A Defense of Enjoying Scary Things

Some people would say it's wrong to enjoy horror or a good scare.  I'm not talking about people who merely don't like the horror genre, who don't understand it or who find it too scary.  I mean that there are people who take a matter of taste and turn it into a matter of principle.  These are the sort who take it upon themselves as a kind of duty to instruct their fellow Christians as to the immorality of enjoying scary stories, films, or activities, and claim a moral high ground on the basis that their interests are more "godly" than the dark, demented, "twisted" interests of those who would dare to enjoy something scary.  They might even go so far as to instill, deliberately, a disdain for horror in anyone (say, a new Christian initiate or godchild) whose religious education is their duty.  Keep in mind, this disdain for horror is generally applied to even those examples of the genre that match up to the guidelines in my last post.  Just because it's scary, evidently, is reason enough to condemn it.

Now, despite the fact that I can't help but get annoyed with this attitude, I want to admit that I see where these folks are coming from, and there are probably even a few people I like and admire who have this attitude.  We Christians, the scriptures say, are to focus on "whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable" and "anything [that] is excellent or praiseworthy."  Also, "what fellowship has darkness with light?"  So it would seem, to many, that such verses preclude an enjoyment of horror or scary things.  I get it; I really do.  And although I disagree, I can respect those who come to this conclusion, despite my personal annoyance at it.

However, I would first argue that if we take these admonitions to mean that it's wrong to enjoy he horror genre, it would also be wrong to enjoy any cathartic entertainment that was anything but happy and saccharine.  Horror is not the only thing, if one is being fair, that could be called "dark."  Sorrow is dark.  So much for enjoying a tragedy.  What could be darker than war?  War films, too, must be eschewed then.  Sin is the ultimate darkness, and so any story in which characters sin is out; no matter if the moral of the story itself is sound, and merely the characters sinful, because such considerations--in the minds of such people as morally oppose horror--would NOT redeem a horror story, after all.  In not condemning these other things, nor holding them to the same strict "You should only ever think of nice things!" standard, opponents of horror show that their opposition is fueled by more than a little bit of their own personal taste.  "I find horror unpleasant and dark, so surely God must too."

I'm sure that's in the Bible somewhere...
Or maybe in a Church document?

But horror, for all its detractors, is just one more variation on what all storytelling is about:  Conflict and resolution.  The chief difference between a well-made (key phrase:  "well-made") horror film and, say, a crime drama is that in the horror the villain and conflict happen to strike a "creepy" nerve, whereas in the crime drama the more mundane villain and conflict do not do so on so primal a level.  In some cases this is literally a matter of circumstance:  That we are more viscerally spooked by a misshapen monster with claws and sharp teeth than we are by a suave crime lord with a gun has no bearing on whether or not it is immoral to watch a movie where the villain is a former but okay to watch one where the villain is the latter.  So the horror genre, in and of itself, is not materially different from any other genre--although to be sure the execution of a particular story, just as in any genre, may be in violation of sound Christian principles, but we're speaking of the inherent idea of horror here--and only differs in the particular presentation and choice of villain, conflict or setting.

In the most blatant cases where there is a double standard, stories that the horror haters may accept even have scenes or passages straight out of the horror genre.  Why is it okay to watch Frodo, from Lord of the Rings, battle for his life with the horrific eight-legged monstrosity that is Shelob, but it's immoral to watch a film whose entire plot is about a giant spider?  Let's assume that the protagonist of the latter film even survives and conquers the beast, so that it can't be argued that the latter film presents a more pessimistic or cynical worldview.  Is it really different just because the Shelob plot is a subplot and not the entire story?  Would it be, then, immoral to--for whatever reason--pop into the room just as Frodo was fleeing Shelob, but to leave the room as the battle was over?  I think most people would know how ridiculous it is to assert that the Shelob sequence is suddenly immoral if isolated, where it was just fine otherwise, yet that's precisely what is suggested when we say that it's okay to enjoy stories with scary elements, but not to enjoy scary stories.  

