Lianne Spiderbaby (Lianne MacDougall) is a writer for Fangoria, Cineplex, Famous Monsters, FearNet, Film Journal International and Video Watchdog magazine. Her new book, Grindhouse Girls: Cinema’s Hardest Working Women, is being published by St. Martin's Press. Lianne is also the host of Fright Bytes, and her journalistic force has started to "bleed" out of the horror genre and into the mainstream. Lianne Spiderbaby holds an honors degree in Film Studies, University of Toronto.
It's here - Halloween is upon us! Since I've covered the 80s, 70s, and the 60s, I thought I would wrap things up with a little doo wop ditty from the 50s that you can listen to while handing out candy to kids at your door. I've also included some pictures from last night's festivities at the RUE MORGUE PARTY below.
For the 50s, here is Archie King's "He's A Vampire".
Lon Chaney Jr is one of horror most notorious and famous actors. He played the Wolf Man in the 1940s original film. My Dad grew up in Windsor, and he used to deliver newspapers to Lon Chaney when he was in Canada filming in the 1950s. Thus, I decided to include this song as part of the 50s Halloween tribute. The nice thing about this song is that... it will take us into Christmas (and the monsters will still continue...)!
On to some photographs from last night...
xox
Lianne Spiderbaby
Follow me on twitter @liannemac
and visit www.fangoria.com to read more of me!
We're almost there, kids! 1 more day! However, if you are like me - the partying starts tonight! I will be at the Rue Morgue Ceremonia Satanica party at Revival tonight. You should come! Details HERE.
On to the music! This is one of my all-time favourite songs, ever since I was a lil' girl. My Dad would always sing it, and I remember being excited when it would play in our car when he drove me to my elementary school. I couldn't wait to hear it every year, and now... I listen to it almost everyday. It's Bobby 'Boris' Pickett's MONSTER MASH (obviously).
Our soundtrack song today comes from a movie made by a man I adore, my good buddy Herschell Gordon Lewis. At the 2007 FESTIVAL OF FEAR here in TORONTO, Herschell performed his song from his film, TWO THOUSAND MANIACS! (1964). I was actually at this performance, as I was working as Herschell's personal assistant for the weekend. My editor at Fangoria - Chris Alexander - accompanied Herschell with guitar + vocals. It was awesome. Here is Herschell performing!
That's all for today - have fun tonight! Come say hello!
xox Lianne Spiderbaby
Follow me on twitter @liannemac
and visit www.fangoria.com to read more of me!
DAY 4 on our HALLOWEEN COUNTDOWN! Today we're swinging with the 70s. One of my favourite eras for horror.
A band called RED BONE wrote a cool track called The Witch Queen of New Orleans that is super swank and 70s sounding. Check it out. The sound effects are awesome, and so is their clothing.
Our soundtrack song for the day comes from a film made in 1973 - one of my all time favourites - Robyn Hardy's THE WICKER MAN. This scene is incredible - nudity warning. A band called the Sneaker Pimps recorded a version of this song, that Eli Roth used in HOSTEL (2005) as a tribute to this song below. It's a gem!
xox Lianne Spiderbaby
Follow me on twitter @liannemac
and visit www.fangoria.com to read more of me!
Today is an 80s themed Halloween music day. The next song I've chosen I came across last night, and it blew my mind. I think you will be impressed. May I present to you - TOTAL COELO!
Are you KIDDING me?! That song is amazing! I need to meet that band. I need to be in that band!
Moving onto soundtracks - Lucio Fulci's THE BEYOND. The music was composed by Fabio Frizzi - who is a complete genuis. Enjoy!
Tomorrow is 70s horror countdown day... we're getting closer...!
Follow me on twitter: @liannemac
read more of my writing at FANGORIA !
I've chosen a song that's purely vintage today - "Spooks!" done by Louis Armstrong with Gordon Jenkins and his Chorus and Orchestra. The poor fella himself goes downstairs just to check the lock, when he is invaded by ghosts who want to mess with the water pump and "harass the pup." And finally he's fleeing his house. I love this record.
Our soundtrack song for the day comes from one of my most favourite movies, Hitchcock's PSYCHO. This film is perfection, as is it's soundtrack.
