User:HumanxAnthro/sandbox/Themes in the Paranormal Activity films

Context

Paranormal Activity was released during a cycle of supernatural horror films similar to one in the 1970s that included

The Paranormal Activity features, like other horror films, involve typical situations becoming askew; and, as with other paranormal fiction, has its hauntings take place in a home someone would find in real-life (Leyda p. 409). However, they subvert expectations of haunted house stories in various ways (North 2015). The evil spirit doesn't just terrorize a single space but wherever a character moves; this creates an impossible dilemma, as moving out of the house won't solve the conflict and recording the paranormal demon's actions only worsens it (North 2015). Colin Dickey also notes that unlike other stories of the genre where the setting is "the creepy mansion at the edge of town", the series take place in houses in the middle of regular neighborhoods (Dickey 2016).

The film's most-incorporated scare tactics include jump scares at the end of long static scenes, normally in the form of a camera getting yanked or something popping up in front of it (Sobczynski 2015).

The Paranormal Activity films are set in

Around the same time as the first film's wide release, the horror film industry had many products with more upfront portrayals of the housing crisis, such as Sam Raimi's Drag Me to Hell (Leyda, p, 399).

Despite no indication from any of the cast and crew that the Paranormal Activity series allegorized the 2008 Great Recession, critics and academics interpreted it that way given its setting and initial release date being at the height of housing bubble (or what then-President George W. Bush termed the "ownership society") and its wide distribution at the peak of the 2008–2009 recession (Leyda, p. 398–399). Throughout the series, the demon is going after the entire family tree for an ancestor not paying the debt of a Faustian bargain (Leyda, p, 398). The demon's actions can be interpreted as presenting the anxiety and fears of families having to fulfill economic contracts during the subprime mortgage crisis (Leyda, pp 398–399).

The homes and lifestyles of the families are usual for suburban

The marketing of the first film is noted for its use of digital immaterial labor, such as social media engagement, and how it was a multi-media paratext of the film itself (Leyda, p. 399).

Gender

Leyda interprets the films as a depiction of

Leyda also noted Martine as portraying "ironic hierarchies" of not just gender but also race and class (Leyda 408). She teeters the "public/private divide," a feminist concept that women are oppressed under working in a private sector where leaders aren't held accountable and civil society not valuing their work; Martine does waged work for Kristi and Dan, with a mixture of both physical house work and affective labor in bonding with the children, yet the family derogatorily calls her a "nanny" (Leyda 407). Dan, the patriarch, fires Martine after learning she is going against his instructions of not burning dried herbs to rid the spirits of the house (Leyda 408). Leyda also perceived Martine getting paid for her work as an example of popular media's commodification of the domestic labor of United States immigrants, which sociologist Mary Romero that it increase social inequities (Leyda 408).

These behaviors are in line with female characters of other media released post-recession, a trend noticed by professors such as Tim Snelson, Yvonne Tasker and Diane Negra; Snelson particularly interpreted women preventing repossession of a house as reinforcing female domesticity (Leyda p. 403–404).

In the third film, set in the late 1980s before a postfeminist era, mother Julie has a career that entirely supports her husband and kids, a structure not taken well by her mother Lois, who signed the Demonic hereditary obligation that haunts her future offspring which they are not aware of. (Leyda p. 405)

Most of the demon's possession takes place in areas of homes with a connotation of femininity, such as a baby's bedroom, a couple's bedroom, and the kitchen (Leyda p. 405).

In the Paranormal Activity franchise, the wife and girlfriend characters are more passive than females of most other 21st-century horror films which have masculine and virginal traits originating from the final girls of slasher flicks of the late 20th century (Leyda, p. 402–403). In Leyda's view, the wives are maternal and very protective, while their male partners ignore advice from their partners and unknowingly place the family in danger, especially through enforcing their bad actions with economic power over their loved ones;(Leyda p. 403) in the third film, Dennis risks the lives of his partner and her two daughters by hiding recorded footage of the demon out of fear it'll scare his girlfriend (Leyda pp. 403–404). Noah Berlatsky finds the relationship of the first film to be abusive, describing it as exposing the problems of the ideal suburban family lifestyle; whereas the second movie depicts a more stable couple haunted by the demon due to no fault of their own (Berlatsky 2018). Berlatsky also interpreted partner Dan unknowingly sending the demon to Katie to solve Kristi's issue, only resulting in Katie killing Kristi and Dan in the end, as a moral that suppressing problems in a family only causes them to be worse in the end (Berlatsky 2018).

The teenage girl characters, such as Ali and Alex, differ from the adult women in that they are independent and play a more active role in stopping the demon, characteristic of final girls (Leyda p. 403).

Linda Liu, in page 82, suspects the third and fourth film to scapegoat the destruction of "affluent heteronormative" families on women-filled covens, in a similar way nonheteronormative individuals and their lifestyles are blamed by conservative politicians for the decline of morality and traditional family values.

According to Liu's source in page 82, the woman figures in the films (who are also witches) have motivations which are known and, as a result, are a threat to what film theorist Laura Mulvey terms the "male gaze." This is also true of femme fatales. However, where witches differ from femme fatales is how they mess with the male gaze, with hidden rituals and supernatural beliefs instead of visual sexually-enticing bodies.

Liu, Page 83: There are moments where the husband character asks his wife to either take off clothes or do sexual activities while on tape, all ending up with the wife refusing to do it. Liu interprets this as the women taking control and going against heternormative portrayals of them typical in mainstream films, as well as adding to their secretive nature that intimidates the male gaze.

Human reactions of paranormal experiences

Benjamin Radford, an investigator and expert of the paranormal, claimed that while in the first film, the ghost is not real, it keeps true to how humans react to what they perceive to be ghosts; this includes them thinking a ghost kicked them off the bed when it's like they were hallucinating and fell off due to a leg spasm, and thinking slight movements of doors, objects, and lights are caused by ghosts when in actuality subtle winds, poor wall painting, or electric malfunction may have caused them (Redford 2009).

Bibliography

Citations

Academic journals

• Grisham, Therese; Leyda, Julia; Rombes, Nicholas; Shaviro, Steven (January 2016). Denson, Shane; Leyda, Julia (eds.). "The Post-Cinematic in PARANORMAL ACTIVITY and PARANORMAL ACTIVITY 2" (PDF). Post-Cinema: Theorizing 21st-Century Film: 841–878. Retrieved March 18, 2021.
• Hahner, Leslie A.; Varda, Scott J.; Wilson, Nathan A. (December 2013). "Paranormal activity and the Horror of Abject Consumption".
  S2CID 145773935
  . Retrieved March 18, 2021.
• Joy, Stuart (2013). "The Patriarchal Construction of Hysteria: Examining the Possessed Woman in the Paranormal Activity Franchise". Monstrous Spaces/Spaces of Monstrosity. 3 (1): 1–18. Retrieved March 20, 2021.
• Leyda, Julia (January 2016). Denson, Shane; Leyd, Julia (eds.). "Demon Debt: PARANORMAL ACTIVITY as Recessionary Post-Cinematic Allegory" (PDF). Post-Cinema: Theorizing 21st-Century Film: 398–432. Retrieved March 18, 2021.
• Liu, Linda (December 2015). "Occult Anxieties and the Recessionary Imaginary in the Paranormal Activity Franchise".
  doi:10.1215/02705346-3160652
  . Retrieved March 18, 2021.
• Swanson, Alexander (March 15, 2015). Bennett, Lucy; Booth, Paul J. (eds.). "Audience reaction movie trailers and the Paranormal Activity franchise".
  doi:10.3983/twc.2015.0611
  . Retrieved March 18, 2021.