately working-class audience, their standard fare being melodrama
and sexual titillation. But unlike the public, out-of-door carnivals and fairs of the past that had
always been accompanied by drunkenness and debauchery, these amusements were conducted
semi-privately or within confined spaces that required civil behavior.
Today it can be annoying to watch movies in a theater with people who talk or interrupt with
their cell-phone ring, but this is a far cry from typical live performances in the eighteenth and
nineteenth centuries when prostitutes plied their trade in the top stalls and it was common to
throw things at weak performers (Allen 1991). One portrayal of Richard III was deemed so bad
people threw “cabbages, carrots, pumpkins, potatoes, a sack of flour and one of soot” (57). Mediation
has had a profound effect on bodily participation.
The Vulgar 85
Viva Vulgarity!
Relatively marginal as vulgarity might be today, as well as comparatively tame, the attraction of it
lives on. The lure of vulgarity is based in the body, and more often than not those aspects of the
body that cause disgust, the expelled, abject qualities of the body that are both us and not us.
Chapter 8 on horror examines the disgust we may feel with the body as gore and guts, the body
turned inside out. Here the focus is on the attraction of disgusting materials and activities that we
mostly deal with through humor.
Disgust and Delight

Since vulgarity is based on aspects of the body that are normally repressed in polite society, its lure
originates in those aspects of the body that simultaneously disgust and delight, in what Kristiva
(1982) calls “a vortex of summons and repulsion” (1). While there are many sources of bodily
disgust, they fall into only two basic categories (Miller 1997). First, there is disgust that acts to limit
contact with what causes disgust, unclean orifices and bodily wastes, “the oozy, mucky, gooey,
slimy, clammy, sticky, tacky, dank, squishy or filmy things” that cause us to smile or laugh
uncomfortably (110). This kind of disgust acts as a prohibition on immediate behavior: don’t touch,
don’t smell, don’t look. Miller assigns this disgust “to hardly admitted fascinations, to furtive
curiosities” (110). Body wastes repel, but even as we turn away, repulsion can also draw us in by
raising resentment for having been repulsed. Having been told no, there is “a consequent desire to
regain lost territory” (111). Examples include tabloid newspapers that frequently feature
photographs of the decaying bodies of aging celebrities with unsightly nose hair, watery eyes, and
blotchy, sagging skin; the tragic misadventures of celebrities with plastic surgery; and the ravaged
faces and bodies of stars battling cancer or drug or alcohol addiction. To highlight the contrast,
such photographs are often juxtaposed with others when the celebrities were young and healthy.
Disgust also results from overindulgence, typically of food or sex, where having too much of a
good thing is nauseating (Carroll and Contesi 2019). Something once desired is satiated and now
sickens as a form of punishment after the fact. It acts to prohibit subsequent behavior, as in don’t
do this again. Consider the corporeal bulk of the massive and grotesque physiques of TV wrestlers,
enhanced by their outlandish costumes and over-the-top behavior, such as the wrestler who based
his character on the alleged size of his penis (Leyland 1998). And out-of-control, abject bodies are
a specialty of the tabloid newspapers. Consider the following liberally illustrated headlines: “World’s
Biggest Butt” and “Man Butt Dials God” (Weekly World News 2020).
The first kind of disgust involves the pleasure of transgressing a pre-existing taboo on something
normally unmentionable, something kept out of the way, yet of having what should not be had; the
second involves something that is socially approved until taken to excess. Both kinds act to prohibit
behavior, one at the point of potential contact and the other on subsequent behavior. However,
unlike the other major prohibition on behavior, shame, which causes only pain and regret, disgust
is also frequently humorous. Unlike shame, disgust is both repellent and pleasurable.
Figure 6.3 Unknown, A Jesuit Inspects Buttocks of a Urinating Woman, 1735.
The following example combines both kinds of disgust: The wrestler called Mr. Ass—he suffered
from a bottom fetish—brought an “extremely fat woman” with him to ringside and threatened his
opponent with having to “kiss her ass,” though in the end Mr. Ass was defeated and his opponent
saw to it that “Mr. Ass got a full face of ass” (Sexual 1999). Here the woman’s excessive body is
combined with the potential contaminant involved in getting way too up-close and personal with
another person’s anus.
Whether it is from contaminants or excess, things that disgust both repel and attract. They may
not lend themselves to being made beautiful in any sense that Kant understood beauty, but
disgusting things fascinate. Disgusting things may not charm, but they do captivate.
The Vulgar 87
Transgression
Such fascination appears intimately tied to the near irresistible attraction of transgression. Vulgarity
is knowingly transgressive. We find disgusting things funny because we understand them to
be in some degree prohibited. Children’s “poop” jokes are among the very first they acquire,
though smutty sex jokes follow later (Livingston 2019). Freud said that prohibitions like disgust are
not in place only to forbid pleasure, but also to heighten it. What is forbidden is automatically
attractive for being forbidden. This is what Barthes (1975) calls jouissance, the thrill of something
illicit.
We may not break rules ourselves—often the consequences would be too grave—but cultural
forms are populated by both heroes and criminals whose status is largely based on their
transgressions. Vicarious transgression lies at the heart of many aspects of popular culture, which
is especially true of vulgarity.
Social Bonding
Bakhtin (1994) argued that carnivalesque celebrations create social bonds based on what we all
have in common, and to this extent carnival embraces the existential dimensions of death and
decay. He called this “grotesque realism,” which referred not only to extreme and exaggerated
bodies, but what he claimed were their profound social significance. He believed that grotesque
bodies were deeply positive insofar as they evoked laughter and were derived from age-old rural
cycles of life that, in turn, were as much about regeneration as death. Vulgar bodies laughed at what
we universally share, our poor bodily selves and our most basic, corporeal functions. Vulgarity
represented a sharing-in of our common humanity. It allowed us a way to laugh at our common
human experience of death and degeneration. For Bakhtin, it was through carnivalesque vulgarity
that “people play with terror and laugh at it; the awesome becomes a ‘comic monster’ ” (209).
In effect Bakhtin proposed an addition to philosopher Huizinga’s (1996) proposal that there
were only three basic ways human beings had learnt to deal with the calamities of life and mortality,
its terror and its tedium. Huizinga’s survival strategies were religion, the acquisition of material
possessions, and the pursuit of beauty. Bakhtin effectively proposed a fourth method—laughter, in
particular the humor at the gross body that reduces everyone to the same animal level. In this
sense, vulgarity is deeply democratic. We laugh because we are all in this life together, dying and
decaying, and there is nothing we can do about it.
It is noteworthy that vulgar cultural sites often actively engage the whole body, not just the eyes,
and, equally, they are not consumed individually but collectively. They are both participatory and
performative. Medieval carnivals were dialogical in the sense that audiences were as much part of
the show as those onstage (Bahktin 1994). Audiences and performers worked off each other such
that it is more correct to say that audiences were also performers. Although mediated, the above
examples of television watching are also social events. Men typically watch TV wrestling in the
company of other men who, encouraged by alcoholic intake, establish rapport through sexually
laced innuendo sports talk that helps to distinguish them from women (Langman 2003). The
equivalent for a predominantly female audience could be trash talk TV like the Jerry Springer
program in which couples shout at one another over who has been unfaithful and questions of
paternity are settled with DNA tests. Women viewers often physically act out their views in front of
the television screen, gesturing and making comments, becoming part of the action, and afterwards
when comparing notes about the program with fellow fans their talk is punctuated by gestures
(Manga 2003). Group identity is formed by participation being embodied.
Joyful Resistance
Group bonding is equally generated because, reflecting the transgressive nature of vulgarity,
participation takes the form of resistance. Groups bond in opposition to dominant values. The
carnivalesque operates by means of a symbolic inversion with vulgarity existing in a binary
opposition to all that is not vulgar. To the extent to which vulgarity is effective in giving deep
offense, it operates outside the terms understood by elevated and intellectual culture. As Stallybrass
and White (1986) write, “It is one of the most powerful ruses of the dominant to pretend that
critique can only ever exist in the language of ‘reason’, ‘pure knowledge’ and ‘seriousness’ ” (43).
Vulgarity is deeply unsettling to rational discourse because it uses its own logic. And it is precisely
because it does not use reason, but its visceral opposite, that it is so effective in calling down upon
itself condemnation and censure. In other words, the aesthetic of vulgarity is a resistance aesthetic
that critiques the rules that include, exclude, and dominate the social order. And as defined
here, vulgar cultural forms are typically embraced by people who are marginalized culturally,
educationally, or politically, typically the less educated and less well paid (Manga 2003).
Haunting and Humanness

With TV trash talk shows specifically in mind, Manga (2003) suggests that the lure of vulgarity is
a kind of spiritual haunting, where viewers are taken over, possessed. She argues that vulgarity
involves a loss of ego, a giving up of the self that is akin to an ecstatic experience. As Bakhtin writes,
“While carnival lasts, there is no other life outside it” (cited in Hutcheon 2000: 74).
The participatory aspect of today’s vulgar cultural forms can be seen in terms of the long-held
opposition in Western thought between chaos and order, where an aesthetics of vulgarity represents
the Dionysian impulse to communal revelry rather than Apollonian restraint, a shared experience,
not that of the individual ego. Thus conceived, vulgarity is part of a major strand of Western
consciousness that is routinely denied, marginalized, and censored, often in ourselves as much
as in society at large. This loss of the ego, of giving oneself over to something larger than
oneself, brings us back to the existential dimension mentioned earlier where, if only temporarily,
terror is kept at bay. Manga (2003) argues that acknowledging the existential nature of vulgarity
alerts us to an often-undervalued dimension of society and humanness, and that instead of
condemning vulgarity for what it allegedly says about how society has gone bad, “Perhaps,
what’s wrong is that we deny ourselves access to a sociality that is fundamental to our being
human” (204).
The Vulgar 89
Vile Vulgarity
To acknowledge that vulgarity has virtues is not to suggest it is unproblematic.
Transgression and Suppression

First, vulgarity is not nearly so transgressive as it can initially appear. Transgression is not
transformation; jouissance is not justice. Vulgarity always involves a recognition that the dominant
value system is indeed dominant and not likely to change soon; its power to disrupt dominant value
systems is highly restricted. It is never purely an inversion as if by some means it belongs to a
different world. It always exists with reference to the wider dominant world, a knowing indulgence,
representing only a temporary suspension of social norms. Vulgarity’s very existence is dependent
upon the social norms transgressed (Hutcheon 1985). For example, regular viewers of trash
television regarded it as “exploitive,” “disgusting,” or “trash” (Manga 2002: 166). In other words, they
adopted the mainstream, middle-class values the programs invert, or, better said, they moved in and
out of revelry and critique. The high and low always peer at one another up-close.
Consider that the medieval carnival was always a licensed affair. There was a predictable,
seasonally based alternation between periods of carnival and ordinary life and labor. Temporarily
lifting the norms of ordinary life only to reimpose them meant that the norms were made even
more apparent than they would otherwise have been. Norms were suspended, not eradicated.
Carnival was double directed, pointing equally to transgression and the rules transgressed. Today,
as with every other kind of popular culture, examples of carnivalesque vulgarity are accessible at
any time, but they are just as regulated, being produced by the very same cultural producers and
within the very same legislative framework that produce all other mainstream forms of culture
(Hutcheon 1985).
Serious violations of social norms, those that have the actual potential to make real change, are
criminalized or marginalized as madness. By contrast, vulgarity allows people to play at violating
norms in carefully restricted, authorized ways. Furthermore, by comparison to criminal or heroic
action, breaking the rules of polite society amounts to playing “for rather low stakes” (Miller 1997:
117). As Shakespeare has Olivia comment in Twelfth Night, “There is no slander in an allowed fool”
(cited: 117–18).
Why then should authorized transgressions amuse? How do people trick themselves into
thinking they are transgressing the social order when such transgressions are sanctioned? Is it
because the norms that are mocked have such a powerful grip that even playing at transgression is
sufficient to energize an amused reaction; that is, people realize but laugh anyway? Or perhaps
people do not always draw the dots between the pleasures they enjoy and who provides them. In
any event, as discussed further in Chapter 15 on humor, the transgressive power of vulgar humor
is highly prescribed.
Ridicule and Reaction

Furthermore, as explored in more detail in Chapter 15, humor not only fails to seriously undermine
the status quo, it often supports the most retrograde aspects of it, and this is especially true of
vulgar humor. Despite Bakhtin’s (1994) tendency to turn negatives into positives, death into a
return to life, obscenity into an affirmation of the vital body, carnival also involves abuse. Vulgarity
is often accompanied by savage and utterly unacceptable denigration of marginal groups, being
frequently used in the service of sexism, racism, homophobia, and violence. As noted earlier,
vulgarity is often linked to class, gender, sex, and race in a way that invites ridicule.
Vulgarity is an especially powerful way to ridicule others. It not only ranks people according to
their worthiness; in many cases, it assigns people an absolute value, one beneath contempt, one
where they are considered disgusting. By either proximity or contact, others are made to appear
contaminating, infecting, or polluting. They appear to defile our own innocence. Moral judgments
are often made in these terms, and Miller (1997) argues that it is often easier to condemn by means
of disgust than to make positive judgments because disgust has the feel of veracity. Being low and
without pretence, it is experienced as trustworthy: “the disgust idiom puts our body behind our
words, pledges it as security” (181). Disgust provides certainty to moral judgments. Medieval
carnival empowered the socially suppressed, but, as Miller asks, what of the Jews murdered during
carnival, the women raped, the animals tortured and set on fire? Mocking pompous and repressive
officialdom is one thing, abusing those even lower on the social hierarchy than oneself is another. It
is impossible to justify, for example, the anti-Semitism that saw Jews in the 1600s pictured as eating
excrement (Stallybrass and White 1986), or reduce other genders, races, religious believers, and
sexualities to nothing but foul, abject bodies. Humor can be provocative and progressive but it can
also be reactionary, “mocking novelty in the hope of precipitating its destruction” (Hutcheon 1985:
76). Vulgarity often defends social norms, ridiculing deviations in order to bring them into line.
Vexing Vulgarity
Vulgarity is often fun, and it is able to create human bonds that remind us that whatever else we
are, and just like everyone else, we are bodies. To be vulgar about it: we all shit the same. But
an aesthetics of vulgarity, which draws upon and celebrates our common humanity, is deeply
contradictory. Vulgarity illustrates what we all share, but also it is used to deny what we have in
common by making absolute distinctions between ourselves and others: we pure, they disgusting;
we innocent, they contaminating. Laughing at our base selves is one thing, but it is quite another to
see others only in terms of their base selves. This is especially true when vulgarity is used
to denigrate already marginalized and vulnerable groups, and doubly so when it helps to form a
pseudo-Dionysian community intent on such denigration.
7
The Violent
Chapter Outline
Violence and its Variants 91
A Violent Present 93
A Violent Past 93
Explaining Violent Entertainment 96
The Problems of Violence 101
An End to Violence? 105
Due to the technical limitations of ancient Greek theatres, mass slaughter always took place offstage
either by means of sound effects or detailed graphic descriptions, but individual murders and
visceral acts were regularly depicted onstage. In The Suppliants, Aeschylus ([c. 460 BCE] 1961) has
fifty women threaten mass suicide whereby they would “soak the earth in blood” (477). His play
Agamemnon begins with a narrator standing before a palace describing its bloody history as a
human “slaughterhouse” (1092). One murder after another is detailed, most striking of which is the
killing of children by their uncle who then serves up their flesh as a meal. This atrocity then sets off
a series of bloody revenges that constitutes the rest of the production. In another play, The Bacchae
by Euripides, a character summarizes much of the play as a “banquet of raw flesh” (cited in Farnell
1909: 238). Recently, real-life violent protests, terrorist attacks, suicides, and executions have been
live-streamed on social media (Studer 2017).
Violence and its Variants

The word violence is now often used to refer to psychological damage, but violence is defined here
as intentional physical harm; the exercise of physical force to inflict injury or damage to persons or
property. Such violence comes in many variants that also often overlap. Violent entertainment can
be comic, transgressive, retaliatory, or gratuitous; sanitized or visceral; and realistic or stylized.
91
Moreover, viewers tend to define violence in ways that are not always obvious from an examination
of the imagery itself or in conformity with the above basic definition.
Viewers do not necessarily define all intentional physical assaults that inflict harm as violent
(Morrison and Millwood 2007). Many viewers consider physical action to be violent only when
a conflict is unfair and appears real. Applying a moral code involving fairness, physical action
is deemed violent only where there is an unequal use of force; for example, when a weapon is
introduced by a participant or when a participant possesses greater strength than the other.
Additionally, the degree to which an action is deemed violent is determined by how real the
violence appears. Even when violence involves blood and gore it may be deemed mild if it appears
unreal; alternatively, a relatively mild assault can be considered very violent when it does seem real.
Comedic violence is rarely considered violent. Children’s cartoons, where characters are
relentlessly pounded by their opponents, is usually considered, even by children, not to be violent
because it is used in the service of comedy (Morrison and Millwood 2007). Likewise with the
knockdown antics of comedians, trash talk television programs where guests routinely end up in a
brawl (Manga 2003), and the cartoon theatrics of TV wrestlers. Wrestlers of recent memory have
had names like The Undertaker, Sargent Slaughter, The Anvil, and Junkyard Dog (Edwards 2020).
Some have claimed to be serial killers, cannibals, or even the risen dead. In retaliation for being
fired, one wrestler hospitalized his manager and then clobbered him with a bedpan. Everyone
knows it is faked and it is easy to laugh.
Transgressive and retaliatory violence work together as trusty plot devices. Whether onstage, in
the cinema, the focus of video games, or contained within a rectangle, narratives often involve the
transgressive violence of antagonists and the retaliatory violence of protagonists. As described in
Chapter 13 on narrative, the transgressive violence of villains ruptures the peaceful status quo
while the retaliatory violence of heroes re-establishes the status quo. The harm inflicted on the hero
by the villain has the hero seeking retribution. This sequence of often ongoing transgressions
and retaliations is the very stuff of both the euphemistically called action genre and shoot-’em-up
video games. The narrative is often merely a structuring device for a series of violent scenes
(Kendrick 2019).
Gratuitous violence is violence for its own sake, violence that has no narrative relevance, violence
that is mere spectacle and enjoyed without regard to moral questions or the fate of the protagonist.
On prime-time TV it is common for transgressive violence to go unpunished (Cantor 2003) or
even uncondemned; “nine times out of ten violence just happens” (Lichter, Lichter, and Rothman
2002: 90). Of classic splatter/spatter films mutilation is the message, the goal appearing to be not so
much to scare audiences, or even to keep them in suspense, but to mortify them (Stevens 2017).
Violence can also be sanitized or visceral as well as realistic or stylized (Prince 2004). Sanitized
violence dominated US cinema and then television until the late 1960s in which the bodies of
victims remained whole. Victims merely clutched their chests, covered where they had been shot,
and keeled over. They whispered farewell words, their bodies slackened, and their eyes closed
peacefully. Visceral violence refers to both a kind of representation and a common physiological
response. As described in the following chapter on horror, seeing internal organs spill out from a
body’s cavity often causes a gut-level, precognitive, instinctive response; it is a reaction to abject
gore that seems hardwired.
The Violent 93
Realistic violence refers to violence that is legitimated by a strong narrative and filmic techniques
that attempt to capture the intimate and incomprehensibly arbitrary nature of violent conflict.
Today’s cinematography typically relies upon montages of quick edits from multiple viewpoints and
contrasts of speed, slow motion abruptly interspersed with action, rapid cycling shots, both subjective
and objective. Accompanied by soundtracks of low-frequency droning and heartbeats rudely
interrupted by shouts and explosions, the intention is to convey a sense of being there (Muller 2017).
By contrast, stylized violence involves obvious artifice, often achieved with special effects, and
includes utterly impossible excess (Prince 2004). For example, TV wrestling is highly artificial, as
is the violence of numerous action films that consist primarily of a series of violent actions only
minimally held together by an utterly fantastic plot. Today’s screen bodies routinely explode, spurt
blood, and spew guts, but the typical, frenetic paced editing of contemporary screen media renders
many such scenes quite divorced from anything plausibly life-like, and thus for many viewers are
not even considered violent.
A Violent Present
Decades ago aesthetician Kupfer (1983) claimed that violent entertainment had become so
commonplace he described everyday life in terms of an aesthetic of violence.: “the sights and sounds
of human destruction; the tearing of flesh, mashing of bone, letting of blood” (52). Audiences, he
claimed, appreciated violence for “its sensational content, its aesthesis [where] death is but the climax
of a sensually rewarding attack . . . a gory process in which a whole, living person is transformed
into his or her sensually striking components” (52). And this was well before the penetration of
infotainment violence into our daily experience of social media where clicking on violent imagery, or
having it shared, ensures that algorithms will direct users to more violent imagery whether they want
it or not (Riyanto 2018). Our current media is viscerally violent but it nevertheless requires perspective.
A Violent Past
As a warrior state, violent amusements were an essential part of the Roman Empire. During a 123-
day period in 108 CE the Emperor Trajan celebrated a victory with the slaughter of 10,000 gladiators
and 11,000 animals (Meijer 2004). Although on a smaller scale such games were for centuries an
integral part of life throughout most of the vast Roman Empire. Consider, too, that while many early
Christians were torn apart in these games, some Christians were also willing audience members.
Late in the second century CE Bishop Tertullian thundered against his fellow Christians for attending
the games, imploring them to reject a “passion for murderous pleasure” and warning them against
the “madness, bile, anger, pain” of the games (cited in Bok 1998: 20). Three centuries later, St.
Augustine was still railing against his brethren for their attendance (Meijer 2004). He ([c. 400 CE]
1944) related how a figure he calls Alypius was dragged by his friends to a gladiatorial contest, and
covered his eyes to protect his spirit from being degraded by the carnage. But the screams of the
bloodthirsty crowd piqued his curiosity and he unlocked his fingers and shortly drank in the
madness of the mob, becoming one with them.
The games continued even under Christian emperors well into the fifth century CE.
While Tertullian abhorred the gladiatorial games he nevertheless allowed a vivid imagination to
conjure violent horrors awaiting those who opposed Christianity. On the Day of Judgment
Christians would be able to look down from heaven and watch violent horrors far worse than those
of the earthly games, horrors that would, moreover, last for all eternity. All the then enemies of
Christianity would “liquefy in fiercer flames than they kindled in their rage against the Christians”
(cited in Bok 1998: 21). “How vast the spectacle that day and how wide! What sight shall wake my
wonder, what laughter, my joy, and exultation?” (20–1). In the second-century text, The Apocalypse
of Peter, Jesus takes the reader on a tour of hell and describes in lurid fashion the torments of the
damned (Ehrman 2003). Blasphemers are hung by their tongues; females by their hair over a
bubbling mire; male adulterers by their testicles; and women who have had abortions are placed up
to their necks in a lake of blood and gore.
Even among the books of the Bible there is a great deal of violent imagery. Wells (2010) compiled
a list of the killings God is said to have undertaken himself or carried out with his express approval.
Wells used the exact numbers mentioned in the Bible itself or, where the Bible mentions no precise
number, what he claims is his conservative estimation. Wells compiled a count for each book of the
Bible, his total for the whole Bible being 24,634,205 deaths (367).
This retributional worldview was inherited by the medieval period whose entertainment was also
notably violent, with dismembered bodies playing a considerable part in dramatized folk traditions
(Enders 1999). Bakhtin (1994) described medieval carnival as characterized by images “of particularly
large amounts of torn flesh . . . a combination of the battlefield with the kitchen or butcher shop”
(224). Medieval games often resembled war, and war resembled games such that it is difficult to tell
them apart (McGlynn 2010). Common tropes of the games included wounded organs, broken bones
and joints, cracked ribs, flattened noses, knocked-out eyes, crushed jaws, dislocated shoulder blades,
and teeth sent rattling down gullets. Thighs were regularly reduced to pulp, hips wrenched, and
genitals severely injured (Golby and Purdue 1984). War can even be considered the primary sport of
the Middle Ages, with the tournament, the joust, and the duel its adjuncts. Far from the ordered and
chivalrous affairs of today’s popular imagination, these spectacles were largely unregulated with
combat apt to be fatal. While papal edicts repeatedly condemned these games, priests not only
continued to attend, in 1471 a tournament was held within St. Peter’s Square itself (Bok 1988).
Premodern painting also included numerous violent representations. Many paintings represented
mass slaughter. Albrecht Durer’s 1508 painting, The Torment of Ten Thousand Christians, represents a
legendary execution on orders from the Emperor Trajan of an entire army who had converted to
Christianity. Figures fall from a cliff to form a pile of naked bodies, a head is about to be bashed in with
a wooden mallet, and in the forefront a blindfolded man is about to have his head severed by a sword.
Until the early decades of the nineteenth century public torture and execution were a common
part of European culture (Foucault 1977). They were among the most popular of entertainments.
Officially they were justified as a deterrent to crime, but the public turned them into celebratory
entertainments usually accompanied by drinking, gambling, and riot. In England in 1807, 45,000
gathered to see two men hanged, and twenty-seven spectators died in the crush (Golby and Purdue
The Violent 95
Figure 7.1 Unknown, The Execution of Pirates in Hamburg, 1573.
1984). A contemporary wrote, “We have seen every execution for the last ten years, and boast how
on one day we saw one man hung at Newgate, and took a cab and got to Horsemonger-lane in time
to see another” (83). It was the same in the United States. Of an 1827 hanging in Massachusetts a
newspaper reported “scenes of the most disgraceful drunkenness, gambling, profanity, and almost
all kinds of debauchery, even at the very time the culprit was suffering” (Essig 2003: 78).
In Europe blood sports were practiced with animals, including baiting any number of different
animals, dog fighting, cock fighting, and cock throwing, the latter consisting of throwing missiles
at the tethered animal until it was dead (Golby and Purdue 1984). Another popular practice,
baiting, consisted of forcing an animal to fight a succession of dogs, usually until the animal’s death.
But beginning in the first decades of the nineteenth century, violent entertainment was
increasingly muted. The same social developments that curtailed vulgarity and explicit eroticism
discussed in Chapters 6 and 11 equally impacted violent entertainment. Under the influence of
social rationalization and a middle-class culture of respectability, the same mix of mediation,
domestication, and commercialization that repressed vulgar and sexual imagery equally suppressed
the more visceral of violent entertainments.
Physical punishment gave way to attempts to discipline the mind and executions moved into
private, controlled spaces out of the public eye (Foucault 1977). Against fierce opposition, blood
sports, if never eradicated, were at least curtailed through animal cruelty laws (Golby and Purdue
1984). The public had to be content with viewing engravings of torture and slaughter. While from
their inception movies included plenty of violence, nothing gross was allowed to offend the middle-
class paying public. Violence was domesticated. Shots were fired, smoke discharged, and people
were wounded, but they died in someone’s arms rather than pools of blood. When television
entered people’s living rooms and replaced cinema as the dominant cultural form in the 1950s,
violent death continued to be sanitized.
However, visceral violence returned via cinema screens in the late 1960s, and with a vengeance.
A spate of films offered shocking, wet deaths. In Bonny and Clyde (1967) the principals died in a
hail of bullets; in Clockwork Orange (1971) the lead character viciously beat innocents to a pulp just
for the fun of it; and in Mash (1970) the operating room of a wartime field hospital resembled
Bakhtin’s butcher’s shop. Since then screen violence has only increased in frequency and viciousness.
Moreover, although violent entertainment is now mediated, its tropes are continually being
reworked for the screen. We no longer attend gladiatorial games, but biblical epics that included
gladiatorial combat to the death were popular in the 1950s, and the 2000 film Gladiator was hugely
successful. Executions are no longer public, but they are commonplace on screen. Most people
today have never been to war but war films are “cinema par excellence” in that they are
“fundamentally a machine for emotions; the visceral experience of excitement, risk and dread”
(Burgoyne 2012: 3, 14). To feel real, what Bronfen (2012) calls the “authenticity effect,” and to gain
something of “the ungraspable intensity of war” (8, 20), contemporary war films now juxtapose the
cool efficiency of drone warfare with the unpredictablity on the ground where actual flesh, entirely
prone to risk, is torn apart. Few people experience actual combat but first shooter video games
enable a simulation where players frenetically kill, literally, left, right, and center. Representing the
horrors of hell is no longer common, but there are many films about Nazi atrocities. Torture is no
longer practiced in public squares, but the 2012 box office smash Zero Dark Thirty began with a
highly visceral torture scene that lasted for 20 minutes.
Explaining Violent Entertainment

Why should seeing bodies being blown apart be pleasurable? Why should barbarous torture and
slaughter elicit excitement and not repugnance, delight rather than outrage? Since there are
qualitatively different kinds of violence, are there different attractions? And why has visceral
violence returned with such force? Is the attraction, as Tom Wolfe argues, akin to pornography,
what he calls “pornoviolence,” an inbuilt response as basic as the programming of our genes (cited
in Hoberman 1988: 120). Are we hardwired to enjoy violence? Is it part of our archaic makeup, left
over from our evolutionary history (Zillmann 1998)? Or, as Wolfe also suggests, is violent imagery
an ingredient of “radical chic,” a matter of cultural fashion, a matter of choice (134). After all, not
everyone is attracted to mediated violence, some people recoil from it, and the most popular forms
of entertainment are not violent (Sparks and Sparks 2002). Yet there is no gainsaying the popularity
of violence among many, or that its attraction is long-standing. Like the philosophers Marquis de
Sade and Nietzsche who celebrated violence, many people appear to relish “the joy of cruelty, the
thrill of horror” (Klaven 2002: 138).
Some explanations for the allure of violence are covered in more depth in Chapter 8 on horror.
They overlap because some violence is also horrifying.
The Violent 97
Making Moral Judgments

As noted earlier, viewers tend to define physical assault as violent in terms of a moral code grounded
in their perception of fairness and justice. Audiences tend to make moral judgments about the
characters represented, and this is especially marked when protagonists unjustly suffer physical harm.
According to Zillmann (1998), viewers adopt “a witness perspective” (200), and respond to fictional
characters, cognitively and emotionally, much as they do in real life. Viewers adopt the position of
observers, who, as third parties, allow them to succumb to the illusion of watching real events unfold
before them. This is not so much to identify with characters, empathizing with their predicament, as
it is to adopt dispositions toward them. As in real life, we assume favorable and unfavorable positions
toward different characters depending upon our interpretation of their appearance and behavior.
When a character toward whom one adopts a positive disposition is threatened with violence,
especially when it is utterly undeserved, we suffer as we would in real life, though with this difference:
it is experienced as pleasurable because the experience occurs within a safe, protected zone.
Additionally, when a first impression of a fictional person is confirmed by subsequent experience,
the confirmation is pleasurable, again as it is in real life. The first impression sets up an anticipation
about a character’s moral worth and likely behavior and, in fiction, the fate they deserve. While the
antagonist has the upper hand, we nevertheless anticipate a just resolution. We feel anxiety on behalf
of the protagonist yet know from previous experience of narrative structures that the tables will turn,
no matter how unlikely it is sometimes made to appear. We experience “forepleasure” (Miron 2002:
464). As Klavan (2002) says of a Sylvester Stallone film, “I could . . . get off on the cruelty of the villains
insofar as it fired my anticipation of the moment when Sly would cut those suckers down” (139). With
just resolutions, such as the death of the villain, there is also vindication of our moral disposition.
The more acute the hopes and fears held concerning the fate of characters, the more that the
moral dispositions we adopt determine what we feel they have coming to them. What pity one
might feel for bad characters is typically swept away by moral dispositions (Tamborini 2002). A
strong negative disposition toward an antagonist sets many people free to enjoy retribution. Since
revenge is among the most basic of human motivations, the hero’s “devastatingly thorough
housecleaning” is applauded as poetic justice (Zillmann 1998: 206). Just as in real life, the reaction
of some people to severe punitive action is nothing short of festive, so in fictional violence some
people react euphorically when the villain is destroyed. This is especially marked when people’s
personal disposition is to consider issues in clear-cut moral terms of right and wrong. It requires
only that justice be seen as black and white for retaliatory violence to be thoroughly enjoyed.
Excitation Transfer
According to the theory of excitation transfer, the excitement created by retaliation is due in part
to what Zillman (1998) calls excitation transfer in which one state of excitement transfers to
another. Emotional arousal often lingers after the cause of it has ceased and one has adjusted
cognitively to a new situation. Emotional reactions lag behind cognitive reactions; the head moves
forwards but the body does not immediately follow. Furthermore, emotional experience is
determined partially by the level of arousal at the time, so that if there remain residues of the initial
emotional response at the time of a second emotional stimulus, the second response will be greater
than if the residue did not exit. In short, an arousal residue from prior distress intensifies enjoyment,
making gruesome, transgressive violence an essential prelude to the joy from the emotional
override of retaliatory violence.
Film directors have long known how to take advantage of this phenomenon. In the cinema,
transgressive violence is frequently played out at great length, so that when the moment is reached
when the protagonist turns the tables the excitation from earlier anxiety fuels a euphoric reaction.
The more people suffer through an early round of transgressive violence, the greater the euphoria
(Zillmann 1998).
Simultaneous Emotional Pleasures

Aristotle appears to have been right to believe that the combination of “pity and fear” was a major
attraction to violent imagery (23). Today most people self-report that watching violence is exciting,
and, pressed further, they report that violence is simultaneously horrible and fascinating (Klavan
2002). But how is it possible to experience anxiety and fear as pleasurable when we do not ordinarily
do so in real life?
Part of the answer presumably lies in the safety of mediation discussed in the next chapter. Part
of it may lie in the emotions aroused not being quite of the same order as aroused in real life, as
discussed in Chapter 4. And part of it may lie in the need to consider pleasure and pain not
as opposites but, at least when viewing fictional violence, as equally pleasurable (Miron 2002).
Pleasure and pain are experienced simultaneously, or at least in rapid-fire succession, which sets up
an internal conflict that is nevertheless pleasurable because, when deliberately exposing oneself to
tension-raising experiences, the tension is experienced pleasurably. Perhaps this is due to the fact
that pleasure and pain are activated in the same regions of the brain. While different constellations
of neurons make use of this same part of the brain in different ways, the experience of them is
closely related. The brain is generally hardwired for pleasure (Carter 2019), and since those areas of
the brain assigned to pleasure evolved to co-ordinate the basic survival functions, perhaps all
normal behavior is directed at evoking electrical activity in the pleasure areas of the brain. Either
way, the idea of guilty pleasures suggests a bivalent model rather than a bipolar model of media
violence, that is, two things derived from the same source rather than two opposite things.
Fear and Mastery

According to Bakhtin (2004) medieval carnival violence was an aspect of the grotesquely
exaggerated carnivalesque body, where, in a spirit of general good humor, all aspects of the body
were taken to extremes. This applied not only to eating, defecation, and sexual exploits, but also to
violence, the real purpose of which was to laugh at the vicissitudes of life and the terror of
existence. Carnival violence represented a ritualistic spilling of blood, “a body sowing, or more
correctly speaking, a bodily harvest,” though where there was death there was also new life (223).
The Violent 99
Conducted in a spirit of comic, free play, one of the serious purposes of carnival was to master fear,
if only temporarily. Such violence was integral to the grand cycle of life and death, where everything
was always in the process of becoming and every death foreshadowed rebirth. Depicting violence
was part of a philosophy of “sober optimism” (224).
Seen in the light of Bakhtin’s analysis, a great deal of today’s media violence, which is decidedly
carnivalesque in its stylized exaggeration and humor, also appears to represent an attempt to
conquer fear and anxiety. Vicarious violence allows viewers to test their reactions without running
actual risks. Viewers are able to engage indirectly with experiences from which they ordinarily
shield themselves (Bok 1998). Entering into the thrill of violence, people simultaneously confront
their fears. This appears to apply especially to certain adolescent males, who are the only major
demographic who report enjoying gratuitous violence (Slater 2003). By viewing high levels of
violence, they may appear to master their fears and are consequently enabled to play their socially
assigned, gendered role as emotionally detached and fearless (Sparks and Sparks 2002). They are
typically in search of a social identity where watching violent entertainment enables bonding with
peers. It acts as a rite of passage.
Seeking Stimulus
Violent imagery can also be used for mood management, to regulate levels of excitement or arousal.
Media violence allows people to live on what Apter (1992) calls “the dangerous edge of things,” to
enjoy the high that goes with violence, of “being wild for its own sake” (3, 5). This appears to apply
particularly to those adolescent males who are most attracted to violent spectacles (Slater 2003).
They tend not to be high risk-takers who tend to watch less media than most people and seek their
risks in real life. Rather, they tend to be alienated adolescent males who are high sensation-seekers.
Impulsive and non-conforming, often referred to as disinhibited, they are also attracted to other
norm-breaking behaviors such as crime and drug use. For these youth contemporary society is not
too violent, certainly not too stimulating, but understimulating.
However, stimulus-seeking applies to all of us today living within the limits imposed by
the orderly arrangements created by the institutions of government, education, law, medicine,
and so on, by all the minutiae of bureaucracies that curtail individual expression. In societies
that often fail to provide sufficient stimulation, the transgressive but also safe excesses of
carnivalesque violence appear as liberation. As discussed in several other chapters, a highly
structured, rationally ordered society makes people vulnerable to the appeal of the unstructured,
irrationality of bodily excess. In a highly regulated society, wild, carnivalesque indulgence offers
welcome relief. Killing, maiming, and the smashing up of things on screen is liberatory joy. It is
jouissance.
Everything But Violence