Until tomorrow!
xox Lianne Spiderbaby
Follow me on twitter @liannemac
and visit www.fangoria.com to read more of me!
Greetings! I've been so busy writing non-stop forFangoria that I haven't been updating my personal website. I know, there is no excuse. However, I will be posting all of my Fango articles on here as well after they have been published. Soon!
But for now, I'm going to be counting down to Halloween with two songs everyday. One song from one of my favourite horror soundtracks, and one song by an artist/band.
The first is DAVID BOWIE's Scary Monsters - for reasons that I think are obvious. Bowie is one of my favourite artists. He's smart, sexy, subversive, and he's written some of the most incredible records.
The next video is from Umberto Lenzi's CANNIBAL FEROX (1981). The fabulous soundtrack is by Buddy Maglione I saw this film in gorgeous 35mm print at the Toronto Underground Cinema last Friday. It was fantastic. I also had the pleasure to talk with Sage Stallone of Grindhouse Releasing for an upcoming article that will be in Fangoria. Be sure to check it out!
And scarier from CANNIBAL FEROX...
More tomorrow... be prepared!
xox Lianne Spiderbaby
Follow me on twitter @liannemac
and visit www.fangoria.com to read more of me!
In the 1960s and ’70s, Hollywood studios and movie palaces struggled to redefine themselves in the age of television. Moviegoing was at an all-time low in Canada and the United States, and the old movie theaters were becoming rundown and second-run. Gone were the days of vaudeville, friendly interaction in the lobby and a full experience at the movies.
Around this time, Jack Valenti (president of the Motion Picture Association of America) announced the creation of the ratings system that still affects filmmaking today. However, the MPAA did not copyright the X rating (persons under 17 not admitted), so it could be self-imposed, as was the case with the many “triple-X” films of the period. While major studios concentrated on more mainstream fare, porno and other exploitation fare was churned out by independent filmmakers and shown by independent exhibitors. These films often ended up in North America’s sleaziest, most unmaintained, underground theaters now know as the…grindhouses!
Today, when patrons enter a movie theater, they have several decisions to make: what to see, what to eat and where to socialize before the film, whether it be the arcade or the highly evolved washrooms where you no longer have to touch the taps to wash your hands. Essentially, an idiosyncratic element of the moviegoing experience has disappearing with the advent of multiplexes. The atmosphere that was once a big part of what cinema had to offer has given way to new trends in neutral environments where comfort and uniformity matter most. The grindhouses were attractions in and of themselves; these venues even had people sleeping and living in them!
Times Square in New York City was America’s most notorious sleaze district, designed to get you off by any means necessary. One of the main sections, dubbed “The Deuce,” was made up of wall-to-wall grindhouses, which showcased the most extreme films in cinematic history. Spectators at a Deuce theater could watch horror films while taking hallucinogens or snacking on candy, and especially adventurous viewers could go up to one of the balconies and engage in sexual activity while the movie was playing. Wes Craven’s THE LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT was one of the Deuce’s most popular films, playing on and off for a decade.
Manhattan, of course, was not the only city graced with grindhouses. Toronto, Canada was home to three theaters that spent a few years functioning in that capacity, showing exploitation features on a regular basis. These were The Elgin, The Bloor Cinema and The Metro.
The Elgin Theatre opened in 1913, and was initially a vaudeville house. In the late ’20s, it underwent a transformation to show motion pictures. The Elgin enjoyed a good run until the 1970s, when it started to screen exploitation and softcore pornography. Between 1981-89, it closed down completely, and has since reopened to become one of Canada’s most beautiful historic theaters.
The Bloor opened in 1905, and fell under a dark spell in 1973, when it became an adult-movie house known as The Eden. The Eden’s grindhouse days lasted until 1979, when it became the Bloor Cinema, screening art, classic, cult and second-run films.
The Metro Theatre holds a special place in the hearts of many Torontonians. It still serves as an adult-flick grindhouse, making it quite possibly the last of its kind in Canada. When you first enter, the lobby is well-lit, with glass cases displaying vintage XXX video boxes and sex toys. Once you step into the auditorium, there is a faint smell of mothballs and mildew, and the seats are velour, so sitting down is a decision you’ll have to make for yourself. The Metro provides a rare opportunity for exploitation fans to get a sense of what a 1970s grindhouse might have looked and felt like.