In fact, there are a number of merits to the horror genre.  So not only is horror in itself neutral, there can be arguments made that it has real value, at least--as with anything else--if enjoyed with the proper mindset.

First of all, an enjoyment of horror and scary things stems from the same fascination that drives us to fully appreciate God's creation.  I think we sometimes like to forget that the same God who made puppies and flowery meadows also  made hairy spiders and terrifyingly dark caves.   Are we to say that these latter things are bad?  Did God make a mistake?!  Of course not!  Then why might we condemn the person who, for Halloween, dresses up as a spider, yet embrace the one who dresses up as a historical figure?  God made both the spider and the man!  Or why condemn the man who dresses up as a fictional monster, but not the one who dresses up as an elf?  God endowed man with the creativity to dream up both creatures, the former reflecting the Divine Creativity that made the scary spider, the latter reflecting that very same Creativity which also made the graceful swan.  Is a man who appreciates the former morbid, yet the man who appreciates the latter healthy?  Did God, Who hates nothing He has made according to scripture, wish for only some of His creations, and only the creations of man which reflect those, to be appreciated by us, while the others should be hated?  I think not!

Swan!  That is all.

Second of all, many horror stories illustrate the battle between good and evil in more direct terms than a great many other genres.  So many genres portray the forces of good and bad in shades of gray, as is only natural when working with mundane subject matter.  Horror is right up there, however, with fantasy in being prone to drawing clear lines between light and darkness, good and evil.  The villain is often enough a soulless killer or a monster, representing (if only on a subconscious level) the cosmic battle between humanity and our horrific true enemy, Satan.  In the ultimate battle we fight, there is no ambiguity, no shades of gray.  We face a dragon, a beast, a creature more horrific than anything a horror writer or director could dream up.  Scripture often paints that battle starkly, without ambiguity.  Most other genres that are supposedly "okay," such as drama, comedy, or whatever else, tend by nature to blur those lines, understandably so because they deal in mundane mortal life, in "flesh and blood", and as we know, the enemies against whom we fight are not flesh and blood.  On the other hand, horror, alongside fantasy and sometimes science fiction, has the unique tendency of outlandish plots that go beyond "flesh and blood," where often enough even human villains are essentially "monsters in human form," an embodiment of unambiguous evil.  Humanity needs such stories.  This is why the old fairy tales and morality tales are often enough horror stories in their own right (somehow being "grandfathered" in so that horror haters consider them acceptable).   For this same reason, when interpreted through a Christian lens, horror stories can make particularly good allegories for the inner battles Christians face.

Third, horror offers a catharsis that no other genre does.  It is in our very being, biologically, to need an outlet for our fight or flight tendencies.  Long ago, life was largely a horror story.  Humanity was surrounded on all fronts by a mysterious and terrifying wilderness, full of creatures and threats that were unknown to us.  The feeling that we get when we watch, read, or see something scary is a feeling that our distant ancestors would have known just by their existence, an existence where fear of the unknown "monsters" waiting out there in the darkness was very practical.  And in many ways, we still have reason to entertain such fears, we just have a way, in modern society, of covering it up with a veneer of technology and complex civilization.  But our nature remains unchanged.  There are those who would like to live their lives ignoring this "scary" side of reality, but I don't think it's healthy.  In ancient times, people deliberately told scary stories to prepare each other for the genuine horrors of life, to keep each other "on their toes" via the cathartic effect those stories had.  Such stories and works serve the same purpose today.