Many other aspects of violent fare have been identified as attractive. They seem to include almost
everything but the violence itself: music, editing, setting, exaggeration or distortion of reality,
sexually explicit imagery, comedy (Sparks and Sparks 2002), patterning, coloration, movement,
energy, and novelty (Allen and Greenberger 1978). In particular, violent video games are said to be
attractive because they involve special effects (Zillmann 1998), fantasy, challenge, stimulation,
scorekeeping, feedback, graphics, and sound effects (Goldstein 1998), freedom of movement, the
sensation of speed, and the exhilaration of hurtling through infinite space (Keegan 2002). They also
frequently involve a combination of competition and collaboration (Rigby and Ryan 2011). With
single-player games players must acquire points to achieve a higher level of attainment in which
players compete against time. With multiple-player games like Starcraft and Final Fantasy XIV
many people, often from many countries, not only compete with other teams but also collaborate
with their own team members. Starcraft intentionally incorporates camaraderie as a key element.
In a game with a do-or-die ethos, players must trade stories and work together to be successful.
Such games provide a virtual space in which players meet, hang out together, and share experiences,
and by celebrating triumphs and commiserating over failures, players come to feel that they matter
to one another. In this way, playing at mediated violence attracts because it helps build social
identities and social competence.
Algorithmic Allure
The multiple attractions of violence have been lately combined with the multiple attractions of
social media. In 2016, Facebook added a live-streaming application which has allowed partisan
parties to live-stream brutal terrorist attacks, and even suicides and executions for the world to
witness what Studer (2017) calls “the full scope of humanity” (623). Recognizing the highly
provocative nature of this violence, attempts are made to take it down as quickly as possible, but
what is now widespread is that a great deal of other violent imagery is viewed in the context of the
addictive, bubble-like, immediate, and intimate nature of social media.
It is commonplace that many users tend to visit sites that largely confirm their pre-existing
views while blocking out other perspectives. The algorithms of social media are engineered to
provide just such socially meaningful interactions. Social media has a sense of immediacy and
personal intimacy. Typically, shared material is new to a user and footage of police brutality
or terrorist attacks comes raw and undiluted. In receiving such posts users tend to respond
spontaneously without pausing to contest the validity of the material in the way people often do
when reading or watching traditional media. Social media is already highly alluring—indeed, for
many it is addictive—and when highly sensual, impactful violent imagery is presented, especially
when relevant to a user’s own concerns, the enmity created is typically shared by the recipient with
other like-minded users. Once this activity is detected by the relevant algorithms, users are
presented with further violent imagery which encourages users to connect to yet more users, thus
both expanding the network and, when receiving feedback, reinforcing the views of the initial
sharers (Riyanto 2018). A bubble is created of users sharing violent images. At a minimum, the
immediacy of social media short-circuits questioning the validity of the imagery (Naher and Minar
2018). Reinforcement is pleasurable, but it is clearly problematic.
The Violent 101
Figure 7.2 Unknown, Iraqi Soldiers and Bombing, 2007.
The Problems of Violence

Researchers reject the idea that exposure to violent material causes people to act violently
themselves. A large body of research has simply failed to establish a causal connection (Anderson
and Bushman 2018). Only those few who are predisposed to act violently are triggered by watching
violent media. However, this does not mean that no consequences exist for everyone else. Rather,
prolonged exposure to violent entertainment appears to have far-reaching and deeply serious
consequences in the real world (Krish 2012).
From a theoretical perspective, it could not be otherwise. Images are not separate from the
rest of society, a mere passive expression or reflection of an otherwise constituted reality; images
are an integral part of the real world, both a reflection of it and a lively contributor to it (Williams
1977). Images help to frame our beliefs and values, drawing upon our existing views and, in turn,
creating powerful mental maps to understand the world. Such mental maps provide scripts
for real-world behavior. Visual images thereby play an active role in helping to determine the
nature of the real world. This is true of images generally and research indicates it is true of violent
imagery.
Purgation Does Not Work

The oldest of the theories advanced to not only account for the lure of violent entertainment but to
advocate it as a healthy occupation is the theory of catharsis as purgation. The theory claims that
exposure to violent imagery has the effect of reducing or even eliminating aggressive thoughts and
behavior. But it does not work (Gentile 2013). A very large body of research concludes that exposure
to violent imagery has the opposite effect; it increases fear, anxiety, and aggressive thoughts and
behavior (Anderson and Bushman 2018).
As mentioned in Chapter 4 on the highly emotional, the theory of catharsis was first advanced
by Aristotle ([c. 335 BCE] 1981), and ever since a cathartic release has been used to explain why
people are attracted to cultural forms that prima facie do not appear praiseworthy and contrary to
high-minded purposes. Being adopted and popularized by both Freud and Carl Jung (Zillmann
1998), as well as repeated ad infinitum by media critics and film makers, catharsis has been used to
sanction exposure to violent entertainment as a good thing.
As mentioned in Chapter 4, Aristotle famously wrote that tragedy both aroused pity and fear
and effected their resolution through catharsis. Aristotle appreciated the pleasures of cultural forms
being derived from their distinctive characteristics and, as indicated in the introduction
to this chapter, the kind of cultural form he wrote most about—stage plays—were notably violent.
There is some doubt around what Aristotle meant by catharsis, but it is usually interpreted to mean
that exposure to violent entertainment purges aggressive, destructive emotions. For Aristotle,
disease and cure were two sides of the same coin where pity worked on pity, fear on fear, ill-humor
on ill-humor, and so on, so that just as the heat of wine quenched the heat of the natural body so
watching violence onstage was able to quench an audience’s violent emotions.
However, despite both the cultural pedigree and this popular understanding of catharsis,
volumes of empirical evidence demonstrate that exposure to violent dramatic performances results
in audiences being more anxious, fearful, and aggressive, not less so (Anderson and Bushman
2018).
The American film director Sam Peckinpah observed the same thing (Prince 2004). His 1960s
films helped shift screen violence from sanitized to visceral, brutal, and bloody. The Wild Bunch
from 1967, for example, is notable for two ferocious gunfights, a suicidal attack, and torture. In the
The Violent 103
context of the ongoing body count of the Vietnam War, his intention was to offer a critique of the
horrors of violence, but Peckinpah found that spectacles of violence undermined his critical intent
(Williams 2004). Instead of audience revulsion to the violence, he witnessed audiences reacting
with exhilaration and aggression.
The persistence of the popular view of catharsis as purgation can be explained in part because in
enjoying violent imagery who would want to admit that it could be harmful (Gentile 2013)? To
avoid cognitive dissonance it is easier to dismiss the possibility of potential harm than change one’s
habits. Also, purgation conforms to our phenomenological experience. Playing a violent video
game, for example, can offer short-term enjoyment because of the adrenaline, cortisol, and
testosterone that is released into the bloodstream. But this is an acute response. The acute response
turns on to immediate danger; it was not designed to be switched on for hours at a time. Once a
player stops they feel tired or spent from the increases in heart rate, blood pressure, and stress
hormone levels. They may feel they have purged their aggression, but the opposite is true. If
challenged they are more likely to act aggressively because they have spent time priming aggressive
thoughts, feelings, and attitudes, and having them reinforced by the game. Although physically
they may feel exhausted, their anxiety levels have increased (Anderson and Bushman 2018).
Anxiety and aggression levels are raised, which does not equate to being violent, but, as discussed
below, exposure to violent imagery develops violent mental scripts that are deeply problematic.
Diminishing Returns
The thrill of violent entertainment has diminishing returns, necessitating that the violence be
continually ramped up. The once repressed visceral violence is back, driven in part by a fiercely
competitive market economy. The shock induced by gut-wrenching violence is used to break
through both our cynicism about the media as well as the sheer number of media messages. The
most extreme, visceral experiences are employed. As discussed in Chapters 8 and 11, sex and
horror are two such experiences. Violence is another. In each case the appeal is made straight to the
spinal column. When competing against numerous other images, what grabs attention are appeals
to the precognitive nervous system.
However, the thrill people derive from viewing violence diminishes with repeated exposure
(Anderson and Bushman 2018). People are easily primed for violence, but habituation has
diminishing returns. Initial strong reactions to violence soon fade in intensity, and with massive
exposure may even lead to complete desensitization.
A process begins with the brain first simply ceasing to pay attention to what causes pain (Carter
2019). The neural constellations involving pain are lost and viewers give way to maximizing
pleasure. But then a point comes when that pleasure, too, cannot be maximized. Habitation leads to
being blasé. In this context, Wolfe’s characterization of violence as “radical chic,” no more than a
harmless matter of style, makes sense; violence becomes cool. And today an audience’s ho-hum
reaction is mirrored in the off-hand, detached way violence is often portrayed. Filmmakers and
audiences alike have become emotionally disengaged (Anderson and Bushman 2018). Violence is
represented with such a casual air that the distinction between protagonist and antagonist violence,
between transgressive and retaliatory violence, is blurred. TV wrestling, for example was once
based on clearly defined moral distinctions, but now good wrestlers, once pushed “too far,”
commonly seek massive retaliation so that it is hard to distinguish between good-guy and bad-guy
violence. As one commentator on wrestling put it years ago, “Everyone’s a psychopath now” (cited
in Leyland 1988: 60). Violence is offered as ever more unreal, stylized, and unconnected to real
experience. Habituated to violence, some audiences delight in the audacity of a film or video that
greatly exceeds their expectations for violence.
This seems to apply especially to anti-war films where the message is often overwhelmed by the
vicarious thrill of widescreen battle scenes. As Peckinpah found, the spectacle fails to inflect the
action to a point beyond itself. Not only do some audiences reject the anti-violence message, even
those who accept it can feel ambivalent, simultaneously rejecting violence but also pleasurably
excited by it (Young 2019). A film in which the narrative carries an anti-violence message
punctuated by scenes of carnage caters to two different pleasures. It alternatively offers audiences
the pleasure of a moral high ground in rejecting violence combined with its thrill. What is intended
as critical condemnation can be undermined by its celebration, even revelry. Where audiences have
become blasé about artificial violence, films intended to show the shocking reality of violence may
actually offer more thrills than condemnation.
Mental Scripts of a Hostile World

As mentioned above, exposure to violent imagery not only arouses anxiety, repeated exposure
creates hostile scripts in which the world is seen as filled with threats (Anderson and Bushman
2018). Viewers come to believe that the world is a hostile place and other people are out to get
them. They attribute hostile intentions to the ambiguous actions of others. Anxiety causes people
to split other people into two opposite halves, to bifigurate, in which people like themselves are
viewed as good and innocent and others as evildoers. Thinking in black and white terms, others are
viewed as potential threats. This also has the effect of lowering empathy for the fate of bad people.
Who cares if they suffer? Fearful of being victims of violence, people are drawn toward retaliatory
violence (Miron 2002). Again, this does not mean that people will be violent themselves; instead,
they are the more willing to allow the police and armed services to use violence on their behalf.
People who would never themselves harm another person are prepared to sanction violence on
their behalf (Gitlin 2001), such violence being justified as legal violence. Perpetrated by the state,
legal violence is considered necessary for the common good (Zillmann 1998).
A Cycle of Violence
With such hostile worldviews, a cycle of violence is created (Anderson and Bushman 2018). Violent
media fantasies raise levels of fear and anxiety that create a view of the real world in terms of actual
threats, that leads people to sanction real violence on their behalf, that leads to real-world violence,
that is then echoed in violent media fantasies, and so on. Thus, popular media violence and real-life
violence feed off each other, the one folding into the other.
The Violent 105
Paradoxically, it is the desire to live in a safe, stable, and predictable world, especially when
feeling threatened, that influences the acceptance of violence to secure safety. This dynamic is
repeated ad nauseam in popular media fantasies. Antagonists invariably threaten the status quo
while protagonists re-establish the status quo. Horsley (2002) points out that despite the often
sociopathic tendencies of media protagonists, they defend the sanctioned way of life, the basic unit
of which is almost always the rock bed of traditional values, the family. Horsley equates heroic
protagonists with the state, the antagonists he equates with the forces of instability—communism,
anarchy, subversion, crime, and now terrorism—and those who are threatened he equates with the
family. In one violent spectacle after another, the state, represented by the hero, defends the family
unit against the forces that threaten it. This formula not only justifies the violence perpetrated
by the hero, but also, ultimately, popularizes it as family entertainment. In Horsley’s words, “The
family that slays together stays together” (151). In short, popular media violence is the means
through which the cornerstone of social cohesion is maintained and in its defense any amount or
kind of violence is justified. It is noteworthy that on prime-time US television, violence is nearly
one third more often perpetrated by the hero than the villain (Lichter, Lichter, and Rothman 2002).
Social stability is defended by violence more often than threatened by it.
An End to Violence?
Violence in popular entertainment is exceedingly complex, and the following concluding remarks
are made only for the purpose of coming to the end of this chapter. There are many kinds of violent
entertainment and much of it is probably benign. Violence is often humorous, and some of it might
be necessary in a generally mediated and rationalized society for stimulation. Some is undoubtedly
legitimized by serious narrative purposes. Yet a society that routinely indulges itself in massive and
visceral violence that is only nominally required by a plot cannot be wholly healthy.
A fundamental right in democratic societies is the freedom to dissent, and such freedom is
threatened when popular media generate unwarranted fears about health and safety (Church
2004). Since fear is a universal and easy to arouse, and since “symbolic violence may be the cheapest
way to cultivate it effectively,” a violence-saturated media can be considered “the established
religion of the industrial order relating to governance as the Church did in earlier times” (cited in
Zillmann 1988: 186). Like the early Christians who, fearful for their lives, turned their fear into
fantasies of revenge, so people today, fearful of terrorism, anxious over their prospects, feeling
frustrated about the limits to their freedom in an overly rationalized society, turn to media fantasies
of violent retribution. Violent media helps create and maintain a culture of fear and anxiety, which,
in turn, serves the socioeconomic and sociopolitical status quo because a pervasive sense of fear
and anxiety has the effect of quelling dissent. It is perhaps a shocking idea, that popular media
violence is a critical aspect in the maintenance of the social fabric, that violence today is not unlike
Roman and medieval times when violence was integral to life, real and fantasized.
Banning violent media, or even toning it down, however, appears not to be an adequate response
because it is not the violent images alone that are the root problem of a violent society. As Church
notes (2004), fear, once generated, is more likely to move trouble from one burner to another than
turn down the flame. The issues go as deep as a pre-existing world of real violence, fear being a
prime human motivator, and a fiercely competitive consumer market intent on capitalizing on
each. While not alone in being responsible for real-world violence, mediated violence appears to be
at least a contributing factor.
Media violence is not disconnected from these symbiotic influences; rather, as a constitutive
element of society it both draws upon social realities and contributes to them as part of an ongoing,
ever-evolving process. Violent imagery is both a mirror and an active contributor to society.
Popular media violence is a deeply serious issue precisely because by engendering fear and anxiety
it contributes to the dissipation of the mind and heart as well as the bifiguration of people into good
and bad that has profound real-world consequences.
8
The Horrific
Chapter Outline
Horror, Terror, and Dread 107
Sublime Terror versus Popular Horror 108
Horror Hedonism 110
Horror, Hostility, and Hate 117
Uncanny Uncertainty 118
Thomas Edison’s 18-second film from 1895, Execution of Mary, Queen of Scots, showed a public
decapitation. Audiences were treated to a shot of a falling axe followed by a head rolling into a
basket. In George Melies’s 1903 Terrible Turkish Executioner many heads are chopped off and
bodies are cut in half. At the very outset of film history, horror was a staple, and it has remained so
ever since. Only Sherlock Holmes has appeared more often than Dracula, and vampire movies
outnumber all other cinematic genres (Marriott and Newman 2013). Yet horrifying images have a
much longer history than cinema. As discussed in the previous chapter, violent horror was a staple
of Greek theater and, as discussed in this chapter, demonic, supernatural horror was a staple of
medieval Christian Europe and Muslim Asia.
Today, whether it is shambling, flesh-eating zombies or vampires sucking blood, the lure of the
horrific is as strong as ever. Zombies and vampires may be undead, but in the imagination of the
horrific they are as alive today as similar figures have been since ancient times.
Horror, Terror, and Dread

The horrific is whatever excites a sense of horror, common synonyms being terror and dread. Terror
is a sharp, intense, overmastering fear. Terror causes a shock, a sudden and violent disturbance of
the mind, emotions, or sensibilities. Dread is an apprehension of something terrifying in the future.
While today the most common form of mediated horror is found on screen, all its basic characteristics
can be found in previous visual media, as well as the theater, literature, and folk tales (Bloom 2010).
107
Moreover, horror is not confined to a specific screen genre. The horrific probably appears more often
as a brief interlude in screen dramas than it does in the horror genres where horror is the primary focus
(Hills 2005). As Morgan (2002) says, “horror categories bleed into one another” (10).
There are also many kinds of horror, from the delightfully scary to the utterly terrifying.
Hollywood’s Starline Tours (2018) advertise, “See where Sharon Tate was murdered, where John
Belushi’s body was found . . .” Cities and towns all over the world offer ghost tours, and hardly a
sideshow is without a ghost ride. On the other hand, in the 1990s, fashion spreads sought to catch
the eye with horrid, heroin chic, skeletal models (Gross 2014), and stalk and slash movies specialize
in gore (Leeder 2018).
Horror is able to engage our primal fears, our worst nightmares, what Sontag (1965) calls all our
“unassimilable terrors” (48). Some fears are personal and perennial; others are social, and while the
latter take specific forms at particular times in particular places they invariably arise from a fear of
social upheaval and anarchy. The iconic Universal Studios horror films of the 1930s echoed the
fears of the Great Depression. Hollywood science fiction horror films of the 1950s variously
addressed the fear of nuclear annihilation, communism, and the influence of science and
technology. Horror films of the 1960s dealt with the breakdown of sexual taboos, the assertiveness
of women, and the consequent diminution of men’s power. More recently, horror has been haunted
by terrorism with a renewed interest in the nature of evil and the vulnerability of ordinary living
and working places (Duncan and Muller 2019).
Perennial personal fears aroused by horror include a fear of the dark, bodily deterioration,
death, dismemberment, loss of identity, the non-human, mental and physical deviance, and sexual
dysfunction. Whether arising from social issues or from our inescapable condition as human
bodies and minds, horrified responses are typically triggered by a violation of cultural categories,
entities that inspire revulsion and disgust, and entities that cue a sense of threat (Hills 2005).
Often our reactions to horror are marked by physical affects, our psychological fears realized in
physical terms (Morgan 2002). Horror confronts us with images of the body in extremis that
impacts our own bodies, reaching down into our glands, skin, muscles, and circulatory system. We
may squirm, shudder, shiver, shout, scream, quake, tremble, stop breathing, and suddenly intake or
exhale air. Our skin may crawl, the hair on the back of our neck may bristle, and we may involuntarily
avert our eyes. We may be transfixed, meaning rendered motionless by fear, or we may be petrified,
meaning rigid with fear. Metaphorically, our blood may curdle. Adolescent audiences for horror
genre films variously report “feeling physically nauseous, crying, sweating and sitting up very tense,
feeling as if going to faint, and breaking into tears” (Cantor and Oliver 1996: 64).
Sublime Terror versus Popular Horror

For aestheticians of the eighteenth century terror was an aspect of the sublime, something
simultaneously shocking and pleasurable. Burke ([1757] 2015) wrote: “Whatever is in any sort
terrible, or is conversant about terrible objects, or operates in a manner analogous to terror, is a
source of the sublime” (36). In his first formulation of the sublime, Kant ([1764] 1965) wrote of the
The Horrific 109
Figure 8.1 Caravaggio, Judith Beheading Holofernes, 1598.
“terrifying sublime” (48) which included something fearsome, a certain dread, horror, a bold
acceptance of danger, and transfixed wonder. For Burke the sublime engendered pain; for Kant, the
sublime engendered pleasure through pain (Kaplan 2007).
These aestheticians may have had in mind paintings of saints tortured, beheadings, rape, and
grisly murder, or perhaps Caravaggio’s multiple paintings of David triumphantly holding up
Goliath’s decapitated, bleeding head, or his Judith Beheading Holofernes (1598), which shows blood
shooting from the victim’s neck.
Kant and Burke used the terms horror and terror interchangeably; not so other aesthetic theorists
who were aghast at the emergence of the gothic. They made a sharp distinction between sublime
terror and horror as mere popular distraction. The period coincided with the rise of the art
academies whose annual exhibitions catered to both high-minded patrons and the general public.
As the elite were forced to mingle with the general public, which included the so-called lower
orders, the distinction between terror and horror was a way for the elite to distance themselves
from the rabble (Frayling 2006). They proposed that sublime terror caused us to rise above ourselves,
to reflect upon our place in the universe; it was a rational, cognitive matter by which we were able
to realize our full humanity, whereas horror was simply frightening, a mere shock, as irrational as
an overexcited imagination. One helped to integrate the psyche; the other caused disintegration.
The English poet Samuel Coleridge wrote in 1797 of gothic horror: “Figures that shock the
imagination, and narratives that mangle the feelings, . . . always betrays a low and vulgar taste . . . a
poison for youth and a provocation for the debauchee” (cited in Bloom 2010: 123).
However, the works that excited this controversy suggest a case of a distinction without a difference,
and one clearly based on a textual reading rather than how images are received in practice by actual
viewers. Today, horror is considered in two complimentary, interdependent ways in which the actual
experience of horror combines cognitive experience with a visceral response. While specific examples
of horror enable more of one than the other, even the most visceral kinds mirror personal and social
issues in a way that invites reflection. As Bishop (2006) says of zombie films, they have “the ability to
make audiences think while they shriek” (196). In dramatically unsettling our ordinary assumptions
about people and the world in general, horror forces reflection upon our normative ways of being
(Fahy 2010). Morgan (2002) even claims that horror is capable of delivering not only “wisdom” but
“transcendence” (11). Since this amounts to a definition of the sublime as advanced during the
eighteenth century, the attempt to distinguish between terror as reflective and horror as mere fright
falls apart. Reflection and fright are part of the same experience of horror because the kind of
reflection involved is reliant on being frightened. Horror, like the more general concept of the sublime,
tests the limits of human reason. We are forced to consider how little is certain. Without fright the
kind of reflection that fright engenders—a sense of ontological uncertainty—is not possible. Today,
following Kant and Burke, the terms horror and terror are often used synonymously (Pinedo 1997),
the distinction between them being just one more example of how elite culture attempted to distance
itself from what was essentially the same thing as enjoyed in popular culture.
Horror Hedonism
What then is it about horror, what Tallon (2007) calls “the most unpleasant of artistic genres,” that
is in fact, at least for many people, pleasurable? (35) Tallon writes: “Horror doesn’t like you. Horror
doesn’t care if it causes you to lose sleep” (35). So, why do many people deliberately place themselves
in a position in which they experience high levels of apprehension, feel dread, and suffer panic?
Performative Pleasures
Some of the pleasures of horror are similar to the pleasures of violent imagery discussed in the
previous chapter. In part, horror’s delight lies in contextual, social cues that enable audiences to enjoy
horrific events that they would find deeply distressing in real life. Cinema-goers pay for a ticket, sit in
a theater with many others, drink soda, munch popcorn, and contribute to the choruses of delighted
screams. Each social cue is preceded by previous experience of the horror genre and the informed
decision to go again. An awareness of the music, special effects, and acting and editing skills also all
contribute to a film being intertextual with other films rather than reality. Audiences do not just watch
Hannibal Lecter, they watch Anthony Hopkins play Hannibal Lecter (Hills 2005). Audiences know
themselves to be in both a safe environment and one given over to fantasy. Such distancing from
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reality is sometimes known as the Nero complex (Keane 1995). Like the Emperor Nero who
purportedly fiddled while Rome burned, audiences sit back and let the recreational terror unfold.
Horror films, like violent action discussed in the previous chapter, have particular appeal among
male youth for whom they provide a means of both mastering their fears and demonstrating
mastery of their gender role. This accords with the ancient Roman view that the gladiatorial arena
acculturated spectators to the requirements of a warrior state (Goldstein 1998). Today’s horror
films provide ideal conditions for male youth to routinely confront fear and thereby learn to fulfill
their socially assigned gender function. The films are an endurance test, and sharing it in the
company of other males also engenders male bonding.
Furthermore, when adolescent males and females watch horror movies together, the movies
enable age-old, gender-specific role play. While adolescent males teach themselves to be unfazed
by horror, females are socialized to display discomfort. In watching horror films adolescent males
demonstrate their manliness and females their vulnerability so that both genders feel equally
empowered (Zillmann and Weaver 1996).
Additionally, males enjoy horror films the more the films enable them to extend comfort to their
partners, and while females typically like horror films far less than their male companions, they
like them the more the more their partners play the role of gallant protector (Tamborini 2002). The
ancient Roman poet Ovid observed the same phenomenon: the more terrified women were of the
mayhem in the gladiatorial arena, the more they sought comfort from their male companions
(Mundorf and Mundorf 2002). Adolescent males are more attracted to females, and females to
males, when the gender-specific roles are successfully enacted (Tamborini 2002). Ironically, this
occurs at least partly through misattribution. Females routinely attribute greater mastery to males
than they actually feel, and males routinely attribute more distress to females than they actually
feel. Both genders also misattribute their liking for each other to the films themselves so that horror
films provide an opportunity for both genders to not only play their respective gender-specific
roles, but to derive deep pleasure from doing so (Zillmann 1988). No wonder that these observations
of today’s dating behavior are known as the “snuggle theory” of horror (McCauley 1998: 151).
Escape and Stimulation

Horror provides escape from boring reality like no other aesthetic experience. Its many specific
threats deliver an emotional wallop, a series of “yell out moments” (Sumner 2010: 8). Splatter/
slasher films especially are a thrill ride in which audiences shriek from one moment to the next.
Horror focuses the mind. Zinoman (2011) writes: “When you experience extreme fear you
forget the rest of the world. The intensity fixes you in the present time. . . . good horror movies
make you think: great ones make you stop” (10). Consequently, no form of entertainment is as
successful as horror at providing an escape from reality. As discussed in the previous chapter on the
lure of violence, we now live in such regulated societies we may be protected too well. Famed
horror film director Alfred Hitchcock claimed: “The only way to remove the numbness [of
civilization] and revive our moral equilibrium is to use artificial means to bring about the shock”
(cited in Marriott 2004: 2).
Perhaps the attraction to the shock of horror has evolutionary origins associated with protective
vigilance and curiosity (Tamborini 2002). We are hardwired to focus our attention on cues to
danger such as horrific events, and our emotional reactions have not significantly changed since
our hunter-gatherer days. If so, the cognitive and physiological mechanisms that evolved to serve
us on the savannah are activated in watching horror movies, and fictional horror acts as a substitute
for real-life challenges (Zillmann 1998). But not just any challenges.
Transfixed Fascination
Horror specifically challenges our tolerance for rotting flesh, and decaying corpses, and death. This
is what Morgan (2002) calls “macabre aesthetics” (67). Horror revels especially in what Pinedo
(1997) calls “wet death,” death in all its disgusting, loathsome, leaky details, a reality that has been
largely eradicated from public life (51). Greatly extended life expectancy, the abolition of public
execution as entertainment, and the removal of dying behind hospital walls and nursing homes,
and even death itself from many funerals, means that most of us have little immediate knowledge
of death. And now that we live longer than our forebears, have we become more attached to life and
fear death more? Does the more we expect from life mean the more dreadful appears its end?
Perhaps sidelining actual death has made us more anxious about it, but also the more fascinated by
its grimmest aspects (Goldberg 1998).
However, graphic depictions of gruesome deaths have been a trope of horror for millennia. A
fear of death is surely perennial, and perhaps our current fascination with it is more to do with
commercial competition than a major change of human sensibilities. To punch through the
onslaught of media messages as well as our cynicism about them, commercial media resorts to the
same body blows it does with violence and sex.
But a corpse, for example, surely, has always been abject. Like all abject things it is something
that is neither one thing nor the other, an unnerving ambiguous state of being, something that is
human but no longer human (Kristiva 1982). And the abject finds its home in horror (Creed 1993).
Abject things disgust. As described in Chapter 6 on vulgarity, abject things can make us laugh,
but as an aspect of horror they make us recoil in revulsion. Menstrual blood, faeces, urine, vomit,
snot, puss, and semen, as well as the body turned inside out as in vivisection and disembowelment,
trigger the knee-jerk emotion of disgust, an immediate, straight-to-the-nervous-system response.
Although specific instances of disgust are culturally determined, disgust exists in all societies
(Miller 1997). It is a biological, universal human response, a repugnance, the very opposite of the
cleanliness that resides next to godliness. During the Middle Ages disgust was literally the domain
of the Devil.
In ordinary life disgust is most commonly experienced through the senses of taste, touch, and
smell. With visual representations causing disgust, vision piggybacks on these proximal senses
(Carroll and Contesi 2019). The sight of loathsome material repels by the power of suggestion; even
the prospect of unnerving touches, nauseating tastes, or foul odors causes involuntary negative
reactions. But vision also works to horrify independent of the other senses. Ugly, deformed, or
mutilated bodies also repulse. They shatter complacency about the normative order of things. They
The Horrific 113
tear away the trust we ordinarily place in everyday life. Things that cause disgust undermine the
pretensions and pieties we try to maintain about human dignity.
As discussed in Chapter 6 on vulgarity, what ordinarily disgusts also disgusts when mediated,
though we are fascinated nevertheless. Disgust is paradoxical. It is what Creed (1993) refers to as
the “pleasure of perversity” (13). It returns us to the condition of a young child, before the
assimilation of social taboos, to a time before shame and embarrassment. We return to a state when
we found pleasure in wet and slimy bodily wastes. Whether pleasurable or not, disgust attracts as
much as it repels, and no more so than by monstrosity.
Monstrosity takes many forms. In gothic horror, mysterious stains appear on walls, inanimate
objects move around as if by themselves, and particular places possess an ambiance of dread.
Monstrosity is abject in that it reminds us that barely under the surface of daily life there lurks the
unknown (Creed 1993). Monstrosity represents the ontological uncertainty of the abject. Nothing
is entirely as it seems. Actual monsters are the abject made flesh, not just because so many monsters
are disgusting, but also because they exist somewhere between alive and dead, or somewhere
between human and not human, or sometimes their gender and sexual orientation is unclear. That
part of them that is not human and also dead threatens our fundamental identities as alive and
human. Ambiguity in any form threatens our common desire for identifiable boundaries.
Some monsters are demonically supernatural: ghosts, vampires, werewolves, and zombies. And
all the undead creatures return to wreak havoc on the living. Ghosts, whether in a visible, invisible,
or partially visible form, haunt houses with malevolent intent. Vampires sleep during the day and
by night they suck human blood turning victims into vampires like themselves. During the full
moon werewolves shapeshift from human to animal and as wolves rip humans apart. Zombies
devour flesh and especially brains. Some monsters appear in the form of demon possession; others
are the product of laboratory experiments gone wrong. Some monsters are visibly insane, with
crazed, rolling eyes and bizarre behavior; others are like the appropriately named Norman in
Psycho whose surface normality masks deep psychosis (Duncan and Muller 2019).
The monstrous manifests itself in many physical forms, has many origins, and behaves in a wide
variety of ways. Our relationships with monstrosity are equally diverse. But one thing remains
constant: monstrosity dramatically highlights the vulnerability of everyday existence, raising
doubts about the safety and security of ordinary people and places (Carroll and Contesi 2019).
Making Moral Judgments

Like violent entertainment, horror offers permission to make moral judgments. The medieval
Christian church reveled in violent horror. Between the biblical book of Revelation, The Divine
Comedy, and older classical tales, including those of Dionysus, medieval artists were furnished
with a highly detailed repertoire of horror from which to draw (Hughes 1968). Medieval Muslim
artists similarly conjured horrific punishments for the damned in hell. For hundreds of years
Christian and Muslim artists documented how every sin was remorselessly punished: the proud
are strung up by their hair and adulterers by their genitals; perjurers bite their own lips and tongues;
murderers are eaten by snakes; usurers are forced to eat faeces, their own and the devil’s. In one
Figure 8.2 Coppo di Marcovaldo, Inferno, c. 1225.
image a sodomite is impaled on a stake from anus to mouth. Other sinners face strappado, flaying
alive, or immersion to the genitals in molten lead, burning sulfur, or hot mud. Others still are
forced to roll spiked rocks up and down a red-hot iron hill, broken on the wheel, strangled, impaled,
disemboweled, or their orifices invaded by toads, worms, and newts. Though ostensibly for the
edification of those tempted to waiver from the faith, the images are nothing if not sadomasochistic
fantasies. Hughes (1968) calls this “an aesthetics of evil” (156). The images declare: behave well, but
also enjoy what happens to those who stray from the straight and narrow.
Today’s horror movies provide something of the same opportunity. As Sontag (1965) notes, one
of the major lures of horror, like violence, is that it permits “moral simplification” (45). With horror
though, the stakes are often higher; conflicts are presented as normative goodness versus evil
incarnate, often literally as agents of the devil or even as the devil’s own seed. When the conflict is
this stark, normal, social restraints are abandoned. Fury is unleashed and the most massive, gory
retaliation is legitimized. A moral code that rejects both ambiguity and relativity justifies breaking
all manner of social taboos.
Wish Fulfillment and/or Recognition

Either explicitly or covertly, the lingua franca of horror is the socially taboo, including cannibalism,
incest, torture, murder, sadism, masochism, and necrophilia. Various psychoanalytical perspectives
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have been offered to account for this socially deviant nature of horror, although because they deal
with the unconscious they must necessarily remain speculative. For Freud, mediated horror was an
attempt to deal with repressed desires. He argued that, although we may protest that we are horrified
by abjection and monstrosity, this is a dodge. As Carroll (1990) puts it, “revulsion is the ticket that
allows the pleasure of wish fulfillment to be enacted” (170). Jung regarded the depiction of
despicable acts as projections of a collective, universal subconscious. They are concrete
manifestations of the archetypes, principal of which was the shadow self, in Jung’s words, “our
sinister and frightful brother” (cited in Connolly 2008: 129). Jacques Lacan’s view is even more
dramatic. Mediated horror is nothing more than the unconscious writ large (Žižek 1991). The
unconscious was not an unknowable territory forever hidden, but made manifest in dramatic form
in all its complex and powerful darkness, and in our unconscious we are all sadists and murderers.
We normally think of ourselves as civilized, decent people, who on entering a movie theater are
entering into a dream and on leaving the theater that we are waking from the dream to resume our
everyday lives as civil and moral. On the contrary, it is in watching horror that we confront our real
desires, and it is when we leave the theater to resume thinking of ourselves as being decent that we
are dreaming. The pleasure of horror lies in recognizing those very real and powerful parts of
ourselves we normally repress or ignore.
Transgressive Liberation
Whatever we are to make of these psychoanalytic explanations, it is clear that horror sanctions
regression to an infantile state, to a life of unconstrained desire. As the philosopher Ludwig
Wittgenstein observed, a baby crying involves “terrible forces different from anything commonly
assumed. Profound rage, pain and lust for destruction” (cited in Morgan 2002: 5). And horror
opens the door to the liberatory joy of transgression. Horror is a hedonistic indulgence, though not
only of our individual, dark shadow self, but in what is commonly repressed, denied, marginalized,
or ignored in society. Wood (1986) writes: “the true subject of the horror genre is the struggle for
recognition of all that our civilization represses or oppresses, its re-emergence dramatized” (75).
Wood (1986) distinguishes between necessary repressions for civil life and those that are
unnecessary. Sadism and cruelty are necessarily repressed because their free rein would make civil
life impossible, but culturally specific repressions such as monogamy, heterosexuality, patriarchy,
and capitalist relationships are unnecessarily repressive. For Wood, horror’s appeal lies in offering
liberatory alternatives to each of these elements of mainstream life. Horror offers a glimpse of
alternative, even oppositional, ways of life. Horror challenges the status quo in ways that otherwise
go unexpressed. For example, the lesbian vampires of the early 1970s, while arising from a fear of
women’s emancipation and alternative sexualities, could also be read as role models of strong,
independent women (Williamson 2005). To a culturally disenfranchised audience, monsters act as
a kind of superhero wielding power in their name, which includes women and alternative
sexualities, but also the economically marginal, minority ethnic cultures, and alternative political
systems (Shaw 2001). As representation of these marginalized forces, monsters are heroes wielding
the power to destroy the status quo.
Repetition
The tropes of horror are highly consistent across both media and time. Twenty-first-century horrid
entertainment recycles tropes from 1950s comic books that reveled in explicit depictions of
dismemberment and disembowelment, festering wounds, rotting flesh, and putrification (Sadowski
2010). Victims were boiled in oil or hacked to death. Monsters slobbered, ghouls rampaged.
Decomposing corpses emerged from their graves, characters held up their own bleeding, decapitated
heads. In turn, the comics drew upon tropes of the nineteenth-century stage, which recycled
eighteenth-century gothic novels, that revisioned tropes of seventeenth-century paintings, that
repackaged medieval imagery, that took their cue from the biblical book of Revelation and ancient
Greek theater. Whether it is decapitated heads, walking dead, hideous monsters, or cannibalism, the
tropes are identical from century to century. Some horror genres, especially stalk and slash films,
even make a virtue of repetition by an obsessive compulsion to repeat one horror after another.
Similarly, horror genre narratives follow similar sequences; despite numerous variations, plot
structures follow a predictable order. As Salomon (2002) writes, horror “is an eternal return to the
site of unmodulated shock” (8).
Freud says of children at play that they are involuntarily caught up in repetitive acts that evidence
an instinct for mastery over the conflicts and anxieties that has given rise to the play (Plastow
2015). Like children’s repetitive play that is at the same time pleasurable and indicative of the
persistence of anxiety, horror is a dramatization that is part pleasure and part trauma. The incentive
for repeatedly exposing oneself to mediated horror of essentially the same kind is then an ongoing
mixture of pleasure and anxiety.
Horror and Humor