The notion of watching sleazy/genre movies on the big screen is an impulse that won’t be disappearing anytime soon. In fact, more and more theaters are opening across North America that allow audiences a chance to experience moviegoing the way it used to be, before the overwhelming multiplexes. The grindhouse legacy is growing, as films that once played those theaters are constantly being remade, from Craven’s LAST HOUSE and THE HILLS HAVE EYES to, most recently, Meir Zarchi’s I SPIT ON YOUR GRAVE. And of course, Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino teamed in 2007 to make GRINDHOUSE, a double feature complete with previews that championed and paid homage the films shown in those old theaters. One of those fake trailers even became a feature itself: Rodriguez and Ethan Maniquis’ MACHETE. All that is associated with those vintage theaters remains extremely popular with filmmakers, exhibitors and audiences.
Paul Corupe, genre journalist/editor and founder of the popular Canadian website Canuxploitation.com, speculates as to why they continue to be so popular: “The grindhouses represented a real subversive alternative to mainstream Hollywood, aggressively exploring taboos like extreme violence, gore, kinky sex, racism, prostitution, and drug use—and often, what was going on inside the theaters was just as shocking! Patrons sought out these sleazy films precisely because they were so unashamedly sensationalistic, and a trip to the grindhouse always guaranteed viewers a provocative experience—even if the films themselves may have been amateurishly made.”
My favorite new Toronto venue, The Toronto Underground Cinema, screens exploitation, horror and cult classics every week, Thursday through Sunday. Charlie Lawton, Nigel Agnew and Alex Woodside reinvented the place in early 2010 because they felt there was a void in the city’s cinema scene, and that local cinephiles needed a place to watch their favorite films in a theatrical setting. Lawton states that the audiences who come out to their screenings are very diverse; when the Underground showed ILSA, SHE WOLF OF THE SS, one patron told Lawton he hadn’t seen the film since it played at a 1970s drive-in. There are also many younger film fans who are nostalgic for a period in film history that took place before they were born; many have heard about the grindhouses of the ’70s and want to experience something similar for themselves. It’s a luxury to be able to watch these films on the big screen, with an audience, and lose yourself in the entrancing experience of the theater, Lawton notes. The biggest crowds at the Toronto Underground so far have been BATMAN (the 1966 feature, for which actor Adam West was present), and EASY RIDER.
It’s quite clear that the grindhouse did not disappear with the era that created it. Film theorist Huge Munsterberg wrote extensively on audience interaction with the cinema; motion pictures make use of devices such as the close-up to determine what the audience sees. In THE PHOTOPLAY: A PSYCHOLOGICAL STUDY, he notes that camera manipulation has the potential to control audience attention. However, in a grindhouse, the spectator’s gaze could be drawn away from the screen due to behavior of other audience members, or the excitement and experience of the theater itself. Today, venues such as the Toronto Underground Cinema, films like MACHETE and the I SPIT ON YOUR GRAVE remake, exhibits like Grindbox and cult/horror festivals present moviegoers with a genuine opportunity to experience that old feeling in some capacity—without LSD-tripping patrons and balcony sex. Viva la grindhouse!
xox
Lianne Spiderbaby
Special thanks to Charlie Lawton and Paul Corupe. Hugo Munsterberg, big ups to you, too.
So it's official this morning, friends! I'm writing for Fangoria! Mostly webspace stuff to start off, but I'm currently working on two pieces for print as I type. This has been a dream since I can remember, so it's all very exciting for me. Please check out my FIRST Fango article by clicking the link here:
In 1972, the year of the Watergate break-in, a hardcore pornographic film opened at the New Mature World Theater in New York City. Al Goldstein of Screw magazine gave the film, entitled Deep Throat a rave review. A catchy ad campaign ran in New York dailies: “If you like head, you’ll love THROAT” and word of mouth, so to speak, spread quickly. It was the beginning of what Ralph Blumenthal of the New York Times called "porno chic". The 1970s had just begun and the sexual revolution was embraced by all classes and genders. All except the Nixon government and Republicans alike. This analysis will first explore and illustrate how the general public received Deep Throat and how the film itself came into being. Secondly, I will examine the exhibition of the film as a cinematic practice and how widely it was shown. Finally, I will discuss how the Nixon Administration tried prosecuting the film from every angle when the Watergate Scandal was occurring. Thus, the political relations of Deep Throat will be explored as well. Deep Throat was right on time. A new, sexually enlightened and vigorous America was gagging for a film such as this, and America got it. The Nixon government attacked Deep Throat to distract attention away from the Watergate Scandal, which only made the film more popular and successful.
