Monday 30 April 2012

A political viewing of 'The Cabin in the Woods'

Taken from here.

"This ending has zero moral satisfaction; this isn’t Buffy saving the world by jumping into a swirling vortex, or stabbing her demon lover through the stomach and sending him into a swirling vortex; there’s no superhero here to whose virtue, self-sacrifice and rad individualism we can all aspire. There are no old ideals worth defending.

And yet Joss Whedon, once again, seems to have taken the temperature of the cultural zeitgeist (literally “time ghost”—uniquely appropriate for the horror genre) with startling accuracy. Because every single “emerging adult” in that audience was laughing and sighing and cheering right along with me throughout Cabin in the Woods. We recognized ourselves up there: We were Marty and Dana, staring at a proscribed future (be successful! Raise good kids! Die for the sake of humankind!) and finding it at best non-viable and at worst utterly devoid of meaning." [...]

"We’re citizens of a rapidly overpopulating, ecologically imploding globalized world, surrounded by repressive conventions and outmoded systems and vitriolic political debates and brutal conflicts and the very old and the very new and much, much, MUCH more information about all of these things than our parents could ever have imagined dealing with at our age. We’re looking for new and old ways to handle it all, and no one has any answers, because no one has ever lived the way we are living now.

So excuse us while we decide not to devote our lives to work without considering what kind of impact, violent or otherwise, that work is having, on our selves and on the world. Excuse us while we try and build our own temples and battle our own demons, instead of blindly sacrificing our blood for yours. And if you don’t excuse us, whatever, it’s cool, Joss Whedon does. He gets it. I think."


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2 comments:

halojones-fan said...

Interesting how the writer's reasoning, if followed to its conclusion, is that what makes this movie truly horrific is the idea that the baby boomers really were in charge all along, and really were right all along, and the world really will end if we don't do what they say.

Neil said...

It's a creepy notion. I think what I take away from it is that the Old Generation may be right in what they Say - the world WILL end without the sacrifice. But they're not Right. Killing so people don't die is the grey area that the heroes decide is just too dark. There's no solution to the problem - both options are wrong :(