Research Summary
Kaitlin Sewell
Ms. Barklow
Monsters and Misfits
10 December 2018
The Supernatural of a New Generation
I have always been interested in the supernatural, from ghosts and werewolves, to vampires and angels, and everything in between. That’s why I chose the Supernatural, a show about two brothers who fight the supernatural in a modern day setting. Although the show has been one of my favorites, there is one thing I don’t like; the fact that I can’t relate to the characters. Sam and Dean are male protagonists in their late twenties, so it’s harder for the younger generation to understand and relate to some of the things that happen in the show. That’s why in my adaptation, one of the major changes will be to change the main characters and make them the children of Sam and Dean. By doing that, I can still explore some of the main themes from the original show, but also look at themes from a younger perspective. In the original, one theme was how the show portrayed the supernatural creatures and the human in the show, but not making them simply good and evil. Some of the creatures have good intentions, and some humans have dark, evil urges that don’t necessarily make them good just because they’re fighting on the side of it. However, I want to explore the loss of child innocence. A lot of the supernatural is influenced by fears in our own lives, and by forcing these kids to face these fears head on and have to make adult choices, it can be hard to hold onto their childlike innocence.
“Phobia of the Supernatural: A Distinct but Poorly Recognized Specific Phobia with an Adverse Impact on Daily Living”
This source looks at how the supernatural is based off of fears in humans’ own lives, which is why the supernatural is so relatable to its audiences. It examines 6 different cases of people who feared the supernatural and where that fear came from. Oliveira-Souza looks at how the “fears of ghosts and kindred supernatural worries may be a cause of intense discomfort, poor sleep, and socio-occupational impairment.” by examining “the clinical features of six patients who developed intense anxiety when they had to sleep alone at night” (1). Each reported case looked at how people of all ages, ranging from 11 to 63, had developed an intense fear of the supernatural that stemmed from childhood fears or different types of anxiety. In my adaptation, I will examine how the supernatural is rooted in our own fears and can be the cause of different anxieties and force people to make decisions that can have a negative impact on them for the rest of their lives.
“Popping (it) Up: an exploration on popular culture and TV series Supernatural”
This source looks at how Supernatural’s roots come from both other types of pop culture and the fears and anxieties we, as the audience and consumers, experience in our everyday lives. The article explores how Supernatural, “is an example of this double function of serials, in the sense that it both showcases a world in turmoil and danger, evocative of present-day terrorism-induced anxieties and insecurities, and integrates what can be described as a post-9/11 culture, deeply marked, on the one hand, by the events of 2001 and synonymous to a culture of fear and, on the other, by a participatory impulse and an incredibly fast and extensive flow of information.” (Gonçalves 2). In my adaptation, I will look at how I can bring in some of the original roots and themes of supernatural, and how it stems off of events like 9/11 and other horror and pop culture, and also bring in some new, more modern aspects and views from a different generation, who have different fears and anxieties than the audience in 2005 when the show was first aired. It relates more to younger audiences, while still being able to relate to people of all ages through the deeper roots of those same fears as the original show.
“The yokai in the database: supernatural creatures and folklore in manga and anime”
This source looks at yokai, or supernatural in Japanese manga and anime, and how it has been adapted for both modern and more Western audiences by examining two of the most popular anime shows/mangas to date. In this article, Foster states that,
“Sekien's contribution to the popular understanding of yokai is that he made a vague set of beliefs visible, by giving them physical form in his codices, and that he freely added yokai he invented himself, giving his work a playful quality (Pandemonium, 74-75). The result is a malleable, large, and diverse pantheon (or as Foster calls it, pandemonium) that modern texts can draw on while adding layers of modern ideology” (4).
Modern uses of yokai often change some of their more frightening aspects to make them more adaptable for audiences of all ages. I wanted to use this source because it focuses on the supernatural in another culture, and I want to bring in some aspects from that into my adaptation. By looking at supernatural from another culture, I can bring in different beliefs about what supernatural means and where it’s roots come from, but also look at different perspectives of how the supernatural is ingrained in our everyday lives and culture and how it impacts us psychologically.