In order to understand the reception of Deep Throat, it is imperative to recognize how and why the film itself came into being. By the 70s, all sexual taboos were being broken. Not only broken,, but displayed larger than life on the silver screen, as in the case of Deep Throat. When the sexual revolution occurred, suddenly people were having more sex and openly talking about it. Deep Throat came along at a time when the way people thought about sexual activity was changing. Middle aged, older, and intrigued suburbanites of all classes lined up at seedy theaters all across the country just to get a glimpse of Linda Lovelace’s oral abilities. An act that had previously been considered an obscenity had now gained a glimmer of respectability. New York Times writer Ralph Blumenthal labeled the movie the new “porno chic”. In an interview with actor Harry Reems (Deep Throat), he stated that “Deep Throat came out at the right place at the right time. There was so much social revolution in the mid-late 60s: anti-Vietnam movements, women's movements, and the black rights’ movement. That generation had grown up learning that sex was shameful and something you saved for marriage. Deep Throat caught the attention of everyone growing out of these false assumptions.”
Filming Deep Throatwas not all an essay task. Gerry Damiano’s camera could always be turned on, but he needed actors that could get turned on just as quickly. Damiano really liked Harry Reems, and he was a total exhibitionist. Linda became the movie; she was the movie. Damiano gave her a movie star name (Linda Lovelace is really Linda Boreman), and used lighting tricks and camera angles to hide her abdominal scar. The cast and crew settled into the Voyager Inn on Biscayne Boulevard and spent six days shooting scenes in sunny Miami. Though the cast and crew were from New York, Deep Throat was shot in Miami. This was due to the fact that Fort Lauderdale was the base of operations for Damiano’s underworld sponsor of funds. In the 70s, many pornographic films were funded by the mafia. Louis Peraino was the son of Anthony Peraino, a made man in the Columbo family which was was one of the five mafia gangs that ruled New York City. Louis Peraino put up $25,000 for the movie and received producer credit (under an alias). At first, Peraino was very critical of Damiano’s starlet, Linda Lovelace. She was an ordinary looking girl with a good body, though she had a few visible scars as a result of a car accident. However, once Peraino saw what Linda could do, he was confident and content with Damiano’s decision. Linda Lovelace is the reason why the film is called Deep Throat. The working title had been “The Sword Swallower”, but Deep Throatwas the picture’s key phrase because Linda Lovelace was able to give fellatio all the way down into her throat.
Deep Throat was the first porn film seen by a substantial number of women, perhaps because the narrative was actually all about the dilemmas of female sexual pleasure and one woman’s quest to achieve it, despite anatomical hindrance. Deep Throat was important for women because all of a sudden, a film was discussing the pleasure a women gets out of sexual intercourse. In the film, Linda discusses how she has never had a mind blowing orgasm. Deep Throat was one of the first heterosexual pornography movies that focused on fellatio conferring more power on the person performing it than on the one receiving it. The film’s identification of the clitoris as the center of women’s sexuality defied the then dominant patriarchal belief in the vaginal orgasm. In a particular scene in the film, Linda explains to Dr.Young (Reems) that she can not achieve orgasms, whatever her sexual activity. “There should be bells ringing, dams bursting, bombs going off!” she complains. Dr.Young, after a minute of examination, detects Linda’s clitoris is in her throat and not in her vaginal area where it should be. Linda begins to cry as she sits spread eagle, and Dr.Young tries to console her. “Having a clitoris deep down in the bottom of your throat is better than having no clitoris at all,” he says. “That’s easy for you to say, suppose your balls were in your ear!” Linda snaps. Dr. Young pauses, then laughs, and says: ‘Well, then I could hear myself coming!” Damiano’s script has several inserts of sexual humor, such as this one. The acting style and the background music is campy and over the top. The camera is always placed where the best possible shot of a naked body can be seen. The cinematography is rather basic and the editing is simple, almost always employing the direct cut. What is significant about this scene is the fact that it recognizes the clitoris as the source of sexual pleasure for a woman. The premise might be silly, but the fantasy of male-female sexual synchrony is poignant: it imagines a universe where men and women can obtain pleasure from all the same sexual activities. This scene establishes an interest in trying to explore womens sexual appetites and needs, even if those needs were self-serving from the standpoint of the men who produced such a movie.