On the other hand, horror as entertainment often plays with being horrid, and where it takes itself
seriously we are often only amused. Because horror deals with extreme situations it sometimes
lends itself to being viewed with a camp sensibility, to be appreciated for its stylized, theatrical,
over-the-top exaggeration. Failing to be terrorized by horrid entertainment, we may smile, giggle,
or laugh out loud. This is horror only in quotation marks.
Horror has often been parodied. The first distinctive horror genre was the gothic, and no sooner
had gothic authors and playwrights put pen to paper than their work was widely satirized, including
by Jane Austen in her novel Northanger Abbey. As early as 1797 an anonymous writer, though
commonly believed to be Coleridge, wrote an extensive and widely circulated satire of which the
following is a brief extract:
. . . you must take care that the battlements and towers are remarkably populous in owls and bats. The
hooting of one, and the flitting of the other, are excellent engines in the system of terror, particularly
if the candle goes out, which is often the case . . .
cited in Bloom 2010: 22
Humor has also always been an intentional trope of horror. At a social gathering early in the iconic
1931 film Dracula, the vampire insinuatingly comments: “I don’t drink . . . wine” (cited in Connolly
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2008: 135). And many movies deliberately parody others. The Attack of the 50 Foot Woman from
1958, as if the title wasn’t parody enough, was followed by the 1995 film Attack of the 60 Foot
Centerfold.
Horror, Hostility, and Hate

Even so, the use of horror is more often than not, to use Jung’s word, sinister. In ways that only
horror can, it has been used to repress dissent as well as unleash hatred.
Repression
While many forms of horror transgress social norms, others operate to reinstate the normative
order and, depending upon one’s predisposition, pleasure can be taken from either the return of
the repressed or its re-repression (Wood 1986). We can take pleasure either by identifying with the
challenge to the status quo or seeing it reaffirmed, thrilled by the chaos or comforted by the return
to order. Most commonly, horror narratives manage both by first allowing viewers to revel in the
transgression and then seeing it closed down (Hills 2005). The previously repressed is unleashed,
which is then followed by re-repressing whatever had been let loose. Dracula is killed with a silver
stake. Brain-dead zombies disintegrate or are blown up. Any return of the repressed is temporary,
allowing no more than a glimpse of an alternative way of being. In this sense, as described in
Chapters 13 and 14, horror narratives operate no differently from other narrative structures,
dislocating the status quo only to see it re-established, and differing only in that the dislocation is
the more extreme. Any challenge to patriarchy suggested by the lesbian vampires of the 1970s
is undercut by other potential readings: the danger of women’s emancipation and alternative
sexualities or simply as male sexual fantasy (Williamson 2005).
Horror is capable of shutting down political dissent and maintaining despotic powers, and has
done so since ancient times. Like other forms of popular culture, horror recycles visual stereotypes
of women, the poor, and ethnicities and so on, as if in the nature of things (Pinedo 1997). But
horror goes beyond mere disenfranchising the normative other because it employs our automatic
disgust response. As Miller (1997) writes of disgust, “It marks out moral matters for which we can
have no compromise. . . . It carries with it the notion of its own indisputability . . . disgust is processed
so particularly via offence to the senses. It argues for the visibility . . . the sheer obviousness of its
claim” (194).
During the Middle Ages, the horrors of hell were used to suppress dissent and maintain order.
And in real life the Romans used the public execution of crucifixion, where after days of being
nailed to an elevated crossbeam the condemned suffered a heart attack and was then cut down to
be eaten by dogs and crows. Medieval authorities, both civil and religious, proved far more inventive
(Donnelly and Diehl 2012). Torture was commonly understood to be widely practiced in dungeons,
and execution torture was publicly displayed. Both were pictured in print and paintings for those
not present. Bodies were broken on the wheel, disemboweled, beheaded, drawn and quartered,
burnt at the stake, and roasted alive over fire. For centuries heads were displayed on pikes along
major roads. Each method was intended to mortify spectators with the consequences of dissent.
Unleashing Hatred
Horror also has been used to generate despicable actions toward others, to unleash hate, the most
devastating of all emotions (Cameron 2009). During World War I the Allies marshaled support with
posters of Germans as barbaric, as fearsome gorillas, dirty swine, and as mad dogs killing babies
(James 2009). The 1940 Nazi film The Eternal Jew drew on centuries of imagery in which Jews were
associated with squalor as well as the classic 1922 horror film Nosferatu in which the vampire is
likened to a rat. The Eternal Jew juxtaposes images of Jews with images of rats and cockroaches, and
the voiceover claims that rats “spread disease, plague, leprosy, typhoid fever, cholera, dysentery, and
so on . . . just like the Jews among human beings” (cited in Livingston Smith 2011: 139). On seeing
the film, Joseph Goebbels, the Minister for Propaganda and under whose direction the film was
made, wrote in his diary that the Jews were “so dreadful and brutal in their details that one’s blood
freezes. One pulls back in horror. . . . This Jewry must be exterminated” (cited: 138).
In the waging of twenty-first-century war, the terror of unannounced, indiscriminate, and
multiple deaths is now a principal tactic in many parts of the world and horror is used by both
governments and terrorists to garner support. Repeated showing of the shocking images of 9/11
were employed to wage wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and, in turn, terrorists have used pictures of
tortured and defiled prisoners in US custody to maintain their own rage (Hoffman 2017). Such
horrid images are used to both sanction hateful thoughts and to motivate and justify the most
dreadful of deeds.
Either to suppress dissent or to incite action, horror has been used as a tool of despicable forces.
It is effective because the shock of horror is able to reach down into our nervous system as no other
aesthetic form.
Uncanny Uncertainty
Horror can be used for the worst of causes. Yet its attractions are many and varied. Horror can be
escapist entertainment, a stimulant in an unstimulating society, and a means to reflect on the
unpredictable vicissitudes of life. It simulates, excites, and thrills, arouses our curiosity and holds
us captive as its fascinated victims. It permits indulgence in unsavory feelings and in transgressing
social taboos.
But fully accounting for the lures of horror must remain open. To use Freud’s term, it is uncanny.
It is unsettlingly inexplicable, no better illustration of which is Freud’s relationship with Henry
Fuseli’s Nightmare from 1782, an icon of horror. The painting depicts a woman swooning on a
couch behind which a black horse thrusts its head, staring at her with bulging, pupil-less eyes. On
the woman’s chest and stomach sits an incubus that looks quizzically at the viewer with the eyes of
a goblin. Fuseli refused to explain the picture, and its meaning has remained a mystery ever since.
The Horrific 119
Figure 8.3 Henry Fuseli, The Nightmare, 1782.
Freud kept a copy of it on a wall in his counseling room, but instead of irritating Freud to write
about it, to help explain it, he ignored it. Bloom (2010) writes: “Freud’s print brooded over the
inexplicable, reminding the psychoanalyst of his limits” (112). Much has been written on horror
since Freud, but the massive proliferation of writing from many perspectives is testimony that
horror’s attractions continue to unsettle the public and cultural critics alike. To the extent to which
horror arises from the unconscious and its workings remain impenetrable, fully understanding the
lures of horror remains a matter of fascinated speculation.
120
9
The Miraculous
Chapter Outline
Miracles and Marvels 121
The Skeptical Discourse 122
An Enchanted Universe of Miracles 123
The Many Lures of the Miraculous 125
Spectacles of Wonder 131
Miracles and Mirage 131
The Wonder of It All 132
World celebrity televangelist Benny Hinn asks viewers to receive healings by touching their
television sets and send him their money; the Japanese purchase paper slips as votive offerings to
pass exams; millions of people purchase miracle books; the visage of Jesus appears in a cheeseburger
and brings fame to its owner; comic superheroes possess superhuman powers that save the planet;
and advertisers promise miraculous results with vacuum cleaners, shampoo, and exercise
equipment. A belief in miraculous forces at work in everyday human affairs remains very much
alive.
Miracles and Marvels

In defining the miraculous, today’s ordinary-language dictionaries follow the three-part
categorization first proposed in the thirteenth century by St. Aquinas (Daston 1991). Stripped of its
original, medieval garb, the miraculous is first considered something not explainable by natural
law, something that appears supernatural, the result of nothing less than divine intervention. The
miraculous can also be something so remarkable or astonishing that, although conforming to
natural law, it resembles the supernatural. In the past, this has often meant the appearance of a
comet, a volcanic explosion, or an animal or a person with striking physical abnormalities. And the
miraculous can also refer to something that occurs regularly such as a sunset or the birth of a baby
121
but is experienced as marvelous. As the poet Ralph Waldo Emerson ([1836] 2009) remarked, “The
invariable mark of wisdom is to see the miraculous in the common” (32).
Among believers, the first kind of miracles are commonplace; the world of objects and events
remains enchanted. Witness the phenomenal worldwide growth of charismatic and Pentecostal
churches (Christerson and Flory 2017) as well as the growth of New Age followers (Bancarz and
Peck 2018) for whom miracles occur as a common part of everyday experience (Singleton 2001).
Consider today’s many miracle books that relate stories about contemporary divine interventions,
healings, prayers answered, and communication with angels (Bessey 2019). Consider that the
Virgin Mary is reported to have repeatedly appeared to large crowds from 1930 to 1980 (Christian
1981), as well as in 1989 in Lubbock, Texas, and in Denver, Colorado, in 1992 (Nickell 1993). In
each case, the invisible is made visible; the desired unseen is manifest as spectral.
The Skeptical Discourse

Belief in supernatural forces intervening into material reality stands in marked contrast to the
Enlightenment. Inaugurated during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the Enlightenment
rejected supernatural explanations in favor of logic and scientific explanations to be found in the
workings of natural laws. Enlightenment philosopher and skeptic David Hume ([1748] 1985)
wrote in Of Miracles, when “the spirit of religion joins itself to the love of wonder, there is an end
to common sense; and human testimony, in these circumstances, loses all pretensions to authority”
(35). Before Enlightenment skepticism, church authorities had sought to determine what should
count as evidence of miracles. By contrast, Hume focused on what could possibly count as evidence
for miracles. He pointed to our common predilection to gossip and to hoaxes, writing of “forged
miracles, and prophesies, and supernatural events, which in all ages, have either been detected by
contrary evidence, or which detect themselves by their absurdity, prove sufficiently the strong
propensity of mankind to the extraordinary and marvelous” (35). Hume was at pains to understand
the universe without divine intervention, much like his near contemporary, the third US president,
Thomas Jefferson, who created his own account of Jesus’s life by eliminating all references to
miracles (Jefferson [1819] 2006). Representatives of Enlightenment rationality, Hume, Jefferson,
and their like were intent on distinguishing between natural law and the superstition in which they
believed all previous periods had been mired.
The Enlightenment oversaw the disenchantment of the universe. Unusual, even unique objects
and events, and no matter how surprising or wondrous, were merely objects and events. They
neither signified supernatural energies at work nor offered any kind of divine message. But for
believers in the supernatural, the universe never ceased to be enchanted. And as explored below,
among the different kinds of miracles believed to exist prior to the Enlightenment, whatever the
form, each have their contemporary manifestations. For devout believers, hungry to see the divine
at work in their daily lives, miracles continue to be “God’s oratory” (Daston 1991: 97). The
Enlightenment remains an incomplete project; for many people, many aspects of the world remain
enchanted.
The Miraculous 123
An Enchanted Universe of Miracles

Prior to the Enlightenment, belief in miracles was as common among intellectual elites as it was
among the general population. To people of the Middle Ages, God was not a distant being who had
created once upon a time and then abandoned the world for things to work out on their own;
rather, along with angels and demons, God was an everyday reality operating in the most ordinary
aspects of life. Far from being an absentee landlord, God was ever present. Theirs was a universe of
miracles, an extraordinary universe, where the stress was on the extra rather than the ordinary.
Saintly people were conferred with such consecrated powers as luminosity, the ability to levitate, and
the ability to appear in two places at once (Nickell 1993). They often received the wounds of Jesus on
their own bodies—the stigmata—and after their death their bodies were believed not to decompose.
Many miracles involved celestial sightings, both astronomical and meteorological. Others
involved abnormal offspring, mostly human though also of plants and animals; a cycloptic pig, for
example, a pig with two snouts and just one eye. Whether understood as the work of God, the
Devil, or their agents—angels and demons—these events were usually interpreted as omens. Thus
most of the woodcut illustrations of these marvels were accompanied with prayers and passages
from scripture. All levels of society saw monsters, murder, and political events as intimately
connected and equally the work of supernatural forces (Arnold 2017). Miracles were not only
wondrous, they held a message. A person recently killed from being thrown from a horse would be
considered to have suffered divine retribution for wrongdoing. The birth of Siamese twins could be
interpreted as foretelling a political unification. Even the discovery of an old religious statue or
painting behind a wall or in a crypt could be seen as a portent (Christian 1981). Everyday events
were slotted into a wider cosmic framework in which the sinful were neither able to resist the
Devil’s temptations nor to avoid God’s punishment (Arnold 2017).
Relics, literally meaning remains, were carefully preserved. They were associated with a venerated
person, often being part of their actual body. Relics included St. Paul’s toenails, St. Michael’s sweat,
St. Peter’s tooth, Doubting Thomas’s finger, as well as Jesus’s multiple foreskins—he had at least
six—and John the Baptist’s multiple skulls—the most remarkable being one of him as a child. Relics
functioned as a tangible memorial, but they were also endowed with mystical, healing powers, and
a huge trade existed in discovering, displaying, as well as fabricating them (Nickell 1993). Nor were
relics confined to Christianity. Revered even today, there are any number of the Buddha’s teeth, hair,
and fragments of his skull, as well as footprints in dried mud and the beard hair of Muhammad.
Even images could have talismanic effects (Hutchinson 2004). Woodcut visages of saints were
promoted as particularly helpful. St. Denis helped with insanity, St. Erasmus with intestinal
problems, and St. Vitus with epilepsy and dog bites. One woodcut purported to calculate “the true
length of Christ’s corpse,” as well as the wound on his side (7). It also possessed the not inconsiderable
side benefit of protecting its owners from plague and seven years’ release from purgatory.
Many people reported seeing materializations, never of God, but commonly of Jesus, the Virgin
Mary, and a whole host of saints. These occurred either as visions or through an intermediary such
as a painting or a statue. A statue of Mary would weep or sweat; a painting of Jesus would bleed.
Supernaturally produced portraits of Jesus were accepted as fact, and it was also not uncommon
Figure 9.1 Phgcom, Reliquary Holding the Holy Crown of Jesus Christ, Notre Dame, Paris,
c. 19th century.
to see saints in clouds in the sky and take it as an omen (Christian 1981). This is the pareidolia
phenomenon, the recognition of images in random visual patterns, not a matter of pattern
recognition so much as a projection of a pattern. But in the Middle Ages all kinds of wonders were
taken as certain proof of supernatural forces operating in people’s lives.
The uncritical acceptance of miracles during the Middle Ages is understandable in light of a
literal interpretation of the Bible in which events of all kinds were understood as God’s direct
intervention into history (Arnold 2017). The Red Sea parts, the walls of Jericho fall down, Lot’s wife
turns into a pillar of salt, Daniel walks through fire, and Jonah survives in the belly of a whale.
The Miraculous 125
Until the Enlightenment impacted the East, belief in the supernatural was as commonplace as
in the West. This is evident from numerous folk superstitions. In Japan, cutting your nails at night
was thought to lead to a quick death because the sound was similar to the word death. Various
numbers portended either good or bad luck. In Korea, writing someone’s name in red ink could
lead to their death, eating sticky food would help stick information in students’ minds and help
with exams, but leaving a mirror in front of a front door would deflect good luck from entering. In
Indonesia whistling at night could attract ghosts, and girls who stand in their front doorway would
not find a husband (McElroy 2020).
The Many Lures of the Miraculous

For skeptics miracles strain credibility, but for believers the miraculous continues to offer a variety
of powerful lures. And skepticism, too, has its own pleasures.
Wonder
As a noun wonder means astonishment, amazement, or awe. It is a highly pleasurable, serene state
of being and akin to eighteenth-century descriptions by aesthetic theorists of the sublime as an
overwhelming though elevating experience, a boundless experience by which we may contemplate
eternity (Beardsley 1982). While the origins of the miraculous are diverse, and attitudes toward
divine intervention range from firm belief to outright denial, miracles evoke a similar psychological
response. As Aquinas wrote, “wonder is the hallmark of the miraculous” (cited in Daston 1991: 97).
While Aquinas’s tripartite categorization of miracles, noted earlier, was neatly logical, from the
outset it proved difficult to maintain in practice, especially the distinction between the first two
kinds, between the truly supernatural and the rare but natural. The problem lay in the psychological
response being indistinguishable. Whether something miraculous was considered the work of God
or a rare natural marvel, the effect was the evocation of wonder. Acknowledging the difficulty,
Aquinas wrote: “We humans are hard put to separate the supernatural wheat from the preternatural
chaff, for both excite wonder when we are ignorant of the causes” (97). Following Aquinas, the
Catholic Church established elaborate procedures to determine whether something was a genuine
miracle, that is, one involving divine intervention, but in the popular imagination of lay believers
all manner of things were, and for many continue to be, taken as God performing for an audience.
Consider the following excerpts from just one of the numerous, contemporary miracle books. In
the first excerpt, a woman is offered the opportunity to attend a dance workshop. She writes: “But
there was one major obstacle . . . it was financially prohibitive. I prayed, ‘Lord, if it is Your Will for
me to learn more about the arts in church, I need financial assistance.’ Within the week I received
unexpected checks that provided the total sum of all expenses” (Canfield, Hansen, and Thieman
2010: 4–5). Or consider this scene: A woman, whose young son died some years before, is out
fishing. “I wondered if Josh could communicate with us from where he was. So I called out to him
several times, ‘Josh if you’re with us, please send us a yellow butterfly’ . . . Then all of sudden, out of
nowhere, a large yellow butterfly with rounded wings, flew right in front of my face not three inches
away!” (2).
Curiosity
Wonder is also a verb as in to wonder about. Faced with the miraculous, the question is not only of
its causes but also its significance. What could a miraculous event mean? Does it signify or portend
something? The miraculous arouses both amazement and curiosity. For believers in the supernatural
its cause is obvious, though working out its import is often hard; what supernatural forces are
saying can be difficult to discern. Miracles simultaneously awe, fascinate, and beg for an explanation
of their importance. By contrast, for skeptics the miraculous may signify nothing, but its cause is
often a fascination: it is also a cause for wondering about.
For skeptics who believe in natural laws, miraculous events may have no significance other than
confirming randomness and the complexity of nature, but discovering the cause or combination of
causes in the realm of nature can be an enthralling pursuit. For believers, the miraculous motivates
the desire to understand the meaning of unseen forces for their lives; for skeptics, it motivates the
desire for rational explanations. Whether we are believers or skeptics, the miraculous evokes curiosity.
Creating Social Identity

Belief creates identity, both personal and social. The stories that charismatic Christian groups tell
to account for the supernatural nature of healings invariably begin with the failure of modern
medicine, and often continue with the failure of prior religious appeals (Singleton 2001). The stories
differentiate a particular group not only from the world of modern science, but also from other
religious groups and thereby strengthen the group’s own identity. In both seeing connections
between things, and in connecting with people who see similar connections, supernatural beliefs
act as social glue. While defying logic, the supernatural has the binding force of faith. Today, as in
the past, social cohesion benefits from seeing supernatural connections and divine purpose. Just as
miraculous healings act to help the healed survive, so they act as a survival strategy for whole
communities. They also bring notoriety to the healer as someone prized for being an especially
chosen vehicle both of and by holy powers.
Apparitions typically act in similar ways (Christian 1981). Apparitions appear to reveal the deepest
preoccupations of a community. Even skeptics agree that individuals who see the Virgin Mary or
some other revered figure often appear to honestly report what they believe they have experienced,
especially when they specifically reject financial opportunities. But skeptics also note that in a deeply
religious community the status of seer has obvious advantages (Nickell 1993). To be considered by
one’s community to have been chosen as a messenger is to acquire a powerful, sanctified, identity. For
the community, the apparition acts to confirm faith and through the establishment or revival of a
shrine it also enhances local pride in attracting notoriety as well as financial gain from pilgrims. The
whole community also shares the wondrous experience vicariously. Thus, while just one or two
people may see an apparition, apparitions have significant, socially shared benefits.
The Miraculous 127
Finding Patterns and Purpose

From a skeptical, psychological perspective, belief in supernatural forces is akin to both wishful
thinking and magical thinking. Wishes are invariably reinforced intermittently, and positive,
intermittent reinforcement is the strongest kind of psychological reinforcement. Confusing an
occasional correlation with causation, a belief in miracles is therefore self-fulfilling, and if people
believe that supernatural forces are at work then they will find the evidence (Thomas 2001).
Magical thinking operates whenever the distinction between mind and matter is blurred, where
internal associations are treated as if they actually exist out in the world (Hood 2009). Magical
thinking is associated with children, and there is a common expectation that as we grow up to be
adults it is left behind. Santa Claus and the tooth fairy are put behind us. But as child psychologist
Bruce Hood (2009) argues, many adults profess beliefs based on unseen, supernatural forces at
work that often have nothing to do with formal religion. He argues that magical thinking is so
widely practiced among adults it is more appropriate to see magical thinking as a natural, intuitive
way of thinking than to decry it as aberrant. Our minds are designed to connect dots. We are
hardwired to fill in missing information, to see patterns and purpose in the patterns, even when
others see nothing but random data. In a complex and confusing world, where there is so much we
do not understand, seeing patterns is central to our personal well-being. It is a survival mechanism.
Hood (2009) writes: “we are primed for religious belief because our mind design is biased to
supernatural reasoning as a byproduct of rational thinking” (23). If maintaining good mental
health is a rational pursuit, then supernatural thinking is rational.
Hood cites Roman Catholic author G. K. Chesterton who said of people who reject God’s
existence, it is not as if they believe in nothing; rather, they will believe in anything. Hood builds
on this claim to distinguish between religious supernatural beliefs and secular supernatural beliefs.
According to Hood, people who reject religious supernatural beliefs almost always hold a variety
of secular supernatural beliefs such as in telepathy, astrology, numerology, and homeopathy that
similarly seek patterns and purpose in equally invisible forces as God at work. With astrology and
numerology, whatever happens to an individual, good or bad, is endowed with cosmic significance;
one is not alone but at home with the universe, a player in a grand scheme, albeit one that remains
incomprehensible. And as with homeopathy, New Age adherents attribute well-being to unseen
forces. They evoke Prana or kundalini energy as well as mysterious entities such as ghosts, fairies,
and even aliens (Bancarz and Peck 2018).
The only significant difference between the lure of the religious and the secular supernatural is
that whereas the former assumes the operation of an outside force or forces, the latter assumes the
forces to be a natural part of the world that have simply yet to be recognized (Hood 2009). In both
cases, supernatural beliefs involve the assumption that things are connected and that ultimately
everything is connected. Magical or supernatural thinking is complementary to, not inconsistent
with, rationality, being part of our makeup as human beings, part of our mind’s design. Some form
of supernatural belief is almost inevitable
The same magical thinking lies behind fans who collect celebrity memorabilia; for example, a
fan paid 1,000 pounds sterling for a swatch of the cloth taken from Princess Diana’s wedding dress
and then refused to have it washed (Hood 2009). Like medieval relics, like any fetish object, there
is a conflation between the symbol and its referent where, somehow, real power is believed to flow
between them. Physical objects are invested with invisible properties that are believed to be unique
and irreplaceable. Hood concludes: “We are a sacred species” (256).
Debunking Absurdities
On the other hand, skeptics take great pleasure in debunking claims of miraculous events and
objects. Commenting on relics, the Renaissance humanist Desiderius Erasmus quipped that across
Europe there were so many pieces of the Crucifixion cross, “Jesus must have been crucified on
a whole forest” (46). For centuries exposing false relics was almost as common an activity as
fabricating them.
Over the past few centuries the monsters of medieval fairs and the freaks of nineteenth-century
sideshows have been re-evaluated as physical abnormalities, while apparitions have been shown to
be consistent with a variety of mental pathologies such as schizophrenia and psychosis, as well as
drug use, sleep deprivation, and numerous neurological disorders (Casey and Kelly 2019).
It is equally noteworthy that apparitions appear to reveal the deepest preoccupations of a
community (Christian 1981). What recipients see and hear usually refers to the need to reconfirm
faith, warnings of dire consequences if faith is not confirmed, and reference to horrendous end times.
Skeptics note that some apparitions serve specific contemporary events. The best-known recipient
of apparitions is Joan of Arc, who in 1424, at the age of 13, began communicating with St. Michael
and St. Catherine. At the time, she was a mere peasant girl, but through conversations with her saintly
guides she became convinced it was her God-given duty to rid France of foreign armies, a conviction
that the French king was prepared to accept until it no longer served his purposes.
The famous apparition at Lourdes, in 1858, of the Virgin Mary confirmed the dogma of the
Immaculate Conception. It was a timely appearance for the dogma that she had been born without
original sin had been proclaimed only four years before and it had aroused considerable controversy.
For its part, the equally famous apparition at Fatima in 1917 was interpreted as resisting the spread of
secularism and especially Bolshevism then ascendant in Russia (Christian 1981). While investigations
often reveal that the original recipient of an apparition is not suspect, in other cases perhaps it is also
as Hume ([1748] 1985) believed: religious people are sometimes prepared to give evidence that they
know to be false “with the best intentions in the world, for the sake of promoting so holy a cause” (93).
Whether the recipient of an apparition is genuine or merely motivated by good intentions, others
have been keen to take advantage, using the reported apparitions to further their own causes.
Parodying Absurdities
So seemingly absurd are some claims that skeptics parody the claims. Continuance of the pareidolia
phenomena, which operates across belief systems—Christian, Islamic, communist, and
commercial—has proven ripe for parody (Charon and Charon 2010; Poole 2007; Stollznow 2008).
Recent examples include Mother Teresa in a cinnamon roll, Pope John Paul II in a pancake, Arabic
The Miraculous 129
Figure 9.2 Daniel X. O’Neil, Salt Stain Mary, Chicago, 2007.
calligraphy for Allah and a symbol of Muhammad among the scales of a fish, Lenin in a shower
curtain, and Bob Hope and Yogi Bear in potato chips. Jesus has appeared in the wood grain of a
mandolin, in frozen dumplings, and in a fried tortilla. Playing her part, the Virgin Mary has
appeared amid salt stains on a wall beside an expressway near Chicago (McGreevy 2001). The
stains drew thousands of pilgrims who kept vigils that disrupted traffic.
Not surprisingly these sightings have gained dismissive monikers; for example, the Pope
Pancake, the Nun Bun, and Jesus of the Fried Tortilla. Begging to be parodied, they have been
taken up by commercial interests. Fred and Friends (2020) sells The Holy Toast Bread Stamp that
impresses an image of the Madonna onto a slice of bread that darkens on toasting. Another
entrepreneur sells iron skillets that produce an image on grilled sandwiches of Jesus from the
Shroud of Turin. Others still have branched out to make celebrities appear on toast, including Elvis,
once a not unfamiliar figure for miraculous sightings.
Escaping into Fantasy

The miraculous can morph into magic and mystery where there is less belief in miraculous powers
so much as a desire for them. Magic plays a central role in fiction, especially of fantasy and science
fiction genres. Spells, vanishings, levitations, and clairvoyance are the very stuff of fantasy fiction,
Harry Potter and The Lord of the Rings being only the most notable of recent examples. In both
fantasy and science fiction, heroes and villains alike often possess super powers. Superman flies,
has X-ray vision to see through walls, and leaps tall buildings with a single bound. The Green
Lantern has his power ring, Wonder Woman her lasso and bracelets, Spiderman shoots webs from
his fingers (Rosenberg and Canzoneri 2008), and miracles frequently provide dramatic, climatic
twists to their narratives (Singleton 2001). Fantasy and science fiction narratives inhabit a sacred
space because both are characterized by a quest for transcendence from ordinary, corporeal life
(Cowan 2010). Of course, audiences know the miracles are fictitious, but by suspending disbelief
and identifying with the fictional characters and situations, miracles offer simple and immediate
solutions that real life fails to deliver. The great popularity of these genres is testimony to the desire
for miraculous solutions, which also applies to modern advertising.
In the words of cultural theorist Raymond Williams (1980), modern advertising is “a system of
magical inducements and satisfactions, functioning very similarly to magical systems in simpler
societies” (185). Hyperbolic appeals, originally employed to sell patent medicines, have long ago
been extended to all manner of goods. Williams writes: “The attempt is made by magic, to ascribe
to human consumption desires to which there is no real reference. You do not only buy an object;
you buy social respect, discrimination, health, beauty, power to control your environment” (189).
While modern advertising is commonly criticized for its obvious absurdities, advertising is not
concerned with material matter; its raison d’être is fantasy.
Being Confounded
Among the many miracles offered by commercial purveyors, from medieval times to this day, there
has been a great deal of quite remarkable chicanery. In the United States the most infamous
purveyor during the nineteenth century was B. T. Barnum. Among the earliest of his many hoaxes
was the Feejee Mermaid purported to be the mummified body of a mermaid (Wilson 2019). He was
most notorious for continuing the medieval tradition of featuring bizarre human exhibits: a two-
headed man, a woman with no head, and a half man/half woman. There was Turtle Boy, the Mule-
Faced Woman, the Lobster Boy, the Lion Woman, and the Alligator Man. Some of them were
genuine, being due to rare congenital deformities, others were enhanced, and others were outright
fakes. Additionally, nineteenth-century world fairs, museums of oddities, cabinets of curiosity, and
sideshows were never short of such human curiosities as sword swallowers, snake charmers, fire-
eaters, blockheads (who hammer nails into their heads), and electric ladies (who send sparks flying
from their fingers and turn on light bulbs) (Nickell 2005).
The tradition continues today with the Ripley’s Believe it or Not phenomenon in the form of
television shows, annual books, websites, and museums all over the world (Gaines 2002). Like
Barnum’s, Ripley’s bizarre collections do not require faith. Ripley’s 2018 annual includes stories of
a man slicing noodles with a meter-long knife, a mummified hand with the claim that artists once
ground mummies into power to make “mummified brown” paint, and a mummified human figure
6½ inches tall (Ripley 2017). Each is accompanied by a photograph, presumably as proof.
Like Barnum’s exhibits, Ripley’s are deliberately constructed as ambiguous. Barnum’s exhibits
were often accompanied with the question “What is it?” and Ripley’s are framed from the outset
The Miraculous 131
with the choice to believe or not to believe. Closure is deliberately avoided, for hoaxes are appealing
in their own right. To determine the authenticity or otherwise of a display is to exercise competence.
Offering a questionable miscellany with a straight face, as if the diverse exhibits belong to the same
category, leaves it up to paying customers to exercise the pleasure of using their own judgment. The
sales pitch is premised on what Gaines (2002) calls “the pleasure of vacillation between doubt and
belief ” (790), as well as a sense of superiority in determining what is not for real. Similarly,
if something is determined to be a hoax there is the fascination in trying to discover how the
deception is managed. Even not being able to resolve the tension between whether something is
real or fake is wondrous, the pleasure lying just as much in not knowing as believing one does
know. It is this lack of certainty, the intriguing mystery, that is often so appealing, for the curious
spectator is above all else seeking to be astonished (Gaines 2002). Pettit (2006) calls this
“Humbuggery as a form of entertainment and commercial epistemology” (662).
Spectacles of Wonder
Miracles are seductive because they are wondrous, but also because they are spectacles of wonder.
To see is to believe that otherwise random events are connected, and moreover, connected to
oneself. The spectacle of miracles is the proof of their authenticity. Seeing is not only believing;
believing is seeing. For believers, the connection between these physical manifestations and unseen
forces is a matter of faith, but the spectral form that miracles take works as proof that the unseen
exists. The visible stands in for the invisible; it proves the existence of the invisible.
It is not even necessary for believers to see for themselves in order to believe; it is enough that
someone who is trusted claims to have first-hand experience or even second-hand or third-hand.
From a skeptical point of view the miracle is that many people are willing to accept a several-
hands-removed account of visual phenomena as proof of the miraculous. Yet not only do believers
see what for skeptics is absent, they find deep personal significance in what for skeptics does not,
and cannot, even exist.
Miracles and Mirage

Despite the benefits of the miraculous to both individuals and communities of belief, as well as the
fun of debunking and parodying the miraculous, there can be grave downsides to the entertainment
of supernatural forces at work. Many purported miracles are more like mirages, false illusions,
nothing but hoaxes or fake news.
Rejecting Rationality
Rejecting rational explanations is coupled today with the rejection of expert opinion, notably of the
science of climate change and medical practice. It has led to conspiracy theories flourishing not only
on the fringes of the Internet but in some mainstream, so-called news, outlets. They are peddled as
fact, or at least as alternative facts, and consequently real-world problems are neglected or even
actively made worse by policies based on misinformation. Some conservative Christians feel no
need to worry about climate change, either refusing to believe it or considering that, as the elect,
they will be saved; come the Rapture they will be raised to heaven. Jehovah’s Witnesses refuse blood
transfusions for themselves and risk death, and anti-vaxxers put large populations at risk of infection
and potential death. And whole countries whose leaders were skeptical of expert medical advice,
and consequently did not move swiftly to counter the Covid-19 virus, paid a very heavy price.
Vulnerability and Vultures

Rejecting rationality also leaves people open to exploitation. By favoring their gut over their mind,
people easily fall prey to unscrupulous actors. In the past, commercial interests and a desire for
miraculous powers combined to create a vast trade in fake religious relics. Today commercial
scammers and religious hucksters alike offer the promise of easy money, romance, healing, and social
advancement. Televangelists who peddle the prosperity gospel claim certainty that viewers who send
in money will have their prayers answered in the form of financial reward, romance, or social
advancement, whatever the viewer desires (Hunt 2009). Quoting such passages as, “I have come that
they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly” and “ask and it will be given to you”
(John 10:10; Matthew 7:7), Benny Hinn leans forward toward the camera, hands outstretched, and
with a mellifluous voice, says, “right now, someone’s muscle problems have stopped. Right now, a
person suffering from migraine headaches has been relieved.” “Your miracle is on its way” (Howley
2001: 31, 30). If one believes, truly believes, anything is possible: riches will be received, the loveless
will find love, the jobless will find jobs, in any way the worshiper desires their prayers for material
advancement will be answered (Hinn 2019). Given the plush baroque furnishings that he and other
promoters of the prosperity gospel surround themselves with on television, their fine clothes,
immaculate appearance, luxury cars, and private planes, the appeal evidently works for themselves.
The Wonder of it All