“Nursery Realms: Children in the Worlds of Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror”
This source looks at how children are portrayed in Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror in Western culture.
“While children may be looked down on as undeveloped adults, they may also be looked up to as beings inherently superior to adults. These contrasting attitudes towards children are epitomized by various pairs of words with common denotations but divergent connotations: childish and childlike, immature and youthful, naive and innocent. Viewed from a different perspective, then, a statement that nonmimetic fiction intrinsically is aimed at or about children would be a compliment, not a criticism. However, one must also recognize that fantasy and horror, one the one hand, and science fiction, on the other hand, have radically different reasons for valuing children as readers and characters” (Westfahl and Slusser 10).
In my adaptation, I will look at how children are portrayed in modern day horror as innocent and pure, and look at why taking away a child’s innocence is so terrifying to its audiences because seeing a child, who is often times a symbol of purity in our world, become as monstrous as adults, it reminds people that nothing is truly pure, or innocent, and anything can be corrupt by evil intentions or even simply human selfishness and corruption.
“The cognitive psychology of belief in the supernatural: belief in a deity or an afterlife could be an evolutionarily advantageous by-product of people's ability to reason about the minds of others.”
This source looks at the psychology of the supernatural and how different people interpret it. Different age groups were part of experiments to see how the supernatural and the religious beliefs in God and the afterlife in Western culture impacted people differently. One of the experiments was with a group of children ranging from ages 4 to 12. In the experiment, the children were presented with a puppet show where a mouse was eaten by an alligator, and then asked questions such as if the mouse still loved it’s mother after death. “Curiously, the younger the child, the more likely he or she was to endow the dead mouse with the capacity to experience various mental states, despite the fact that even preschoolers generally understood that the mouse's body had stopped functioning after death.” Even young children were able to understand the meaning of an afterlife and how the mouse still was able to feel and love even after death. The older children, looking at it with a more biological approach were less likely to give the same answers as the younger children, which shows that “if belief in an afterlife is entirely cultural, older children would have had more exposure and become more socially aligned to prevailing metaphysical beliefs, and therefore would be expected to attribute more traits to the afterlife.” However, although that may have been the case, “most children, even the oldest, refused to say that the mouse stopped loving its mother at death,” showing how the beliefs of religion, the afterlife, and the supernatural are ingrained in as children, and continue to develop as we grow older, even if we look at things through other perspectives (Bering). In my adaptation, I will be looking at how a child’s upbringing can have an impact on who they are and what they believe in as they grow older. As the children of Sam and Dean, the main protagonists have grown up around the supernatural all their lives, and therefore have taken on some of their fathers’ own prejudices and options on these supernatural beings based on their own experiences when they were younger.
“The Monster Is Alive: 200 Years of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein”
This source looks at Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein and explores the theme of how humans can become monsters. Basiva examines both Victor Frankenstein and the Creature, and how their actions blur the lines between monster and man. In the novel, “The monster like a human being was longing for the integration and recognition that are denied to him on account of his appearance.” The Creature is ridiculed and outcast simply because of his looks, and the parts of him that differed from the norm. However, instead of blaming the Creature for his monstrous actions, “Shelly seemingly blames the society for its irresponsibility, showing its obsolescence, lethargy and imperfection of a man. Human beings had only to free themselves from social oppression and prejudice” (Basiya 3). In my adaptation, I will use these same themes that are explored in Frankenstein to examine the main protagonists and how their actions and selfish human tendencies and prejudices can make them just as monstrous as the monsters they are fighting.
Works Cited
Basiya, Rajesh V. "The Monster Is Alive: 200 Years of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein." Language In India, July 2018, p. 174+. Academic OneFile, https://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/ A550547912/GPS?u=maine&sid=GPS&xid=3185e584. Accessed 9 Dec. 2018.