Fourth, horror offers a continuity with our ancestors, both recent and ancient, that we lack if we smugly insist that scary tales have no place in our lives.  Just listen to the stories told by our medieval and ancient ancestors.  Many of them, if we weren't so familiar with them, would make our hair stand on end!  Just look at the artwork in some of our ancient places of worship.  Statues of gargoyles, demons, and ghouls were meant to remind people of the darkness that exists.  How ludicrous it would be if, back then, our deeply religious forbears would include such imagery in their most sacred spaces,  yet we "enlightened" ones should turn up the nose at such imagery or descriptions in our fiction or in our spookier celebrations, let alone in our parishes--oh the horror!  What a loss of continuity, a break with tradition, if we are too faint of heart to handle scary things when those who came before were willing to give such things a prominence even in churches!  Are we, with our whitewashed aversion to whatever reminds us of mortality and the existence of evil, better than they?  I can't buy into the notion that we are.

We don't make things like this now that our society is more
Christian than it was a couple hundred years ago...  Oh wait...

I'm not saying, by any stretch of the imagination, that everyone should be a fan of horror.  And I'll be the first to admit that a lot of particular entries in the horror genre these days are trash.  But that's a matter of circumstance, not inevitability.  And in fact we only further this unfortunate circumstance if we, the people with the right values, snub this time-honored genre while only those in the secular, cynical culture around us are willing to take it on.  If you do not personally enjoy the horror genre, my aim here is not to "convert" you.  People enjoy what they enjoy.  I'm also in agreement that anyone who was obsessed with horror, to the point of neglecting the "lighter" things, the pleasant things, would be morbid.  I'm not here to defend a consuming obsession.  Rather, I seek only to point out the deep error of condemning the genre, and the enjoyment of it, as being incompatible with Christian virtue.  Historically and logically, that's just not true, and the attitude is more a product of a modern, sanitized culture which desperately denies mortality and the existence of danger or evil--perhaps with a hint of Puritan influence--than of historic Christian morality, which has long made room for the horrific and the frightening right alongside its focus on the lofty and the beautiful.  It's simply not "either/or" here.  It never has been.

Christian Standards of Entertainment

With Halloween approaching, I've got my mind on the old pastime of scaring ourselves silly with horror films, stories, and--in our own generation--video games.  A love for the horror genre is in my blood, if you'll excuse the way-too-fitting use of that phrase.  Among my biological relatives, at least those on the maternal side (and that's the side I know the best), I can't think of one single person, who's old enough to tell, who isn't exceptionally fond of scary fiction.

This has often put me in a unique position among my coreligionists, or at least those who are close to me besides those in my family.  It seems like many of the people I know find the horror genre distasteful at best and outright immoral at worst.  It's as though my time-honored family tradition--and trust me, it may be the one-and-only thing that is literally common to my entire extended family--is supposed to be something I should look at as a "guilty pleasure."

YOU should be ashamed!!

I've actually fretted about this at times.  I am the sort of person who tries to avoid deliberately enjoying entertainment that is inherently tainted.  Example?  I used to enjoy the show Friends, and pretty much gave it up when I was baptized, due to the fact that a fairly central premise to the show and in most episodes was a sinful, unwholesome lifestyle being presented as something normal and acceptable.  For this reason, I pretty much avoid the comedy genre, as almost all comedic films or sitcoms these days take place in this sort of moral wasteland where making light of sexual immorality or high levels of irreverent crassness is a central theme of the movie or show.  So I am not someone who is content to just say "Yeah, this show/movie is pretty rotten to the core, but I'll just chalk it up to a guilty pleasure."  Because indeed, my conscience is active and lively enough that, even though I do engage in such "guilty pleasures" from time to time--I'm not perfect--there is major emphasis on the guilty, such that I would never defend such a thing as being okay.

So whenever I really enjoy something, as I enjoy horror, I feel the need to really think about whether or not it's morally acceptable, rather than just shrugging and saying "Oh well, right or wrong, I like it, so that's what matters."  That's just not acceptable to me.  I believe in consistency, in people being able to know where I stand on things.  When it comes to this beloved genre, I intend to make another post as to why I think an enjoyment of horror is compatible with Christian values.

