Caroline Joan (Kay) Picart and Cecil Greeks well-researched anthology conjoins the fictional and cinematic Gothic with "American popular culture, academia, and even public policy" (11). Also, it offers "a matrix for understandingGothic criminology as a theoretical perspective, by tracing its root components within strands of postmodern criminology and Gothic literary and film theory" (13). It has a very substantial introduction (1143) by the editors and nine contributed essays that range through film (The Testament of Dr. Mabuse), literature (Coleridge, De Quincey), folklore (the Jewish Golem), actual historical events (martyrdom, "global terrorism," racism), and television. The editors are heavy contributors: in addition to the introduction, they combine on "The Compulsions of Reel/Real Serial Killers and Vampires: Toward a Gothic Criminology" and "Profiling the Terrorist as a Mass Murderer." Greek, by himself, contributes "The Big City Rogue Cop as Monster: Images of the NYPD and LAPD." The other contributions are Edward J. Ingebretsens "Bodies Under Scandal: Civic Gothic as Genre," Davis W. Houcks "My Thats a Big One: Masculinity and Monstrosity in Dirty Harry," Thomas Bensons "Mother and Monster: The Rhetorical Structure of The Man Who Knew Too Much," Jason Grant McKahans "The Substance Abuse Film and the Gothic: Typology, Narrative, and Hallucination," Pat Gills "Making a Killing in the Marketplace: Incorporation as a Monstrous Process," and Raymond Surettes "Gothic Criminology and Criminal Justice Policy."
Such excursions into the interdisciplinary and intellectual history are rare and most welcome. This one is as fruitful as Alan A. Stone and Sue Smart Stones The Abnormal Personality Through Literature (1966), if not more so. Its insights lead to evocative interplay between reality and fiction (mimesis) as well as between reality and the (deluded) psychopathic. Readers should be prepared to be stretched by both nomenclature and insights as both lead to revisioning such popular films as The Manchurian Candidate (1962, 2004), Wall Street (1987), and The Devils Advocate (1997) as well as the Matrix series.
The contributors also point to the concept of genuine evil (16) as did M. Scott Peck in the People of the Lie: The Hope for Healing Human Evil (1998) with its dramatic insight into the butchery of the My Lai incident. Gill also ventures into this when she mentions the unity of "inhuman business ethics" and "nonhuman nature" (142, 152, 203).
The definition of the monster varies throughout the volume; this is provocative as opposed to inconsistent. The editors do identify it well: "The monster or contemporary fallen angel is simultaneously a figure of horror and repulsion, as it is of fascination and charisma the vampire; both subhuman and superhuman; and remarkably similar to the normal and striking deviant at the same time" (12). In the same introduction, they maintain that "one of the strengths of the Gothic view of evil is that it frequently maintains the humanity of its monsters" (28). The key here is "frequently," and empathy with Karloffs Imhotep and Princess Anckesenamon (The Mummy 1932 or Anck Su Namun in the 1999 release) would be necessary for this observation to be accurate. Further, even a brief consideration of H. P. Lovecraft (who is not mentioned in the volume) shows that monsters are not at all "similar." While Lovecraft might not be considered Gothic and only a part of the larger horror of which the Gothic is a subset, this volume does mention genuine horror, such as The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974, 2003) among others (235).
Benson takes another angle: that the slayer and the monster are both monsters in his discussion of Alfred Hitchcock (92). This, as Northrop Frye points out earlier in regard to tragedy in The Anatomy of Criticism (1957), is why the protagonist must be as swollen as the antagonist to be triumphant, and after his or her triumph, the protagonist must be eliminated to restore balance. McKahan amplifies the monster into deadly, impersonal chemicals (129) and illustrates the narcissism (129) and technophobia that colors some horrific narratives.
Other contributors vary from the editors definition. Gill finds monsters "abhorrent in their otherness"; yet, in the next paragraph, she cites Judith Halberstams assertion, in Skin Shows: Gothic Horrors and the Technology of Monsters (1995), that monsters "celebrate our own monstrosities" (143). Surette indicates that the monster preys on "innocence and normalcy" (216). In another of their other essays, Picart and Greek offer the interesting thought that both vampires and serial killers are "compelled to kill" (227) and that the distinction between good and evil is irrelevant for vampires (230). Of course, vampires do not always kill; they also enslave by creating other vampires.
However, as opulent as this volume is, it does have its limitations. Female evil, such as the black widows (the Jungian nixie, e.g., Fanny Burneys Camilla 1796), is not covered while the pedophile priest is by Ingebretsen (both should be required inclusions) and McCarthyism is by Greek (171). Also, the editors definition does not specify that the Gothic environment (23, 26) must be sealed and inescapable (although it is alluded to as such throughout the volume). This trap is, of course, a pivotal element of the abusers strategy (31, 203, 206). In addition, their insistence that "sexual per-versions are key to Gothic literature" (25) is certainly contentious and does reflect a Freudian bias that crops up here and there.
The greatest concern is that the editors suggest that "fear rather than pity is the essential Gothic emotion, and the victim in the story, as well as the reader, is overawed by the conqueror" (25). However, fear is only the effect, not the cause. Helplessness and loss of will, which lead to fear, are the true essences of any Gothic or horrific cosmology.
Whatever small or large, the limitations this anthology has pale in comparison to the wealth of insights and research that it offers. This is a required read for anyone pursuing the interaction between the fictional Gothic and culture.
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