Bering, Jesse M. "The cognitive psychology of belief in the supernatural: belief in a deity or an afterlife could be an evolutionarily advantageous by-product of people's ability to reason about the minds of others." American Scientist, vol. 94, no. 2, 2006, p. 142+. General OneFile, https://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A143278798/GPS? u=maine&sid=GPS&xid=84a98e7b. Accessed 9 Dec. 2018.
De Oliveira-Souza, Ricardo. "Phobia of the Supernatural: A Distinct but Poorly Recognized Specific Phobia With an Adverse Impact on Daily Living." Frontiers in Psychiatry, 2018. Academic OneFile, https://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A562446862/GPS?u=maine&sid=GPS&xid=4d03251e. Accessed 6 Dec. 2018.
Gonçalves, Diana. “Popping (It) Up: an Exploration on Popular Culture and TV Series Supernatural.” Diana Gonçalves | Universidade Católica Portuguesa - Academia.edu, Universidade Católica Portuguesa - Lisbon Consortium, 2015, ucp.academia.edu/DianaGon%C3%A7alves. Accessed 6 Dec. 2018.
Shamoon, Deborah. "The yokai in the database: supernatural creatures and folklore in manga and anime." Marvels & Tales, vol. 27, no. 2, 2013, p. 276+. General OneFile, https://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A350786701/GPS?u=maine&sid=GPS&xid=68adb93e. Accessed 6 Dec. 2018.
Westfahl, Gary, and George Slusser. Nursery Realms: Children in the Worlds of Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror. University of Georgia Press, 1999, https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=lrdhYWzpSDkC&oi=fnd&pg=PR7&dq=loss+of+child+innocence+in+horror&ots=LY2sN0v7uv&sig=N2hMVk4u4ZD6_jKHxs-1kM994kM#v=onepage&q=loss%20of%20child%20innocence%20in%20horror&f=false. Accessed 9 Dec. 2018.
Ms. Barklow
Monsters and Misfits
10 December 2018
The Supernatural of a New Generation
I have always been interested in the supernatural, from ghosts and werewolves, to vampires and angels, and everything in between. That’s why I chose the Supernatural, a show about two brothers who fight the supernatural in a modern day setting. Although the show has been one of my favorites, there is one thing I don’t like; the fact that I can’t relate to the characters. Sam and Dean are male protagonists in their late twenties, so it’s harder for the younger generation to understand and relate to some of the things that happen in the show. That’s why in my adaptation, one of the major changes will be to change the main characters and make them the children of Sam and Dean. By doing that, I can still explore some of the main themes from the original show, but also look at themes from a younger perspective. In the original, one theme was how the show portrayed the supernatural creatures and the human in the show, but not making them simply good and evil. Some of the creatures have good intentions, and some humans have dark, evil urges that don’t necessarily make them good just because they’re fighting on the side of it. However, I want to explore the loss of child innocence. A lot of the supernatural is influenced by fears in our own lives, and by forcing these kids to face these fears head on and have to make adult choices, it can be hard to hold onto their childlike innocence.
“Phobia of the Supernatural: A Distinct but Poorly Recognized Specific Phobia with an Adverse Impact on Daily Living”
This source looks at how the supernatural is based off of fears in humans’ own lives, which is why the supernatural is so relatable to its audiences. It examines 6 different cases of people who feared the supernatural and where that fear came from. Oliveira-Souza looks at how the “fears of ghosts and kindred supernatural worries may be a cause of intense discomfort, poor sleep, and socio-occupational impairment.” by examining “the clinical features of six patients who developed intense anxiety when they had to sleep alone at night” (1). Each reported case looked at how people of all ages, ranging from 11 to 63, had developed an intense fear of the supernatural that stemmed from childhood fears or different types of anxiety. In my adaptation, I will examine how the supernatural is rooted in our own fears and can be the cause of different anxieties and force people to make decisions that can have a negative impact on them for the rest of their lives.
