Film, Folklore and Urban Legends

by Mikel J. Koven

From Alien to When a Stranger Calls , many films are based on folklore or employ an urban legend element to propel the narrative. But once those traditional aspects have been identified, do they warrant further scrutiny? Indeed, why is the study of folklore in popular film important? In Films, Folklore and Urban Legends , Mikel J. Koven addresses this issue by exploring the convergence of folklore with popular cinema studies. Well beyond the identification of traditional motifs in popular cinema, Koven reveals new paradigms of filmic analysis, which open up when one looks at movies through the lens of folklore. In particular, this book focuses on the study of urban legends and how these narratives are used as inspiration for a number of films.

Divided into five sections, the book begins with a general survey of the existing literature on folklore/film, predominantly from the perspective of folklore studies. Subsequent chapters address discourses of belief, how urban legends provide the organizing principle of some films, and how certain films "act out" or perform a legend. Movies discussed in this book include Alligator , Candyman , The Curve , Dead Man on Campus , I Know What You Did Last Summer , Urban Legend , Weekend at Bernie's , and The Wicker Man , as well as zombie films, killer bee movies, and slasher films (including Halloween , Black Christmas , The Burning and Terror Train ). Koven also devotes attention to key television shows such as The X-Files and Most Haunted .

In his analysis, Koven explains not only how film and television narratives are built upon already-existing popular culture beliefs, but also how films and television shows recycle those beliefs back into popular culture. Taken as a whole, Film, Folklore and Urban Legends both stands on its own as the first book-length study of folklore and popular cinema, and as an introductory textbook for the study of folklore and film.

Genres: Nonfiction, Film

212 pages, Paperback

First published December 28, 2007

Reviews

[Sebastian · Rating 5 out of 5]

More than just a mere review of slasher films but a genuine academic focus on ways of understansing the cultural phenomenon of urban horror in the contemporary world. A Must Read!!!

[Bill Weaver · Rating 2 out of 5]