Unlike most of the pleasures discussed in other chapters, views on the miraculous are not based on
a mind/body binary but on diverse cognition, faulty cognition from a skeptical perspective.
Whether the miraculous is understood as the hand of divine providence or explained in secular
terms as physical, psychological, or social phenomena, its lures remain powerful. For believers,
miracles offer spectral proof that behind otherwise seemingly random events there are unseen
forces at work. The miraculous continues unabated. As well as offering realms of fantasy, it offers
glimpses of otherwise difficult to discern patterns and purposes. Wrapped in the lure of wonder,
the miraculous provides comfort and security in an unpredictable world. On the negative side,
however, a belief in unseen miraculous energies can lead to public policies of great danger and
leave people vulnerable to exploitation.
10
The Exotic
Chapter Outline
Exoticism Explored 133
The Exotic Discourse 134
Exotic Enchantment 134
Distortion, Disparagement, and Denigration 142
Exiting the Exotic 146
The highly successful, massive multiplayer online role-playing game Final Fantasy XIV, now with
over 18 million registered players worldwide, is set in a futuristic-feel, mashed-up version of the
past. It includes fire-eating dragons, warriors who fight with swords, eighteenth-century sailing
ships that float in the air, and fortified castles that echo Europe, the Middle East, and Asia from
centuries ago. Characters include some with pixie ears, giant wings, and large and small hybrid
animal creatures. The Moogle, for example, are miniature anthropomorphized rabbits with blond
tufts of hair and antennae-like protuberances. Like numerous other games, movies, and television
series, the game’s exotic fantastic future is the past.
Exoticism Explored
Whether from some other time or place, the exotic is always foreign, something at least a little
alien. It is experienced as strikingly exciting, mysteriously different, or unusual. Synonyms include
strange, bizarre, fantastic, glamorous, marvelous, and outlandish. While introduced from elsewhere,
it is never fully naturalized or acclimatized; it always remains the other. But that is its fascination,
its difference from one’s own, accepted norms (Surd 2019).
The exotic can involve almost anything: people, animals, plants, buildings, landscapes, locations,
objects, and situations. In Segalen’s (2002) phrase, it is “an aesthetic of diversity.”
Primarily, the exotic operates in three ways. Either the exotic, foreign element is heightened to
make it more exciting than it would otherwise appear, the foreign element is made less foreign in
133
order to make it acceptable, or the foreign element is entirely fabricated. In each case, the exotic is
highly selective of the other culture. It is a “a fetish for the foreign” (Surd 2019). And whether the
foreign element is exaggerated or downplayed, heightened or domesticated, or altogether a fiction,
the exotic is appropriated to serve one’s own cultural norms. Exaggerating the foreign elements of
another culture helps define a culture by how it is different from one’s own. It also helps to rejuvenate
the dominant culture. On the other hand, downplaying the difference renders non-threatening
what might otherwise be considered too foreign to be pleasurable.
While exaggeration and domestication are very different from one another, they often operate
hand in hand. The lure of the exotic is always a mix of something unusual but not too unusual,
something distanced enough to be marginal yet close enough to be desired (Schmidt 2015).
Exoticism always involves decontextualizing artifacts from one culture and recontextualizing them
in another, ripping them out of the way of life of which they are constitutive and then planting
them elsewhere. Something belonging to the other culture is appropriated, either willingly offered
up by the other culture for sale or simply taken.
Although both exaggeration and domestication involve a degree of invention, the exotic is also
sometimes a matter of pure make-believe. Mostly, the exotic shades fact and fabrication, but some
are entirely fanciful. Some instances involve for the dominant culture only a superficial, snapshot
note to the referenced culture, while others are deeply inscribed within the dominant culture as a
way to define itself by way of contrast. In every case the exotic involves a construction of the other
for members of the dominant culture’s own felt needs. Always the exotic says more about the
desires of the dominant culture than the nature of the referenced culture (Pratt 2008).
The Exotic Discourse

Unlike all the other pleasures discussed in this book, there appears to be no negative discourse on
the exotic from the position of taste. Eighteenth-century aestheticians did not decry it. Rather, they
endorsed the Grand Tour which saw upper-class Europeans traveling, especially to Italy, for cultural
edification, and elsewhere for sublime natural vistas. It was considered an essential part of one’s
education (Gelleri 2020). They visited museums of classical antiquity and the Renaissance, and
armed with pencil and paper, watercolors and easel, they attempted to capture what eighteenth-
century aestheticians like Burke and Kant assured them were icons of both beauty and the sublime
in art and nature. A more recent discourse on the negative sociopolitical impact of exoticism
concludes this chapter.
Exotic Enchantment
The lure of the exotic often involves the erotic, but since this has its own chapter the erotic is dealt
with in this chapter but lightly. The exotic has long been a subject of great fascination, of enchantment,
and even without its association with eroticism, the exotic proves to offer multilayered attractions.
The Exotic 135
Wonder
Like some other popular pleasures, the simplest and most innocent lure of the exotic is wonder. On
first arriving in the Middle East, the nineteenth-century French author Gustave Flaubert wrote:
“Each detail reaches out to grip you, it pinches you . . . it is such a bewildering chaos of colors that
your poor imagination is dazzled as though by continuous fireworks” (cited in Haldrup and Larsen
2010: 102). The nineteenth-century French painter Eugène Fromentin similarly wrote: “This is an
order of beauty which, having no precedents in either ancient literature or art, immediately strikes
us as appearing bizarre . . . [It] inverts everything, it reverses the harmonies which have organized
landscape for centuries . . .” (cited in Benjamin 1997: 12, 13).
Painters represented the Orient as a place of striking, colorful costumes and unfamiliar customs:
men smoking with a hookah, riding on camels, and charming snakes; and women carrying large
jugs on their heads or shoulders. They emphasized the luxurious clothes and dazzling jewelry worn
by wealthy inhabitants as well as the highly intricate Islamic decorations found on wall hangings,
carpets, and buildings. Entranced, they captured the brilliant sun as it hit buildings and created
deep shadows, so unlike the soft light of Europe, the spectacle of the desert landscape, and the
excitement of marketplaces.
Spice Seasoning
But the artists were more than dazzled by what they saw. They offered up the Orient in what hooks
(1992) calls the “spice seasoning that can liven up the dull dish” of mainstream culture (424). They
created what Said (1978) calls an “imaginative geography” of the Orient as a compelling place “of
romance, exotic beings, haunting memories and landscapes and remarkable experiences” (49, 1).
French Post-Impressionist painter Paul Gauguin offered a similarly rich concoction with his
late-nineteenth-century paintings of Tahitian beauties. In fin-de-siècle France, a time of widespread
dissatisfaction with civilized life, the evocation of an apparently more authentic way of life was
highly appealing. In painting South Sea beauties in traditional costumes among lush tropical
vegetation who lived only to sing and make love, he presented the French public with an image
of an entirely different culture on the other side of the globe. He used a palette of brilliant,
complimentary colors and Japanese-influenced compositions—both equally foreign to the
conventional art of the time—to offer up Tahiti as a primitive paradise of voluptuous Tahitian
women, an Eden before the Fall (Walther 2020).
Today, tourism similarly provides an escape from the mundane routine of home, “a no-work, no-
care, no-thrift situation” in which the emphasis is squarely on the otherness of other places and people
(Haldrup and Larsen 2010: 20). Tourists, however, are not concerned with all aspects of otherness. The
tourist experience is largely visual. Tourism engages a much greater sensitivity to visual elements of
landscape and township than in ordinary life. Moreover, the tourist experience is mostly of iconic
images, frequently of older buildings and colorful traditional costumes, costumes that may no longer
be widely worn. Tourist brochures for package tours make this clear. England is commonly represented
by the Houses of Parliament, France by Notre Dame Cathedral, Italy by the Leaning Tower of Pisa,
Figure 10.1 Lobozpics, Swiss Guard at the Vatican, 2013.
Greece by the Parthenon, and Russia by the domes of St. Basil’s Cathedral on Red Square. Modern
structures are also included where they have become iconic through their uniqueness: England by the
London Eye, Spain by the Guggenheim Art Museum Bilbao, and Australia by the Sydney Opera House.
But as a rule the buildings are historical and costumes are traditional. England is signposted by
beefeaters, Scotland by kilted bagpipers, Italy by Swiss Guards, Spain by flamenco dancers. China
typically features the 3,000-year-old Great Wall, the fifteenth-century Forbidden City, and the
Terracotta Army from three centuries BCE. With the same longing for a nostalgic past, India is
illustrated with the seventeenth-century Taj Mahal, and Egypt with pyramids and camels.
North Americans not inclined to travel far are able to visit Las Vegas where they can gamble in
The Exotic 137
casinos that echo foreign destinations: the Venetian with its winding canals, the Paris with its scaled
version of the Eiffel Tower, and the Luxor built as a reproduction of a pyramid and a colorful
restoration of the Sphinx. Better still, in Orlando, Florida, one can visit Walt Disney’s Epcot World
Showcase, which features the pavilions of eleven countries, each offered by means of traditional
architecture and iconic food (DIS 2019). Morocco is showcased with a minaret from a twelfth-
century mosque, winding alleyways, and stuccoed archways. Mexico features a pre-Colombian
pyramid, jungle, and smoking volcanoes. Norway is represented by a fourteenth-century fortress, a
Viking boat ride, and an encounter with trolls. Japan features a replica of a seventh-century pagoda.
In Mexico you can drink tequila; in Italy, wine; in Germany, beer. Like actual foreign travel, Epscot
offers a smorgasbord of cultural difference to help enliven one’s ordinary, vanilla life.
Cultural Renewal
The exotic can spice up individual lives but it can also revitalize one’s culture. Hollywood has been
adept at appropriating other cultures at will; for example, drawing upon German film tropes in the
1930s, Latin American tropes in the 1940s, and Asian tropes in the 1990s. What Hollywood has felt
was lacking within US culture, it has appropriated for its own entertainment. It has always been
thus with dominant cultures.
Dominant cultures have always been able to absorb other cultures without their own sense of
identity being threatened. The willingness to appropriate “lesser” cultures is viewed by the dominant
cultures as demonstrating their openheartedness while also manifesting their power. Consider the
attraction of Sasanian Persia for the Romans of the late fifth century CE (Gonosova 2007). In
Antioch, in present-day Turkey, Roman artists created a floor mosaic of a lion that incorporated
elements from Persia, especially the fluttering ribbons that surround the lion. The Roman Empire
of the fifth century was still the dominant Mediterranean power but by the fifth century the power
of Rome was waning, and its appropriation of Persian art points to a desire for renewal. The Persian
lion was emblematic of a culture viewed as distinctly separate from Rome, but similar enough to be
incorporated. The Persian-like lion signified the power of Rome over its rival, but also of Rome’s
need for renewal. Cultural renewal and a sense of identity went hand in hand.
Defining Difference
Sometimes, the exotic combines fascination with defining difference. Final Fantasy XIV is inhabited
by half-human, half-animal creatures with bizarre behaviors that help distinguish between human
and non-human, simultaneously arousing curiosity and offering by contrast a better sense of our
own identity as human. In this regard, the game employs a common trope of science fiction fantasy.
Successive Star Trek crews have variously fought or befriended creatures from the furthest places
of the universe, included the Borg, shapeshifters who live on nothing but salt; the Melkot who have
telepathic brains, reptile features, and light-bulb eyes; and the Excalbian, sedentary rock people
who, inexplicably, turn into Abraham Lincoln (Ruditis 2016). Star Wars and Dr Who, and any
number of other science fiction books, films, and television programs, are populated by similarly
exotic creatures, each with dedicated fans on numerous websites cataloging the creatures’ distant
localities, weird physical attributes, and bizarre behavior.
The creatures are known by their audiences to be fictional, yet they are part of a long history of
exotic “races” whose existence appears to have been accepted as fact (Mason 1990). Pliny the Elder
of the first century CE, following earlier, now lost, Greek accounts, described an encyclopedic
list of bizarre races of what were considered to be humans. He began by describing those on the
borders of the then Roman Empire and then his account traveled outwards. To the north he found
Hippododes, a human race with horse feet, and the Phanesu whose naked bodies were covered by
their very long ears. To the south he found Trogodytae, cave dwellers who squeaked like bats and
lived on snakes; the Blemmyae, headless creatures whose mouth and eyes were on their chests; and
the Himantopodes, who crawled on their bellies like snakes. Other tribes had no noses, or no
upper lips, and still others were without tongues. One tribe, without either noses or mouths, had
only a single opening through which they breathed and drank with the aid of straws. In the most
remote regions, Pliny catalogued creatures that variously had only one eye, the heads of dogs, or
four feet, or who lived by eating locusts.
Numerous other accounts of this kind appeared in the centuries following Pliny. St. Augustine
from the fifth century CE argued that all the creatures he described testified to the creativity of God
though he was less certain that they were all descended from the biblical Adam and Eve. In the
thirteenth century the Italian explorer Marco Polo recorded meeting men who had faces “of big
mastiffs” (cited in Mason 1990: 83) and in the fifteenth century Christopher Columbus recorded
reports of people born with tails, others without hair, sirens, and men with dog heads. Woodcuts
Figure 10.2 Jodocus Hondius, Blemmyae, Headless People of Guiana, 1599.

The Exotic 139
at the time depicted races without mouths, massive feet, with multiple arms and multiple heads,
with ears half the length of their body, and the heads of a variety of animals.
With the European conquest of South America, indigenous peoples were catalogued according
to this fanciful understanding. Etchings, purportedly scientific in intention, include a headless
Indian race whose faces, once again, are found on their chests.
Despite the enormous diversity of these accounts, as well as their separation in time, they are
consistent on several matters. In every case, the accounts described creatures geographically close to
their origin as only moderately different—pigmies, for example—yet as the lands in which the
creatures lived were progressively found further and further from the center so the creatures become
increasingly bizarre. Operating in roughly concentric circles the further one traveled from the center,
the weirder the inhabitants became. Also, the locality of these distant lands was consistently described
in vague or contradictory terms, proof, if proof were needed, that we are dealing with human creativity,
Augustine’s view of them being God’s own handiwork notwithstanding. The accounts demonstrate
that where distinctions do not exist, or exist insufficient to needs, distinctions will be invented.
Gaining Prestige by Association

Sometimes revitalization of a culture is achieved by associating one’s culture with another assumed
to possess a higher status. During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries the power and wealth
of the Ottoman sultan so impressed the English that they adopted Turkish clothes and furnishings
in a style known as turquerie. The style emphasized bright colors and rich decoration, tented
boudoirs, palm trees, and camels (Williams 2014).
A similar development occurred with chinoiserie, a style that adopted aspects of Chinese
imagery. Chinoiserie featured willow trees, pagodas, snow-capped peaks, and figures in traditional
costumes floating about in shimmering white space with whimsical contrasts of scale. Painted in
brilliant cobalt blue, these tropes defied both the gravity and perspective that were the hallmark of
Western art, but like turquerie were entirely compatible with the then contemporary European
Rococo style of surface elegance (Porter 2010).
For England early in the eighteenth century, China represented an empire with far greater
historical lineage and power than its own, and one especially notable for its stability. For the British
aristocracy, feeling even then that contemporary life was changing rapidly, Chinese goods
represented stable and ancient traditions. It was not as though the tropes of chinoiserie were
intelligible to the English—they were not—but there was pleasure to be had in their cultural
illegibility, in artifacts perceived to be no doubt resplendent in meaning in their original context
but utterly incomprehensible in their new setting (Porter 2010). It did not matter that the Chinese
artifacts meant little because China itself meant a great deal.
Feeling Culturally Superior

By contrast, the exotic also offers the opportunity to feel superior to another culture. By the
nineteenth century, Chinese wares no longer represented envy, but pride in the economic and
military might of the British Empire. Chinese emblems of authority were trivialized. Plump,
Figure 10.3 Unknown, Plate with Chinoiserie Decoration, c. 1725–50.
laughing Buddhas, figurines of Confucius, and the Chinese emperor were treated alike as figures of
fun (Porter 2010).
The same sense of entitled superiority informed Europe’s view of the Middle East. The sultan’s
wealth was something to admire but not the Middle East as a whole. In myriad ways, the Orient was
viewed as clearly inferior and could do nothing but benefit from contact with the self-evidently
more advanced societies of Europe. The Orient was a place of social decay, moral decadence, and
with an unaccountable legal system to which European colonizers were bringing progress and order.
More recently, practicing reverse orientalism, the Orient has been striking back (Hendry 2000).
Theme parks have been built in Asia for locals to view aspects of “westernness.” Additionally, today,
many in the Middle East exercise “westophobia.” Supporting the traditional family values and religious
loyalties of Islam, many see the fragmentation of family in the West, as well as the secularization and
sexualization, as evidence of Western decadence and decay (Machart, Dervin, and Gao 2016).
The same sense of superiority is expressed by many tourists who complain about cultures other
than their own for not having the amenities with which they are familiar, for being less efficient,
and more dangerous than home. They complain that foreign places are a rip-off, a tourist trap, or
simply incomprehensible. Foreign countries are thereby rendered less evolved and less honest than
one’s own, and thus on a moral scale less worthy. As travel shrinks as well as expands the mind,
there is pleasure in complaint.
The Exotic 141
Taking Symbolic Possession

Irrespective of all other considerations, the exotic is always a form of symbolic possession. Often
this takes the form of artifacts or pictures that reproduce the materiality of the referenced culture.
From the very start of photography in 1839, photographers photographed whatever was non-
European, non-cosmopolitan, and non-middle class as if presenting the facts, though also dressing
the facts in fantasies of adventure, travel, and sexual availability, European authority, nationalism,
and scientific management. Scientific classification put people in their place. The effort was part of
what Pratt (2008) calls “a utopian innocent version of European global authority” (7). Photographers
climbed the sublime peaks of the Himalayas, rode across the outback deserts of Australia, and
witnessed the spectacle of Niagara Falls, and so on. They photographed indigenous people wearing
traditional costumes: American Indians, Africans, Chinese, and Australian Aborigines (Hight and
Sampson 2002). The photographs provided what seemed like documentary proof of the progress
and achievement of European empires. The empires were centralized in England, France, Germany,
Holland, and Spain, where there appeared to be an obsessive need to present the possessions of the
periphery to itself, as if the center was dependent upon others to know itself. And throughout the
nineteenth century, painters, photographers, and travel writers were organized to serve this need.
They were a critical part of “Europe’s planetary consciousness” (15).
Today, tourism similarly involves taking home something of the other’s culture in the form of
snapshots and souvenirs. Tourist brochures act as pedagogy. Photographs of iconic sights supplement
photographs of tourists photographing such sights and being photographed posing in front of
them. These photographs invite one to acquire possession, to take pictures and thereby capture their
subject. The interest in being a tourist is primarily about seeing the sites/sights and taking home the
memories, or sharing the sites/sights on social media. The point of tourism is to be there oneself or,
anticipating the memory, to have been there oneself, in that very spot (Haldrup and Larsen 2010).
The photographs are proof of the trip. They act as mnemonics of the sights, sounds, smell, taste, and
touch of a place. Unable to bring back the place itself, tourists take virtual possession.
Being Reassured
The exotic is never too exotic to be uncomfortable. Disorientation is always ameliorated by
reorientation; otherwise the exotic ceases to be pleasant. While tourism offers the excitement of
faraway places, tour companies, in what they call “destination management,” attempt to ensure the
experience is agreeable (Kozak and Kozak 2019). Tourism domesticates the exotic by making it
controllable, manageable, and easily consumable. Tourists tread well-worn paths according to finely
co-ordinated schedules. They experience the exotic by taking photographs at predetermined stops
often enabled by specially constructed viewing platforms. Tourist brochures for well-heeled tourists
are illustrated with pictures of plush hotel rooms, lavish dining rooms, and modern, comfortable
transport that assure them that the exotic remains safe, not risky, engagement. Always the tour guide
is ready with helpful suggestions on what to look out for, where to eat and drink, where to shop,
what’s considered a bargain, and how to haggle. One of the principal ways of experiencing the exotic
rather than just seeing it behind a camera is shopping. Even here, stepping out into the exotic to
engage locals is mediated through one of the most familiar of everyday activities.
The exotic was ever domesticated, as illustrated above by the introduction of Persian influences
to Roman lions.
Distortion, Disparagement, and

Denigration
Establishing difference between cultures is very different from disparagement, but as already
illustrated above, the former often easily morphs into the latter, and disparagement can then
equally shade into denigration.
Selectivity and Distortion

The selectivity of exoticism is always distorting. Tourism is primarily about seeing sites, not
understanding them. It involves only a snapshot view of the other, mostly a matter of a succession of
iconic sites. The tourist gaze is a perpetual moving on from one thing to another, often literally while
moving in a vehicle, a bus, a train, or a car (Urry and Larson 2011). Often, too, what tourists experience,
especially with dance performances, is manufactured exoticism, a kind of artificial authenticity.
The same applies to the use of the exotic in advertising for any number of products (Barker 2017).
Advertisements offer the one thing, or at most the few things, that the public might know about another
culture; it is a quickly glimpsed view of the other that uses a pre-existing association: wildlife in Africa;
paddy fields in Asia, the desert or beaches of Australia. While products may have been produced in
sweatshops in China or Bangladesh, it is the association with the enchanting exoticism of otherness
that helps the sales of numerous, especially high-end, consumables. Whether it is luxury foreign cars,
expensive perfumes, or designer handbags, the exotic association lends cultural cachet, an allure that
sets the consumer apart from others. Manuals advise salespeople on how to use exoticism to help the
bottom line (e.g., Walle 2001), and taking heed, Vogue on Location promises “fashion shoots in far
flung locales” for “a sense of fantasy and flight” and goes on to list a long list of countries through which
one can combine fashion with foreign fantasies (Schama 2019). In a world of fast capitalism, the lure
of the exotic is quixotic, an obsessive quick-bite cannibalizing of one culture after another.
The precedent with advertising was set with the very first kind of modern advertisements. The
promotion during the nineteenth century of patent medicines buttressed the promise of miraculous
cures with the suggestion of exotic origins. The mystique of faraway places was used to validate the
claims of cure (Young 1961).
Distance helped to generate sales. Whether it was the excitement of far-flung places or ancient
times, or a combination of both, it was common for quacks to employ the enticement of the exotic
(Young 1961). While sometimes nostrums were mixed in a bathtub the night before a sale, the list
of foreign lands from which they were said to derive reads like a map of the world. They included
The Exotic 143
Bragg’s Arctic Ointment, Haynes Arabian Balsam, Bavarian Malt Extract, Good Hope Bitters, and
Hoofland’s German Tonic. The invented origins of these potions were as false as their claims to cure.
The recipe for one remedy was publicized as having been deciphered from hieroglyphics on a
papyrus scroll discovered under the mummified body of an Egyptian pharaoh. Druid Ointment
was touted as “handed down from . . . mystic days when Stonehenge was a busy temple” (175–6).
Where patent medicines led the way, others continue to follow.
Advertisers employ the exotic as a tool to sell products whose relation to the other is utterly
tangential, as much a matter of manufacture as the products they promote. This is the exotic without
a reference; or, rather, the exotic as a sign of itself, so selective that they are mere signs of exoticism,
signs untethered to cultures as ways of life.
Inferiority Complexes
Allowing another culture to appear superior to one’s own takes different forms. Members of
colonized cultures sometimes come to feel their culture is inferior to the colonizing. A cultural
cringe is created in which characteristics of the indigenous culture are downplayed, and the culture
of the colonizing power is internalized as normative. This process of internalization serves the
dominate powers’ interests in maintaining control and perpetuating colonization.
In some cases, usually for financial reasons, a culture is willing to offer itself up as exotic. As global
finance is increasingly aggregated to large cities, many parts of the world are now either significantly
or even entirely dependent upon tourist income. Otherwise unable to survive financially, they are
willing to promote themselves as tourist locations with exotic costumes and customs, exotic animals
and plants, exotic food, music, and dance. Local communities exoticize themselves for others by
emphasizing whatever is unusual or unique about them, and this is true of the West as it is for the
rest. Whether it is the unique flora and fauna of Australia; the bubbling mud of Rotorua, New
Zealand; the cathedrals and castles of Europe; or Native Indians wrestling alligators in Florida, the
drive is the same: to sustain local economies by offering what motivates the tourist dollar.
Equally, marginalized cultures that have long been ignored, and rendered invisible to anyone but
themselves, are sometimes easily seduced by the promise of recognition and reconciliation. And this
applies even when, in order to gain attention, the other must deny their own everyday reality and
concoct themselves as exotic. In the early 1980s, Hong Kong revitalized its ailing film industry by
producing Kung Fu movies, which established a taste in the West for Chinese films, though only insofar
as they mixed Hollywood narratives, breathtaking action and were set in China’s exotic, distant past. It
was better to get something recognized and appreciated in the United States than not at all (Kei 2001).
The East has long been willing to play the piper to Western taste. The first artifacts imported from
China to England in the eighteenth century were genuine insofar as they had not yet been modified
along lines acceptable to English taste. But over time, as the trade increased, chinoiserie became a
completely hybrid style developed specifically for the European market. It came to bear little or no
resemblance to anything produced in China for its own home market. Chinese craftsmen produced
wallpapers, furniture, and porcelain sets to order from European designs that were European
conceptions of Chineseness that no one in China would have recognized as Chinese (Porter 2010).
Superiority Complexes
By the nineteenth century, the English used Chinese wares to distinguish what had come to be
considered uniquely English, an increasingly important concern with the rise of nationalism in
Europe. Qualities common to both cultures were acknowledged—social reserve, brevity of wit, a
love of ceremony—but whereas the Chinese were accused of taking each to extremes, the English
prided themselves on their good sense in seeking each in moderation. Though at the time fortune
telling was a common practice in England, the Chinese were mired in superstition; where the
English revered tradition, the Chinese cult of dead ancestors was repellent (169).
Patrons of chinoiserie saw themselves as innocents, yet chinoiserie had become no more than “an
aesthetic mask for the lust of Empire” (24). By the nineteenth century, patrons were deeply implicated
witnesses to the unsentimental calculations of material advantage pursued by an alliance between
political, commercial, and military leaders who were determined on geographic acquisition. The public
desired the power and material advantages that an aggressive foreign policy brought and simultaneously
felt comfortable that the colonized others appeared to assent to their idea of themselves as good,
innocent, and worthy. Informed by Social Darwinism, Europeans were assured of their superiority and
that it was their moral duty to bring civilization to the foreign regions (Rothenberg 2007).
Similarly, the Orient. The Orient was represented in terms of sloth, violence, and sex, each seen
as evidence of its inferiority and, by sharp contrast, the superiority of the West. Costumed and
bejeweled men pass the time lying on luxurious sofas, smoking, reading, or doing nothing at all but
lounging. Women also lounge on sofas surrounded by plush cushions, attended by black servants
or slaves. By contrast to these images of sloth, numerous paintings represented violent conflicts
between men and between men and wild animals. Common themes included despotic rule as the
natural order, violence linked to sex, bloodletting, and sensuous excess. Numerous paintings
depicted slave or marriage markets in which naked slave girls are sold at auction. Despite evidence
that harem women were clothed head to foot, and even wore veils (Benjamin 1997), they were
represented as fully nude and posing provocatively.
The denigration of the Middle East continued well into the twentieth century with the same
visual tropes merely adapted to different technologies. First used in painting, the tropes were
reworked in photography and then reworked again in the movies in what Shaheen (2009) calls “Reel
Bad Arabs”—movie Arabs. Arabs continued to be represented as slothful, sexualized, and violent.
Sheiks continued to appear as oversexed lecherous curs who, disregarding the numerous scantily
clad Arab women, force their attentions on the Western heroine. Updating the idea of Arabs as
slothful, they have been more recently represented as dark sunglass-wearing terrorists intent on
killing Westerners. All Arabs are falsely represented as Muslim and all Muslims as Arabs, and Western
protagonists use uncontested slurs about Arabs such as jackals, camel-dicks, rag-heads, devil-
worshipers, son-of-dogs, son-of-unnamed-goats, sons-of-she-camels (11). Arabs are still frequently
referred to using the word Ayrab, a derogatory epitaph comparable to dago, nigger, or gook. As
buffoons, Arabs are forever stumbling over themselves, as oversexed they consistently take a
licentious interest in blonde, white, Western women, and as violent they have fought and killed every
sort of foe: Americans, Europeans, Israelis, and fellow Arabs. They are represented as quintessentially
evil, a framework that has had the most devastating consequences.
The Exotic 145
A further textbook case of a superiority complex is offered by the ostensibly scientific approach
to indigenous peoples spearheaded by the US publication National Geographic Magazine. First
published in 1888, from the outset its stock-in-trade was a popular, although an espoused scientific,
approach to exotic people and places (Lutz and Collins 1993). Europeans had for centuries looked
to the Near and Far East; North American subscribers looked to the entire world as a place of
distinction (Rothenberg 2007).
The magazine’s first editor wrote of its mission by evoking the concept of manifest destiny in
which it was the divine destiny of the United States to expand and conquer as part of what he called
the “the Law of Human Progress” and in which the United States was the self-evident, self-appointed
initiator (cited: 30). Writing a decade after the magazine began, he asserted: “Territorial acquisitions
most contribute towards the extension of enlightenment, towards the elevation of humanity,
towards the ultimate peace and welfare of the world” (cited: 30). Subscribers were encouraged to
think of their fascination with the exotic other as improving not only their own minds but advancing
the cause of humanity. The magazine brought knowledge to subscribers as part of what Rothenberg
(2007) calls “discourses of virtuousness” (6).
Though constructed as scientific documentary, the magazine has at times combined many
fantasies with facts. Photographers have employed the same representational strategies of
exaggeration and domestication that characterize the exotic lure elsewhere. Sometimes they
encouraged their subjects to change their clothes because they considered them too drab, and
sometimes photographs have been manipulated to imply a darker skin. While no white women
ever appeared bare-breasted, bare-breasted indigenous women were common (Rothenberg 2007).
Like Gauguin’s painting of indigenous women without reference to the changes taking place in
Tahiti, the success of National Geographic Magazine was fueled by what Lutz and Collins (1993)
call “imperialist nostalgia” (69). Where the other culture has been colonized, the dominant culture
often mourns the passing of what they themselves have transformed. They yearn for what has been
destroyed, turning it into a myth of a golden past (Rosaldo 2007).
Overall, the magazine has presented a benign view of other cultures, although the United States
has been always assumed to be culturally and technologically superior. Indigenous peoples
everywhere are naturalized, by contrast to the cultured, civilized, and technologically advanced
status of white North Americans (Rothenberg 2007).
Denial and Projection

Simultaneous with the denigration of another culture, the exotic other has at times acted as a
repository for the pent-up frustrations, anxiety, and fears of the dominant culture. Assuming that
one’s own culture represents an innocent norm, casting the exotic other as morally inferior
establishes the other as a place into which to project one’s own moral deficiencies. Europeans used
the Orient not only to spice up their own culture and to assert their cultural superiority, but also to
project their dark dreams upon it. For example, consider all the paintings of submissive maidens
attending bored, greedy potentates, and all the pictures of sensual harem maidens, snake charmers,
and belly dancers each wearing transparent pantaloons with jewels in their navels in what Shaheen
(2009) calls the ubiquitous “instant Ali Baba kit” (14). Especially during the nineteenth century, a
time when prostitutes hung around street corners and alleyways in every major European city, but
whose reality was denied in public, their reality was projected onto the Middle East.
These and many other images project European fantasies with little or no relation to evidence
(Benjamin 1997). They are like mirages. Like actual mirages in the desert, in which a viewer sees
something at a distance that does not really exist and disappears on closer inspection, orientalism is
an exotic construction. But for centuries image-makers have known how to turn the mirage into gold.
Denigrating others by imagining them as degenerate seems characteristic of societies deeply
troubled by their own bad dreams. It is far more pleasurable to enjoy the monster in others than to
recognize it in oneself. What cannot be admitted as the desire of the dominant culture is cast as the
transgression of another. This is further illustrated by the Hollywood career of Mexican actress
Dolores del Rio (Hershfield 2000). In Flying Down to Rio from 1933 she plays the beautiful daughter
of a wealthy Euro-Latin American family entangled in an affair with a white “Yankee.” With such a
lineage, and further enabled with a lightened skin tone, the romance was not only acceptable but
viewed as desirable. Yet a year before in the film Bird of Paradise, Del Rio played a Polynesian
woman as a wild and exotic creature who, finding her romance with a white man forbidden, throws
herself into a volcano. In the former role, she was anglicized; in the latter, she was hyperexoticized.
In both cases her roles acted to reinforce the contemporary social norms of miscegenation and
monogamy: the marriage partner, cornerstone of social stability, versus the threatening other who
had to be destroyed. Here, as elsewhere, what cannot be admitted as the desire of the dominant
culture is cast as the transgression of another.
Exiting the Exotic

The exotic is many things. It enchants, spices up one’s humdrum life, revitalizes culture, and defines
difference, but also it can be used to make another culture appear either inferior or superior to one’s
own as well as using the other as a depository for the problems of one’s own. The exotic other can
be nothing more than a projection of all that is loathsome in one’s own culture.
Yet establishing difference is a basic human trait, although one increasingly problematic under
the homogenizing influence of globalization that brings distance and differences ever closer.
Tourists move through countries ever faster, sometimes one per day, and when driving fast the
world can appear flat. Consequently, to heighten the exotic ever more, like capitalism generally,
tourism penetrates ever further into previously uncharted territories. Tourist companies now
include concentration camps on their itinerary (Urry and Larson 2011). The ever-increasing
growth of the modern tourist industry is testament to the fact that the lure of the exotic, even when
manufactured, remains as powerful as ever. The exotic is a source both of endless fascination and
complications.
11
The Erotic
Chapter Outline
Exploring the Erotic 147
Sexual Discourse 148
Enjoying the Erotic 152
Prohibition, Permission, and Perfection 158
Sex, Sin, and Suppression 159
Japan’s adult movie industry is among the most extensive in the world. Its range of pornographic
manga alone is eclectic and ubiquitous, and while genital penetration is often pixelated, not so its
Edo-era (1603–1868) predecessor, the subgenre of woodcut prints, Shunga. Erotic imagery in
Japan began in the eighteenth century as paintings reserved for the upper classes, but once
woodblock printing enabled mass production, they were embraced by all classes. Explicit sexual
escapades involving both couples and groups were depicted inside brothels, inns, teahouses, and
even Buddhist temples. Considered at the time of their making to celebrate human sexuality as just
a normal part of life, they include heterosexual, homosexual, and even bestial acts—involving
octopuses—mostly performed by ordinary people with greatly enlarged genitals (Buckland 2013).
It was very different in the West.
Exploring the Erotic

