Freakery, Cult Films, and the Problem of Ambivalence
Freakery, Cult Films, and the Problem of Ambivalence
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怪异、邪教电影和矛盾心理问题
DOI：
10.1353/jfv.2011.0003
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发表时间：
2011
影响因子：
0.1
通讯作者：
D. Church
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
D. Church
邪教电影吸引了一群精心挑选但忠诚的影迷，他们从事重复放映、仪式行为和特定的阅读策略。这些影迷，或者说"狂热者"，通过支持他们的目标选择来获得亚文化资本，因为他们的目标选择比大众市场电影更独特，而且据说更难接近。这种“独特性”的感觉反映在电影与“主流”、非邪教电影的感知差异上。然而，邪教电影学者很少讨论的是残疾在邪教电影概念化中的重要性，我在这篇文章中通过两个相互交织的前提进行讨论。第一个前提探讨了残疾作为“畸形”奇观的表现，受到长期和有问题的不平等观看关系的历史的启发，是许多电影中作为邪教对象的共同特征。在这方面，我专注于邪教电影，功能与明显的身体残疾的表演者。这些电影，如托德布朗宁的怪胎（1932年），掩盖了怪胎显示气氛，发展周围的午夜电影和它的邪教亲属。我的第二个前提认为，为了支持差异的亚文化态度，邪教电影的接收往往使用文化上与残疾人的身体污名化的能指。这具体包括将邪教电影划分为怪异的异常，这种区别反映了社会上普遍存在的将"异常"身体与"正常"身体分开的态度。因此，Ableist认为残疾是不正常和不正常的，这就形成了一种背景，主张所谓的邪教电影本身的不正常和不正常。邪教分子可能会用残疾作为他们感知到的叛逆感的隐喻，但这种暂时的认同并没有挑战那些传统上与怪异有关的人：残疾人仍然面临的社会不平等。虽然邪教观看怪诞仪式可以找到一个身体的矛盾心理，可能在其他情况下服务于“越界”的目的，仪式上的乐趣，说矛盾心理有利于一个保守的反应时，设置在邪教接待的背景。通过这种"对立"的审美/亚文化差异感，邪教拥护他们作为主流电影的"他者"的对象选择，鼓励接受作为社会越轨的他者的异常。虽然这种二元逻辑似乎没有多少出路，但对"残疾"和"邪教"等广泛类别中的流动性和变化有更大的文化意识可能会提供一种富有成效的替代观点。畸形与矛盾在规范的社会中，畸形是建立在不平等的视角和社会关系上的。一个非残疾观众保留了使一个非规范的身体（传统上，一个残疾人的身体）接受健全人凝视的权力，作为娱乐性的奇观，享受震惊、恐怖、惊奇和怜悯的混合物。虽然它在历史上有许多不同的文化形式，但在当代社会中，畸形的观看动态仍然与我们息息相关，允许非规范的身体在很大程度上与大众意识中的畸形幽灵密不可分。残疾人经常被沉默，被展示，被好奇地检查，并受到非残疾人的敌意，尴尬或怜悯的反应。大卫T.米切尔和莎伦L.斯奈德指出，与畸形表演相关的不平等的观看关系因此可以被认为是，在许多方面，残疾人所忍受的更微妙的日常污名化（“剥削”）的一种夸张形式。围绕着“怪胎”这个词的壮观的客观化的内涵强调了身体优先于被怪胎化的个人身份的所有其他方面。这可能解释了为什么很少有残疾人试图重新使用这个词作为骄傲的标签，就像“瘸子”和“瘸子”（可以说在较小程度上意味着壮观）被重新用于政治赋权一样。…
CULT FILMS ACQUIRE A SELECT BUT DEVOTED group of fans who engage in repeated screenings, ritual behaviors, and specific reading strategies. These fans, or "cultists," gain subcultural capital by championing their object choices as more unique and supposedly less accessible than mass-marketed cinema. This sense of "uniqueness" is reflected by the films' perceived difference from "mainstream," non-cult movies. Yet, seldom discussed by cult film scholars is the significance of disability in the conceptualization of cult cinema, which I discuss in this article through two intertwined premises. The first premise explores how representations of disability as "freakish" spectacle, inspired by a long and problematic history of unequal viewing relations, are a common feature in many films taken up as cult objects. In this respect, I focus on cult films that feature performers with visible physical disabilities. These films, such as Tod Browning's Freaks (1932), exemplify the freak show atmosphere that developed around the midnight movie and its cultish kin. My second premise argues that in order to support a subcultural attitude of difference, cult film reception often uses signifiers culturally associated with the stigmatization of disabled bodies. This specifically includes the portioning off of cult films as freakish anomalies, a distinction echoing socially prevalent attitudes that separate "abnormal" bodies from "normal" ones. Ableist perceptions of disability as abnormal and deviant thereby form a context for asserting the alleged abnormalcy and deviance of cult films themselves. Cultists may use disability as a metaphor for their perceived sense of rebellion, but this temporary identification does little to challenge the social inequalities still faced by those traditionally linked to freakery: people with disabilities. Although cultists viewing freakery can ritualistically find pleasure in a bodily ambivalence that may potentially serve "transgressive" purposes in other contexts, said ambivalence facilitates a conservative response to freakery when set within the context of cult reception. The "oppositional" sense of aesthetic/subcultural difference through which cultists champion their object choices as mainstream cinema's "other" encourages the reception of abnormality as a socially deviant otherness. Although this binary logic seemingly allows few avenues for escape, a greater cultural awareness of the fluidity and variation within broad categories such as "disability" and "cult" may provide a productive alternate view. Freakery and Ambivalence In normative society, freakery is premised on unequal viewing and social relations. A nondisabled audience retains the power to subject a non-normative body (traditionally, that of a person with disabilities) to the ableist gaze as entertaining spectacle, enjoying a mixture of shock, horror, wonder, and pity. Although it has taken many different cultural forms throughout history, freakery's viewing dynamic is still very much with us in contemporary society, allowing non-normative bodies to remain largely inseparable from the specter of freakery in the popular consciousness. People with disabilities are frequently silenced, placed on display, curiously examined, and subjected to hostile, embarrassed, or pitying reactions from non-disabled people. David T. Mitchell and Sharon L. Snyder note that the unequal viewing relations associated with the freak show can thus be considered, in many ways, an exaggerated form of the more subtle, everyday stigmatization endured by people with disabilities ("Exploitations"). The connotation of spectacular objectiflcation surrounding the term "freak" emphasizes the body's precedence over all other aspects of the enfreaked individual's identity. This possibly explains why few people with disabilities have attempted to reclaim the term as a label of pride in the same way that the terms "crip" and "cripple" (which arguably connote spectacle to a lesser degree) have been reappropriated for political empowerment. …