A History of Evil in Popular Culture

What Hannibal Lecter, Stephen King, and Vampires Reveal about America [2 volumes]

Sharon Packer MD, Jody Pennington (Herausgeber)

Media-Kombination

825 Seiten

2014
Praeger Publishers Inc
978-0-313-39770-7 (ISBN)

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Evil isn't simply an abstract theological or philosophical talking point. In our society, the idea of evil feeds entertainment, manifests in all sorts of media, and is a root concept in our collective psyche. This accessible and appealing book examines what evil means to us.

Evil has been with us since the Garden of Eden, when Eve unleashed evil by biting the apple. Outside of theology, evil remains a highly relevant concept in contemporary times: evil villains in films and literature make these stories entertaining; our criminal justice system decides the fate of convicted criminals based on the determination of their status as "evil" or "insane." This book examines the many manifestations of "evil" in modern media, making it clear how this idea pervades nearly all aspects of life and helping us to reconsider some of the notions about evil that pop culture perpetuates and promotes.

Covering screen media such as film, television, and video games; print media that include novels and poetry; visual media like art and comics; music; and political polemics, the essays in this book address an eclectic range of topics. The diverse authors include Americans who left the United States during the Vietnam War era, conservative Christian political pundits, rock musicians, classical linguists, Disney fans, scholars of American slavery, and experts on Holocaust literature and films. From portrayals of evil in the television shows The Wire and 24 to the violent lyrics of the rap duo Insane Clown Posse to the storylines of the Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter books, readers will find themselves rethinking what evil is—and how they came to hold their beliefs.

Sharon Packer, MD, is assistant professor of psychiatry and behavioral science at Albert Einstein College of Medicine, NY. Jody Pennington, PhD, is associate professor in media and culture studies at University of Aarhus, Denmark.

Introduction
PART I: NOVELS, POEMS, AND SHORT STORIES
Chapter 1: Gender, Goth, and Gore: Evil in the Horror Fiction of Poppy Z. Brite
Aalya Ahmad
Chapter 2: Inviting the Devil to "Cross Over" the Threshold: The Short Stories of Joyce Carol Oates, Iteration, and American Fears of Precariousness in the 21st Century
Jennifer S. Carlberg
Chapter 3: Stephen King: Evil in Its Many Forms—Children Beware!
Laura Colmenero-Chilberg
Chapter 4: Evil Monsters in Horror Fiction: An Evolutionary Perspective on Form and Function
Mathias Clasen
Chapter 5: The Evils of Slavery and Their Legacy in American Literature
Carol Colatrella
Chapter 6: Hannibal: His History and His Heirs
Sharon Packer
Chapter 7: The Man of the Crowd: Following Poe and Finding Evil in Popular Culture
Caleb Puckett
Chapter 8: "Like Rats behind the Wainscoting": Evil in American Hardboiled Fiction
Eric Sandberg
Chapter 9: "Is It Safe?": Evil and the Escaped Nazi War Criminal in American Novels in the 1970s
Christoph Schiessl
Chapter 10: What American Vampire Literature Teaches Us about Dangerous Consumption
Andrea Siegel
PART II: COMICS, ANIMATION, VIDEO GAMES, MURDERABILIA, AND ART
Chapter 11: "The Sanitation Man": Erasing Evil in Walt Disney
Li Cornfeld
Chapter 12: From Pogo to Pennywise: The Rise of the Evil Clown in American Pop Culture since 1978
Adam W. Darlage
Chapter 13: Marks of Cain: Physical Manifestations of Human Evil in Virtual Narratives
Shawn Edrei
Chapter 14: Pictures of Evil: Francis Bacon's Painting in American Popular Culture
Monika Keska
Chapter 15: Disney's Sorcerers, Magicians, and Wicked Witches and Why Disney's Approach to Evil Spoke to America
Martin J. Manning
Chapter 16: Bad Psychiatrists in Batman: A Mirror into a Murderer's Mind?
Sharon Packer
Chapter 17: The Care and Feeding of Serial Killers: Covert Cultural Values Feed the Market for Murderabilia
Katherine Ramsland
PART III: NEWSCASTS, COURTROOM CASES, AND POLITICAL POLEMICS
Chapter 18: A Touch of Evil: Rewriting True Crime in Pop Culture
Michael Butterfield and Michael D. Kelleher
Chapter 19: Ted Bundy: Celebrity Slayer
George R. "Bob" Dekle
Chapter 20: Evil Empire and Axis of Evil: The Evocation of Evil in Political Rhetoric
Glen M. E. Duerr
Chapter 21: Child Sexualization, Abuse, and Evil in Pop Culture
Gregory K. Moffatt
Chapter 22: From Theodore Roosevelt's "Dark and Evil Spirits of Malice and Greed" to George W. Bush's "Axis of Evil": Evil in American Political Rhetoric
Hans C. Schmidt
Chapter 23: Pornography as Resilient Popular Evil
Joseph W. Slade
PART IV: MYTH AND RELIGION
Chapter 24: The Future Unwritten: How We Learned to Love the End of the World
Ryan P. Doom
Chapter 25: Canonical Evil: The Demonic, the Satanic, and the Persistence of Catholic Paradigms in American Supernatural Horror
Brenda Gardenour Walter
Chapter 26: Sinister Beasts: Animal Symbolism and the Evolutionary Roots of Evil
Micah Issitt
Chapter 27: The Trial of the West Memphis Three: Rival Visions of Evil
Joseph Laycock
Chapter 28: Satan's Most Popular Pawn? Harry Potter and Modern Evangelical Cosmology
William H. Taylor and Kristi R. Humphreys
About the Contributors
Index

Erscheint lt. Verlag	15.7.2014
Sprache	englisch
Gewicht	1729 g
Themenwelt	Kunst / Musik / Theater ► Allgemeines / Lexika
	Kunst / Musik / Theater ► Film / TV
	Geisteswissenschaften ► Sprach- / Literaturwissenschaft ► Anglistik / Amerikanistik
	Geisteswissenschaften ► Sprach- / Literaturwissenschaft ► Literaturwissenschaft
ISBN-10	0-313-39770-8 / 0313397708
ISBN-13	978-0-313-39770-7 / 9780313397707
Zustand	Neuware