|
BOBC |
 |
 |
 |
|
Carver, Stephen James. Weird Tales from the Vault of Fear: The EC Horror Comics Controversy & Its Legacy. Watching the Media – Censorship, Limits, and Control in Creative Practice: 15Apr, 2011. Added by: joachim (2/18/13, 5:33 PM) |
 |
| Resource type: Conference Paper Language: en: English BibTeX citation key: Carver2011 Email resource to friend View all bibliographic details  |
Categories: General Keywords: EC, Film, Horror, Intermediality, Kulturpolitik, USA Creators: Carver Collection: Watching the Media – Censorship, Limits, and Control in Creative Practice |
Views: 25/1408
|
| Attachments | URLs http://ainsworthan ... sy-and-its-legacy/ |
| Abstract |
|
A paper about horror and censorship, centering on the influence of EC horror comics, and starting with the moral panic of 1954 that led to the hastily imposed and ultra-conservative Code of the Comics Magazine Association of America. This paper argues that the visual and narrative codes of EC migrated to mainstream and independent cinema in the 1960s (Hitchcock and George A. Romero), initiating a repeating cycle of transgression and controversy that continues to inform the genre, from the radical ‘American Nightmares’ of pre-Hollywood Tobe Hooper to the recent hyper-real pastiches of Eli Roth and Rob Zombie. A textual doubling is suggested, in which EC-style horror is either selectively assimilated by popular media (for example the Dexter and Walking Dead franchises), or publicly and politically denounced (like the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre before it got old enough to be ‘art’). The attendant moral panic in each case is essentially the same, with effects theory-driven calls for censorship versus the more complex discourse of creative freedom and cultural critique.
|