“Popping (it) Up: an exploration on popular culture and TV series Supernatural”
This source looks at how Supernatural’s roots come from both other types of pop culture and the fears and anxieties we, as the audience and consumers, experience in our everyday lives. The article explores how Supernatural, “is an example of this double function of serials, in the sense that it both showcases a world in turmoil and danger, evocative of present-day terrorism-induced anxieties and insecurities, and integrates what can be described as a post-9/11 culture, deeply marked, on the one hand, by the events of 2001 and synonymous to a culture of fear and, on the other, by a participatory impulse and an incredibly fast and extensive flow of information.” (Gonçalves 2). In my adaptation, I will look at how I can bring in some of the original roots and themes of supernatural, and how it stems off of events like 9/11 and other horror and pop culture, and also bring in some new, more modern aspects and views from a different generation, who have different fears and anxieties than the audience in 2005 when the show was first aired. It relates more to younger audiences, while still being able to relate to people of all ages through the deeper roots of those same fears as the original show.
“The yokai in the database: supernatural creatures and folklore in manga and anime”
This source looks at yokai, or supernatural in Japanese manga and anime, and how it has been adapted for both modern and more Western audiences by examining two of the most popular anime shows/mangas to date. In this article, Foster states that,
“Sekien's contribution to the popular understanding of yokai is that he made a vague set of beliefs visible, by giving them physical form in his codices, and that he freely added yokai he invented himself, giving his work a playful quality (Pandemonium, 74-75). The result is a malleable, large, and diverse pantheon (or as Foster calls it, pandemonium) that modern texts can draw on while adding layers of modern ideology” (4).
Modern uses of yokai often change some of their more frightening aspects to make them more adaptable for audiences of all ages. I wanted to use this source because it focuses on the supernatural in another culture, and I want to bring in some aspects from that into my adaptation. By looking at supernatural from another culture, I can bring in different beliefs about what supernatural means and where it’s roots come from, but also look at different perspectives of how the supernatural is ingrained in our everyday lives and culture and how it impacts us psychologically.
“Nursery Realms: Children in the Worlds of Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror”
This source looks at how children are portrayed in Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror in Western culture.
“While children may be looked down on as undeveloped adults, they may also be looked up to as beings inherently superior to adults. These contrasting attitudes towards children are epitomized by various pairs of words with common denotations but divergent connotations: childish and childlike, immature and youthful, naive and innocent. Viewed from a different perspective, then, a statement that nonmimetic fiction intrinsically is aimed at or about children would be a compliment, not a criticism. However, one must also recognize that fantasy and horror, one the one hand, and science fiction, on the other hand, have radically different reasons for valuing children as readers and characters” (Westfahl and Slusser 10).
In my adaptation, I will look at how children are portrayed in modern day horror as innocent and pure, and look at why taking away a child’s innocence is so terrifying to its audiences because seeing a child, who is often times a symbol of purity in our world, become as monstrous as adults, it reminds people that nothing is truly pure, or innocent, and anything can be corrupt by evil intentions or even simply human selfishness and corruption.
“The cognitive psychology of belief in the supernatural: belief in a deity or an afterlife could be an evolutionarily advantageous by-product of people's ability to reason about the minds of others.”