A woman’s pleasure during sex is also conveyed in a scene that gives reason to why the film is called Deep Throat. After Dr. Young examines Linda and discovers that her clitoris is in her throat, she then performs oral sex on him and something significant occurs: Linda Lovelace has her first out-of-this-world orgasm. Linda begins to perform fellatio on Dr. Young while a song beings to play with lyrics about the action in which she is engaging in. Linda takes Dr. Young’s penis all the way down into her throat in a close up, a shot that would have astounded audiences across America. The close up of Linda with Dr.Young’s penis in her mouth is then juxtapositioned with shots of large bells, fireworks and and rockets launching. This conveys to the spectator that finally, Linda is able to reach orgasms like she described to Dr.Young earlier. This is a very crucial scene in the film, Damiano is able to depict the female orgasm on screen. Audiences were blown away. Showing the male orgasm is much easier, as it makes use of the “money shot” (visible ejaculation). However, the female orgasm is much harder to portray, but Damiano was able to do so, using nondiegetic inserts to show Linda climaxing.
Of course, it is easy to dismiss the misplaced clitoris gimmick as a set up for extended fellatio scenes (or women sexually servicing men, as some anti-porn rhetoric states), but there are a few scenes in the film where only the woman is being pleasured through cunnilingus. For example, in a scene close to the beginning of the film, Linda walks in to find her friend Helen receiving oral sex from the grocery delivery boy. Helen sits perched on the kitchen table and does not try to cover anything up when Linda walks in the room. Helen asks Linda to hand her a cigarette and help her put away the groceries. The scene is intended to be funny with highly corny dialogues, songs, and puns. In this particular scene, Helen states to the grocery boy, “Mind if I smoke? While you’re eating?” He does not mind at all, and he continues to orally pleasure her as she lights up her cigarette and the music starts up. There are several close ups on Helen’s face while she enjoys the act, and on the grocery boy as he licks her genital area. Helen throws her cigarette into the sink and the scene ends. This scene demonstrates that Deep Throat actually does put women’s sexual pleasure on par with men’s.
On June 5, 1972 Screw magazine printed a review of Deep Throat. Publisher and writer Al Goldstein gave the film the highest possible rating on the Peter-Meter17. The following year, on January 21, 1973, Vincent Canby finally decided it was time to write a review of Deep Throat for the New York Times. He stated that “the film itself remains junk, as best only a souvenir of a time and place. If Deep Throat had not caught the attention of the public at this particular time, some other porno flick would have.” Whether or not this is actually true, Canby could not deny the social and sexual phenomenon that was Deep Throat. “Deep Throat has become the most financially successful hardcore pornographic film ever to play New York.”
One of the most important factors surrounding Deep Throat was how the film was exhibited during the 70s. On June 12, 1972, Deep Throat premiered at the New World Mature Theater in Manhattan. Deep Throat opened right around the corner from the Time + Life Building on 49th Street in Manhattan. It opened three days before the break-in at the Watergate Hotel in Washington D.C. (which will be discussed further later). The first week in theaters, Deep Throat grossed $30,033. The audience seemed to appreciate the mildly bright, good-natured comedy about sex and fellatio. When audiences saw the film, some were disgusted but most were entertained. It became the big date movie of 1972. Before Deep Throat, the mood in a sex theater was solitary and monastic. The patrons were usually of lower class and male. Deep Throat turned pornographic film into a communal experience. You could satisfy your curiosity and articulate opinions that would sustain hours of gossip with friends. “‘When Deep Throat opened up in New York, it became chic to go by there at eleven o’clock and try to get into the theater,’ remembers porn director Anthony Spinelli. ‘People in their evening clothes would come out of a Broadway show and say ‘Let’s go see Deep Throat!’” This was a movie that not only showed oral, vaginal and anal sex on screen but actually featured a real story like ‘normal’ movies have. The film has a proper narrative, starting with a problem, finishing with a solution.