Eroticism comes from the Greek eros, meaning sexual desire or passionate love, although today the
term is commonly defined as a state of sexual arousal or interest (Hyde and DeLamater 2019). Its
imagery comes in many forms, from explicit displays to coy, oblique references. Sexual activity may
be alluded to by means of metaphors of waves crashing and fires burning or allegories to fate and
harmony. Such obliqueness may titillate by conjuring up mental images of what is left unpictured.
Explicit representations include nude bodies, normally private body parts, and sexual activity.
Erotically charged figures may perform as if unaware of the viewer’s presence, or, alternatively,
147
directly engaging viewers with a mutual gaze. They may appear as seemingly chaste, the interest
lying in their purity. They may appear coy by artfully affecting innocence, or flirting or teasing in a
lighthearted way they may appear coquettish. Other figures are to be found in varying degrees of
lasciviousness and attract through their promiscuousness, their imagined sexual availability. They
may appear dissolute in seeming to be indifferent to moral restraint, dissipated in being excessively
devoted to pleasure, or wanton in being sexually lawless.
Erotic imagery without any intention other than sexual arousal is commonly regarded as
pornographic, either soft core or hard core, although these categories are often blurred (Watson
2017). In soft-core pornography figures typically appear in the nude or semi-nude and are
suggestive of their own sexuality. There may also be inexplicit simulations of sexual activity, but
always figures are posed so as to offer the viewer the most alluring view. Hard core typically refers
to the explicit depiction of sexual actions, often including penetration and orgasm.
Erotic imagery need not necessarily stimulate the sexual organs to be considered erotic. It is
enough for images to arouse erotic interest, and for interest to be a matter of fantasy. In short,
eroticism can be defined in terms of content and/or viewer response.
Like violence and abject aspects of horror and vulgarity, discussed in Chapters 6, 7, and 8, sexual
imagery bypasses cognitive control and triggers the central nervous system. We are hardwired for
erotic representations to hail us, a phenomenon that is now thought to apply equally to women as
much as to men (Crooks and Baur 2016).
Today, sexuality is commonly used to refer not just to the state of being sexual, but also to sexual
orientation, which is falsely understood in binary terms (Hyde and DeLamater 2019). While
heterosexuality remains normative, other forms of sexual orientation, as well as the fluid nature of
sexuality, are now widely accepted as natural. Human sexuality involves a host of desires and
activities in what Foucault (1990) calls our “polymorphous sexuality” or our “sexual heterogeneities”
(12, 37). Sampling the Internet, numerous practices are displayed, as well as fantasies, including sex
with aliens, ghosts, and androids (Griffiths 2016). In acknowledgment of such a wide variety of
practices, and moreover engaged in by people who identify themselves as gay, straight, or bisexual,
theorists of sexuality employ the descriptor queer to refer to all sexualities that by comparison to
normative, straight heterosexuality appear odd or strangely different (Hyde and DeLamater 2019).
In this sense, many images are either queer or can be read as queer. Images may ostensibly appeal
to the norm of heterosexual desire, but also flirt with other sexualities. Even when images are
clearly intended as a source of heterosexual desire, they can be adopted as sources of homosexual
desire (Lewis 2002). They can be queered.
Sexual Discourse
Perhaps more than any other kind of popular aesthetic, eroticism attracts heated debate. Erotic
images have been viewed as offensive, obscene, and filthy, and by contrast lauded as the divine
remade in human form (Clark 1959). Often the very same images have been subject to such
diametrically opposed positions. Additionally, erotic images have often been tolerated with an
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uncomfortable ambivalence or enjoyed as merely naughty, mischievous but benign, a source of

titillation, what Foucault (1990) calls a “tolerant familiarly with the illicit” (3).
Defenders of erotic imagery have attacked those who would censor it as straight-laced, priggish,
and puritanical, while critics have been a great deal more creative. Employing words that do double
duty for both the pictures and their viewers, critics have generated what Foucault (1990) calls “the
whole emphatic vocabulary of abomination” (36). Many of their descriptors are “L” words: lustful,
lewd, lecherous, lascivious, libidinous, licentious, lubricious, and anyone for whom one of these
words might apply are damned as a libertine. Additionally, there is satyrical, immoral, indecent, and
the “D” words: decadent, debauched, and depraved. The consequence of such damnation is that
more than any other kind of imagery, erotic images are subject to social censorship. More than any
other kind of image, they still largely fall into public and private domains.
Public acceptance of erotic imagery has often hung on whether images were considered to be art
or pornography, the two categories frequently being understood as mutually exclusive. However, a
common definition of pornography is obscenity with “little artistic interest” (Kieran 2003: 466).
This does little to clarify partly because this definition of pornography permits the possibility that
it may have at least some artistic value, and partly because identifying artistic value is also
problematic, the more so now that postmodern art has become highly visceral in its explicit
representation of sexuality (PIE 2018). Today, a new definition of obscenity has emerged that
stresses obscenity as an abuse of power. Cultural theorist Kupher (1983) describes sex in the mass
media, like violence, to be just part of “everyday aesthetics.”
In the West it was not always like this. In the East eroticism was represented explicitly; in the
West even soft-core sexual imagery was long suppressed, though it flourished nonetheless,
disguised in clear view as fine art. A great deal of premodern fine art was no less than what today
is commonly considered soft-core pornography (Berger 1972).
The High Culture Alibi

Of all the pleasures shared by premodern fine art and today’s popular culture, perhaps the erotic
has caused the most anxiety among apologists for fine art. To reconcile the nudity represented in
so much premodern fine art with the idea of fine art as spiritual, akin to an asexual divine, eroticism
was disguised as moral instruction. Drawing upon scenes and figures from ancient pagan sources,
as well as the Bible and early Christianity, nudes appeared in a variety of premodern art genres
(Clark 1959), and almost always justified in terms of classical learning and moral injunctions to a
virtuous life. Evoking the moral authority of the Bible and trading on the cultural cachet of ancient
Greek and Roman sources, sexual desire found ready decoys in “the traditional high-status alibi”
(Waugh 2002: 644). This is despite the fact Greek art of the classical period represented petting
between boys and older men as well as explicit scenes of anal intercourse (Tannahill 1992). At the
time, Plato favored intimate friendships, ever since known as Platonic love, but the ancient Greeks
were evidently interested in much more.
From the Renaissance to the end of academic art early in the twentieth century, nudes were
theorized as the most perfect vehicle for appreciating the spiritual in nature. Numerous mythological
female figures were commonly represented nude as well as nude figures intended as allegories of
idealized, romantic love or such abstractions as fate, peace, or harmony. Venus, for example, goddess
of love, either nude or semi-nude, arises from the sea, lies asleep watched over by Cupid, kisses Cupid,
bathes, undresses, or just lies on a couch. Titian’s 1538 Venus of Urbino, one of many versions he
painted, is iconic. His Venus is meant to signal chastity by virtue of her prudish gesture in covering
her vulva with her hand, her purity by means of her wearing a small pearl earring, and fidelity due to
the inclusion of a small dog at her feet (Mahon 2005). It is not as though she cannot be viewed for her
beauty alone, the contour, shape, and color of her body, but it seems entirely false to suggest she is not
offered up for viewing as an object of sexual pleasure. Her fully naked body lies stretched out on a
couch, and she even engages the viewer with a mutual, submissive gaze. She is a woman for the taking.
From the Catholic Bible, the obscure text Susanna and the Elders—that is not even included in
Protestant Bibles—was made familiar by numerous paintings that show two men gazing upon a
young woman bathing. Similarly common from pagan sources were paintings of men inspecting
women in various stages of undress. Paris choosing from the three graces was the most common.
This was essentially a beauty contest in which three goddesses attempted to win the favor of the
hero Paris by offering themselves to him nude and desirable. Different literary sources have the
goddesses variously volunteering to undress, Paris requesting they do so, or only one disrobing, but
artists invariably chose to paint all three nude. They were inspired by Apuleius’ ([c. 180 BCE] 1951)
account, which reads in part: “To show their perfect figure to the fullest advantage she wore nothing
at all except a thin gauze apron which inquisitive little winds kept blowing aside for an amorous
peep at her downy thighs, or pressing tight so as to reveal their voluptuous contours” (257).
Going further, in Edwin Long’s The Chosen Five of 1885, a painter attempts to capture the
legendary beauty of Helen of Troy by choosing from the best bits of five women. The painting was
exhibited to a select audience for a shilling while a large engraving was published to capitalize on
its popularity (Smith 1996).
For men, the normative gender at the time, homoerotic desire is equally evident in numerous
muscular male nudes. David from the Bible, and from ancient mythology Pan, Hercules, and Mars
were frequently represented where their nudity was cast as heroic. “It was possible to read a man’s
worth from every delineated abdominal muscle, meaty thigh, or bulging pectoral muscle”
(Blanshard 2011: 15).
Apologists for fine art followed Kant’s distinction that whereas agreeable art concerned itself
with the immediately pleasurable, true art looked beyond itself to the divine. Schopenhauer
recommended that “No object transports us so quickly into the pure aesthetic contemplation as the
most beautiful human countenance and form” (cited in Gilbert and Kuhn 1953: 470). Nudity was a
springboard to the divine not to sexuality. Art historian Kenneth Clark (1959) similarly claimed
that art looked beyond itself to evoke reflection, so that nudes acted as signs of, but not as participant
in, sexual desire. Nude bodies were not sexually arousing, though they may cause us to think about
sexuality as one part of our broad human experience. Thus emerges the same separation between
the mind and the body that informed the discourse of other popular pleasures with the mind good
and the body bad. But too many nudes adorned the walls and often the ceilings of the aristocracy,
and later the walls of the academies, to be without either salacious intent or interest. Moreover,
toward the end of the nineteenth century many nudes dispensed with high culture references. This
The Erotic 151
Figure 11.1 Albert von Keller, The Judgement of Paris, 1891.
is especially striking with pictures consisting of nothing but cavalcades of naked sirens, sprites, and
nubile nymphs. There were sea nymphs, river nymphs, cave nymphs, and mountain nymphs. The
most renowned of such painters was the Frenchman William-Adolphe Bouguereau. No one
achieved a greater sense of the silkiness of skin. He, not any member of the avant garde, was the
highest paid painter of the nineteenth century. He was in such demand, and his work was so
expensive, he would complain, “I lose five francs every time I piss” (cited in Clay 1978: 6). Clay
(1978) characterized late-nineteenth-century academic painting “as a butcher’s stall, the body as
merchandise, and the Salon as a brothel” (7).
Supporting this point, the tropes of Western fine art nudes, either under the cover of the classical
alibi or not, compare directly with photographic pornography (Berger 1972). The same gazes and
poses are used, as well as the same attempt to establish an intimate relationship between pictures
and viewers. In both pornography and traditions of Western painting, women not only display
their bodies for the viewer’s gaze, but also engage the viewer with a mutually desiring gaze.
Alas for the apologists of fine art, the body will not be denied. The traditional, high culture alibi
is exposed on a number of counts. The ancient Greeks evidently did not ascribe to it; the sheer
number of premodern fine art nudes, not to mention the exceptionally obscure sources from which
they were drawn, belies it; during the nineteenth century all pretense to classical authority was
relinquished; and, finally, the tropes of fine art nudes are identical to contemporary pornography.
In our highly sexualized culture it may seem quaint that people once felt the need for such alibis.
But there were powerful reasons for such recourse. The predominance of Christianity for most of
the past two millennia and the industrial capitalism that emerged two centuries ago were united in
suppressing erotic desire (Turner 1984). The early church fathers set the official tone, if not always
the practice, for millennia. For Arnobius, intercourse was filthy and degrading; for Methodius,
unseemly; for Jerome, unclean; for Tertullian, shameful; for Ambrose, a defilement; and for
Augustine, the single most influential of all Christian theologians, an evil necessary to ensure
“having His flock regularly augmented by new lambs” (Tannahill 1992: 147). During the nineteenth
century religious asceticism, which had been based on renunciation, was supplemented by the
asceticism of capitalism which was founded on its utility (Turner 1984). If an ascetic way of life no
longer led to heaven, it served the capitalist cause of ever greater productivity. The carnal, desiring
body was supplanted by a rational body fit for capitalist production. The middle class adopted
respectability as their creed, and pornography, as discussed in Chapter 6 on vulgarity, ceased to be
used primarily as a political weapon and became a moral scourge.
However, with the shift from productive capitalism to consumer capitalism an altogether
different approach to erotic imagery emerged and now dominates many societies around the world.
In consumer societies, no longer concerned with the suppression of pleasure, but rather with its
activation, all appeals are employed to motivate markets, and none more so than the erotic. Without
a trace of a classical decoy, even tropes of soft-core pornography are mainstream, and though not
publicly on show hard-core pornography is freely available, as close as the click of a button.
Worldwide, the porn industry dwarfs the economy of mainstream movie production. In the United
States alone the industry is worth $16.9 billion annually; 25 percent of search engine requests
are related to sex, 35 percent of downloads are pornographic, with 33 percent being by women
(Hull 2020).
Enjoying the Erotic

Enjoying the erotic involves various pleasures, none of which can be understood from simply
looking at erotic material; they must be understood in terms of who is doing the looking and how
they are looking. Equally, although the pleasures of eroticism are described here separately, they
are often experienced concurrently.
Voyeurism
Voyeurism is taking pleasure in watching people unaware that they are being watched. It combines
scopophilia, the simple love of looking, with the pleasure of being in a position of power. Voyeurism
turns the subjects of a gaze into objects, and in the case of erotic imagery into objects of sexual
interest, arousal, and/or fantasy. Since the subject of representation can never speak to the viewer,
but forever remains mute, viewing images often seems inherently voyeuristic. The power of a
viewer is maintained even where a figure engages the viewer with a mutual gaze for it is not the
The Erotic 153
person who looks back but their representation. The figure can do nothing; the figure’s eyes that
look cannot actually see (Olin 1996). As already noted, voyeurism is the very subject of many erotic
images where men gaze upon nude women thus justifying the viewer gazing upon these same
women (Berger 1972).
The very first movies, appropriately called “peep shows,” were risqué shorts like Peeping Tom
(1897) and One Girl Swinging (1897), the latter showing a woman revealing her undergarments
(Ashby 2006). Ever since, the cinema and sex have often been synonymous. Voyeurism is even
inscribed into the very nature of the cinema experience of a darkened theater in which members of
the audience are privileged as “invisible guests” (Mulvey 1988: 68).
Fetishism
The voyeuristic power of objectification is taken further with fetishism, where only one part of a
body is shown or emphasized. For Freud fetishizing a woman’s body represented “a token of
triumph over the threat” that women posed (cited in Williams 1989: 104). For Freud, fetishism was
a strategy of control. By viewing women as a collection of body parts the normative male viewer
turned women into something reassuring rather than dangerous.
Fetishism was employed by moviemakers from the earliest days. The Gay Shoe Clerk of 1903
shows a close up of what then was an illicit, enticing view, a woman’s foot and ankle (Williams
1989). The cinema employed editing patterns that broke down bodies into close-ups of individual
parts, and typically they intercut them with shots of characters looking at those parts.
Over the decades Hollywood alternated its particular fetishes. In the 1920s it was legs, with any
number of movies involving lines of dancing chorus girls, and in the 1930s it was breasts with
actresses forgetting to wear bras and so enabling their nipples to show (Semonche 2007). In the
1940s legs returned, and in the 1950s breasts made a comeback with displays of ample cleavage,
tight-fitting sweaters, and torpedo-like bras (Benshoff and Griffin 2009). Probably the clearest
examples of fetishism from Hollywood history are the musical numbers choreographed and
directed by Busby Berkley in the early 1930s. Chorus girls performed in perfect synchronization to
form elaborate, abstract patterns, often with the camera focusing on rows and rows of individual
body parts. Dozens of disembodied legs regularly performed as patterns.
Consider today’s advertising in which a body or body parts are turned into the advertised
product (Kilbourne 2010). Michelob ran a series of print advertisements that turned female models
into beer cans, and in a television advertisement competitor Heineken turned a woman’s body into
a beer keg. In a Gucci print advertisement a woman’s pubic hair was shaved into the Gucci logo; her
face hidden, she stood against a wall while a man, grasping her thigh, knelt before her crotch in an
act of worship. Other print advertisements show nothing but legs, breasts, or bottoms for products
totally unrelated to the products on sale. An advertisement for fishing line shows the product used
to hold up a bra whose strap has mysteriously broken. Advertisements for jeans show women in
underwear without a shred of denim anywhere in sight (Roberts Forde 2009).
The most extreme form of visual fetishism is found in pornography, a visual form that specializes
in making visible body parts that are usually hidden from view (Williams 1989). Whereas for
classic-era Hollywood eroticism was largely the art of concealment, pornography deals with the
“revelation of the sexual organs in their maximum aperture” (Walters 1976: 12). The title of the
1927 porn film Wonders of the Unseen World suitably describes this singular focus. For decades, the
primary “climatic” shot of heterosexual hard-core pornography was a close-up of penetration
known alternatively as the “meat” or “money” shot (Williams 1989: 93). During the 1970s it became
a close-up of premature withdrawal and male ejaculation.
The fetishism of softer forms of pornography have been taken up by music videos (Arnold
et al. 2017). Cameras pan over women’s bodies, exploring every detail. Overhead shots emphasize
breasts and shots from below emphasize bottoms. Women wearing low-cut dresses bend
over, and they spread their legs to frame the action beyond. They are repeatedly shown as
individual parts.
Sadism, Masochism, and Sadomasochism

Sadism involves sexual gratification obtained by the infliction of physical or mental pain, of
cruelty to others; masochism is the pleasure derived from receiving pain, deprivation, or
humiliation, and sadomasochism involves both (Hyde and DeLamater 2019). Most people
would not actually enjoy such pain in real life and they would be conscious-stricken to cause real
pain to others, but they can relish both in fantasy. The source of pleasure in viewing images of
sadomasochism varies among individuals. Viewers who identify with a compliant victim may
obtain a therapeutic escape from the stresses of life, responsibility, or guilt; others may feel a sense
safety and protection. Others still may readily identify with the power and authority of the dominant
role and take pleasure in the suffering of others in a way they would never permit themselves in
real life.
Once considered pathological, sadomasochism is today considered harmless so long as
masochists are willing participants, but in the corpus of sadomasochistic images willing
participation often appears to be at best unlikely. Women’s bodies in particular have been the
subject of sadomasochistic fantasies, typically legitimized as just punishment for immorality.
Consider all the bondage imagery of premodern painting. Nineteenth-century European paintings
with titles like Bondage, The Babylonian Marriage Market, and The Greek Slave show women bound
and up for sale. The women are no more than chattel, at the mercy of the men who buy and sell
them, but also in appearing erotically, nude and shamed, they are cast as participants in their own
subjugation; they deserve their violation, or where they appear innocent, pleasure lies in their
defilement (Nochlin1989). Consider the paintings of nude Christians about to be devoured by
lions, presumably virginal although incongruently voluptuous. They appear as temptation which,
because it must be denied, is expressed as violation, even as misogyny, a contempt for, even hatred
of, women (Smith 2001).
Many contemporary music videos, especially of black hip-hop, are explicitly misogynous (Jhally
2007). Frequently referred to as “hoes,” women are subject to humiliation and violence. In one
video a woman rejects Snoop Dog only later to succumb to his charms at which point Snoop Dog
declares, “Mission accomplished. Another bitch broke.”
The Erotic 155
However, the tables are turned by the figure of the femme fatale, powerful seductresses who lure
and destroy men body and soul. The femme fatale combines traditional femininity and masculine
power (Hanson and O’Rawe 2010). They threaten not only by their sexual allure, but by using their
appearance aggressively, securing power over men by acting like men.
Premodern painters frequently chose such powerful, castrating, and murderous women as their
subjects. Salome and Judith of the Bible were favorites. Salome sometimes appeared with John the
Baptist’s severed head, and while there is no biblical pretext, sometimes nude (Smith 2001). Judith
Beheading Holofernes appears as Figure 8.1.
The very first Hollywood star, Theda Bara, was the first in a long line of women who played
femme fatales on screen (Walker 1966). Known as “The Vamp” (after vampire), Bara not only played
a series of castrating women, she was fabricated by the studio as being one. She stared in films such
as The Serpent, and She-Devil, and was promoted as having been weaned on serpent’s blood, taught
the secrets of love in the Orient, and as a pastime enjoyed driving men mad. In the 1930s and 1940s
the femme fatale lived on as a trope of film noir and continues today as a dominatrix, a central trope
of pornography, leathered up and armed with spurs and whips.
Yet femme fatales are almost invariably brought down, destroyed by their own ambitions and
deceit. They are frequently killed off, but not before offering a variety of pleasures: sexual excitement,
exhilaration because dangerous, and the sadomasochistic pleasures of identifying with them as
perpetrator, victim, or both.
Identification
However, many forms of identification are innocent of such suspect associations. With identification
spectators project themselves onto a figure. Inhabiting a character, viewers imagine themselves to
be a character within an image. As discussed in Chapter 4, perhaps this is because we are social
creatures who readily empathize with others. Or perhaps, as Lacan claims, it is because, unable to
find wholeness within ourselves, we develop a desire for completeness through identification with
others (Rose 2016). Either way, the foundations are laid for what Mulvey (1988) calls “the long love
affair/despair between image and self-image which has found such intensity and expression in film
and such joyous recognition in the cinema audience” (61).
The pleasures of voyeurism and identification often go hand in hand. A heterosexual
male viewer may use the male figure as a surrogate for his own pleasure; in order to objectify
her he first identifies with the male figure in the picture so that he gazes with both the gaze
of the surrogate and his own (Berger 1972). A heterosexual male viewer could identify with
Paris viewing three nude goddesses, the two elders spying on Susanna, or the artist choosing
between five women to capture the beauty of Helen of Troy. The same combination of
identifying and viewing occurs for heterosexual males when men are present in pornography
(Williams 1989).
Voyeurism and identification may also exist, of course, for the homosexual gaze (Waugh 2002).
Pictures that offer a desirable male may evoke identification with the male plus desire for him as an
erotic object. Similarly, lesbians may inhabit the figure of a fashion model, for example, imagining
themselves wearing such clothes, striking such a pose, and simultaneously enjoy the pleasure of
looking at erotically charged imagery (Lewis 2002).
Exhibitionism
As noted earlier, in both premodern painting and pornography, women often engage the presumed
male viewer with a mutually desiring gaze. It is as if they find the viewer attractive. Pleasure can
then be derived from fantasizing that the desirable erotic subject of a picture desires them. Through
the power of a mutual, desiring gaze, plus fantasy, the viewer and the sexual figure in the picture
lock into recognition of each other in which both enjoy both the pleasures of looking and exhibiting
themselves. Of her lesbian gaze, Lewis (2002) writes: “I simultaneously at a fantasy level desire to
be her, and desire to have her and, moreover, desire to be her, as she is the recipient of another
woman’s desiring gaze” (656).
Today’s sexting also combines the pleasures of exhibitionism and spectatorship. Couples send
sexually laced photographs of themselves to each other, most commonly by teens on hand held
devices (Walrave et al. 2018). By means of programs such as Snapchat the sender limits the time the
image stays on the screen of their partner, often only 10 seconds, to help preserve privacy.
Queer and Queering

Echoing the multiple and fragmented nature of sexuality, none of the associated pleasures described
above are strictly dictated by one’s own gender or sexual orientation. Images can be queered. Male
and female homosexuals gain pleasure from erotically charged representations of their own gender.
Presumably this was frequently the case with homosexual patrons of premodern art. People who
once viewed erotic imagery under the social pretense of classical learning and moral uplift no
doubt experienced an extra erotic charge because their voyeurism was illicit. Today, people who
adopt an alternative sexual gaze may gain heightened pleasure for being against the grain. Consider,
as Lewis (2002) says, there are two kinds of homosexual gazes: “the overt remit” of intentional
homosexual imagery and “a clandestine pleasure obtained through a transgressive reading of
dominant cultural imagery” (654). For example, lesbians may get more pleasure from viewing
women in straight, mainstream fashion magazines than they do from the fashion magazines now
specifically targeted to them because viewing straight magazines offers the added pleasure of
transgression. It is an ironic twist that the social injunctions against queer pleasures may only
increase them.
The pleasure of queering images has long been a feature of cinema audiences. Understanding that
homosexuality could not be openly represented in the cinema, only alluded to as either the butt of
jokes or as evil, homosexual audience members grew expert at identifying a queer subtext. What
could not be denoted explicitly could be, or at least thought to be, alluded to in what Benshoff and
Griffin (2006) call “connotative homosexuality” (65). Today the term “coming out” means publicly
acknowledging one’s homosexuality whereas previously it meant being adept at reading queer
subtexts, bending straight culture to serve homosexual identities and desires (68). Homosexuals
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Figure 11.2 Micadew, White Lingerie Worn by Beautiful Caucasian Woman, 2019.
found evidence of a queer subtext in all manner of things: a lingering look between members of the
same gender, a flick of the wrists, stroking a walking stick, putting a gun to one’s mouth, a woman’s
broad shoulders. A lineup of leggy chorus girls, ostensibly a feast for male viewers, was read by
lesbians as the “sensuous pleasures of a tropical lesbian paradise” (72–3). Ironically, biblical epics
were once a favorite of gay men due to the many beefcake actors who bared their chests and muscular
arms and legs. What heterosexual audiences gave not a second thought to, homosexuals zeroed in
on. Even homosocial activities were sometimes queered, in which men fighting in the trenches or
women supporting one another were read in sexual terms. Even musicals were claimed as queer
because of their highly theatrical performative nature. They were seen as “‘cinematic revenge’ upon
heterosexuality” (77). As Doty (1993) remarks in Making Things Perfectly Queer, “I’ve got news for
straight culture; your readings of texts are usually ‘alternative’ ones for me, and they often seem like
desperate attempts to deny the queerness that is so clearly a part of mass culture” (xii).
Prohibition, Permission, and Perfection

Compared to only a few decades ago, our times are characterized by a highly sexualized media; but,
would it be a mistake to believe that we are now finally liberated? Have we, as Foucault (1990)
argued decades ago, only imposed upon ourselves “a more devious and discrete form of power”
(11). Having thrown off the repression first of religion and then the rationalism required of
productive capitalism, have we foisted upon ourselves the repression of consumer capitalism? And
if problems of permissiveness are different from prohibition, are they just as consequential?
Permissiveness and Perfection

Advertising presents women based on an ideal of absolute flawlessness, of skin without wrinkles,
blemishes, or even pores. The practice of the painter selecting from five women to capture the
beauty of Helen of Troy is now a common digital practice. With digital enhancement, celebrities are
“perfected to death” (Kilbourne 2010). Advertising has reinvented the smooth perfection of the
closed bodies of fine art nudes and also, like fine art nudes, pornography has now eliminated pubic
hair (Rosen 2012). Unable to meet such impossible standards of popular media, women are shamed
and disgusted by their own appearance, leading to eating disorders to become or stay slim,
depression, sexual dysfunction, and the trivialization of intimacy (Kilbourne 2010). Men as well as
women are now also influenced by such perfect representations, causing them to beef up in a form
of “reverse anorexia” (Roberts Forde 2009: 122). Judged by the standards of the perfect sexual
bodies of mainstream media, the bodies of partners almost invariably fall short, and judged by the
techniques of pornography, the sex skills of partners are also often found wanting (Paul 2005). Thus
media perfection has an adverse effect upon real-life relationships.
Pornification
So everyday is sexual imagery now, some refer to the pornification of society (Mulholland 2013),
especially now that the tropes of soft-core pornography have entered the mainstream. Music videos
engage in what Jhally (2007) calls “the pornographic gaze” of the “pornographic imagination.”
Women are shown as already sexually aroused. Ravenous for satisfaction, they perform provocatively
for the viewer, engaging in prolonged come-hither looks, as if their sexual desire is excited by the
viewer. By exhibiting themselves with an unmistakable, take-me attitude they offer viewers the
fantasy of believing in their own sexual desirability. With such images as models, sexting is now
The Erotic 159
commonplace among teens and young adults, some of it willing, some of it coerced (Walrave 2018).
For Jhally (2007), highly sexualized imagery is not of concern because they are too sexy. To
represent bodies as sexual is no more problematic than acknowledging that we are sexual beings. The
problem is that some media, especially advertising, music videos, and fashion, have been so influenced
by pornography that they often represent people as no more than sexual commodities. And this
repeats itself with some cases of sexting. Both genders not only sometimes feel pressure to self-present
sexually but are then slut-shamed for not being sufficiently sexually attractive (Walrave et al. 2018).
Other observers are more troubled by the media’s sexualization of children, what some call
“corporate pedophilia,” which exemplifies the ever-insatiable need of the media to cut through all the
other media messages (Faulkner 2010: 107). Yet pedophiliac imagery may have been long masked as
fine art. For example, many of Bouguereau’s images of young, naked children are unmistakably sensual.
Selling Sex
To simulate markets nothing attracts attention like sex. In overcoming the prudery of the past, the
media casts the sexualization of society as socially progressive, a triumph of civil liberties (Paul
2005). Championing free speech, eroticization is positioned as a war against the prudery of the past
and simultaneously the politically correct, liberal, and feminist police. It is therefore deeply ironic
that it is hard to find anything more retrograde and repressive than the sexual clichés offered by a
sexualized media (Jhally 2007). And the porn industry, far from being in revolt against past
repressions, is a fantasy world populated by virgins and whores shamed for their sexual availability,
and where sex often evokes disgust, something to be done quickly and disposed of, something
cheap and dirty. The pornography industry, with its low costs, large profit margins, cheap labor
force, broad market base, target niches, and multiple distribution platforms, is perhaps “the
ultimate capitalist enterprise” (Paul 2005: 247).
Sex, Sin, and Suppression

While child pornographers are prosecuted, a lead Hollywood actor can have intercourse with an
apple pie in a popular teen movie (Semonche 2007). We have thrown off the prudery of the past
that saw sex as sinful and pleasure generally as an impediment to industrial capitalism. Now we
celebrate the hedonism necessary to fuel market turnover in an economy based on consumption.
If erotic images do not always sell, they do grab our attention. We are hardwired to respond
according to our, often-fluid, sexual orientations and we are largely free to do so, albeit not always
in publicly acknowledged ways. But have we substituted previous forms of suppression for the
limitations imposed by the demands of the mass media marketplace? Is an abundance of sexual
imagery damaging real-life intimate relationships?
160
12
The Spectacular
Chapter Outline
Sizing Up the Spectacular 161
The Spectacular versus Sensationalism 163
Size Matters 163
Making Might Right 167
Summarizing the Spectacular 170
At 71 meters tall, the Leshan Giant Buddha in China is the largest premodern sculpture in
the world. Carved out of a cliff face of red-bed sandstone between 713 and 803 CE, it is now a major
tourist site, attracting over 3 million tourists a year. The Buddha’s head, which measures 14 meters
high, is covered with 1,021 spiral curls. At 7 meters long, his ears are large enough to hold two
people inside. His fingers are 8.3 meters long; his nose, 5.6 meters long; and each of his eyes are
3.3 meters wide. Sitting, he is 10 stories high but if he stood he would rival the Statue of Liberty at
93 meters. As impressive as these dimensions are, the statue is smaller than the Big Buddha of
Thailand completed in 2008. Made of concrete but covered in gold, it is 93 meters high and
63 meters wide (Wikipedia). Each of these spectaculars serve to awe believers and tourists alike,
both the experience of their sheer size and the listing of their statistics.
Sizing Up the Spectacular

The spectacular refers to spectacles on an exceptionally large scale. It is a striking or imposing
display. To stress the size of a spectacle that is spectacular adjectives are used as in a grand,
lavish, magnificent, astonishing, or astounding spectacle. The spectacular can also be breathtaking
and staggering, both terms indicating a physical reaction. It comes in many forms, including
paintings, buildings, fireworks, parades, ceremonies, sporting events, and natural vistas. Spectaculars
are colossal, something huge, gigantic, immense, or vast in size, extent, or scope. A pyrotechnic
display is reminiscent of fireworks, a brilliant, sparkling display; a razzle-dazzle display is fast
161
Figure 12.1 Blarandion, Leshan Giant Buddha from Below, c. 713–803 CE.
paced or very lively. The single, essential factor is sheer size. The spectacular makes us stop
and stare.
In Chapter 8 on horror, the concept of the sublime was introduced in reference to terror, but the
sublime equally applies to the spectacular. According to Longinus, the ancient literary critic from
whom the concept of the sublime is derived, the effect of the sublime is “vehement emotion,” that
puts one into “a fine frenzy” (cited in Beardsley 1982: 77).
In Kant’s ([1790] 1952) later formulation of the sublime, he identified two kinds, the mathematical
and the dynamic. Illustrating both, he wrote of mountain peaks rearing themselves to heaven,
deep chasms, and raging streams. The mathematical sublime, like the experience of the (unpolluted)
night sky, or mountain peaks, is vast, stretching up and out, seemingly forever. The dynamic
sublime, like raging rivers or a volcano, can be equally large but also full of force. Massive mountains
can be appreciated in quiet contemplation; raging rivers can cause terror. Depending on
whether the spectacular is something very large but static, or both very large and of great force, the
response can be meditative or thrilling, introspection or agitation. Either way, the affect is to
remind ourselves of things far larger than our “skin-encapsulated ego” (Watts, cited in Grof 1988:
30). The spectacular takes us out of ourselves. Equally significant is that the sublime goes beyond
our full rational comprehension. Although we attempt to grasp the sublime by comparing
something huge to something else known to be huge, it resists our intellectual capacity to fully
comprehend it.
The Spectacular 163
European painters of Kant’s time competed to produce paintings that were not only supersized
but depicted vast vistas of untamed nature. By contrast to picturesque landscapes of pleasant,
controlled natural vistas, with sublime landscapes mountain ranges rose heroically, waterfalls
cascaded threateningly, dark storms gathered, and lightning flashed. Human figures were dwarfed,
as insignificant as they were small or, alternatively, they struggled valiantly to survive the cataclysms
of natural forces.
For eighteenth-century aestheticians like Kant, most examples of the sublime came from nature.
During the nineteenth century new technological marvels of the Industrial Revolution were added
to the canon of the sublime as both very large and monuments of human ingenuity: canals, tunnels,
steam engines, and bridges. In the twentieth century, sublime spectaculars broadened again to
include human-made wonders that either matched or even exceeded those of the past. Huge
paintings were superseded by cinemascope, massive ceiling paintings by Imax domes, mountains
peaks by skyscrapers, the god-like view from mountain tops by the view from skyscrapers and
airplane windows, and the tumult of natural catastrophes by rocket launches and disaster movies.
Sadly, the wonder of the night sky, having in most places lost its power through pollution, must
now be enjoyed in the scaled-down environments of planetariums, although there not only the
night sky but the entire solar system is displayed as popular infotainment.
The Spectacular versus Sensationalism

The spectacular is often understood in a negative light. Like the bright and busy, it has often been
accused of being devoid of serious purpose, a mere thing to delight the eye, to impress but not
to carry the burden of anything important. The spectacular is viewed as merely sensationalism,
sensation without good purpose. It is dismissed as theatrical or glitzy. A theatrical spectacular is an
extravagant or irrelevantly histrionic display, a calculated and/or showy display, while a glitzy
spectacular is an extravagant, ostentatious, or glamorous display. In both cases, they in are
poor taste.
The spectacular is constantly on a knife edge between wowing and being silly: of pomp turned
into pompous; grand into grandiosity; glorious into vainglory, and gigantic into gargantuan, in
which the former impresses and the latter appears a vacuous overextension. Along these lines, the
spectacular is often criticized in movies as a cosmetic thrill, offering scale over subtlety, eliminating
character development, and reducing narrative to a succession of spills and thrills (Keane 2006).
Each of these criticisms relates to taste, the determining factor of bad taste being overreach.
Size Matters
Yet the spectacular, like other popular pleasures, is popular for good reason. The spectacular
inspires wonder, thrills, immersion, ego loss, and humor. And overreach is often what is so
attractive.
Wonder
Each of the seven wonders of the world—ancient, modern, and natural—are wonders because they
are spectacular. The seven natural wonders include the Grand Canyon of the United States and the
Great Barrier Reef off the east coast of Australia. The seven wonders of the ancient world include
the Giant Pyramid of Giza in Egypt and the Hanging Gardens of Babylon. The seven wonders of
the modern world include the Great Wall of China and the Taj Mahal in India. Today, each of the
remaining wonders are major tourist attractions precisely because they are spectacular. Each of
them feature prominently on tourist brochures as the things to see, and once on-site tourist guides
impress with an avalanche of statistics about how many years were spent building, or developing
them, how many workers were employed, how far away materials were required to come from, and
so on. As above with the example of the giant Buddhas, the visual evidence of magnitude is
reinforced by the statistics, although the statistics frequently make no sense by themselves.
Comparisons are necessary, as above, with the Statue of Liberty.
From the earliest years of the cinema, going to the movies was always a matter of “pay and
display” and, for some kinds of movies, the bigger the better (Keane 2006: 5). In contrast to images
of small-scale, domestic activity, massed armies and cities destroyed offered a large-scale, objective
overview. Hollywood director Cecile B. DeMille was especially renowned. His 1924 The Ten
Commandments opened with a set that included four 11-meter statues of pharaohs, 21 sphinxes,
and gates 33 meters high that took 14,000 workers to construct (Hall and Neale 2010).
During the 1950s, cinemascope was introduced in an attempt to compete with television’s small
screen. Cinemascope doubled the width of the then standard screen thus greatly expanding the
ability of the camera to impress with sweeping panning shots over armies, cities, and natural vistas.
Television could tell stories; cinemascope offered wonders of scale. Today, television screens are
both so large and widescreen they are called home cinema. And whereas movies were once billed
with casts of thousands, and some films actually did involve thousands of extras, today digitalization
enables even greater spectacles than ever before.
Where the cinema went wide to impress, buildings have gone ever higher. The Egyptian
pyramids, Gothic cathedrals, and skyscrapers are alike in celebrating height, each taller than the
other. When first built the Giant Pyramid of Giza was 146.75 meters high, when first built the
tallest ever Gothic cathedral, at Lincoln in England, stood at 160 meters. Currently, the tallest
building in the world is Burj Khalifa in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. It stands at 829.8 meters
dwarfing the Empire State Building in New York at a mere 381 meters (Wikipedia).
Thrills and Spills