But this gets me to a bigger question:  What, in general, are my concerns when watching a film, reading a story, or playing a video game?  Thinking of horror, here, has gotten me to thinking of what some of my standards are for all entertainment, regardless of genre  I'm going to share some of them in this post.  These are the considerations I try to take into account when I choose my entertainment, or at least if I enjoy something outside of these guidelines I tend to admit that it's probably something I shouldn't be doing rather than insisting there's nothing wrong with my patronage of it.  As for the topic from the beginning of this post, horror, I see no reason other than prudery that something from the horror genre that adheres to these guidelines should be treated as any more immoral than any other genre which does.

End discrimination against the horror genre!

1.  Evil Should Never be Glorified:  Entertainment of various genres often deals with evil, or evil beings and powers.  Some even explicitly include monsters and demons.  The deciding factor in whether a work is morally acceptable is not the inclusion of darkness and evil, but whether the darkness and evil are deliberately made to appear attractive or glamorous.  If there is realistic witchcraft in a film--that is, not mere fantastical magic but actual pagan or devil worship--that does not make the film immoral anymore than the book of Genesis is immoral for recounting tales of murder.  But the witchcraft should not be depicted in a flattering way.  You should not leave the experience thinking being a witch seems cool.

*2.  Violence or Gore Should Not be Glorified nor Gratuitous:  It's often true that there is violence or gore to be found in certain genres, especially horror, but also war films and others.  Personally, I think the classiest stories, films, and games use it as tastefully as possible, and I think that's key.  Violence is often a necessary part of the storytelling.  When it is necessary to show it explicitly--perhaps for impact, realism, etc.--it should never be done to titillate or to thrill.  It should not be something "cool."  Gratuitous violence is much like obscenity:  Hard to define, but you know it when you see it.  I'll admit frankly, though, that for example most slasher films probably cross the line, and in the world of video games, many war games are guilty of it too.  The violence in them is often over-the-top, intended to impress the audience by finding new and creative ways to kill victims.  To me, that's gratuitous.  The aim of violence should never be to "show off" or impress.  As a fan of slasher flicks, Dario Argento, and even the Mortal Kombat video game franchise, it pains me to admit to all this, as all of these can be easily argued to contain gratuitous violence, but if I'm going to imply that, say, fans of raunchy comedy have a duty to resist indulging this or to at least admit that their indulgence is "guilty," then I too must admit when things I enjoy are wrong.  And I believe that gratuitous violence, even when pulled off in a manner that's dreamlike and brilliantly executed, is probably wrong...

3.  Hopelessness and Despair Should Not be at the Heart of the Work:  Increasingly, films and stories take place in a universe of bleak, amoral realities.  People are pretty much animals, from the cynical sitcom to the gritty horror flick.  And even the protagonists are so strictly focused on self-preservation, hedonism, or self-promotion that one gets the feelings that no one really cares about anyone else.  Or perhaps, in more cosmic stories, evil wins, and not merely in a "bad ending," but in a way that suggests evil is really more powerful than good.  These are all messages that a Christian has no need to imbibe.  Cynicism is not a Christian trait.  We believe that good overcomes evil.  While it might be the case that tragic or horrific things happen--which is why a "bad ending" is not synonymous with cynicism--the implication that evil inherently trumps good, as opposed to isolated incidents where evil seems to triumph, is toxic.

And should be buried underground with nuclear waste.

