Quandries in Life Part 2: The Paradox of the Movie
I have to give credit partially to my friend Nathan for this one. We were talking one day about the TV show Ghost Whisperer and he proposed the thought of her watching the movie I Know What You Did Last Summer. In his mind, this was an indescribable paradox: how could an actor in a TV show watch a movie that they appeared in? Doesn’t that sort of completely destroy the idea of the universe?
Now, other movies have covered this. The removal of the proverbial fourth wall sort of covers this when they include the audience in the joke. For example, in Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back when Ben Affleck’s character as Holden McNeil comments on himself as Ben Affleck. The cross-over of character is accepted and understood, and because its Affleck himself making fun of Affleck, it adds to the joke of the world being the same.
So, as Sarah and I were watching some of our usual B grade horror movies from Sci Fi channel this weekend and I started to think about that. See, in these movies, we’re supposed to be in a world very much like our own. As most people immediately think about the known clichés of the genre, a few of which can be found here, I thought about something a bit more than that…
See, there are so many movies out there that have zombies or vampires or werewolves in them. Wouldn’t it make sense that maybe if you see one of these monsters, you’d know how to kill them because maybe you saw one of the movies growing up? Like, when we saw the movie Never Cry Werewolf, the main character researched werewolves when she had a suspicion that her neighbor was a werewolf, and she learned that way from watching old movies and reading. But when we saw Dead Men Walking, noone knew how the zombie virus was transmitted. It was like noone had seen zombie movies growing up in those movies.
There’s a suspension of belief that is required for all movies, but when you have all of these coincidences, maybe there should be something more. Maybe these folks should know what these monsters are. I mean, I wouldn’t expect them to know what the Rock Monster was, but for them to not know a zombie or a vampire when they see it or vaguely even know what they are? What world do these folks live in?
I think you’re doing the same thing I do, which is over estimating the world’s geekery.
Keep in mind that normal people (by which I mean “not us,” no offense), even when presented with evidence to the contrary, will cling to the “zombies (or whatever monster) don’t exist” notion, so it’s harder for them to recognize a major incursion. It’s tough to see “vampire” when you don’t think they’re real and first start trying to find alternate explanations.
Secondly, most people only watch recent films, of which a lot of them that deal with supernaturals assume that people know the lore. What did 30 Days of Night tell us about fighting vampires? Not a damn thing. 28 Days Later, arguably the most popular zombie movie of our time, wasn’t even about real zombies, so it taught us nothing. What was the last major werewolf movie that’s come out?
Unless you watch Supernatural (which I’ll still argue is the best researched show on television), you’re basically screwed looking for pop media to prepare you for paranormal attack. And Supernatural won’t even help with really popular monsters since they’re incredibly accurate on folklore for out of the way things (like Wendigos or Tulpas), but when they assume that people already know all about it (like a vampire), they insist that the common assumptions are bogus and come up with a new take.
I’ve been watching Supernatural a bit more with Sarah, because she likes the show and its not too bad of a show, and I do have to agree that its well researched for what it is and isn’t the classic myth and folklore rehashed endlessly like movies along the lines of Underworld have presented. And even presenting a new take to it, I do appreciate what the show Moonlight did in regards to the vampire genre.
Even still, when you look at these movies, these movies are a rehashing of everything classically wrong with the examples: werewolves killed by silver, vampires stake the heart or holy water, and zombies are a shot to the head. These movies, mostly the B-rate ones that I’m thinking of, are everything that’s so proverbally overdone in the genre that to have such a suspension of belief that these people have to learn how to deal with these mythical monsters because they haven’t priorly run across them just feels too demanding from the viewer.
I know that the rational mind completely rejects the thought that any of this could be logical or true, and even in a movie we’d believe that a character would believe the same, but when you see someone dead reanimated in front of you, after the first time wouldn’t you maybe start thinking a little more about George Romero?
It was just a random thought of mine, to say the least… But, its like watching movies for goofs and discontinuity: if you’re always looking, you don’t enjoy. I still enjoy these, I just had the thought of that suspension of belief on my mind…