Bedbug Bites
Bedbugs might be a bit of a strange topic for a blog of this sort, but the media craziness surrounding these annoying insects begs for some commentary from this horror fan. First, some context: if you happen to watch the news on TV or pick up a daily paper, you’re bound to come across one of the many stories about the massive infestation of bedbugs. I’ve seen these in everything from the big-gun local paper to the alternative weekly to the New York Times. The media frenzy has gotten so out of hand that Jon Stewart weighed in on the Daily Show:
Vodpod videos no longer available.The media deserves the mockery that Stewart dishes out here. Bedbugs, though annoying, do not spread disease or cause you any grave harm. Like a mosquito, they suck out a little blood, creating itchy little welts that will eventually disappear. Still, the idea of something crawling in your bed is psychologically powerful and catches the eye when evoked in a headline.
Of course, there are other ways to think of insects, and Stewart’s inclusion of clips from Green Porno, a short video series conceived of by actress Isabella Rossellini, reimagine the insects in slightly different terms. Each entry in the series highlights the reproductive process of a different insect, illustrated by Rossellini herself in outrageous costumes. I especially appreciate the ways in which Green Porno raises questions about gender, nature, and the relationship between violence and sexuality. While the subjects of the videos may be insects, Rossellini’s anthropomorphizing of the insects suggests some connection exists between these creatures and us. Here’s another of those hilarious videos:
Psychologist Kevin Ocshner spoke about Rossellini’s video about bedbugs in relation to the media buzz, stating that he felt the video commented on the overblown nature of our fears by exaggerating the size of bedbugs (Click here to listen to the piece from NPR’s Talk of the Nation). Ocshner also discussed how the brain works when we imagine these bugs. Specifically, he says that the same parts of the brain that respond to actual threats, like a real bug in your bed, also become activated by strong thoughts of them. He connects this neurological quirk to the sensations we might get reading a thriller or watching a scary movie.
The power of insects (and other creepy crawlers) to trigger these fears might be one of the reasons that the surrealists used insects so often in their work. Below, a narrator explains Luis Bunuel’s likes and dislikes, and bugs come up several times (relevant portion ends at 3:17):
The prominence of insects is a trademark of Buneul’s films. In Un Chien Andalou alone, bugs form the basis of some of the most powerful compositions in the film, particularly this still of ants streaming out of a wounded hand:
In Bunuel's famous collaboration with Salvador Dali, Un Chien Andalou, insects appear frequently in unnerving images such as this one. Image taken from factoidz.com.
But while the surrealists engage the fear of bugs subtly, the contemporary horror film has exploited it for a more blunt effect. One obvious example would be Slither, a film I’ve yet to see but has always intrigued me with its campy critique of monogamy. Watch the trailer below and you’ll see what I mean:
Slither isn’t alone, of course: The Fly (both the original and remake), Arachnophobia, Mimic, all tap into the same fear of bugs currently being exploited by the news media. While the increasing numbers of bedbugs might be truer than the fictional representations just mentioned, the hysterical response seems based more on fiction than reality.
District 9 in South Africa
NPR did an interesting piece on the reception of District 9 by some moviegoers in South Africa where it opened over the weekend. As those who’ve followed this blog know, I previously posted on the film upon first seeing its trailer and after viewing it in its entirety, so my ears perked up when I heard the intro to this story.
A shot of the alien spaceship in District 9 also highlights the Johannesburg landscape.
My views on the film were mixed as were the opinions of those surveyed by NPR’s reporters outside a Cape Town movie theater. Not surprisingly, race and nationality influenced each individual’s interpretation, as is clear from the following quote:
“In some ways, it was shocking,” says Cape Town resident Christo Schutte, stopping to talk outside a local theater. “I’m a young South African, thinking of District Six.”
District Six was a historically interracial Cape Town neighborhood that the government deemed a slum — and from which more than 60,000 residents were forcibly removed — in the 1970s, under apartheid laws. Apartheid was the system of legal racial separation enforced by South Africa’s white minority government from 1948 to 1994.
Schutte, who’s white, said watching South African security forces violently evict aliens from their homes in the fictional slum that gives the film its title made him reflect on the real-life forced removals in District Six.
“What happened there … I never understood, because I never really experienced that,” Schutte says. “So for me, that was a shock, as a white South African, to see that.”
Other viewers critiqued the film as racist in spite of its message of tolerance:
[Fortune] Sibanda [a 33-year-old South African resident originally from Zimbabwe] says he thinks the film is undermined by its liberal use of what he sees as racial and ethnic stereotypes.
He points to the masses of impoverished blacks and aliens living in the film’s shantytowns, and to the crime that filmmaker Neill Blomkamp depicts as flourishing there. One particularly vicious District 9 kingpin — a Nigerian, heavily armed and attended by a traditional healer — schemes to master the aliens’ technology, going to great lengths to do it.
“I think what it does, it shows South Africa from white eyes — the fear that the African is a cannibal who wants to eat others to assimilate their power,” Sibanda says. “So in trying to do all that, I think the movie totally failed at the end of the day.”
It’s a piece well worth the read or listen because it reminds us of the specificity of the viewing experience and the importance of bringing in a diversity of voices when discussing a film’s meaning(s). Check it out and feel free to post your opinions also.
Dark Room 