4.  The Work Should Still be Recognizable and Complete if all Questionable Elements were Removed:  I'm not a prude who believes that Christians should never read, watch, or play anything that has questionable elements.  If that were the case, the ancient Christians would have been wrong for reading and admiring the works of pagans, which often had questionable elements.  However, it seems safe to me to pose this question:  Would the work that I'm enjoying remain intact, coherent, and meaningful if all the questionable elements--including gratuitous sex/nudity; gratuitous drug use; gratuitous violence; obscenities; perversions; irreverently sexual, sadistic, demeaning or dirty humor, etc (see, I just made a whole list of things a work shouldn't ideally contain all in this one point!)--were removed?  If the answer is yes, and if you're not enjoying the work for the questionable parts, then I would say that it's okay to watch, read, or play it, although I would say that it should be enjoyed under protest of the immoral parts:  When watching a film with others, for example, there should be no question that, if you had your way, the immoral parts of the film would not be included, and you should find little ways to protest--I always avert my eyes from gratuitous sexual nudity, for example, even if an overall film is decent and the nudity in question doesn't tempt me; I do so as a form of living my disapproval of the questionable element, and I would likewise skip over an explicit sex scene in a novel insofar as possible.  If, however, upon removing the questionable elements, the work would be a gutted shell of its former self, hardly making sense, or if a significant portion of the work's plot, themes, or presentation would be missing, then it's probably safe to say it's trash.

5.  The Work should not Pose a Near Occasion of Sin to You.  It may be that a given work passes muster in every other way, but that in some way it causes you personally too much temptation.  Perhaps it's a film that, despite having one scene of gratuitous nudity, lives up to the principle of #4.  If that one scene, however, causes you to lust, then even IF the overall film could be salvaged if that scene were removed, you yourself need to avoid the film altogether, unless you can find some way to watch an edited version of the film, although to be honest due to the principle of #4 if there's an edited version of the film that edits out strictly the morally problematic parts, I would say anyone should opt for that version.  It's just that it's especially important for someone who could be tempted to sin.

6.  Morality Should Not be Evil OR Deliberately Gray:  It's okay for a work to not answer certain moral questions.  What I'm talking about here is that a work should never teach that morality is gray, that suggests that right and wrong differ depending on circumstance, and that we the readers/audience/players have no right to judge whether an action is right or wrong.  It goes without saying, of course, that any work that actually advocates immorality, at least if that advocacy is at the core of the film or doesn't pass the test of #4, should be avoided.  This includes themes like vengeance or greed just as surely as it includes themes like sex or drugs.

7.  The Work, at Heart, Should not be Something You'd Feel Guilty Producing:  This is just an overall standard.  Taking #4 into consideration of course, if the overall work is one that you yourself would feel immoral in producing, then why should you put your seal of approval on the self-condemnation of the other souls who have produced it?  Whenever there is a piece of work where immoral elements are so integral to the work that you couldn't imagine being free of guilt if you had singlehandedly made the work yourself, you shouldn't forget that somebody out there did make it, and when you endorse the work gladly and without remorse, you endorse the spiritual suicide of those who really are part of it.  It would be like praising the drug culture and feeling like you're absolved of guilt just because you neither do nor sell drugs.

As is so often the case when I list things, this isn't an exhaustive list.  But it's something to reflect on, and a good starting point.  Now if you'll excuse me, I'll be watching one of those horror films I love so much on Halloween, with some relatives, and I've gotta get to work on deciding which one...



_______________________

*Note:  My problem with gratuitous violence isn't the old scaremongering that kids who watch violent movies will go out on killing sprees.  Rather it's that gratuitous violence treats the human body irreverently, as an object.  Gory violence is very dehumanizing, and therefore when used gratuitously in a work for the sake of amusement, humor, titillation, or the "cool" factor, it presents an atmosphere in which human dignity is disrespected.  That's quite enough reason for concern among Christians, without any need for scaremongering.

The Blood of the Just: Of violent persecution against Christians.

I can't overstate my pain and anguish at the deaths of the Christians who are being brutally persecuted throughout the world for their faith.  The latest news of persecution against Christians by the terrorist group calling themselves the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, is only one such terrible trend, but it's a good representation of the worst of the worst.  We in the modern West think of persecution--by-force--committed against Christians as being a thing of the past, a relic from the days of Pagan Rome when Christians were hunted down and given the death penalty.  However, in other parts of the world, Christians are still very much persecuted, asked to renounce their faith under pain of imprisonment or death.

