The Paradox of Horror: Fear as a Positive Emotion
The Paradox of Horror: Fear as a Positive Emotion
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DOI：
10.1111/j.1540-6245.2012.01530.x
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发表时间：
2012-09-01
影响因子：
0.8
通讯作者：
Bantinaki, Katerina
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
Bantinaki, Katerina
恐怖小说起源于18世纪的英国哥特小说，并通过不同的媒介传播，在艺术领域持续了一个多世纪，逐渐受到观众的欢迎。它在电影领域的成功尤其明显，像《驱魔人》、《大白鲨》、《异形》、《沉默的羔羊》等恐怖片都是电影史上最卖座的电影。然而，伴随着成功而来的是反思：这种悲惨小说的吸引力是什么？在恐怖的发展过程中出现了许多子类型，以及它与其他类型（如科幻或心理惊悚）的许多叙事共性，这使得定义恐怖成为一项艰巨的任务。基于对该类型的理论前理解，本文的目的就在于关注其标志，即在观众中产生恐惧和厌恶的目的，以回应被认为具有威胁性的超自然或不正常的存在，如怪物，精神病患者，僵尸，怪物。恐怖电影的形式特征，如叙事结构、镜头视角、剪辑、配乐等，都有助于强化这种情感效果。在情感文献中，恐怖类型所依赖的情感被认为是极其消极的情感，而不管其所支持的情感理论如何。虽然对于是什么决定了它们的负面效价（也就是说，为什么它们应该被归类为负面情绪）并没有类似的共识，但恐惧和厌恶通常被认为是本质上令人不愉快的，因此，作为我们在现实生活中避免经历的情绪，以及引发它们的情况。恐怖情感的传统概念，加上这一类型的流行，产生了一个悖论：为什么观众会被恐怖吸引
With its roots in the English gothic novel of the eighteenth century and a body of work that spreads across different media, the horror genre has persisted in art for more than a century, gaining gradual popularity among audiences. Its success has been particularly pronounced in cinema, where horror films like The Exorcist, Jaws, Alien, Silence of the Lambs, and numerous others rank among the major box office hits in cinematic history. With success, however, comes reflection: what is the attraction of such harrowing fiction? The many subgenres that arose in the development of horror and its many narrative commonalities with other genres, such as the sci-fi or the psychological thriller, make the project of defining horror a daunting task. 1 Relying on a pretheoretical understanding of the genre, it is enough for the purposes of this article to focus on its mark, that is, the aim of generating fear and disgust in the audience, in response to a supernatural or abnormal being that is perceived as threatening, such as a monster, a psychopath, a zombie, a freak. The formal features of horror—such as narrative structure, camera viewpoint, editing, and musical score—are conducive to and serve to heighten this emotional effect.The emotions on which the horror genre trades are identified in the emotion literature as negative emotions par excellence, regardless of the theory of emotion endorsed. Although there is no similar consensus on what determines their negative valence (that is, why they should be classified as negative emotions), fear and disgust are generally regarded as intrinsically unpleasant and, being such, as emotions that we avoid experiencing in real life, along with the situations that elicit them. The traditional conception of horror emotions, coupled with the popularity of the genre, gives rise to a paradox: why are audiences attracted to horror if