Why didn’t I like this book more? It is perhaps because I am a fan of horror films and in this social role I find myself to be one of the ‘folk’. When some highfalutin’ professor type starts spoutin’ hot takes on my favorite movies, I take offense, especially when I find those takes to be (to put it politely) completely wrong . . . hahaha. Certainly there is useful information here, but some of the author’s ideas appear ridiculous. When the author says for example “[s]ex is merely an extension of neglect as a result of poor babysitting” (p. 124) or argues that the most noteworthy message (“interdiction”) of many slasher films is “to be responsible when babysitting” (p. 126) to me it seems a bit disconnected from the experiential reality of these movies. Not that this type of function cannot occur at all in modern society, but overall each observer may walk away with something much more organic, even ‘vital’, ‘messy’ or even ‘disorganized’ as I would say. The academic approach perhaps feels overly rigid in adherence to an intellectual dissection of what is truly a ‘vernacular’ or ‘living’ program of artistic communication. (Systems theorists call it ‘autopoietic’ or self-generating.) This is what academics do I suppose, ruin “entertainment” with “analysis”, but nonetheless I have read academic texts on horror films that seem to ‘get it’ much more than this one does. Perhaps Koven’s understanding of folklore is more on point, at least with regards to the “tradition” of folklore, but regarding these films (a ‘living’ tradition of folklore I would argue, despite the complexity of the medium) Koven almost seems to be desperately searching for a reasonable explanation, when in fact I would argue that these films legitimately function so as to undermine or subvert attempts at rational discourse. When Koven discounts “entertainment”, he has perhaps like Jason Vorhees tumbled directly into Crystal Lake. This then is the difficulty or paradox one could say of academic analysis of vernacular forms, a paradox of which Koven appears largely oblivious until perhaps the last chapter in this piece. He does admit that not all slasher films “function as ‘social script’” (p. 127), but that in some of the films “[camp] counselors are responsible and professional.” (p. 126) Here is where my mind spins out into space. I would easily make the leap to fear of growing up, also known as the fear of sex and death. Freud said a lot about sex and death. My take is that all of this is ultimately about control. Academics are obsessed with control, ‘social scripts’, descriptions of conformity/deviance and yes, analysis. Koven dismisses the Freudian approach based on “who tells these legends [and the audience] to whom . . . the films [are] primarily addressed” (pp. 124), but his alternative of ‘social script’ theory feels petty and unconvincing. You can go round and round with this until you twist yourself into a pretzel, or you can admit perhaps you are projecting onto the narrative of the film your own desire. I will admit this, but as a fan, please forgive me if I attempt some ‘vernacular’ or ‘amateur’ exegesis. The author’s own academic analysis of the classic horror film Halloween is so painfully superficial that, in addition to the issues I raise above, it makes me doubt much of the rest of his ‘social script’ theory. About John Carpenter’s Halloween, Koven argues that the explanation that “Michael Myers . . . is ‘the Bogeyman’ [is] false.” (p. 117) Koven would have us believe that Michael Myers “‘does not transcend the laws of nature as we know them.’” (p. 117, quoting Todorov 2000), which makes me wonder whether Koven actually watched the film. Many commentators, myself included, would agree the antagonist Michael Myers is ultimately revealed as a supernatural monster, and I would add further in this context that this is the type of ‘postmodern’ monster that explicitly subverts control. (see Isabel Pinedo’s article “Postmodern Elements of the Contemporary Horror Film”, 2004) All the adults, police and psychiatrists cannot control the supernatural mystery of consciousness anymore than they can protect children from growing up. As a child Michael wears a clown mask, a clown costume, which suggests the notion of the Bitter Carnival and the abject hero, clown or jester. (see works by Mikhail Bakhtin and also Michael André Bernstein) The academic, in attempting to describe a rational or causal meaning of the film, becomes merely another grown-up putting on a clown suit (a paradoxical mirror of the abject hero) and trying to control or stave off the inevitable chaos of death. Why are they taking Michael Myers up to the judicial hearing about his possible release? “Because that is the law,” says the psychiatrist played by Donald Pleasance. It is this rational control of the ‘grown-ups’ - i.e. “the law” - that forces the psychiatrist to go through the motions, even though he knows Michael Myers is “the evil” that should “never . . . get out” amongst the rest of society. This is about “fate” as they say and not about rational control. Like the English class discussion in the film’s first act, the question becomes whether “fate” does not have to be merely about “religion” (possibly supernatural) or whether “fate” (connected here to evil or death) can be merely a “natural element like earth, air, fire and water”. The kids teasing Tommy about “the boogeyman is gonna get you” frame this issue as whether the boogeyman is of this world or the next. This world of the grown-ups provides no answers here. The “law” provides no answers - grown-ups are merely going through the motions that provide no measure of real safety or control against evil. Neither does psychiatry - the academic or scientific system as Luhmann would call it. The social system of adults (“society”) is of no use against “the boogeyman”. We are like teenagers “exploring uncharted territory”. The cops are clueless as the sheriff stands outside a hardware store with the alarm bell ringing and says “probably kids” before rattling off a serial killer checklist of equipment- “all they took was some Halloween masks, rope and a couple of knives”. This is no child but the good Doctor Loomis understands also that “this is no man” but rather “something” that is “purely and simply evil”. I do not disagree that folklore, films and urban legends are capable of performing functionally within society as communication does, but here we see this certain paradox of elite academics studying the ‘lore’ of the ‘folk’. The author Koven would have us believe that “both slasher and urban legends demonstrate the ideological functions of maintaining categories of normalcy and transmission of belief traditions”. (p. 127) He seems to take issue with “the conservative ideology of these films [that] ‘perpetuate[s] a climate of fear and random violence where everyone is a potential victim’”. (p. 127, quoting Freeland (1995)) This makes me laugh. What a square this guy is. Having lived through the golden age of horror movies and watched a bellyful at too young an age I can say that the effect on me was just the opposite. These movies nurtured a countercultural attitude in me (and other fans too I would say from my interactions with them) that is the exact opposite of the academic fantasies this bozo is spouting. Please forgive my use of the ‘folk’ term here but I can’t help myself. This guy’s ‘social script’ theory is so wrong it pains me, and I cannot help but descend into colloquial derogations. As Schechter argues elsewhere, the central issue with folklore may be “who commands authority, amateurs or experts” (Schechter 51) Academics in applying their expertise to folklore cannot help but steal some of the authority from the subject, aka ‘the folk’. Koven’s idea here is that “whenever ‘just entertainment’ is presented before us, ideological analysis needs to be done”. (pp. 90-91) He fails to see that audiences merely entertained by tales appealing to the mythic or legendary or yes, even the supernatural, may intrinsically grasp what overly analytical or rational thought may only obscure. Koven is willing to admit that “[w]hat now needs to happen is for proper audience studies to be done on actual audiences’ interpretations” (p. 132) If his analysis gets such basic interpretations about a classic genre film so wrong, I wonder what terrible work he might make of understanding what audiences understand about these films. Beyond the “author’s proof” at the climax of John Carpenter’s Halloween of “the POV shot from Loomis looking to the barren ground where Michael landed [to validate] the author’s position on the subject of the boogeyman’s existence”, after Laurie says “It was the boogeyman”, Dr. Loomis responds, “As a matter of fact, it was.” (see John Carpenter’s Halloween and also analysis by James Barker available at: https://thebarkbitesback.wordpress.co... ) It cannot be overstated in this context, the importance of Dr. Loomis saying this, to identify, label or mark Michael Myers as a supernatural entity, something outside of science. Dr. Loomis is an authority figure, a scientist even, and his admission is seen as a surrender on the part of authority - here encapsulating all of law enforcement even, a collapse of differentiation, as Dr. Loomis is also a vigilante figure who has taken the law into his own hands. Beyond the political, legal and scientific subsystems of communication, Loomis has become also a religious figure, a shaman one could say, who can see the spirit world and recognizes the evil force with which he must contend as falling outside of scientific understanding. Folklore in essence finds itself in opposition to society’s “most important subsystems”. Much later in this text, Koven does discuss this idea of “official” vs “unofficial” belief, but for me it was too little too late. I do understand that these articles stretch across a period of time and were written separately and not as a connected piece initially, and I do not deny the underlying folkloric discussion as grounded in some valuable research and source materials that have some use for the student. The material about framing experience based on belief definitely resonates and is valuable. Still Koven’s distinction between “presentational (we are witnessing . . . ) and representational (the phenomenon occurring is usually subjective, and we only have the participants’ word . . . )” is largely overwrought and naive, (pp. 162-65) as even he admits that “[o]f course, the entire show is mediated, as it is on television”. (p.167) Both film and television are heavily edited and narratively driven (regardless of whether it is ‘documentary’ or ‘reality’ genre) so always both “presentational . . . and representational” in this sense. This is similar to the problem with videotaped police confessionals that are often more about the situational context of the taping itself and the viewing, rather than the confession alone. I could go on but I will spare you, and say only that academically perhaps this offers some useful background material, but my gut or ‘vernacular’ reaction to much of the “ideological analysis” (rep)presented here is ‘the emperor is wearing a clown suit’ or simply, ‘what a bozo!’

[Tanneke · Rating 4 out of 5]

Too bad some urban legends mentioned in this book are not told in full.