If mathematical sublime spectacles induce what Kant ([1790] 1952) called “a state of joy” (110),
dynamic sublime spectacles offer, again in his words, a mild horror, a bold acceptance of danger;
they are fearsome. Again, for eighteenth-century aesthetic theorists the examples were mostly
natural, for nature was the greatest of all artists: “thunderclouds piled up the vault to heaven, borne
along with flashes and peals, volcanoes in all their violence of destruction, hurricanes leaving
The Spectacular 165
Figure 12.2 Laika, The View from the Top of Burj Khalifa with Its Shadow, 2015.
desolation in their track, the boundless ocean rising with rebellious force, the high waterfall of
some mighty river, and the like” (110).
Today, each of these scenes is mediated on large screens, as well as other natural events like tsunamis,
raging fires, earthquakes, and the impact of meteors. For centuries, paintings of the destruction of
Pompeii were a popular topic, and it did not take long for early filmmakers to re-enact it on screen.
The 1908 Italian film The Last Days of Pompeii was so popular it not only spawned numerous remakes,
it is credited with starting the genre of large historical epics that continues to this day (Keane 2006).
Immersion
Some kinds of the spectacular are immersive; they enclose, becoming not only sights but an
environment, and in which viewers also become participants. Kant ([1790] 1952) described the
effect of entering St. Peter’s in Rome as one of “bewilderment, a sort of perplexity” (100). Like
the Gothic cathedrals that preceded St. Peter’s, it combines elaborate detail with masses of space.
The same is true of many mosques, the largest of which is the Great Mosque of Mecca in Saudi
Arabia. Dating from the middle of the seventh century it has undergone many additions to the
point that it now covers an area of 365,000 square meters—over fifty football fields—and can now
accommodate 1.5 million worshipers. Nor is it the only mosque of such dimensions. The Imam
Reza Shrine in Iran accommodates a similar number of worshipers and is even larger by area.
While these two mosques are exceptional, many mosques in many parts of the world are spacious
enough to accommodate upwards of 20,000 worshipers (Uluhanli 2017).
If not affecting holy awe, panoramas wrap around viewers to offer a far more immersive
experience than the usual viewer—object relationship. First devised by the Romans—there are
examples from Pompeii—their heyday was the nineteenth century when panoramic paintings and
models were a popular way to represent landscapes, topographic views, and historical events.
Audiences were thrilled by the aspect of illusion, immersed in a winding 360-degree panorama and
given the impression of standing in a new environment. One of the few surviving examples of the
genre is the 1894 Racałwice Panorama in Wrocław, Poland. Housed in a purpose-built rotunda,
and measuring 15 x 114 meters, the painting depicts a battle for independence from Russia
(National Museum of Wrocław 2020). With the aid of lighting and diorama-like terrain in front of
the painting, it depicts different scenes from the battle. Immensely popular at the time of its
opening, it remains a major tourist attraction.
For many years panoramas were a feature of Disneyland. Alternatively called Cinerama or Circle
Vision, they showed scenes from the United States and later from China. Visitors stood in a large
circular room to watch a film projected onto the nine large, contiguous screens that surrounded
them (Shaffer 2010).
Immersion is especially pronounced when experienced as part of a crowd. Consider a
professional football crowd with tens of thousands of fans packed together into a steeped and
panoramic grandstand with flags waving, chanting, and singing as one, “exploding into a delirious
roar of noise” (Hancox 2020). This is a grand sight but also a highly participatory immersive
experience in which, typically, the individual is at least partly lost. Identifying with the crowd, the
individual loses a sense of responsibility and gains a sense of collective awareness that increases
with an increase in the size of the crowd. This is what Hancox (2020) calls an “alchemy of
congregation when your brain pulses with validation of being with so many people who have
chosen the same path.” As individuals identify with the crowd behavior, allowing themselves to be
magnified by the crowd, paradoxically, as they allow their personal boundaries to weaken, they feel
stronger. As their control system loosens, at least temporarily, their sense of self morphs in favor of
identifying with the crowd. This is ego loss.
Ego Loss
For eighteenth-century aesthetic theorists, the sublime, no matter the kind, was transfixing because
one was unable to take it all in at once, and feeling inadequate we are overcome. The sublime
The Spectacular 167
transported one to another state; the viewer was carried away. “The true sublime, by virtue of its
nature elevates us; uplifted with a sense of proud possession, we are filled with joyful pride.” The
sublime is “too big for our comprehension, they fill and overbear the mind with their Excess, and
cast it into a pleasing kind of stupor and admiration” (Kant [1790] 1952: 182).
Kant and others of his time wrote of the sublime in quasi-religious terms, using phrases like “evoking
disdain for the ordinary worldly matters by glimpsing eternity.” The sublime was transcendental. That
the spectacular sublime was framed in terms of spiritual transcendence is clear from a note from an
awestruck traveler in 1739: “Not a precipice, not a torrent, not a cliff, but is pregnant with religion and
poetry. There are certain scenes that would awe an atheist into belief, without the help of other
argument” (cited in Wilson 1998: 517). Such sentiments drove the exodus of the English to Scotland
and across the channel to Europe throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries on the so-called
Grand Tour. What began as the privilege of the leisured, upper class and involved months away, slowly
spread downwards to include the middle class as a major form of popular pursuit where, with the
emergence of travel agencies, notably Thomas Cook’s, the Tour became tourism.
As indicated above, today’s horizon-challenging skyscrapers can induce the same kind of
euphoria, although today framing the experience is more likely to be made in terms of a loss of ego
or ego death than spiritual transcendence (Grof 1988). With ego loss, our sense of ourselves as an
individual is effaced. There is a loss of attachment to a sense of a separate self, a merging of oneself
with the spectacle itself, or with others. Being taken out of ourselves is one of the oldest and
persistent human desires, the common goal of psychedelic drug-taking and mysticism.
Humor
Australia has long celebrated large things; some as commercial roadside attractions, some as
markers of local identity. Although diminutive compared to the structures described above, they
nevertheless greatly exceed normal expectations for size and consequently amuse. Most are made
of concrete over wire mesh. Subjects include fruit such as the large apple, the large avocado, the
large banana, the big potato, and the big pineapple; animals such as the big mosquito, the big
prawn, the big swan, the big sheep, and the big jumping crocodile; as well as miscellanea like the
big wine bottle, the big can of beer, the big golf ball, and the big golden gumboot. There are many
more of each category. Some are large enough to walk through or climb up into. The big potato is
10 x 4 meters, the big sheep is 15 x 18 meters (Clarke 2004). Some people take road trips to visit as
many as possible. None of these examples of the spectacular are in any sense sublime but each says
in a lighthearted way, look at me, and either come and consume or this is who we are.
Making Might Right

For Kant, even when the sublime provoked a mild horror it was entirely pleasurable and morally
unproblematic. By contrast, his contemporary Burke found more to the sublime than mere pleasure
(Beardsley 1982). He wrote of two kinds of sublime: the pathetic (meaning affecting the emotions)
and the rhetorical. The pathetic sublime referred to the pleasures of the sublime being solely for
their own purpose. It was the self-sufficient pleasure of the pathetic sublime that concerned Kant
and the modernists who followed him, and which is explored above in terms of an unproblematic
pleasure. However, for Burke, who was also a politician, the sublime could also be used for rhetorical
purposes where the emotions were stirred for political, social, or religious purposes. The intent of
the rhetorical sublime was invariably to promote submission to authority, the effect being the
eradication of individual thought and feeling.
Requiring Submission
Sublime spectacles have long been synonymous with hierarchy and power; it is one of power’s most
important strategies. As such, spectaculars imply that might makes right. That scale matters when
setting out to impress was known to the distinctly hierarchical civilizations of the ancient world.
The ancient Egyptians, Babylonians, Mayans, Aztecs, and Chinese each built on a grand scale.
Consider the colossus of totalitarian rulers from the Roman Emperor Constantine whose seated,
enthroned figure stood about 13 meters high. The dimensions of the pyramids, cathedrals, and
mosques have already been mentioned.
The power of spectacular displays has been equally employed by more recent totalitarian states.
Numerous gigantic statues of Lenin and Stalin were once scattered across the former Soviet Union.
Nazi sculpture was also gigantic, most notably produced by Joseph Thorak. His figures were so
large that once, in an echo of the Leshan Giant Buddha, a visitor to his studio is said to have asked
about the whereabouts of the artist, to which an assistant replied, “Up in the left ear of the horse”
(cited in Lehmann-Haupt 1954: 98). Stalin envisaged the tallest buildings in the world while Hitler
compensated by envisaging the largest dome, four times the size of Michelangelo’s atop St. Peter’s,
so large that in inclement weather clouds would form inside it (Golmstock 1990).
The Nazis’ projected buildings were as gigantic as they were vacuous, but as a political statement
it would not have mattered that they did not please because they effectively said, we will crush you.
It mattered little that their buildings were unatractive, it was enough that they were sufficiently
intimidating to squash dissent. Albert Speer, the chief Nazi architect, referred to the regime’s
“architectural megalomania,” the purpose being “to order the people, to subordinate, to eliminate
their personalities, so that they order themselves to the totality” (cited in Hagan and Ostergren
2019: 1, 2). Hitler used architecture, along with all the arts, as a means of fulfilling his goal of an
Aryan state. His vision was to be realized in both cultural forms and in politics: culture was both
the end to which power aspired and the means of achieving it. To achieve his aims, he used both
terror and the seduction of size (Spotts 2009).
In 2019, the Chinese Communist Party annual parade celebrated its seventy years in office. It
lasted 80 minutes and included 15,000 meticulously orchestrated troops, 160 planes flying overhead
streaming multicolored trails, 580 tanks, missiles, and other military equipment. 70,000 white
doves were released along with a similar number of colorful balloons. The message to foreign
adversaries was clear—confront China at your peril—although the primary audience was domestic.
It reminded ordinary Chinese that it is the party that is all powerful; it also promoted the narrative
The Spectacular 169
of advancement under communist rule. Since not everyone could attend the parade, over 620,000
32-inch television sets were given to poor households so they could marvel (Wikipedia).
Elsewhere, capitalism’s most triumphant statement is made by the skyscraper. Skyscrapers are
capitalism materialized in steel and glass, machines to extract rents from the skies, with city skylines
like bar codes of property values. As Parker (2014) argues, “as the tall building’s shadow turns
streets into darkened canyons, [their] arrogant erection demands that everyone pays attention.”
Even the experience of walking into a large city court house or large city bank can both astonish
and intimidate; that at least is the intention. The interior of opera houses, large art galleries,
university courtyards, any grand public building, can take your breath away while also implying
that you are meant to acknowledge official culture. Whether the buildings house finance, higher
learning, the law, or the arts, they signal elite status as well as their insistence on your accommodation
to their norms. Size squashes resistance.
Failing to See/Failing to Feel

In some instances, the spectacular creates such distance from the details of a scene, viewers fail to see,
and in failing to see, fail to feel. In nineteenth-century buildings prior to the invention of escalators,
corporate executives were housed on the first floor, one up from the ground floor (Nye 2005). There
they would open their windows to let in air, and so let in the unavoidable life of the street outside
them. By contrast, corporate executives today work on the top floors, and with air conditioning they
never need to open their windows. From their Olympian heights, they stare down at people where
“one does not merely escape the clasp of the street; one enters the panopticon of corporate power”
(265). They look out at the city, both its immense vistas aloft and the insect life way beneath them.
Both seems to validate corporate power. The experience is not so much a humbling awe before divine
nature, but the triumph of human entrepreneurship. The views afforded from such penthouse offices
represent “the conquest of nature, the triumph of science, the rationalization of the modern city, the
certainty of progress, the apotheosis of corporate will” (267). What the captains of corporate
capitalism do not see, both literarily and figuratively, are the people on the streets far below them.
Nor perhaps do tourists think about the often-exploitative conditions under which workers
once toiled to construct the marvels they seek out. While it is now known that the pyramids were
not built by slave labor, and neither were the cathedrals of Europe, even today there is considerable
socioeconomic disparity between the workers who construct present-day wonders and the tourists
who travel to see them.
Ignoring the Unspectacular

When the spectacular takes the limelight, it invariably marginalizes other more modest interests.
The eighteenth-century aestheticians taught the public to appreciate the spectacular in nature
which, beginning in the nineteenth century, led to legislation to preserve selected kinds of natural
vistas as national parks. If we were to lack this historical memory, the eighteenth-century aesthetics
of sublime landscapes would now seem to arise as natural.
But an aesthetic preference for spectacular scenery can impact environmental sustainability
(Saito 2007). Spectacular landscapes that conform to the eighteenth-century aesthetic of the
sublime sees some landscapes protected, and others deemed as boring or ugly and consequently
unworthy of protection. Wetlands and prairie have historically had little chance over mountain
ranges and waterfalls. Our aesthetic sensibilities act to marginalize geographic areas that lack the
awe-inspiring wonderment of the spectacular but that nevertheless serve critical ecological
functions. The protection of non-scenic, unspectacular environments on ecological grounds is
often met with derision. We form emotional attachments with what we find aesthetically pleasing,
but conversely what we consider dreary or just ugly we are prepared to see destroyed.
Tedium
When in the 1950s cinemascope attempted to compete with television through scale, it developed
epics that included so many extras and such large-scale sets that directors, not wanting to waste the
money spent, suppressed narrative in favor of spectacle. Cameras held steady as vast armies marched
past and lingered over the vast expensive sets and so interrupted narrative thrust. The effect was to
bore audiences, the films flopped and epic filmmaking all but ceased for the next thirty years (Hall
and Neale 2010). When epics returned with Star Wars in 1977, director George Lucas had learned
the lesson: spectacle and narrative need to be threaded together. The spectacular alone can become
tedious. The spectacular arrests attention, but it does not necessarily hold it. There is good reason
why even the most spectacular firework displays rarely last longer than 15 minutes.
Summarizing the Spectacular

There are many forms of the spectacular: natural and human-produced; of great heights and
perilous depths; measured statistically and by sheer force; viewed from a distance, up close, and
from inside; as well as conceived as akin to the divine or as purely secular. Even when it is trivial,
like a big potato, what matters most is size that, in not only greatly exceeding expectations,
confounds expectations. The spectacular demands attention. It can even take us out of ourselves, a
matter of wonder, of awe.
The spectacular can also overreach, be used to manipulate, and work against environments that
are not spectacular. From ancient times, highly hierarchical societies and more recent totalitarian
regimes have used spectacular displays to suppress dissent by creating a sense of the collective in
which individualism disappears. Ironically, corporate capitalism champions the ideology of
individualism, yet the view from the executive office of a skyscraper offers a metaphor of capitalism.
It offers a view of industrial progress laid out in concrete and glass while not being able to see
ordinary individuals toiling away below.
13
The Narrative
Chapter Outline
The Nature of Narrative 171
The Modernist Rejection of Narrative 172
Narrative Norms 172
Narrative’s Gratifications 175
The Stories We Tell 180
The End 181
Astro Boy, an android from the future, fights crime, evil, and injustice. He takes down robot-hating
humans, robots gone berserk, and alien invaders. He is ably assisted by remarkable powers: a 100K
horsepower strength, jet flight, high-intensity lights in his eyes, adjustable hearing, instantaneous
language translation, a retractable machine gun in his hips, and an IQ capable of identifying a
person as good or evil. Astro Boy is among the most successful of Manga figures. Originating in
Japan as mostly black-and-white comics, Manga is now a worldwide phenomenon, having migrated
to movies, television series, and webtoon apps on smartphones and tablets. Meanwhile, in Japan,
the original Manga format remains highly popular. Read by all ages, thousand-page magazines
cover all narrative genres (Schodt 2007).
The Nature of Narrative

We humans are storytellers. Narrative is a human universal, our principal instrument in organizing
time. While clocks measure time in seconds and its multitudes, stories organize events or incidents
so that they acquire meaning (Abbott 2008). Psychologist Jerome Bruner (1991) contends that
narrative is one of the two major ways in which we understand the world. There is logical, scientific
knowledge that relies upon empirical verification as well as the requirements of logic to test for
falsity. And there is narrative construction that is verified by its truth to our experience of life. We
use logical reason to make arguments, and the episodes of our lives we turn into narratives so that
171
they have a meaningful shape. Stories do not just happen; they are constructed in our heads, a
matter of continual interpretation and reinterpretation. It is only by means of storytelling that we
have any sense of “lived time” (692).
While there is no such thing as life itself, there are any number of stories about life. We each tell
stories about our own lives, the range of possible stories limited only by the stories available within
a culture. Luckily, cultures are a rich reservoir of canonical life stories, plus numerous combinations,
from which we can each construct our own life narrative, our autobiography. Canonical narratives
constitute something like a culture’s toolkit for understanding itself (Bruner 1991). As Barthes (1975)
writes of narrative, “Like life itself, it is there, international, transhistorical, transcultural” (237).
Since the days our species painted on cave walls, we have used narrative pictures not only to
entertain but also to communicate our ideas, beliefs, and values. These are especially important
functions in largely illiterate societies. Narrative pictures have instructed the young and reminded
adults of their culture’s norms for millennia. And whether in print or on screen, pictorial narratives
are now more than ever an instrument of cultural induction and reinforcement.
The Modernist Rejection of Narrative

Storytelling was a major function of premodern fine art. European art gave pictorial form to the
stories from both the Bible and antiquity. In Asia, lengthy scrolls illustrated events from the life
stories of Confucius and the Buddha, tales of court intrigue, and moral fables (Murray 1998). In
both the East and the West, narrative pictures illustrated books, decorated pottery, and adorned
churches, temples, castles, and public buildings.
Yet the avant garde of the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries relinquished this traditional
function. Like realistic representation, the other major function that pictures had played for
centuries, storytelling was abandoned in favor of artists expressing their own individual insights.
Fine artists fought to express their unique painterly contribution and the idea that picture making
should be the servant of a literacy source was an anathema. Striving to assert their autonomy, they
relinquished storytelling to the then new mass media of print and, later, of the cinema. Besides,
painters, and sculptors even more, were limited in how they could tell stories. Narratives are
inherently temporal, and until the use of film to tell stories most images were forced to freeze
stories at just a moment in time. As described in Chapter 2 on illusion, there had been technologies
that made images move, but these were mere toys.
Narrative Norms
Until film began to be exploited for its narrative potential around 1905, pictures mostly showed a
single scene or at best a few related scenes. Painters, printers, and sculptors found ways to
compensate, but the variety of narrative conventions they developed always remained inherently
limited.
The Narrative 173
Ancient civilizations carved narratives of battle triumphs into stone that required viewers
to move their gaze or to walk beside the imagery. In the East long handscrolls were developed.
As the scroll was unrolled a scene was revealed only to be rolled out of sight as the viewer
unrolled a further section. The whole image was thereby experienced sequentially. This
method could encompass a cast of hundreds, numerous locations, and a well-developed plot
(Chen 1995).
However, when narrative content is confined within a single frame, the limits to narrative are
obvious. Both European medieval and ancient Chinese artists told stories in a series of separate
panels, though unlike a comic strip they were rarely in sequential order. Sometimes they need to
be read left to right, or right to left, or top to bottom, or bottom to top, and sometimes the sequence
is diagonal. Often a particularly significant scene is placed in the middle. And often these panels
are not true narratives. They frequently consist of discrete episodes rather than different moments
of the same episode; effectively, they consist more as spatial arrangements than as a narrative
(Barolsky 2010).
Both Eastern and Western artists also represented different parts of a story within the one frame;
for example, a scene taking place inside a room might include a window through which another
part of the narrative can be seen taking place.
Another approach was to show multiple events within the one overall scene, such as early Italian
Renaissance painter Masaccio’s 1427 The Tribute Money that illustrates a biblical parable. In the
center of the picture a tax collector demands payment and Jesus instructs his disciple Peter to give
twice the amount. On one side of this scene, Peter is shown retrieving the money, and on the other
side giving the money to the tax collector. Both approaches required the viewer to interpret the
intended sequence; yet while artists could suggest a sequence they could never guarantee that a
viewer would or could follow.
Nineteenth-century academic, narrative paintings such as Figure 11.1 have been called a
novel in a rectangle (Clay 1978), though this is misleading. Like many paintings from
previous centuries—see Figures 4.3 and 8.1—they only show one episode of a story and so
are dependent for interpretation upon prior familiarity with their literary source. Many
so-called narrative paintings drew upon religious stories, mythological tales, and historical
accounts well known to viewers at the time; rather than retelling the story, they evoke only a
memory of it.
Still other pictures show events in action and exist without a literary source, and they merely
show something happening such as Figure 5.1 (Sitwell 1969). Better described as acts of narration
than as narrative pictures, they do not involve an ongoing sequence of events, let alone a plot. They
leave it to the viewer’s imagination to speculate what might have occurred beforehand and/or what
is likely to follow. They rely upon the fact that with a picture where something is happening,
however minor, it is almost impossible for us not to develop a before and/or after scenario (Abbott
2008). By contrast, comic strips use a sequential series of separate panels, especially when they
include text.
Until the development of the movies, visualizing complicated stories was left to live drama.
Once live drama was wedded to the technology of film, the traditional function of the visual arts
of storytelling continued. Pictures that literally move are ideal for storytelling; storytelling
Figure 13.1 Israhel van Meckenem, The Annunciation, from the Life of the Virgin, c. late 1400s.
can unfold in a sequence as if simulating real time. At first the movies were silent and the
imagery needed to be constantly interspersed with written texts to make sense of the pictures
and drive the narrative forward. Musical accompaniments could set the emotional tone of a
scene but not its precise, intended meaning. With the advent of the “talkies,” multimodal,
multisense communication was created, and ever since it has been our preferred means of cultural
transmission.
The Narrative 175
Figure 13.2 Masaccio, The Tribute Money, 1427.
Narrative’s Gratifications
By providing a structure, narratives allow all the other pleasures of imagery to be realized.
Organizing Complexity
Narrative structures organize the complexity of life. They provide an arc with a beginning, a middle,
and an end that brings closure. They eliminate inessentials and focus on what is meaningful.
Although there are an infinite number of specific stories, and even many genres, there exist only a
limited number of basic plot structures. Rudimentary plots consist of just four steps—a status quo,
an action, a reaction, and a resolution. Even more simply, a plot can begin with an action in such a
way as to assume a status quo, thus consisting of only three steps (Leondar 1977).
Hardly any more complicated than three or four steps, Booker (2004) claims that all the stories
ever told can be reduced to just nine basic plots, though a particular story may have elements of
more than one. His nine plots are: overcoming the monster; rages to riches; the quest; voyage and
return; comedy; tragedy; rebirth; mystery; and rebellion of the one. For example, in the overcoming
the monster plot the protagonist sets out to defeat an antagonistic, often an evil force that threatens
the protagonist and/or their territory. Recent examples include the Harry Potter films and all the
James Bond films. A rags to riches plot sees the protagonist acquiring power, wealth, or a partner.
The Cinderella story is synonymous with this plot, but it is also used in Disney’s popular classic
Aladdin. A quest plot involves the protagonist setting out to acquire something important or to
travel to a location and face many trails along the way. A popular recent example is the Lord of the
Rings trilogy. A comedic plot involves light and humorous characters where the protagonist
triumphs over adversity leading to a happy conclusion. As explored in the following chapter, this
includes almost all Hollywood romantic comedies. With voyage and return plots a protagonist
ventures out to overcome adversity and returns wiser. Examples include The Lion King, The Hobbit,
and the Back to the Future movies. Tragedy involves a hero with a major character flaw that proves
to be their undoing; for example, the lead character in the film Wolf of Wall Street, a stockbroker,
whose obsession with making money at all costs leads him to cut corners with the law that
eventually leads to his professional and personal downfall. A rebirth plot involves a character
changing their ways, usually for the better due to an important event. Examples include Beauty and
the Beast and Groundhog Day. The rebellion of the one plot involves a solitary hero who either
eventually succumbs to an all-powerful force, joining it, or wins and transforms the world. This is
what eventually happens in the Hunger Games trilogy.
While the examples above are contemporary and popular, each of the plots is age-old. The
biblical tale of David and Goliath is the classic example of the overcoming the monster plot, and
Homer’s Odyssey from the eighth century BCE, the second oldest work of Western literature, uses
the voyage and return plot.
Another way of understanding the parsimonious nature of narrative is to consider the limited
number of basic conflicts that drive plots. Thompson (2018) suggests six basic conflicts. They
include human versus human in which, typically, heroes and villains are pitted against one another;
human versus nature in which the protagonist must battle an inhospitable environment like a
desert, jungle, or terrible weather; human versus society where the protagonist is forced to make a
moral choice between their own desires and the demands of society; and human versus technology,
of which Astro Boy is an exemplar. Horror movies are often based on yet another basic, external
conflict, that of human versus the supernatural. In each case the conflict is external. By contrast,
conflicts involving human versus self occur when the protagonist deals with an internal conflict
such as addressing a dilemma or competing priorities, making hard decisions, or overcoming fear.
Again, each of these basic conflicts are found in both classic literature and contemporary visual
culture. For example, conflict between human and self is illustrated not only by recent Batman and
James Bond movies but Shakespeare’s Hamlet; the human versus nature, not only by all the disaster
movies involving pandemics, tsunamis, and earthquakes, but Robinson Crusoe and Moby Dick. The
human versus society conflict is the basis of all the movies about journalists exposing corruption, but
also the biblical story of Jesus standing firm against the religious and political leaders of his time.
News reports are also constructed as narratives; they are even called news stories. Typically, over
several days a story will be introduced and then developed as new information comes to light and/
or different angles are canvased. The basic narrative arc is the same as with fiction: introduction,
development, and conclusion. Some news stories resemble the short story fiction format by lasting
only a few days; others are like soap operas that go on for years. Some involve only a few people,
some involve a large cast. At any one time news outlets offer a constant stream of stories, some
beginning, some developing, some concluding. What news outlets do not do is attempt to cover
everything that is happening in the world; rather, they limit themselves to a range of stories and
then allow their readers/viewers to select which stories they will follow. Thus, the infinite complexity
of the world’s events are organized at the point of news construction and also by the public at the
point of consumption.
The Narrative 177
No matter how story structures are considered, and the descriptions above overlap and
complement one another, there are only so many structures. Life is messy but constructed in terms
of narrative, life’s mess is reduced to a manageable and comfortably familiar pattern.
Satisfying Curiosity
Irrespective of the kind of plot or conflict, the animating point of every narrative is trouble. And with
every narrative it is curiosity that motivates us to follow where trouble leads. Even during dull passages,
and even when the general outcome is suspected well in advance, the question as to how exactly the
trouble will be resolved keeps us watching. We suspend disbelief in the narrative, willing it to be real,
and in return we are rewarded by being held in suspense. Curiosity is both an innate passion for
knowledge, evident in even very young children, and a social incentive that is aroused by what we find
in the world. Curiosity is the impetus behind exploration and narratives exploit it (Hamilton 2018).
For curiosity to be triggered there must always be some level of uncertainty, so while narratives
help simplify the complexity of the world and so provide comfort, they must equally offer a degree
of insecurity, ambiguity, or unfamiliarity. In this way narratives are particularly suited to offer
pleasure; they fulfill both our appetite for knowing, and the reward of finding something out, both
the pleasure of suspense and of resolution.
Escaping into Alternative Realities

Narratives address the question: What if? What if our lives were not dull, we were not ordinary, and
life was not predictable? What if we were brave enough to go well beyond our comfort zone? What
would we accomplish if we were powerful? What would life be like if problems were resolved?
The use of narratives to address such questions is perhaps best illustrated by narratives that retell
the hero’s journey, retell because according to mythologist Joseph Campbell (2012) the hero’s
journey underlies numerous stories both epic and domestic. Furthermore, this basic narrative
structure is found in every culture, indigenous and modern alike. Campbell calls the hero’s journey
a monomyth, a myth that underlies numerous other myths, which again points to the limited
nature of basic narrative structures. In one form or the other, whether consisting of the entire
journey or only part of it, the hero’s journey underlies narratives as diverse as ancient Greek stories
about their gods; Norse sagas; American Indian tales; and the lives of Moses, Jesus, and the Buddha.
It is the story of Superman, Batman, Star Wars, and the entire Marvel and DC universes.
The hero’s journey begins in the ordinary world with the protagonist oblivious to the adventure to
come. He or she appears to be like us and therefore relatable. But then there is a call to action: a phone
call, a conversation, or something more dramatic like an accident. The protagonist initially resists the
call because it disrupts their comfortable ordinary life. And are they up to the challenge? Needing
guidance, the protagonist meets with a mentor who offers insight into the dilemma to be faced and
who often also provides practical training. With an infusion of self-confidence, initial doubts and
fears may be dispelled, at least for the time being. Either willingly or pushed, the hero now crosses a
threshold from the ordinary, everyday world into an unfamiliar world of new possibilities and
potential danger. This may be merely leaving home or undertaking something until now thought
impossible, but the hero is finally committed to endure whatever is in store. Now out of their comfort
zone, the hero is confronted with a series of tests, physical and/or psychic, and to meet these challenges
the hero may seek allies who in their different ways help prepare for yet greater ordeals to come. The
hero’s skills and powers are tested and, with every obstacle overcome, more insight into the hero’s
character is gained. The hero then approaches either an actual location of great danger or an internal
conflict which the hero has not until now had to face. Early doubts and fears may resurface and time
may be required to reflect before summoning the courage to press forward. For the audience, this
respite acts to help understand the significance of the issues at stake as well as escalating the tension
in anticipation of the greater tests to follow. Whether dealing with inner demons or physical threat,
the hero must now draw upon all their skills and knowledge acquired along the journey so far. During
this ordeal, it is only through undergoing some form of death that they are granted the greater power
or insight required to fulfill their destiny and/or reach their journey’s end. Everything is put on the
line; nothing now will ever be the same. In meeting the ultimate threat, defeating their enemy,
surviving death, and/or facing their greatest fear, the hero is transformed into a new state of awareness.
They may be rewarded with great power, granted secret or greater knowledge, or reconciled with a
loved one or ally. Whatever the reward, the hero is now ready to return to their ordinary world. In
returning, danger is replaced with acclaim, vindication, absolution, or exoneration.
However, in many stories the journey is not yet over. The hero may still have to choose between
personal desires and a higher cause. In the final battle the stakes are now raised beyond the hero’s own
existence to far-reaching consequences for the lives of those left behind in the ordinary world. If the
hero fails, others will suffer; yet, ultimately, the hero does triumph. In the final stage of the journey,
the hero returns to the ordinary world but significantly different from the person who first set out on
the journey. The hero will have learned many things. Having faced and overcome many dangers, the
hero looks forward to a new and better life. Whether the final reward is cause for celebration, self-
realization, or an end to strife, three things are evident: change, success, and vindication of having
taken the journey. The hero’s detractors are sidelined, enemies punished, and allies rewarded. The
hero returns where the journey started, but both circumstances and people are now transformed.
Not every story contains each of these stages; some stories compress or eliminate stages or focus
on only a few stages. What is critical to note is that the journey begins in the ordinary world, enters
the realm of the imagination, and returns to the ordinary world. Psychically, the story begins in the
ordinary, conscious world, enters the world of unconscious dreams and desires, and returns to
consciousness. The hero’s journey, one that underlines so many stories, is a dialogue between reality
and fantasy, between what is and what we crave. The protagonist starts off as similar to us, someone
with whom we can identify but then becomes someone with whom we wish to identify. It is a
negotiation between the real and the unreal, reality and desire.
Emotional Identification
Narratives take us on an emotional journey. Many narratives console because they comfort with a
happy ending, neatly tidying up complex issues with a bright ribbon, but many narratives do not
The Narrative 179
end happily. Even so, as discussed in Chapter 4 on the highly emotional, having investigated a
troubled issue, we can be consoled at least by having the issue interpreted for us so that the issue
becomes bearable.
Aristotle ([335 BCE] 1981) long ago noted that narratives are driven by the emotion generated
by turnarounds, discoveries, and the occasional catastrophe. Turnarounds typically occur when a
hard heart is suddenly softened, where a character who has displayed nothing but resistance finally
relents, or where something is revealed about characters that makes their actions explicable. Much
as we are in real life, we are shocked when there is an unexpected death of a sympathetic figure, and
we rejoice when we are led to expect death and there is a recovery.
Audiences recognize the essential goodness of certain characters and must therefore suffer
along with them because the characters’ worth goes unrecognized by other characters. Due to their
goodness, protagonists cannot use the underhanded means to save themselves employed by their
antagonists, and the audience has to wait to see how, when, and even if, the goodness of protagonists
will be made clear and the guilty exposed. Emotion is aroused when the revelation comes too late
or, providing there is sufficient delay and the possibility of failure, just in the nick of time. When
this happens one of two things follows. There is either what Williams (1988) calls “a paroxysm of
pathos” as in domestic melodrama, or the pathos is directed into action—a chase, a rescue, or a
fight—as in action-orientated genres (58). Either characters tear up or they tear away to tear down
their enemy. They either find resolution in crying, hugging, and laughter, or they find they must
take action such as taking revenge or seeking justice. Often, they tear up and then tear down. In
this way, an excess of emotion applies equally to male- as to female-orientated genres, not only to
“women’s weepies” but also to “guy cry” genres (84). Even in the Terminator series of films, with
their fantastically muscled bodies, plots primarily pivot on moments of masculine pathos.
The more active alternative of taking action is equally illustrated by TV wrestling as analogous
not only to soap opera but to an action movie (Chang 2012). The scenario begins with the babyface
(hero) and the heel (villain) being introduced to each other as well as the cause of the conflict. The
plot develops as the heel obstructs the babyface in his goal, and the babyface fights back only to be
cut down by the villainy of the heel. Love and sympathy is evoked for the hero and contempt is
evoked for the villain, plus the desire to see the hero’s final comeback. Crowds cheer as the hero
overcomes insurmountable odds and destroys the villain. Alternatively, and in keeping with the
episodic structure of soap operas, the heel wins by cheating, and the outraged crowd, determined
on revenge, pay to come back the following week.
Aristotle would not be surprised to learn that politicians today love to tell stories intended to
arouse emotion. When introducing themselves to the voting public candidates tell stories about
themselves. In the United States, the stories are usually rags to riches stories, about starting at the
bottom socially and economically and rising through their own true grit. Candidates may also use
overcoming the monster narratives as in overcoming poverty, gender or racial bias, family
dysfunction, and/or alcoholism, whatever it might be that arouses both identification and
admiration.
Politicians also tell emotionally charged stories about the impact on ordinary people of social
policies. Better still if they show pictures of the people impacted. Politicians know that if they talk
about policies in abstract terms using statistics, their audience’s eyes glaze over, but if they ground
the points they seek to make in emotionally laced stories about how a policy will, or has, impacted
the personal lives of just one or two people, everyone will identify and understand.
Everything Else
As central to narrative as emotional identification is, narrative is the instrument of so much more.
Narrative pictures combine our curiosity about what will happen next, with most of the other pleasures
explored in this book. To mention only a few, according to genre, our dominant cultural forms offer
the anesthetized, nostalgic sanctuary of the sentimental; the wonder of the spectacular; the thrill ride
and moralizing of violence; the play, parody, shock, and fascination of horror; the romance and
symbolic possession of the exotic; the voyeurism, fetishism, sadomasochism, and queering of the
erotic; the transgressive joy of vulgarity; and the mystery and wonder of the miraculous. And to be
discussed in the two subsequent chapters, narrative formulae offer both familiarity and surprise, and
comedic narratives offer emotional release and a sense of power. Narrative is “the train engine which
pulls with it the freight of cars of tension and relief, emotions and feelings, repressions and sublimations,
symbolizations, and expanding aspects of reality” (Wilson and Wilson 1976: 4).
The Stories We Tell