This source looks at the psychology of the supernatural and how different people interpret it. Different age groups were part of experiments to see how the supernatural and the religious beliefs in God and the afterlife in Western culture impacted people differently. One of the experiments was with a group of children ranging from ages 4 to 12. In the experiment, the children were presented with a puppet show where a mouse was eaten by an alligator, and then asked questions such as if the mouse still loved it’s mother after death. “Curiously, the younger the child, the more likely he or she was to endow the dead mouse with the capacity to experience various mental states, despite the fact that even preschoolers generally understood that the mouse's body had stopped functioning after death.” Even young children were able to understand the meaning of an afterlife and how the mouse still was able to feel and love even after death. The older children, looking at it with a more biological approach were less likely to give the same answers as the younger children, which shows that “if belief in an afterlife is entirely cultural, older children would have had more exposure and become more socially aligned to prevailing metaphysical beliefs, and therefore would be expected to attribute more traits to the afterlife.” However, although that may have been the case, “most children, even the oldest, refused to say that the mouse stopped loving its mother at death,” showing how the beliefs of religion, the afterlife, and the supernatural are ingrained in as children, and continue to develop as we grow older, even if we look at things through other perspectives (Bering). In my adaptation, I will be looking at how a child’s upbringing can have an impact on who they are and what they believe in as they grow older. As the children of Sam and Dean, the main protagonists have grown up around the supernatural all their lives, and therefore have taken on some of their fathers’ own prejudices and options on these supernatural beings based on their own experiences when they were younger.
“The Monster Is Alive: 200 Years of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein”
This source looks at Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein and explores the theme of how humans can become monsters. Basiva examines both Victor Frankenstein and the Creature, and how their actions blur the lines between monster and man. In the novel, “The monster like a human being was longing for the integration and recognition that are denied to him on account of his appearance.” The Creature is ridiculed and outcast simply because of his looks, and the parts of him that differed from the norm. However, instead of blaming the Creature for his monstrous actions, “Shelly seemingly blames the society for its irresponsibility, showing its obsolescence, lethargy and imperfection of a man. Human beings had only to free themselves from social oppression and prejudice” (Basiya 3). In my adaptation, I will use these same themes that are explored in Frankenstein to examine the main protagonists and how their actions and selfish human tendencies and prejudices can make them just as monstrous as the monsters they are fighting.
Works Cited
Basiya, Rajesh V. "The Monster Is Alive: 200 Years of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein." Language In India, July 2018, p. 174+. Academic OneFile, https://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/ A550547912/GPS?u=maine&sid=GPS&xid=3185e584. Accessed 9 Dec. 2018.
Bering, Jesse M. "The cognitive psychology of belief in the supernatural: belief in a deity or an afterlife could be an evolutionarily advantageous by-product of people's ability to reason about the minds of others." American Scientist, vol. 94, no. 2, 2006, p. 142+. General OneFile, https://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A143278798/GPS? u=maine&sid=GPS&xid=84a98e7b. Accessed 9 Dec. 2018.
De Oliveira-Souza, Ricardo. "Phobia of the Supernatural: A Distinct but Poorly Recognized Specific Phobia With an Adverse Impact on Daily Living." Frontiers in Psychiatry, 2018. Academic OneFile, https://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A562446862/GPS?u=maine&sid=GPS&xid=4d03251e. Accessed 6 Dec. 2018.
Gonçalves, Diana. “Popping (It) Up: an Exploration on Popular Culture and TV Series Supernatural.” Diana Gonçalves | Universidade Católica Portuguesa - Academia.edu, Universidade Católica Portuguesa - Lisbon Consortium, 2015, ucp.academia.edu/DianaGon%C3%A7alves. Accessed 6 Dec. 2018.
Shamoon, Deborah. "The yokai in the database: supernatural creatures and folklore in manga and anime." Marvels & Tales, vol. 27, no. 2, 2013, p. 276+. General OneFile, https://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A350786701/GPS?u=maine&sid=GPS&xid=68adb93e. Accessed 6 Dec. 2018.
Westfahl, Gary, and George Slusser. Nursery Realms: Children in the Worlds of Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror. University of Georgia Press, 1999, https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=lrdhYWzpSDkC&oi=fnd&pg=PR7&dq=loss+of+child+innocence+in+horror&ots=LY2sN0v7uv&sig=N2hMVk4u4ZD6_jKHxs-1kM994kM#v=onepage&q=loss%20of%20child%20innocence%20in%20horror&f=false. Accessed 9 Dec. 2018.