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Haunting Our Homes: Nightmares of Gentrification
We’ve posted a ground-breaking article today in the magazine: “Haunting Our Homes: Nightmares of Gentrification” by Sam J. Miller.
The article discusses the ways in which the modern horror film — and specifically, the subgenre of the haunted house film — acts as an allegory of gentrification and all the class and racial, public and private dilemmas it brings:
The modern haunted house film is fundamentally about gentrification. Again and again we see fictional families move into spaces from which others have been violently displaced, and the new arrivals suffer for that violence even if they themselves have done nothing wrong.This thriving subgenre depends upon the audience believing, on some level, that what “we” have was attained by violence, and the fear that it will be taken by violence. In the process, because mainstream audiences are seen as white, and because gentrification predominantly impacts communities of color, the racial Other becomes literally monstrous.
Posted at 7:09 AM | Permalink | | 
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November 1, 2007 at 12:31 am
groundbreaking?
the author doesn’t cite a SINGLE source for his assertions–it’s simply the musings of someone high. indeed, i’m positive when i used to smoke pot, my buddies and me came with equally flawed rationales for how people thought.
some of the best researchers in the *world* can’t tell us why we like to laugh, why we like to be scarred, or why we like to cry.
they can certainly measure hard results but they can only put forth hypothesis–not hard theories for these things.
thus, this “groundbreaking” article that’s nothing more than a man with dogma-blinders on asserting his opines is about as “groundbreaking” as teens smoking pot on the patio explaining away why parents “don’t get it”.
November 1, 2007 at 10:24 am
So no one can analyze any works of culture — unless they are scientists who measure the physical responses of the readers/viewers of the culture. There is no room for a cultural critic, who bases his conclusions on a close reading of the text in question?
November 1, 2007 at 10:56 pm
can the author cite hard numbers? can the author put forth real metrics?
we ask this of our researchers regarding everything from ADD to global warming.
IF this author really has something to say, he can back it with facts beyond his own opines. otherwise, we end up with a relativism that breaks the very concrete rationale of science.
here’s how–bush 43 is a good man, he’s protected us b/c we haven’t had a single act of terrorism on the soil of the US since 9/11. the patriot act is good.
same logic m’friend. and i ain’t no friend of bush.