In the 2012 film Life of Pi, the protagonist is an adolescent obsessed with religious belief. When the
ship he is sailing in sinks he is left stranded in a small boat where he is forced to endure a series of
horrible, life-threatening experiences. He recounts these experiences in a form that, while pulling
no punches, manages to be more affirmative than it could have been. As a mature man, a journalist
asks him, given all that he has been through, if he still believes in God. He answers, “It depends on
what story you tell.” The implication is that we each have a choice to tell stories that are life-affirming
or that are diminishing, open to possibilities that sustain us, or close us down.
Each culture has the same choice. Narratives weave together all the strengths of a society and all
the positive benefits offered by popular culture, but also all the vices of society. Narratives lace each
together into pleasurable forms. As described in Chapter 7 on violence, narratives frequently
oscillate between rejecting violence and relishing it. In popular movies protagonists initially take
the high moral position that social norms ostensibly demand, yet pushed they then execute a far
greater degree of violence upon their enemy than was perpetrated on them. Similarly, as discussed
in Chapter 10 on the erotic, numerous popular movies ostensibly find a sexualized society, especially
among the young, utterly abhorrent, yet they also offer sexualized imagery. The same can be said for
the other pleasures. Issues are addressed without resolution, made to appear taboo while equally
placed on offer.
Our culture typically tells stories, for example, that are peppered with throat slashing,
disembowelment, and rape, rather than the love of family, friends, and the natural world. Stories
typically turn on revenge rather than reconciliation where conflicts are routinely resolved through
violence not negotiation. It matters. Canonical stories help frame our world; they construct our
The Narrative 181
realities. They tell us who we are, could be, could not be. Narratives both frame the limits to our
agency and our possibilities.
The End
The technologies of storytelling have changed, though the basic plots and conflicts of narratives have
not changed. They continue as they have always done, to thread together our deepest fears and anxieties,
our aspirations and desires. Whether based on reality or fiction, storytelling remains one of the primary
functions of pictures and one of the most ubiquitous of popular pleasures. Prior to the advent of the
avant garde, the fine arts of painting and sculpture told stories for millennia but these media were
inherently limited. Comics, graphic novels, cinema, television, and video games tell stories better.
182
14
The Formulaic
Chapter Outline
Recipes and Road Maps 183
General versus Particular 184
Formulaic Fine Art 185
Why Formulas Work 188
Formulae and their Challenges 193
Finishing with Formulae 194
Of the 29 James Bond films that have been made since 1962, the plots have remained essentially the
same. Despite the franchise being over 60 years old, and having had six actors playing the main
role, from film to film the sequencing of the action is almost identical. Villains change, locations
vary, and the earlier sexism has been either downplayed or eliminated as the women have gained
agency. Some iterations have played the formula for laughs, others have been mock serious, and
more recent ones have gone to dark places of the psyche. Yet the storyline has remained constant:
a major threat is identified; Bond is assigned to overcome the threat; after an initial defeat he
acquires powerful weapons and gadgets; there are further setbacks; but just when all appears lost
he saves the world; and typically there is a happy ending (Hugo and Lawrence 2020).
Recipes and Road Maps

James Bond films are formulaic. Like all formulaic films they follow a prescription in order to
achieve a predictable result. Formulae are like cooking recipes that contain all the ingredients that
must be used, and which to be successful are then mixed in a step-by-step process. They are highly
conventional.
Both premodern fine art and today’s mass media are largely formulaic and perhaps the best
example of how they are similar is that they are both broken down into subcategories that are easily
recognized and enjoyed. Both are divided according to subject matter called genres. Painting
183
genres have included historical, landscape, portraiture, still life, and everyday life, the latter
confusingly also being known as genre paintings. Popular movies and television genres include
action, adventure, animation, comedy, crime, fantasy, horror, magical musicals, mystery, romance,
science fiction, thriller, and western. Video game genres include action, action adventure, role-
play, first player shoot-em-ups, simulation, sand play, strategy, and sports. Each genre is recognized
as such because its characters and tropes are widely recognized by their audiences. And narrative
genres are also known by their plots.
Narrative formulae are like road maps in which one is able to tell not only where the roads are
located but also where they lead. While in the previous chapter, narratives were described as largely
following a standard sequence of events, formula narratives take standardization further. Formulaic
movies rely upon plots to drive their stories rather than the idiosyncrasies of individual characters.
They are plot- rather than character-driven, characters being used primarily to serve the plot. They
even divide their story sequences into predicable amounts of time. And the turning points in genre
narratives also always occupy the same positions in the story (Hauge 2020). What happens at the
25-percent point of a 90-minute romantic comedy will be similar to what happens at the same
percentage point of a 3-hour action adventure epic. The first 10 percent of a story involves the
setup. The challenge to be faced or the opportunity on offer is presented. The next 15 percent is
taken up with negotiating that. The next 25 percent will involve progress, and at 50 percent into the
story a further turning point involves a point of no return. The next 25 percent involves complications
and high stakes that culminate in a major setback. The final 25 percent is spent on the climax. This
is broken into two roughly similar amounts of time, the first being a final push and the second
being the aftermath.
Many books, articles, and blogs offer advice on how to write a movie or television script
according to these basic guidelines. As a further guide, some even indicate the number of words or
how many pages of a script should be devoted to each stage
General versus Particular

Formulae are frequently ridiculed, being condemned as comprised of clichés and associated with a
lack of originality. It is one of the main charges made against popular culture. Characters are
accused of being no more than cardboard cutouts lacking any of the complexity of real people, and
formulaic plots are damned as nothing but laziness. Fine art modernists saw formulae as an
abomination. Formulae were evidence of a lack of imagination on the part of both image-makers
and viewers. For aesthetic theorist Clement Greenburg (1973), popular culture employed formulae
because it used “the methods of industrialism,” and was “turned out mechanically” (11). Bruner
(1991) updated the technological analogy but with the same intent. He compared formula narratives
“to the default settings of a computer: merely an economical, time-and-effort saving way of dealing
with knowledge” (10). He considered them mindless. Likewise, Barthes (1991) distinguished
between non-formulaic narratives that engage the imagination and challenge the intellect to think
of alternative meanings, and formulaic narratives that are so simplistic that alternative ways of
The Formulaic 185
interpreting them do not exist. For Barthes, audiences for formulaic material were entirely passive;
the narratives themselves and our response to them so well rehearsed that only one meaning was
possible.
As explored in Chapter 4 on the highly emotional, modernists considered that art expressed the
unique response of artists to particular circumstances. Popular culture consisted of clichés and
platitudes; meaningless, prosaic statements; banalities and commonplaces. It lacked the complexity
and subtlety of real life, opting for the general rather than the specificity of actual situations and
personalized responses to them. In addressing popular media producers Collingwood (1938)
claimed that “all you need do is to put before your audience a representation of the typical features
belonging to the kind of thing that produces it: make your kings very royal, your soldiers very
soldierly, your women very feminine . . . and so on” (46).
Collingwood distinguished between real art and traditional crafts like pottery and quilting. For
Collingwood, real artists avoided rules to produce unique objects derived from personal experience;
crafts followed well-understood rules to produce predictable products that looked like many
similar examples of the same kind of thing. Most modernists happily ignored the rule that governed
the craft-like approach of most premodern art, but not Collingwood. Instead, he distinguished
between what he called art conventionally so-called and art properly so-called. Most premodern
art was only conventionally called art. Thus he effectively assigned all but rare exceptions in the
history of premodern art to craft and/or to popular culture. As described in Chapter 4, he was right
to do so.
Formulaic Fine Art

The indisputable fact is that what is conventionally known as fine art has relied heavily on formulae
for millennia. Chapter 4 describes—and Figure 4.2 demonstrates—how for centuries European
artists used chironomia manuals to convey emotions though gestures and body positions. But
following formulae did not stop there.
In both Europe and the East artists also used pattern books to learn how to represent basic
subjects, their proportions, appropriate shading, and even how to proceed one step after another.
In China, the process of painting was highly ritualized. Consider the advice from a seventeenth-
century standard textbook where learning to paint was seen as analogous to writing; artists were to
paint one stroke at a time, building up from simple to more complicated strokes. Advising on how
to paint orchids, the text reads: “First draw four leaves. They should vary in length. A fifth crosses
them . . . Ink tones should be varied. Old and young leaves should mingle. Petals should be light,
stamens and calyx dark” (cited in Gombrich 1960: 129). Another pattern book advises that in
drawing a bird, artists should consider that since birds come from eggs their bodies should first be
drawn as an egg shape with beak, tail, and wings added later.
In Europe, similar kinds of precise instruction were offered by the numerous pattern books that
were printed and widely used by artists from the mid sixteenth century until the mid nineteenth
century. The pattern books included detailed exemplar drawings of all manner of subjects, though
mostly of the human body and its parts. Typically, the pattern books devoted many pages to drawings
of the head, feet, hands, eyes, noses, ears, and so on, each in many different positions. Many drawings
show the body in movement. Some pattern books indicate mathematical formulae for the body;
others opt to show how to block the body or body parts into squares to make it easier for artists to
estimate proportions. Others, like the Chinese pattern books above, include greatly simplified schema
to provide essential proportions, showing the body or body parts as a combination of circles or
squares. As discussed in Chapter 1 on a realistic style, the history of Western art, from the twelfth to
the nineteenth century, is a history of ever greater and different kinds of realism. To achieve this goal,
artists proceeded by means of a combination of formulae and innovation (Gombrich 1960). Most
artists slavishly followed formulae, and even those that innovated, like Leonardo and Michelangelo,
invariably began by studying the pattern books and/or making a close study of their masters.
Prior to the introduction of pattern books, the 1,000-year tradition of medieval European art
was entirely reliant upon apprentices learning by copying their masters. Early medieval art,
Gombrich (1960) writes, “is an art of copyists” (130). With few exceptions, there was no attempt to
represent particulars, only generalizations: a man, not a specific man, a bird, not a specific bird.
Inspired by the idea of Platonic forms being not only the sum of all particulars but of a higher
nature than particulars, artists sought to deliberately ignore particulars in favor of what they
Figure 14.1 Heinrich Lautensack, Skeleton, Front View, and Sterometic Figure of a Man, from
Geometry, Proportion and Person, 1610.
The Formulaic 187
considered universals. The whole point of representing a subject was to convey its spiritual essence,
and this was only ensured by adhering closely to the pre-existing formulae. The formulae was
guaranteed to capture the universal.
Even this 1,000-year old medieval practice is short compared to the tradition of ancient
Egyptian art in which a unique formula for the human body remained virtually unchanged for
3,000 years. In the whole history of picture-making, innovation existed and even occasional
originality, but the norm has been the following of formulae (Gombrich 1960). The modernist
valorization of artists as uniquely inspired individuals who follow their muse rather than rules is
an historical aberration.
Formulae and Form

Even modernists followed rules. Many modern fine art paintings adhere to compositional formulae.
Any number of paintings conform to the rule of thirds by which a picture is divided into three
equal sections at which point significant items are placed. This can be done horizontally, or
vertically, or both, in which case the picture is divided into nine sections. Today, introductory
books and articles on how to take photographs recommend beginners use this formulae as a sure-
fire way to achieve compositional success. Painters knew the rule of thirds as the golden ratio or
golden section, or in the words of the fifteenth-century mathematician Pacioli, the “divine
proportion” because of its allegedly divine simplicity. The rule of thirds is a simplified version of the
golden section whose exact measurements are 1:1.618. Many painters have used it more as a guide
than a rule, but such innovative as well as such different painters as Leonardo da Vinci and George
Seurat used its exact proportions.
During the 1880s, artists like Paul Gauguin and Vincent van Gogh, exemplars of modernism,
turned to Japanese art and found items not placed according to the golden section. For example,
Figure 14.2 Leonardo da Vinci, Annunciation, 1492–5.

Figure 14.3 George Seurat, Circus Sideshow, 1887–8.
they found items placed up against the edges of the frame; yet in following their new model they
simply substituted one set of conventions for another.
Why Formulas Work

With so much repetition, why do formulas remain so popular? If we know what to expect with a
genre movie, television program, or video game, why do we still choose to participate? With so
many media options to choose from, where is the interest in what seems like the same old thing?
Why don’t we get bored?
Easy Communication
The great virtue of formulaic imagery is that it is easily understood because its figures, tropes, and,
in the case of formulaic narratives, plots, are widely recognized. This is important where either the
audience is illiterate or the time to develop characters and situations is limited. How else to
communicate on electronic platforms with numerous free-to-air and subscription options all
competing for attention? In both cases it is enormously helpful to both image-makers and the
public to immediately recognize stock characters.
The Formulaic 189
Stock characters, or archetypical figures, represent a whole class of people by means of a single
prominent trait. In ancient Greece, the term archetype meant original pattern. The Greek playwright
Theophrastus, a student of Aristotle, was the first to conceive of the idea of stock characters. He
introduced thirty character types; for example, the garrulous man, the hapless man, the man of petty
ambition, the coward, the greedy person, the stingy man, the insincere show-off, and the fault-finder.
Others included characters known principally for being suspicious, absent-minded, repulsive,
offensive, complacent, and shamelessly greedy. As these characters are mostly negative, Theophrastus
presumably had another list of positive characters that is now lost (Bennett and Hammond 2018).
Today’s genre movies similarly rely upon a range of stock characters, each of which are readily
recognizable. For example, the wise old man, an elderly character who provides wisdom to the
protagonist; the absent-minded professor; the mad scientist, an insane or highly eccentric and
often villainous crackpot; the jock, a muscular not very intelligent male athlete; a femme fatale, a
beautiful but mischievous and traitorous woman; the nerd, a socially impaired, obsessive, and
overly intellectual person; the boy next door, an average nice guy; and the girl next door, an average
girl with a wholesome outlook (Wikipedia Contributors 2018b).
Many of today’s stock characters have impressive pedigrees both from the West and the rest.
Consider the damsel in distress figure familiar to contemporary viewers from iterations of the King
Kong movies as well being a staple of many video games, the rescue of the damsel being the whole
Figure 14.4 Yemima Calistra, Human Puppets—The Love Story of Sita and Rama, 2020.
object of some games (Skolnick 2014). Such damsels inform ancient Greek tales which tell
of helpless maidens facing sacrifice before being saved. Numerous European paintings represent
St. George saving a maiden from a dragon. The ancient Indian damsel Sita is kidnapped by the
villainous Ravana but rescued by her husband Rama, and dance re-enactments of the story continue
to enchant contemporary audiences in Indonesia. Consider, too, how Shakespeare’s Romeo and
Juliet as moonstruck lovers from the wrong side of the tracks are reworked by almost all romantic
comedies; and in an example of how storytelling is similar from culture to culture, the story of Sita
and Rama is also closely related to Romeo and Juliet.
Other reworkings include romanticized folk tales of Robin Hood as an outlaw fighting for the
good of the people reappearing not only as movies of Robin Hood but also as the basis of the
Batman and Terminator movies. Vain, mischievous, and coquettish soubrettes feature in paintings
of Salome and reappear in movies like Mean Girls (2004). A shrew, a comedic, scolding, nagging
woman, a staple of European folklore, is similarly reworked, for example, by Wilma Flintstone.
Yokels, uncomplicated country folk, appear in numerous domestic paintings of happy, inebriated
peasants, and are re-presented by the iterations of The Beverly Hillbillies (Friedman et al. 2014).
Premodern fine art and today’s popular genres also rely upon widely understood tropes. For
centuries, religious figures in Western art were recognizable primarily by the conventions of their
dress and attributes. The Virgin Mary invariably wore a blue cloak and a red dress. Joseph, her
husband, was usually represented as an older man with a staff. All the major Christian saints were
as readily identifiable through similar kinds of attributes: St. John the Evangelist with a book, St.
Peter with keys, and so on (Apostolos-Cappadona 1994). For a largely illiterate population such
conventional signs acted as a readily recognizable language.
Traditional Chinese art is arguably even a richer source of tropes. Cranes signified peace; turtles,
long life; lions, good fortune and prosperity; deer, long life and wealth; and horses and monkeys,
success. Among fruit, an orange symbolized happiness; pomegranates, fertility; apples, peace; and
peaches, long life. Colors were also symbolic: red, gold, and green signified good luck; white, purity,
death, and mourning; yellow, heaven; and green, harmony (Hays 2016).
Among the common tropes of action/adventure movies and video games are extensive property
damage, physical danger, extended fights, explosions, vehicles crashing, run-away vehicles—
usually buses or trains—high-speed chases, ticking bombs, and last-second rescues. Science fiction
tropes include killer aliens, long-abandoned alien technology, parallel worlds, time travel, intelligent
robots, murderous machines, clones, genetic mutations, and warp speed and wormholes used for
transportation (Johnson 2019). Westerns tropes are extensive, including semi-nomadic lone
drifters, cattle rustlers, bounty hunters, and quick-draw gunslingers located in isolated homesteads,
the desert, and small frontier towns, and involving cattle drives, bank robberies, coach hold-ups,
cattle rustling, and fighting Indians. Rifles and handguns are obligatory (Matheson 2017).
The tropes of movie westerns are largely based on nineteenth-century pulp fiction. As described
in Chapter 8, the tropes of today’s horror genre have a much longer pedigree. Means of
dismemberment have changed since ancient times—grinding machines and chainsaws today—but
not dismemberment itself. And the all-devouring Hellmouth of medieval depictions of hell—the
gaping mouth of a huge monster—are reproduced today as cannibalism, mutilation, and torture.
Standard Hollywood fare is filled with tropes, though none are more fantastical than those of
The Formulaic 191
Bollywood musicals. Like horror tropes, the magical tropes of Bollywood are age-old, having their
origins in ancient Indian folklore. They include dramatic but absurd entrances no matter what
characters are doing, women’s hair blowing in the wind even indoors, everyone moving in perfect
synchronization, frequent walking in slow motion, handling emotional confrontations by singing
and dancing, and transporting to a foreign location for a quick song and dance routine. Additionally,
plots are often advanced by someone sensing something, getting a message from a divinity, or the
one person no one would want listening located within earshot (Kishore, Sarwal, and Patra 2016).
Reducing Complexity Further

In the previous chapter narratives were characterized as organizing complexity, reducing it so that
it is both meaningful and manageable. With formulaic narratives complexity is much further
reduced into neat, predictable patterns. Knowing what we are about to see we can anticipate the
pleasures to come, so much so that we may feel frustrated when our expectations are not realized.
Real life is invariably complicated, often nasty, and utterly unpredictable, but formulaic narratives
compress it all into foreseeable conclusions. By the end of the setup it is usually possible to predict,
at least in general terms, what will happen. The exact development remains unknown, as does the
precise nature of the conclusion, but with sitcoms we know the boy and girl get together, and with
action movies that evil is overcome, the monster destroyed.
Consider just how familiar the following summary of the romantic comedy genre feels. Romcoms fall
into the standard three-part division of stories in which boy meets girl, boy and girl fall out, and boy and
girl get back together again; or more simply: meet, lose, and get (Mernit 2020). No matter how varied the
setting, however far-fetched the complication is that has them falling out, or however implausible the
reason they reconnect, romantic comedies follow this simple, three-step structure. As mentioned earlier,
the bare bones of the story are plotted with mathematical precision. We first learn something about each
of the love interest’s separate lives and goals, and then the love interests meet. This acts as the catalyst for
everything that follows. Sparks fly, especially if from the start one or both start off on the wrong foot, such
as making a social faux pas that causes dislike or embarrassment. Tension is raised as there is some
suggestion of a looming conflict, usually introduced by conflicting goals or the intervention of pre-
existing significant others. Both have friends who comment on the primary action and who introduce
most of the comedy but may also meddle. At the midpoint of the story, one or both of the lovers realize
that their burgeoning emotions conflict with their personal goals. Often one or both lovers will feel
guilty. But the relationship develops despite misgivings on the part of one or both partners. This
culminates in a kiss or sleepover, which appears to cement the relationship but then a major conflict
arises. With hurtful words and tears, the lovers break up and go their separate ways. Now they each
reassess their goals. Do they really want their own lives or to be together? One of them often decides that
they must immediately leave whatever location they are in. The other realizes they have been idiotic and
makes a mad dash to stop them leaving. Catching up with their run-away lover, the chaser makes a
speech and all is forgiven. The only very rare variant on this is where they do go their separate ways.
All the complexity of actual relationships is drastically reduced. Whatever happens, however
dreadful, resolutions are provided; moreover, with genre stories resolutions are often happy.
Ongoing Comfort and Anxiety

Formulae reassure, and given the ongoing complexities of the world and our anxious responses,
narrative formulae provide repeated reassurance. Just as children want to hear the same story over
and over in order to fully assimilate lessons and to feel safe, adults also seek security through repetition.
As described in Chapter 8 on the horrific, Freud believed that people are often obliged to repeat
experiences from their early lives not by remembering them as something that happened in the past
but to act them out as contemporary experience, and, further, that this can take mediated forms such
as watching horror movies. Yet repeated exposure to other genres like sitcoms do not appear to arise
from early deep and abiding trauma. More recent attachment theories, described in Chapter 4 on the
highly emotional, emphasize that people consistently choose their most familiar experiences as a
means to deal with problems of the past, believing that new experiences will be more painful than
their present situation or too new and untested to imagine (Niedenthal and Ric 2017).
Children’s play is involuntarily caught up in repetitive acts that demonstrate an instinct for
mastery over the conflicts and anxieties that give rise to their play. Their repetitive play is at the
same time pleasurable and indicative of the persistence of anxiety. Formula fiction is a dramatization
that is similarly part pleasure and part disturbance. The incentive for repeatedly exposing ourselves
to stories of essentially the same kind is an ongoing mixture of pleasure and anxiety.
The fact that romantic comedies repeatedly end happily suggests that we know relationships do
not always end this way, but we prefer to return to, or look forward to, a time during courtship
which, despite its own complications, is a giddy time filled with possibilities. The action genre with
its stories of unstoppable heroes, or with superhero stories with invincible heroes, suggests we
acknowledge that we are rarely heroic, but we desire to feel heroic. Additionally, protagonists are
often outlaws who in the process of righting wrongs create a lot of havoc. Who does not enjoy
transgressing, indulging the thrill, at least vicariously, of breaking the law and creating mayhem?
Innovation
Yet however comforting we find formulae, we equally enjoy innovation. We enjoy finding out how
a new film reinterprets a formula. Consider the single most famous rags to riches story, the tale of
Cinderella. Disney’s 2015 remake of its animated 1942 version used live actors, but this was not the
only significant change. Although the new version used similar costumes and followed the older
one almost scene for scene, scenes were also added that made Cinderella appear more complex and
powerful than her previous incarnation. The earlier version portrayed a demure Cinderella who
quietly accepted her fate, a figure that would not be welcome today. We enjoy seeing how current
values are positively acknowledged and incorporated. With formulae, convention and innovation
go hand in hand.
Finally, some movies and television programs go further than updating formulae; they
deliberately work against formulae, where interest is peaked by seeing the familiar determinedly
turned on its head. This happened with westerns. As the formula grew stale, new westerns were
made that re-envisioned the genre; heroes became anti-heroes, Indians were humanized, clearly
The Formulaic 193
defined conflicts between good versus bad were blurred, and so on. The pleasure lay in the surprise
of greater complexity. Westerns proved to be a very flexible genre, able to be reinvented. The James
Bond franchise remains relevant for the same reason; within the restraints of the action genre, it
has been reinvented several times. Similarly, comedic spoofs are formulae turned upside down;
they offer the pleasure we gain in being in on the joke.
Reading Complexly
As noted earlier, formulae are attacked for being mindless and their reception considered to be
passive. But in Chapter 4 on the highly emotional, it was noted that while television soap operas can
appear simplistic and formulaic their fans find them complex. Long-term viewers interpret the text
of a soap opera in far more complex ways than a mere examination of its plot structure, character
development, and tropes. What appears as predictably formulaic is often viewed in multilayered
ways. Outsiders or newbies to any cultural form may see nothing but simplicity and sameness, but
insiders learn to notice and appreciate variation and complexity. As always with interpreting forms
of cultural production, it is essential to look not only at the form itself, but to the nature of its
reception, and since people are comprised of multilayered complexities, so it is with interpretation.
Formulae and their Challenges

Boredom
Formulae can become boring. When formulae are not spiced up with novel interpretations, they
soon lose their value. Conventions become clichés. What was originally striking becomes overused
to the point of losing its original meaning, and certainly its original affect; it has become trite and
irritatingly predictable.
The modernist valorization of art as a unique expression of individual artists during the
nineteenth century was due in large measure because it was widely felt that the formulae that had
served for centuries had lost their power to persuade. The same has occurred with the western genre
of movies and television series. They once outnumbered all other Hollywood genres, and despite
their many reinventions, they eventually wore out their welcome. At the present time, the genre
appears exhausted (Matheson 2017). Presumably the same will eventually happen to all the detective
programs and the so-called reality shows that are now a staple of television in many countries.
Formulae and Falsity

Some stock figures are benign or even positive; for example, the boy and the girl next door and the
wise man and wise woman. Others are negative. But as long as they are not associated with a
minority group they, too, can remain harmless enough. A mad scientist is unlikely either to be
taken seriously or cause offense because viewers understand that most scientists are unlikely to be
mad. But when a negative characteristic is coupled with a minority group, there is a three-fold
problem: offense is caused to the minority group; the majority group frames the minority group in
terms of their negative representation; and the minority group may adopt the negative portrayal as
their self-image. These conditions are especially likely if the stock figure is repeated ad infinitum
and never countered.
As discussed in Chapter 10 on the exotic, centuries of stereotyping of Arabs as terrorists,
oversexed, violent, and cruel has had serious consequences. Hollywood’s past is notorious for
almost invariably stereotyping African Americans as lazy good-for-nothings, of value only when
serving white folk, or when singing and dancing. Until the early 1990s, male homosexuals were
almost always portrayed as effeminate, indicated by the tropes of a high-pitched voice, emotional
instability, a love of shopping and fashion, and a limp wrist. In general, the LBGTQI community
was portrayed as violent and murderous, and often as pedophiles, always as threats to social norms.
Complicating matters, homosexual Asian men were represented as both oversexed as homosexuals
and undersexed as Asians (Leong 2014). Formulae repress complexity, and in this case their
sometimes absurdity is exposed.
Finishing with Formulae

Formulae have been a prominent feature of cultural production for millennia. They reassure. They
profoundly reduce the unwanted complexity of real life, and their repetition addresses an ongoing
need for reassurance. Yet the pleasure of the familiar goes hand in hand with the pleasure of what
is new or innovative, and when formulae wear out, become clichéd and trite, they must be either
reinvented or die. More significantly, as explored in more detail in previous chapters, relying on
stock characters that negatively stereotype minorities causes real-life damage.
15
The Humorous
Chapter Outline
Humor and Mirth 195
Humor and the Haughty 196
Humor versus Gravitas 198
Why We Smile, Snigger, and Snort 199
Humor’s Disciplinary and Dark Side 205
Humor and Hostility 208
Can one conceive without sexual intercourse?

Can one get fat without eating?
MacHovec 1988: 161
This and many other such riddles appear on a 3,500-year-old clay tablet from Sumer, a civilization
from southern Mesopotamia that predates the Babylonians. Could this be the oldest dirty joke?
Possibly not. Much earlier, around 10,000 BCE, fools were first associated with merrymaking, eating
and drinking at feasts, winning the laughter of the guests by their idiocy or deformity (Wells 1932).
Millennia later, at the time of writing this chapter, typing the words internet humor into Google
rendered 147 million sites. The first site contained a photograph of a shocked boy at his terminal
accompanied by the words, “Look hard enough on the Internet and you’ll find your mum naked.”
Humor and Mirth

No known culture has been without a sense of humor (Martin and Ford 2018). Humor is a universal,
as is mirth, and though often confused they are not the same thing. Mirth is natural; humor is
learned. Mirth refers to observable expressions of gaiety, happiness, or joy, including laughter.
Charles Darwin described humans as “the laughing animal” but laughter can exist without humor
(cited in Billig 2005: 7). Babies and young children laugh a great deal because they are happy, but
195
they do not yet have the mental equipment to have acquired a sense of humor. Moreover, adults
sometimes laugh in social situations because it eases strained relationships, not because they are
amused but precisely because they are not amused.
There are many kinds of humor; for example, clowning, irony, jests, jokes, kidding, mockery,
puns, repartee, riddles, ridicule, satire, slapstick, teasing, and wit. Caricature involves the ludicrous
exaggeration of characteristic features of a subject; burlesque involves mockery and exaggeration;
parody involves exaggerated imitation intended to destroy an illusion; and travesty involves a
ludicrous incongruity of style or subject matter. Much visual humor is found in an incongruity
between speech and visual appearance as well as ineffable facial expressions and bodily movements
that cannot be scripted (Martin and Ford 2018).
Many attempts have been made to compile examples of humor, notably by Aristotle (Temple
and Temple 1998) and Leonardo Da Vinci (MacHovec 1988). Many attempts have also been made
to classify the topics of humor, including by Freud ([1905] 1960) who compiled fifteen kinds. But
since what is deemed funny differs from culture to culture, and even from person to person, such
categorizations can never be definitive.
Reflecting its great variety, humor is also associated with a wide variety of physical manifestations.
This is when mirth does derive from humor. Observable behavior includes smiling and smirking,
and, in more extreme forms, slapping one’s sides, holding one’s stomach, and even rolling around
helplessly. Auditory responses include laughing, chuckling, sniggering, and snorting. Wit may
raise little more than a smile, while a pratfall can cause a prolonged belly laugh.
Both popular self-help literature (Fiorentino 2020) and academic researchers laud the positive
benefits of humor to those both physically and psychologically ill (Martin and Ford 2018).
Pedagogues laud its value in creating an atmosphere conducive to learning, and business managers
recommend it to ease relationships in the workplace (Scheel and Gockel 2017). A sense of humor
is now regarded as a vital human quality; someone without a sense of humor is thought of as
boring, even suspect. Humor is part of an optimistic, can-do outlook in which no matter what
happens to people, they are encouraged to accentuate the positive. Who could object to humor?
And yet many have.
Humor and the Haughty

As with other popular pleasures, the history of condemning humor begins with Plato. Plato argued
that laughter needed to be tightly controlled, especially the kind of laughter that mocks authority,
though he did not oppose all forms of humor or all kinds of laughter (Billig 2005). The guardians
of his ideal state were permitted to use mockery to keep people in line. They could laugh in the
serious pursuit of morality, truth, and discipline.
As in other matters, Aristotle was more benign than Plato, being more concerned to categorize
different kinds of humor than to condemn certain kinds. He did condemn “buffoons or vulgar
fellows” who laugh too much and who “are more concerned to raise a laugh than to keep within the
bounds of decorum” (cited: 44). For Aristotle, the problem was not with laughter per se but with
The Humorous 197
showing poor taste in laughing crudely at the ugly and misshapen. He recommended a middle
path, between being “too fond of fun and raillery” and showing tact and respecting propriety. One
could use wit, irony, and innuendo, but not obscenity and above all not “buffoonery” (cited: 45). His
primary concern was to prescribe appropriate behavior for members of his own class,
who should say only the sort of things that are suitable to “a virtuous man and gentleman” (cited:
45). At stake for these ancient philosophers was the maintenance of class distinctions based
on good taste, and as with many other pleasures, class distinction was based on a mind-versus-
body binary.
For most early Christians the mind/body distinction was equally at play, although the stakes for
them were much higher than for the philosophers, nothing less than the possibility of divine
retribution. God preferred serious minds and disciplined bodies. Early church fathers preached
against laughter, especially mimes and their jests. With few exceptions, the focus of Christian piety
was asceticism, atonement, humility, and remorse.
Martin Luther was an exception. He believed in the redemptive power of laughter, and possessing
a keen sense of the bawdy, he extensively employed what he believed to be the derision of God in
his fight against Catholicism. On the other hand, Puritans have been described as living in mortal
fear that someone somewhere might be happy (Summerville 1989). As one pious, low churchman
wrote in the middle of the nineteenth century, “it is scarcely worthwhile to say that boisterous
laughter does not comport with Christian gravity” (cited in Billig 2005: 49). Like the views of the
ancient philosophers, Christian pietism did not seek to abolish humor altogether. As with the
ancients, derision could be used so long as it was in the service of guiding others along the true
path. Ridicule was the servant of righteousness.
The more secular aestheticians of the eighteenth century were less concerned with dour devotion
than with determining what kinds of humor facilitated productive, convivial conversation (Billig
2005). They were the heirs of Plato and Aristotle, for their overriding concern was similarly with
prescribing the humor appropriate to their class, and for them this meant restricting humor to the
judicious use of wit and irony. Bawdy, carnivalesque humor was a deliberate affront to tasteful
moderation, and had no place in a civil society. The fairground comedian whose first jest was to
prove his cleanliness by blowing his nose upon his audience was an anathema (Stallybrass and
White 1986). So far was bodily humor from their concerns, it was barely ever mentioned.
Humor should be used with care. Amiable humor was a matter of morality to which moderation
was the key. Whereas anyone could appreciate a physical pratfall, to appreciate the incongruities of
wit and irony, mental dexterity was necessary, and laughing at others was permissible only so long
as people laughed with clever wit in a convivial manner. This was a genteel discourse. The slapstick,
pants-down buffoonery of the clown was utterly inadmissible.
For these eighteenth-century aestheticians laughter suggested freedom of rancour; it was a
sign of social sophistication, but, echoing Plato, for the supposedly pious to be attacked for their
piety was utterly unacceptable. They used the humor of wit and irony, and even gentle ridicule
among their own class, to help establish bonds between people like them, but a merciless comedic
attack on their own class from the lower classes was intolerable. Joseph Addison wrote of those who
gave “stabs to a man of reputation” as a “Race of Vermin,” and another outraged critic described
them as:
Like maggots hatched in summer’s noontide hour

The filth, which gives them being, they devour . . .
Donald 1996: 23
Subsequent to these restrictive views on humor, modernist art that attempted humor typically
requires footnotes. It is usually of an erudite kind. Consider René Magritte’s surrealist painting The
Treachery of Images (1928). It consists of a picture of a pipe with the words underneath “This is not
a pipe.” It may cause a knowing smile, but it is unlikely to evoke a belly laugh. Modernist art employs
either wit or irony, the humor of the quick and clever mind. It is preoccupied by serious matters,
not fun or the funny. The closest thing most modernist art comes to humor is being ridiculed by
cartoonists for being incomprehensible. For a good laugh we must turn to popular culture where
all kinds of humor are plentiful.
Humor versus Gravitas

However, there has always been a problem with humor itself, not just with the risible kind. Comedy
has always played second fiddle to tragedy. Even when considered to be art, comic imagery has
been equated with the lowly. Aristotle considered that, unlike the representation of tragic events in
which people and their deeds are portrayed as better than they are, painters of humorous scenes
made “an imitation of men worse than the average, not indeed as regards every sort of vice, but
only as regards the Ridiculous, which is a species of the ugly . . . a mistake or deformity” (cited in
Donald 1996: 29). Further equating their subject matter with the painters themselves, he viewed
comic painters in possession of mean dispositions, and moreover to belong to the lower social
classes. Comedy was the consequence of base, mean preoccupations, comic painters being
motivated either by malice or insufficient ability to do something more elevated. While painters of
heroic deeds enter into the emotions of their characters, comedy relies upon a failure of emphatic
imagination. Some painters chose comedy because they could do no better. Although comedy
offers pleasure, it is always of a lesser kind than the pleasure of tragedy.
The distinction was reiterated during the eighteenth century. Dutch and Flemish painting of
scenes of raillery among peasants was admired, but by comparison to the lofty ideals of heroic and
tragic art they were regarded as mean and vulgar. As the English painter Joshua Reynolds declared,
“The painters who have applied themselves to low and vulgar characters . . . deserve great praise,
but as their genius has been employed on low and confined subjects, the praise which we give must
be limited as to its object” (cited in Donald 1996: 29). The epic and heroic evoked the beautiful and
the sublime, while comedy, in dealing with people’s deformed natures, was a species of the ugly.
During the nineteenth century, the distinction still held fast as history painting was placed at the
apex of the genre hierarchy and comic scenes at the bottom. History painting evoked universal
human values, timeless and noble sentiments, whereas comedy dealt with ephemeral and lowly
particulars. As to the artists this distinction was expressed as generosity of spirit versus meanness,
empathic imagination versus insensitivity, ability versus a lack of ability, and idealistic versus
pecuniary motives.
The Humorous 199
Figure 15.1 Adriaen van Ostade, A Sense of Taste, 1635.
Even today, an echo of these distinctions remain. More comic movies are made than any other
genre, yet movie awards to drama and epics greatly outnumber awards for comedies. Consider the
kind of films that are nominated for, and win, Academy Awards. From their inception in 1927 to
2001, 59 percent of nominations went to drama and epics and only 18 percent to comedies. Drama
and epics won 55 percent compared to 14 percent won by comedies. Since these statistics were
taken, the trend is now even stronger. From 2002 to 2014 comedy nominations dropped to 7
percent with no winners (Stokes 2015). It appears that there is a long-standing, and also continuing,
ranking of cultural forms that refuses to take comedy as seriously as dramas are taken.
Why We Smile, Snigger, and Snort