Now, let me say that I'm not the sort of person to undersell the difficulties we Christians face in the West.  I'm not one of those, at all, who will insist that because we're not being imprisoned or killed just for claiming Christianity as our religion that this means there isn't a more subtle--and spiritually quite deadly--persecution against us.  No, if anything I'm the opposite:  I emphasize that the Western spite for Christianity is in some ways more poisonous to Christians than outright violence because, to modify a phrase my grandmother always said, "You catch more bees with honey than you do with vinegar."  In the modern West, Christians are lured from their faith with the "honey" of prestige and media glorification, while scared from being fully Christian (that is, by espousing values deemed "backward" by the modern culture) with the "vinegar" of insult, spite, and legal sanctions.  Satan is quite crafty, and knows that the sword of mockery and the arrows of scorn can scare or entice as many Christians, if not more, into abandoning their faith than literal knives and guns.  And Christians in the modern West do not leave their faith shivering and regretful, but are often coaxed into leaving it proudly, never even realizing the spiritual doom to which they are now marching.

And let's make no mistake, Christians here are increasingly threatened with severe financial and legal repercussions if we refuse to compromise our values, even if we're allowed to technically profess our Christian faith (so long as we divorce ourselves from our morals and do as we're told in the public and business sphere, of course).  So as you can tell, I'm as far as you can imagine from the "Christians in the West have no right to think they're mistreated!" crowd.

But my recognition of the often-undersold threats Christianity faces in the western world by no means diminishes my sense or appreciation of the blatant horror faced by Christians in lands where Satan, for whatever reason, has chosen to be less crafty and more bold.  In these lands, the evil committed against us is obvious, cruel, and unambiguously evil.  It's true that when the enemy is coming after you with knives and guns, it's easy to know they are the bad guys at least, but that is a cold comfort when faced with the grim prospect of torture and death, or the even worse prospect of these things against your loved ones.  Unlike in the West, a Christian who abandons his faith under, say, the threat of Islamic jihadists might at least inwardly realize he's only doing a desperate act in order to escape a grizzly fate; but that does not diminish his pain or his guilty conscience.  If he evades the physical suffering, he is burdened with a fate worse than that of Saint Peter, who denied Christ, for unlike Saint Peter he will never hear--until his death--the comforting words of Jesus Christ in His obvious personal form to console him despite his moment of weakness.  He may spend the rest of his days feeling that he was a coward, if in fact he picks his shaken faith up again at all.

There can be no doubt:  The persecution levied against Christians in the more barbaric nations of the world is torture no matter what the Christian chooses.  If he does not abandon his faith, he is either imprisoned or he is tormented and killed.  If he does abandon his faith, then if he has any true faith at all he will live with mental and spiritual torment for the rest of his days over his decision, and wonder forever "Would I make the same decision if I had it to do over again?"  For a Christian, such uncertainty is also torture.  So he cannot escape torture no matter what he does or where he turns.  His third option, of course, is to permanently abandon his faith and never look back in regret, but with that option he loses his very soul, which is an even worse fate.  Cruel indeed is his list of available options.

I can only find solace in knowing that God holds the fates of those who are faithful--even those who only renew their faith after initially falling away in terror--in His hands.  He never fails to reward the suffering of His just ones.  Some great minds have said that even the smallest inconvenience, if suffered for God, will reap great treasure in Heaven; how much more then the profound suffering of our persecuted brethren!  Martyrdom and misery are the seeds of glory, for we serve a God to whom the blood of the Just--and I do dare to say "Just", for Christ justifies His flock--cries out for satisfaction.  That satisfaction shall come not in the form of petty vengeance (although, as Pope Francis himself has hinted, the use of force to STOP this violence has its legitimate place), but in a heavenly prize that far outstrips the horrors faced by the persecuted soul on the earth.

Let us pray for peace, and let us pray for both the victims and, perhaps even more so, the survivors of the barbaric and inexcusable deeds taking place even as you read this.