University:
Yeshiva University
Course:
1750 | Philosophy and Criticism of Art
Academic year:

2019
Views:

276

Pages:

1
Author:

AAlvarez

Movies and religion Throughout American Supernatural Thrillers like the movie It Follows, Western Christianity’s central religious ideas develop through those kinds of movies. As such, it creates a whole new expansive social map of judgment and condemnation. Similar to other horror films like The Ring, the demons or some evil entities go out to seek victims that have committed various sinful deeds like adultery and premarital sex. In a way, American horror thrillers paint demons or supernatural entities as some kind of punisher or executioner to their various victims. This suggests the powerful influence Western Christianity has in American Supernatural thrillers like the film It Follows. It goes to show how victims like horny teens that commit sexual sins like adultery and premarital sex end up getting punished by various demons and supernatural entities. It truly showcases Western Christianity's ideas of judgment and condemnation of those who don’t repent and refrain from committing sins like adultery for example. Following this trending theme throughout American Supernatural Thrillers like It Follows, suggests that these horror films can be interpreted as extensions of religion. In the movie It Follows, there are various ways they act like extensions of religion. As previously mentioned before, the films can be interpreted by how the demons carry out judgment, punishment, and condemnation on victims that have committed sinful deeds like adultery and premarital sex. Also, horror films act as branches of religion by showing how morality comes into play. This means that those who commit sinful deeds will end up being punished. Therefore, horror films can be utilized as warnings for young people to refrain from committing sinful deeds. On the idea of why young people can’t have sex out of marriage, Western Christianity explains the huge ramifications of that particular act. Based on Western Christianity, young people having sex out of a marriage can result in having a child out of wedlock. As such, that would lead to that child having a bastard status. This completely goes against Western Christianity’s norms on nuclear family structures. In addition, based on Western Christianity’s beliefs, a child born out of wedlock would mean they’re more likely possessed by the devil and be used to fight in a war against Jesus Christ called Armageddon. So, those are the reasons why young people can’t have sex out of marriage, based on Western Christianity. The documentary on the 1978 American Horror film Halloween logically explains how there was an emotional maelstrom regarding sex during the Counterculture of the 1960s. The reason is that there’s a conflict between the hippies and the mainstream Americans, who created a political fiasco regarding rebellious young folks having sex out of marriage as the enemy within American society. As such, this culminated in Ronald Reagan’s presidency. He then brought on conservative values like the Bible and nuclear family back into American society. Hence, with that context, Halloween’s boogeyman, Micahel Myers, can be interpreted as the executioner and punisher of those who committed sinful deeds like having premarital sex. All in all, it brought on the societal idea that hippies were also public enemy number one as a result.

Movies and Religion

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