Unlike violence or horror, it may at first seem peculiar even to ask why we are attracted to humor.
The current popular fashion is to regard humor in entirely positive and innocent terms. Yet humor
is not one thing but many, and particular kinds of humor appear to offer different kinds of pleasure.
Feeling Superior
The earliest theories of humor, those developed by Plato and Aristotle, emphasize how humor
denigrates a victim. Plato wrote of the “pleasure of seeing other people humiliated,” and Aristotle
wrote of humor as the “enjoyment of the misfortune of others due to a momentary feeling of
superiority or gratified vanity that we ourselves are not in the predicament observed” (cited in
MacHavoc 1988: 30). By means of ridicule and mockery we are enabled to feel superior to whatever
we ridicule or mock. Similarly, the seventeenth-century English philosopher Thomas Hobbes
argued that humor was rooted in “the apprehension of some deformed thing in comparison
whereof we applaud ourselves” (cited in Carroll 1999: 153). Humor positions us as superior to
those we ridicule or mock. We laugh down at others. We humiliate, subjugate, disparage; the tone
is aggressive, hostile, and negative.
It was common among ancient peoples to create separate ceremonies in which their deities were
alternatively worshiped and mocked and, despite disapproval, insulting and derisive humor continued
under Christianity (Bakhtin 1994). As discussed in Chapter 6 on vulgarity, the intolerant seriousness
of the official church appears to have made it necessary to legitimize humor during carnival time.
Almost all the official rituals, feasts, literature, and speeches employed by the church had their counter
in comic travesties. Sermons, prayers, hymns, legends of the saints, eulogies, miracle plays, and
theological debates all enjoyed a second life as parodies. Spending much of their time confined to
their cells, it was often the monks who produced them. Carnival humor was lewd and visual, with
freaks—human, animal, and vegetable—each the subject of derisive humor. Carnival also included
what Bakhtin (1994) calls billingsgate, a term derived from the vituperative language of medieval
marketplaces. Billingsgate is a long diatribe of abuse consisting of outrageous, violent curses and
oaths. It was a form of speech filled with invective, the principal aim of which was to utterly degrade
an opponent. Consider the following extract from the prologue of a book by the sixteenth-century
French monk and scholar Rabelais who liberally drew on the language of the carnival: “[M]ay the
festers, ulcers and chancres of every purulent pox infect, scathe, mangle and rend you, entering your
bumgut as tenuously as mercuralized cow’s hair . . . and may you vanish into an abyss of brimstone
and fire . . . if you do not believe implicitly what I am about to relate in the present Chronicles” (216).
Today, the tradition of billingsgate is maintained by US television’s World Federation Wrestling.
Wrestlers deliver threats and badmouth each other in obnoxious and outrageous terms. They specialize
in take-no-prisoner taunts and put-downs. As wrestlers pounce around the stage, their faces either
contorted in anger or smiling broadly, they taunt their opponents with insults: “You sound like a
human vacuum cleaner, managing to both suck and blow at the same time.” “I’d love to slap you across
your face, but it looks like God already beat me to it” (Basu 2018). Their insults also take a more visual
display such as rude gestures and stamping derisively on the national flag of an opponent.
Just as ridiculing one’s enemies is of great long-standing, so ridiculing prominent people has
been consistently a feature of societies with even a minimum of social license.
Aristophanes, the Greek playwright and a contemporary of Socrates, satirized the distinguished
philosopher by portraying him as a comic figure. In Clouds a student of Socrates relates how the
great man was studying the moon, staring up open-mouthed, when a gecko on the roof defecated
onto him. Audiences are said to have loved it (Billig 2005).
The kind of mockery suffered by Socrates was a major feature of the English political cartoonists
of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Their merciless derision of prominent politicians and
royalty attracted large, enthusiastic audiences. Crowds pressed hard against the glass panes of shop
windows to see the latest engravings. Among the most common targets was the Prince Regent,
The Humorous 201
Figure 15.2 James Gillray, A Voluptuary Under the Horrors of Digestion, 1792.
later George IV, who was widely known to be profligate, promiscuous, and a glutton. In A Voluptuary
Under the Horrors of Digestion (1792) James Gillray depicted him as a hung-over, languid sybarite
surrounded by evidence of his gross carnality. His fashionable waistcoat strains over his huge belly,
and contrary to all precepts of eighteenth-century manners, he cleans his teeth with a fork. He sits
legs apart, surrounded by a coat of arms consisting of a knife and fork, a plate of stripped meat
bones, empty wine bottles, a pile of unpaid bills, nostrums for venereal disease, and positioned just
behind his buttocks Gillray added an overflowing chamber pot.
Descending Incongruity
Many kinds of humor are gentler than ridicule; for example, we enjoy ridiculous errors and utterly
preposterous things. As Kant claimed, laughter is “an affective reaction that is evoked by the sudden
transformation of a strained expectation into nothing” (cited in King 2003: 358). The ludicrous, he
said, always gives us pleasure. The cause of such humor usually arises from surprising juxtaposition
of unlike, incongruent things, though usually not just any incongruity. We find humorous incongruent
things involving high and low status, where typically the high is brought low or the low gets above
itself. We laugh when someone acting haughty is found to be clumsy or stupid, and, conversely, where
someone known to be stupid attempts to act smart. Humor arises, in Kant’s words, when “a banal
incident is compared to a heroic one” (cited in Telfer 1995: 363). This is a descending incongruity.
Descending incongruity occurs when the sublime is juxtaposed with the ridiculous, the elevated
with the petty, the great with the insignificant, in which the latter mocks the former. There is a
transfer from big and important matters to the small and trivial. A genteel example would be
Thomas De Quincy’s comment that while Kant was a great man, he was so blind to the niceties of
language that his sentences, being so long, must be measured with a carpenter’s rule (Billig 2005).
Readers of Kant will smile knowingly.
Numerous less genteel examples are found in the exceptionally popular engravings by English
cartoonists and caricaturists mentioned above. In the Gillray example ridicule is achieved through
incongruity. The Prince’s superficial elegance of bearing is inconsistent with his obviously wasted
condition, and every item he is surrounded by is at odds with his social position. The tradition of
cartoonists pulling down the pants of politicians continues today unabated.
During the 1930s and 1940s it was common for Hollywood studios to produce cartoons that
parodied their own serious features (Crafton 1998). Today, with the easy availability of electronic
technology, even young children are producing narrative parodies. YouTube features numerous
short parodies on blockbuster films. Sometimes they involve mash-ups where the heroes of one
film fights the villains of another accompanied by an inane, unrelated soundtrack. Movies,
television programs, pop songs, music videos, and toys are grist to the mill of amateur productions
(Duncum 2014). There are now numerous genres, subgenres, and hybrid genres of youth-generated
material. The tip of the iceberg includes music video mash-ups, movie mash-ups, Lego animations,
short comedy sketches, rants to camera, and karaoke performances. Among Barbie videos,
examples include many with the following titles and many others with similar titles: Barbie Torture,
Barbie Lego, Gay Barbie, and Gossip Girl Barbie. These videos cross over to videos with titles such
as Gossip Girl Parody, Gossip Girl Lego, and Gossip Girl Finger Puppets.
Parody is based on the incongruity between the original and the send-up, on the delight of
seeing a serious issue twisted into humor. Whether popular in the sense of top-down corporate-
produced parodies, or bottom-up productions by ordinary, untrained people, many cultural forms
today are experienced in two ways, one as serious and one as humorous. Cultural forms enjoy a
double life, where one mocks the other. The extent to which new technologies have enabled amateur
parody may be unprecedented, but as mentioned above, parody has an impressive history. Parody
was a major feature of medieval carnival, which, in turn, had its origins in the religious cults of
ancient times where deities were both worshiped and mocked.
The Humorous 203
Incongruity also helps explain both why movie monsters can be either horrifying or
unintentionally funny. As described in Chapter 8 on the horrific, monsters that appear incongruent
with the intent to horrify appear as merely ridiculous (Carroll 1999).
Emotional Release
Humor is also an emotional relief. As such, it has benefits for our mental health. Humor helps to
regulate nervous energy, providing anxiety with an outlet. Cultural producers of serious material
have long understood the need for emotional release, and they have readily obliged by offering
comic relief. As mentioned in Chapter 8 on horror, comic relief is an essential element of both
melodrama and horror films. Horror oppresses, while comedy liberates; horror turns the screw
and comedy releases it (Carroll 1999).
Freud ([1905] 1960) took the idea of emotional release further by relating it to social constraints.
For Freud, humor acted as relief from the repressions of the social order. Humor was a momentary
mutiny against social taboos. It was an eruption of rebellion against decorum, even against
constraints that are necessary for civil life in which one takes particular pleasure in mocking what
should not be mocked. For Freud, jokes acted by condensing and substituting pent-up aggressive
energies. Humor was a form of mood repair, substituting what would otherwise be expressed in
physical violence, and rebellious humor was a defense against authority wherein the pleasure lay in
momentary liberation. Humor was especially thrilling when it was transgressive.
Humor as release is also Bahktin’s (1994) view of carnivalesque humor. And given the repressive
culture imposed by the medieval church and feudal authorities, is it any wonder that a highly
transgressive culture of misrule developed? In large European cities up to three months of the year
were devoted to carnival. Medieval people lived in two worlds, the official world of church and state
repression and a second, unofficial, transgressive world of folk humor. Where people were
commanded to be clean, they were dirty; where chaste, promiscuous; where restrained, outlandish.
Where they were expected to be civil, they were offensive. Yet no matter how vulgar their humor
and however violent their language, Bakhtin maintains that carnival laughter was essentially
positive. In turning authority upside down, for a time at least, otherwise powerless people could
feel powerful. Everyone participated, even the aristocracy, for while the lower classes had no access
to elite culture, the higher classes indulged in the culture of their social inferiors (Golby and Purdue
1984). Everyone engaged in the humor of carnival. The carnival barkers called out to the crowd,
indulging in outrageously abusive terms, but the ridicule was understood as outrageous and the
more outrageous the better. Bakhtin (1994) claimed that Rabelais’s diatribe above was not laughing
at its audience, but with it. Consider the following passage in the same prologue that precedes the
above quote. Rabelais testifies to his own virtue in terms as equally ludicrous as his threats: “I
hereby deliver myself up body and soul, belly and bowels, to a hundred thousand basketfuls of
raving demons, if I have lied so much as once throughout this book” (216). Whether he is
proclaiming his own worth or denouncing others, everyone is in on the joke.
Carnival humor reminded everyone of their essential humanity, partly because everyone joined
in and partly because the humor dealt substantially with the body parts and bodily functions that
everyone had in common. Carnival laughter was part of what Bahktin called “grotesque realism,” a
droll, tongue-in-cheek attitude toward life, a view that is simultaneously serious and ridiculously
funny (195). He wrote: “Carnival laughter is life itself but shaped according to the certain patterns
of play” (198). The bawdy, scatological, and outrageous humor of carnival represented “the victory
of laughter over fear” (209). Given that medieval life was, to use Hobbes’s ([1651] 2009) phrase,
“solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short,” carnival humor offered at least temporary release (57). As
explored in Chapter 6 on vulgarity, while for most people life today in the affluent First World is
not nearly so miserable, living in highly regulated, rationalist societies requires considerable
repression. Today, there are no months-long periods set aside for transgressive, grotesque humor,
but instead we are able to indulge in the thrill of transgression at any time by simply accessing
screen media. The very corporations that rely upon rationality to operate also produce consumable
products to effect momentary transgression which are available day and night.
In the 1990s, the traditional US sitcom was turned on its head with the introduction of the animated
program The Simpsons (Wikipedia Contributors 2018a). It was a long way from 1950s sitcoms like
Father Knows Best and Leave it to Beaver in which family life was wholesome and lines of authority
were both clear and benevolent. Homer Simpson guzzles beer, gorges food, is primarily motivated by
a desire for leisure, takes pride in his ignorance, and frequently throttles his mischievous son Bart.
This dysfunction is taken much further in other animated programs, South Park and Family Guy.
South Park follows the adventures of four third-graders who use foul language to abuse each other and
make racist, homophobic, and politically incorrect references. They constantly refer to flatulence and
excretion, and Stan vomits every time he sees his would-be girlfriend. Other characters conform to the
worst stereotypes; their dog is homosexual; and in every episode Kenny is horribly killed, to which the
other characters respond in only mock horror. Much of the pleasure of the program is in waiting to
see when and how Kenny will be killed this time. The children’s parents are ignorant, repressed, and
frantic. With tropes like alien abductions, anal probes, flaming farts and faeces, South Park is jubilantly
offensive and exceptionally silly, cute and crude, and utterly juvenile. In Family Guy, the father Peter
Griffin, like Homer Simpson, is overweight, utterly irresponsible, and spends much of his time
avoiding work and watching television. The daughter Meg is forever put down by her parents and
their son is overweight and remarkably stupid. The 1-year-old baby Stewie has paranoid fantasies
about his mother who he believes is plotting to kill him. Nothing is out of bounds. Where The Simpsons
parodies religious do-gooders, Family Guy regularly parodies Jesus himself. In each of these programs,
authority figures—be they parents, school principals, bosses, or politicians—are represented as inept,
irresponsible and hypocritical, and many episodes revolve around opposing them.
These programs offer temporary respite from the demands of a highly organized, rationally
ordered society. Where reason, taste, and morality demand logic, decorum, and rules, liberatory
humor legitimizes inanity, outrageousness, and chaos. Consider the continuing success of the
Apple mobile device, the iFart (Dawson 2010). First released in 2008, it offered twenty-five different
sounds; for example, Air Biscuit, Burrito Maximo, and the Brown Mosquito. For three weeks, it
was Apple’s number one bestselling application, and within three months it had sold over a million
copies despite by then having many competitors in what one blogger referred to as the “app fart
niche” and another calls the “fart universe.” From a psychological perspective, such transgressive
humor is felt to be liberatory. From a social perspective, it is anything but.
The Humorous 205
Humor’s Disciplinary and Dark Side

Humor brings the mighty low, relieves stress, and the history of its condemnation is easily dismissed
as nothing but the nonsense of nose-in-the-air, self-appointed arbitrators of taste. So obvious are
its pleasures positive that even to suggest humor is problematic is to appear a churlish killjoy. Yet
humor is not innocent.
Anesthesia of the Heart

While playing the role of rebellious child, humor frequently requires a suspension of compassion
toward its victim. Even mild forms of humor necessitate at least a temporary postponement of
empathy. The nineteenth-century French philosopher Henri Bergson referred to humor as “a
momentary anaesthesia of the heart” (cited in Billig 2005: 120). When we laugh, he wrote, “we
must, for the moment, put our affections out of court and impose silence upon our pity” (120). This
is obvious with ridicule, but even with incongruities ridicule is present. The Scottish philosopher
George Campbell confessed that, since the main topic of humor was foibles of character, as a rule
laughter “is, doubtless, accompanied by some degree of contempt” (71). Though often disguised as
warmhearted and innocent, humor invariably involves a streak of malice, an element of degradation.
The anti-social and malign nature of humor, however, is frequently denied, made acceptable by
some kindly concoction. It is ironic that the aesthetic of humor involves its exact opposite. The
sensory experience of humor is enabled only by a partial anesthesia.
Imposing Social Discipline

Humor, especially ridicule, exists in all human societies because it plays a critical role in teaching
and imposing the disciplinary codes of social life (Billig 2005). As such, humor is a form of rhetoric
in the sense of being simultaneously instructive and persuasive. Humor imparts the normative
values of society, and by means of the pleasure it offers, it helps persuade recipients to accept such
values. Freud ([1905] 1960) explains this insight by reference to jokes. With jokes, ideas come
wrapped in the pleasure of humor in such a way that the ideas recommend themselves to our
attention. We are inclined to give the ideas the benefit of what has pleased us in the form in which
the ideas are offered; and thus, we are no longer inclined to find anything wrong in what has given
us enjoyment because that would be to spoil the source of our pleasure. Finding pleasure in a joke,
and not wishing to reject its pleasure, it is harder than it would be otherwise to refuse the idea that
the joke contains. If a joke is directed at a minority to which we do not belong, and especially if the
joke is clever, it may be hard not to find some pleasure in it. At the very least, cognitive dissonance
is established between rejecting the idea and still enjoying the joke. Put simply, the problem with
humor is that it is pleasurable. Of course, this is the same problem with all aesthetic pleasures.
As rhetoric, humor is a pedagogic tool in the service of social norms. The history of US television
sitcoms provides a clear example. Since their inception in the early 1950s they have charted many
of the social conflicts in US society (Westengard and Barlow 2017). Civil rights, women’s rights in
the home and in the workplace, children’s rights, immigration, and multiculturalism, as well as
evolving conceptions of the family, have each been addressed through humor in a way that has
helped to make each more acceptable than hitherto. Often a character, usually someone marked as
a bigot, resisted one or more of these developments and was then made to appear ridiculous. They
were cut down either through their own stupidity, the one-liner chiding of others, or both. In this
way, the humor of sitcoms has acted as a cost-effective means of maintaining the social order while
also facilitating its development.
The universality of humor, especially ridicule, is evident in the universal need of parents to
discipline their children and parents’ frequent, almost instinctive, employment of mockery as a
disciplinary tool (Billig 2005). Ridicule is part of many a parent’s repertoire of both their pedagogic
techniques and control mechanisms. Smiling knowingly, teasing, and laughing at a child’s mistakes
are a standard part of the parental toolkit of instruction and discipline. In learning what is funny
and not funny, children also learn what is deemed more generally appropriate and appreciated as
well as what is inappropriate and to be avoided. Being the subject of other people’s humor, children
learn how to think and behave toward others. The lessons can be genteel as in teasing, or aggressive
in the form of unsympathetic sarcasm. Depending upon context, tone of voice, and facial expression,
the question, “Cat got your tongue?” can be either gentle or hostile. By such means children also
learn how to mock themselves, their siblings, friends, and even their toys. In 1711, English aesthetic
theorist Lord Shaftsbury wrote: “tis the persecuting spirit has raised the bantering one” (cited in
MacHovec 1988: 41). Being ridiculed teaches one self-defense though also to ridicule in turn.
As rhetoric, humor can be powerfully persuasive, and as pedagogy it may have no more powerful
peer. Ridicule can be deeply hurtful and cause not only an immediate flood of tears; it can scar for
life. Sometimes being laughed at feels worse than death. People prefer to be hated rather than the
target of ridicule for it is easier to hate back than to ridicule in return (Billig 2005). Thus does
humor help bind people together into social groups while also dividing them one from another.
Often, as with other popular pleasures, it does both simultaneously.
On the one hand, disciplinary humor mocks those who transgress social codes, and it is used to
maintain the social order. On the other hand, rebellious humor mocks social codes and lays a claim
to challenge the social order. The former is intrinsically conservative and repressive; the latter
appears on the side of social progress. However, rebellious, socially progressive humor does not
equate to a politics of social progress.
Ridicule and Repression

As described in Chapter 6 on vulgarity, rebellion can make us feel good, but its consequences are
limited because a carefully curtailed, authorized rebellion acts to reproduce the status quo. Watching
The Simpsons and its predecessors offers the thrill of transgression, an opportunity to thumb our
nose at authority, but no avenue to act against it. Nor should we expect such programs to do so. They
are produced by the same global corporations that make transgression so desirable. Media
corporations are closely tied to other enterprises that make armaments and apply pressure to
The Humorous 207
governments to increasingly reduce the social contract between governments and the governed so
that there are less limits to pursue their own pecuniary goals. The more we laugh at mass-marketed
rebellious humor and imagine ourselves free from social constraints the more we are held captive by
them (Golby and Purdue 1984). Rebellious humor directly aids the inequitable economic structures
and processes that produce it. The Simpsons and Family Guy both appear on Fox Television, which is
renowned for its right-wing political bias. Producers of professional movies and products permit
them to be parodied on YouTube because they are regarded as assisting their promotion, but any
amateur productions that go beyond parody to criticize these productions are censored (Gillespie
2018). In short, liberation is carefully curtailed. Resistance to professional productions is allowed to
take the form of humor but not to anything that would lead to social action.
Moreover, those who ridicule in the name of rebellion are not always on the side of social
progress. In sitcoms, a character who habitually resists social progress can be read not as ridiculous
but right, a character with whom to be identified. Transgressive pleasure is not confined to social
rebellion; it is equally at home with social repression. Today, reactionary forces frequently mock in
the name of rebelling against political correctness. When a college student complained before the
US Congress that her insurance company did not cover contraception, the radio shock jocks called
her a slut and lampooned her claiming that she expected her sex life to be paid by taxpayers. Rush
Limbaugh, one-time king of the reactionary US jocks, even joked that as a taxpayer he should be
allowed to watch (Media Matters Staff 2012).
Humor and Hate

Often the anesthesia of the heart is not momentary but a deep predisposition toward people of
another race, religion, gender, sexual orientation, differently abled, and so on (King 2003). How
else to explain the numerous websites of humor directed toward Jews, Arabs, the LGBTQI
communities, and so on? These websites contain thousands of jokes, often reworked from one
target to another. Consider the numerous sexist and misogynist memes (Drakett et al. 2018). Some
merely reinforce patriarchal gender roles; for example, the photograph of a male looking bewildered
and asking, “If lesbians are in a relationship who makes the sandwiches?” or a father confused
because his wife is not in the kitchen (120). This is “hipster sexism” where literary devices such as
mockery, quotation marks, and paradox are used as a distancing mechanism (120). Claiming to be
ironic—so obviously sexist it is not possible to take them seriously—they flatter viewers by letting
them feel they are sufficiently sophisticated not to be really sexist; they can enjoy the joke while
snickering about others too unsophisticated to be in on the joke. Thus misogyny and sexism
flourish because it is cast as irony. Could this also be true of domestic violence memes? Redneck
Randal, a white North American male wearing a pride vest claims: “I like my violence like I like my
beer—domestic.” With the use of family photographs, Vengeance Dad claims: “My family is a
treasure—they can be found with a shovel and map” (121).
A great deal of comedy comes from some terribly depressing places, from unadulterated, horrific
pain, and, in turn, is determined to inflict pain upon others (Sedita 2006). Humor can take very
ugly forms.
In examining the many different views that have been advanced to explain what motivated
Adolf Hitler, historian Ron Rosenbaum (1998) came to the deeply troubling conclusion that Hitler’s
evil toward the Jews was due neither to being a lunatic nor a monster, but resided in his sense of
mockery. According to Joseph Goebbels’s diaries, Hitler’s chief of propaganda, he and Hitler
frequently shared laughter at the fate of their enemies, and it is clear from transcripts of private
conversations that he indulged in charades suggesting, for example, that all he was doing was
“park[ing] the Jews in the marshy parts of Russia” (cited: 214–15). He also repeatedly referred to
the Jews as once having laughed at him, but are no longer laughing. Rosenbaum writes:
The laughter Hitler incessantly conjures up dying in the Jews’ throats is reborn in his own. The
laughter suffusing those passages is not the Jews laughing, but Hitler laughing . . . It is the laugher of
someone who knows what he’s doing and relishes it to the bone, relishes the coded way he speaks of
it, relishes the fact that the relish of the joke is only shared by an esoteric few . . . It is the laughter
of someone savouring triumph, whose pleasure is clearly enhanced by an awareness of its profoundly
illicit nature.
388
Hitler laughed not only at the exquisite joy of revenge for perceived insults, the Holocaust itself, but
also at how deeply transgressive he and his partner in crime were being. Is this the ultimate
transgression, the ultimate jouissance, of knowingly indulging in atrocity? This is a shocking idea,
though only because today we normally think of humor merely as benign.
Humor and Hostility

The idea of bigots and tyrants enjoying a sense of humor at others’ expense is undoubtedly
disturbing, yet no one has a monopoly on what they consider funny. Humor does not pick sides; or
rather, it picks all sides. In this, humor is just like all the other popular pleasures: it serves whoever
uses it. Even so, this book concludes with humor because humor is possibly the most problematic,
the most insidious, of all popular pleasures. It is a universal, and it is used daily in the most ordinary
of exchanges. Like most of the popular pleasures in this book, humor is riddled with contradictions.
Humor is highly social, helping to bind people together, relieve stress, and support mental health,
but, through mockery and ridicule, it can also be among the most exclusionary of aesthetic
pleasures. While humor provides an uplift, not just for some people but for everyone, the most life-
sustaining of popular pleasures, helping people to survive in dire circumstances, it can also be
profoundly destructive of others. While commonly viewed in entirely positive terms, humor can
also be ugly, denigrate, and destroy. Wrapped in pleasure, it can annihilate. Yet who would be
without it?
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Žižek, S. (1991), Looking Awry: An Introduction to Jacques Lacan Through Popular Culture, Cambridge:
MIT Press.
226
Index
abject 57, 78, 85, 90, 92, 112–13, 115, 148, 218 body 2–3, 7, 26–7, 42, 46, 50–1, 56, 60, 78–9, 82–7, 90,
adolescent 58, 99, 108, 111, 180, 218, 223 92, 97–8, 101–3, 108, 112, 123, 130, 139, 143,
advertising 19, 44, 130, 142, 153, 158–9, 217, 221 147, 150–3, 155, 185
aesthetics 35, 78, 88, 210, 211 Bollywood 31, 191, 210
of absorption 60 Bruner, Jerome 171–2, 184, 211
aesthetic distance 57, 71 Burke, Edmund 35, 36, 108–10, 134, 167, 168, 211
of consumerism 44 burlesque 84, 196, 209
of cute 63
defined 1–8 Campbell, Joseph 42, 177, 205, 211
of emotions 48–9 capitalism 3, 82, 146, 152, 158–9, 169, 170, 218, 220,
of the everyday 149 221
of evil 114 caricature 196, 212
of kitsch and camp 71 carnivalesque 78, 84, 87–9, 98–9, 197, 203
of the macabre 122 catharsis 56, 102–3, 214
of marketing 209 children 5, 21, 26, 28, 33, 42–3, 64–5, 67–8, 70–4, 81,
modernist 4, 7 87, 91–2, 116, 127, 159, 177, 192, 195, 202, 204,
philosophical 2, 51 206, 212–13, 217–18, 224
of sentiment 64 chinoiserie 139–40, 143–4
of the sublime 169 Christianity 9, 61, 94, 123, 149, 152, 200, 209, 212
of vulgarity 90 Cicero 33–4, 41
anaesthetic 2, 205 claritus 40
Aristotle 16, 47–9, 53, 56, 61, 98, 102, 179, 189–99, class 3, 6, 13, 35, 58, 65, 71, 73, 79, 82–4, 89–90, 95–6,
209 134, 141, 147, 152, 167, 197–8, 203, 210
ascetic 33, 152, 197 Coleridge, Samuel 110, 116
Collingwood, R. G. 53–4, 59, 185, 212
Bakhtin, Mikhail 78, 80, 88, 90, 94, 96, 98–9, 200, 203, colonization 143
209 comedy 92, 100, 113, 175, 184, 191, 198–9, 202–3, 207,
Baroque 17, 40, 49–51, 60, 132, 219 219, 222
Barthes, Roland 11, 87, 172, 184, 185, 210 comics 116, 171, 181, 222
Baumgarten, Alexander 51 consumer 2, 152, 158
beauty 1, 35–6, 40, 64, 79, 86–7, 130, 134–5, 150, 155, consumerism 5, 21, 223
176, 209, 215, 217, 223 cute 5, 63–4, 68, 71, 74, 76, 204, 212, 214, 215
Bergson, Henri 205
Bible 10, 22, 42, 49, 71, 94, 124, 149–50, 155, 172, 217, Da Vinci, Leonardo 17, 28–9, 186, 187, 196
224, 225 Darwin, Charles 144, 195
biblical 10, 50, 96, 113, 116, 138, 155, 157, 173, 176 Descartes, René 51
Billingsgate 200 desire 2, 12, 18, 68, 82, 115, 130, 147–2, 152, 155–6,
biology 19–20, 43–4, 59, 71, 112, 220 158, 167, 176, 178, 181, 217–18
227
228 Index
disgust 5, 59, 79, 85–7, 89–90, 108, 112–13, 117, 158–9, ideology 3, 4, 9–11, 51, 72, 74–5, 170, 213
211, 219 idolatry 9–11, 19, 22, 214
Dionysian 78, 88, 90, 113 internet 132, 148, 195, 213–15
Disney 74–5, 137, 166, 175, 192, 222 Islam 128, 135, 140, 224
doctrine of decorum 31, 33, 35–6, 38–40, 44
dread 96, 107, 109–10, 113 James Bond 175–6, 183, 193, 216
Jung, Carl 102, 115, 117, 137, 176, 212
Emerson, Ralph Waldo 122, 213
enlightenment 83, 122–3, 125, 145 Kant, Immanuel 36, 40, 43, 53–4, 78–9, 86, 108–10,
environment 33, 43, 71, 76, 110, 130, 163, 165–6, 170, 134, 150, 162–5, 167–8, 202, 217
176
evolution 19, 43–4, 96, 112, 212 Lacan, Jacques 115, 155, 226
Longinus 162
fantasy 45, 74–5, 100, 110, 117, 129–30, 132–3, 137, 142, love, 1, 46, 48–9, 54–7, 60, 64, 68–9, 71–2, 132, 135,
148, 152, 154, 156, 156, 158–9, 178, 184, 225 147, 149–50, 152, 155, 179, 189, 191, 210, 212
fear 5, 11, 17, 22, 36, 46, 49, 55–6, 74–5, 84, 98–9, 102,
104–9, 111–12, 115, 164, 176–8, 181, 204, 212, magic 10, 13, 16–17, 19, 21–2, 26–7, 129–30, 213, 219,
217, 222 222–4
femme fatal 65, 155, 189, 215 magical thinking 127
fetish 86, 127, 134, 153–4, 180, 213, 221, 224 manifest destiny 75, 145
Freud, Sigmund 27, 56, 87, 102, 115–19, 153, 192, 196, Marx, Karl 3, 219
203, 204, 214 melodrama 45, 55, 58–61, 84, 179, 203, 211, 214,
222–3, 225
gaze 26, 49, 60, 84, 142, 148, 150–3, 155–6, 158, 173, Michelangelo 38, 41, 168, 186, 223
218, 221, 224 Middle Ages 22, 94, 112, 117, 216
gender 35, 48, 90, 99, 111, 113, 150, 156–7, 159, 179, mind/body 5, 7, 79, 82, 132, 150, 197, 225
207, 210, 213, 220, 225–6 Muslim 107, 113, 144
genre 4, 17, 22, 26, 45, 48, 55, 57, 60–1, 92, 107–8, 110, myth 66, 70, 74, 145, 150, 173, 177, 211, 219, 223
115–16, 129–30, 147, 149, 165–6, 171, 175,
179–80, 183–4, 188–93, 198–9, 202, 214, 221, obscenity 90, 149, 197, 216
223, 225 Orient 135, 140, 144–6, 155, 210, 215, 218, 222–4
global 2, 4, 44, 63, 141, 143, 146, 206, 210, 215, 218–22,
225 parody 117, 128, 131, 180, 196, 202, 207, 212, 216
Goebbels, Joseph 118, 208 pathetic fallacy 36
Gothic 34, 39, 79, 109–10, 113, 116, 164, 166, 210, 213, picturesque 163, 216
220 Plato 6–7, 10, 11, 16, 21–2, 33, 39, 41, 48, 61, 149, 186,
Greeks 17, 22, 34, 48, 78, 142, 151 196–7, 199
Greenburg, Clement 184, 215 plot 55, 57, 92–3, 105, 116, 173, 175–7, 179, 181, 183–4,
grotesque 39, 78–9, 81, 85, 87, 98, 204, 210 188, 191, 193, 204, 210, 218
Pompeii 34, 165–6
Hegel, George 35 pornography 81, 96, 148–9, 151–6, 158–9, 216, 221–2
heroes 70, 87, 92, 115, 130, 176, 192, 202, 222
Hitler, Adolf 168, 208, 222–3 queer 148, 156–8, 180
Hobbes, Thomas 200, 204, 216
Hollywood 14, 17, 108, 137, 143, 146, 153–5, 159, 164, Rabelais, Francois 200, 203
176, 190, 193–4, 202, 210, 215, 222–3, 225–6 race 90, 138–9, 197, 210, 212–16
Hood, Brian 127–8, 190, 216 rationalism 51, 65, 158
Index 229
Reality TV 59–60, 211 tears 47–9, 51, 57–9, 64, 108, 191, 206, 211, 213,
renaissance 6, 17, 34, 128, 134, 149, 173, 212 216, 218–21
repression 82, 115, 117, 158–9, 180, 203–4, 206–7 terror 68, 87–8, 98, 107–11, 166, 162, 168, 210,
rhetoric 33, 45, 48–50, 52, 54, 59, 66, 168, 205–6, 221
209–10, 213, 219, 221 terrorism 105, 216
Romans 22, 34, 71, 117, 137, 166 terrorist 73, 91, 100, 118, 144, 194
romanticism 53, 61, 67 tourism 135, 141, 142, 146, 167, 215
tragedy 45, 56, 102, 175–6, 198, 214
St. Aquinas 40, 121, 125 tropes 57, 71, 94, 96, 116, 137, 139, 144, 151–2,
St. Augustine 49, 55, 93, 138–9, 152, 209 158, 184, 188, 190–1, 193–4, 204, 217
Schopenhauer, Arthur 53, 150 turquerie 139, 225
science fiction 108, 129–30, 137, 184, 190, 212, 217 TV wrestling 57–8, 61, 85, 87, 92–3, 104, 179,
sex/sexuality 6, 78–9, 81, 84, 85, 87, 90, 95, 98, 100, 103, 216, 219, 223
108, 112–13, 115, 117, 140–1, 144, 147–50,
152–9, 180, 194–5, 204, 207, 209–10, 212–13, uncanny 18, 27, 118, 217
215–18, 221–2, 224
sexism 3, 90, 183 Vasari 34
Shaftsbury, Lord 206 video games 1, 15, 92, 96, 100, 181, 189190, 2019,
soap opera 45, 57–8, 61, 176, 179, 193, 218 215, 217, 221
Social Darwinism 144 Vitruvius 33, 34, 41
social media 19, 91 voyeurism 152–3, 155–6, 180
Socrates 200, 211
Sontag, Susan 72, 108, 114, 223 Williams, Raymond 2, 6, 54, 71, 75, 79, 83, 102,
stock characters 188–9, 194, 225 103, 130, 225
sublime 1, 16, 35–6, 40, 43, 107–10, 125, 134, 141, 162–4, wonder 16, 21, 24, 26–7, 67–8, 94, 109, 111,
167–70, 198, 202, 213, 216–17, 220–1, 225 121, 124–6, 130–2, 135, 164, 169–70,
superheroes 121, 222 180, 203
230
231
232
233
234

Popular Pleasures An Introduction To The Aesthetics of Popular Visual Culture (Paul Duncum)

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Popular Pleasures An Introduction To The Aesthetics of Popular Visual Culture (Paul Duncum)

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Picture Pedagogy: Visual Culture Concepts to Enhance the Curriculum

First published in Great Britain 2021

Copyright © Paul Duncum, 2021

For legal purposes the Copyright Key on p. xiii constitutes an

Cover Image: iStock Photos

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Duncum, Paul, author.

ISBN: HB: 978-1-3501-9340-6

Typeset by RefineCatch Limited, Bungay, Suffolk

List of Illustrations xii

The Persistence of Illusion 22

3 The Bright and Busy 31

4 The Highly Emotional 45

Ridicule and Reaction 90

8 The Horrific 107

9 The Miraculous 121

The Skeptical Discourse 122

10 The Exotic 133

11 The Erotic 147

Enjoying the Erotic 152

12 The Spectacular 161

13 The Narrative 171

14 The Formulaic 183

15 The Humorous 195

13.2 Masaccio, The Tribute Money, 1427. (a) 175

But What is Aesthetics?

And What is Popular?

Popular Pleasures and Politics

So What’s Different Here?

The Mind/Body Context

Scope and Outline

Idolatry and Ideology

The Search for Realism

Printing and Photography

The Pleasures of Realism

Appreciating the Skill

Evaluating Realism is Easy

Pulling Back the Curtain

Realism and Reality

When Too Much Realism is Bad

When Seeing Shouldn’t be Believing

Fake versus the Bona Fide

Veridical, Virtual, and Verifiable

Illusion versus Realism

Magic, Miracles, and the Devil

The Persistence of Illusion

Optical Illusion Devices

Figure 2.2 Étienne-Gaspart Robert, Detail of Phantasmagoria in Paris in 1797, 1831.

Magic, Wonder, and Mischief

Being in the Know

Conflating Realism with Illusion

Illusion and Delusion

Illusion and Life

Terms and Taste

The Doctrine of Decorum

Reason and Restraint

The Relativity of Restraint

Figure 3.3 Johann Nilson, Neues Caffehaus, 1756.

Figure 3.4 Johann Nilson, Tearing Up the Rocaille, c. 1770.

Serious versus Superficial Purpose

Brightness and Business