Hi everyone!
I wrote my paper about my rather unsettling experience of seeing Stanley Kubrick's The Shining as a 10 year old, specifically regarding the scene where Jack goes into the bathroom and makes out with the zombie babe thing. It was pretty overwhelming for me considering my age. Here is a link to the scene: https://youtu.be/ABubLDnAV1I (disclaimer: does contain some nudity).
I've pondered the experience more after writing the paper and I think its pretty odd that, of all the scenes in the movie, that was the one that really got me. After reading Cohen's theses, I think the aforementioned "zombie babe thing" lines up with in a few ways with what Cohen wrote. The obvious one is thesis III. Zombies, like the aliens from Alien as Cohen cited, are unnatural and categorize-able. That being said, the zombie aspect of the woman in the scene is not what I remember being most traumatizing. I think the concepts laid out in thesis III are a little less applicable to the young mind because the concept of normality isn't as affirmed. Unicorns, wizards, zombies etc are much more reasonable things in the mind of the youth.
I think the more interesting relationship to Cohen's theses is with his sixth, lying with the sexuality of the scene. For a 10 year old boy, there is certainly a strong forbidden curious desire regarding the female form. While Cohen refers to a simultaneous feelings of attraction and repulsion, here I think it is more the rapid transition from one to the other that gives the scene such weight. Its hard to imagine a more radical transition of emotion from the initial forbidden curiosity feelings of seeing a naked woman to the shock and horror of seeing her transform into a zombie-like thing. When compared to zombies, intimacy is a considerably more significant thing for a 10 year old to really wrap their head around.
Thanks for reading!
Interesting take. I too would be very disappointed to have an erotic evening transition into necrophilia. Although Max Brooks admits that it is not a good idea to have sex with a zombie, I think he says that assuming the virus could not be passed like other STD's, then such an act would be feasible to the post apocalyptic thrill seekers.
ReplyDeleteI think you do really hit the nail on the head with your last sentence though, which is a shame. The shame coming from at any age, one would figure that intimacy (love/desire) should be much less shocking than zombies. Intimacy represents life, the only thing a child viewing a movie has known, whereas zombies symbolize death in a manner of speaking. To any end, having seen into plenty of movies that I shouldn't have as a youth, this post speaks to me.