According to it’s producer, Deep Throat outgrossed Cabaret and the sequel to Shaft. But who was going to see it? What were the crowds like? Accounts from the day include such fans as mike Nichols, Ed McMahon, Frank Sinatra, Warren Beatty, Shirley MacLaine, and Sammy Davis Jr. Celebrity attention began to shove pornography towards the mainstream. Many comedians worked the film into their performances. Johny Carson and Bob Hope both made jokes on national television. Deep Throat was not just an old dirty movie, it was a social cause and it became so well received at the box office that film critics had to review it to keep their credibility. Linda Lovelace became a star practically overnight. After a year of the movie’s release, she appeared on the cover of Esquire Magazine and was featured in a Playboy pictorial. She also went on to publish four autobiographies. Mainstream newspapers and magazines reviewed Deep Throat because it was sufficiently dangerous, newsworthy, and popular. Some people even believed that there would be a meeting between pornography and Hollywood cinema, which was already striding towards explicit sexuality.
Following the film’s release there was a consequent debate over public decency, the representation of human sexuality and the merits of Damiano’s film itself. Upon its exhibition throughout the country first run theaters began showing the movie. The following are dates in which certain cities opened Deep Throat in a given theater (The dates listed below are theaters that were subject to controversy in showing the film): June 12, 1972: New York City, New World Mature Theater. August 1972: Binghamton, New York at the Strand Theater. August 1972: New Orleans at the Plaza Theater. August 1972: opens in more theaters in New Work: the World Theater, The san Franciso Theater, the Paree. September, 1972: Princeton, New Jersey at the Prince Theater. November, 1972: Los Angeles at the Pussycat Theater. February, 1973: New Port, Kentucky at the Cinema X Theater. February, 1973: Studio E theater in Denver, and in theaters in Detroit and Oklahoma City. The Playhouse Cinema in Southfield, Michigan also shows the film at this time. However in most of these theaters the film was later confiscated and legal action was taken upon several theater managers. This will be discussed further later on. These dates are just a few among the many openings of Deep Throat in the country.
Particularly interesting among these release dates is the first-run Prince Theater in Princeton, New Jersey. Most theaters, as mentioned before, confronted certain issues upon releasing Deep Throat. However in Princeton, Bruce M. Schragger, the Mercer County Prosecutor, said he was not taking “action against the film because of the uncertainty of the laws and because he felt his office had more important issues to deal with.” With this said, would it not seem as though the Nixon government would have had more important things to do, considering the Watergate Scandal had just blown up?
When Deep Throat was released in New York City, an interesting and terrifying political scandal was taking place. In short the Watergate scandal was an American political scandal and constitutional crisis of the 1970s, which eventually led to the resignation of President Richard Nixon. The affair was named after the hotel where the burglary that led to a series of investigations occurred. Initial investigations of Watergate were heavily influenced by the media, particularly the work of two reporters from the Washington Post, Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, along with their mysterious informant, who’s alias was ‘Deep Throat’. A Committee was organized to investigate Watergate and they uncovered the existence of White House tape recordings, sparking a major political and legal battle between the Congress and President Nixon.
In 1974, Nixon was forced to resign. The Watergate Scandal is significant in terms of Deep Throat because President Nixon took the time out of his busy, scandalous schedule to fight pornography and Deep Throat, including those involved with the production.
In 1970, the Commission concluded that pornography had no harmful effects, but Nixon rejected these findings. Up until the 70s, New York had one of the country’s more strict film censorship boards. Although a few hardcore films such as Mona and School Girl were shown without incident in Manhattan theaters, the success and attendant news coverage of Deep Throat required police action, for whatever reason. Prosecutors had Deep Throat banned in New York (one of the most outrageous arguments being that the film endorsed the pernicious belief in the clitoral orgasm!), resulting in twenty three more states following suit. On December 28, 1972, a non jury trial opened up in Manhattan to determine whether or not Deep Throat was obscene. A jury in Binghamton, New York had already ruled that the film was not. Deep Throat was in and out of the courts as city administration was trying to get rid of sex-oriented establishments in the midtown area of New York. The police had raided the theater on August 29. At the trail, Professor Arthur Knight of the University of Southern California testified that “the hardcore pornographic film Deep Throat had redeeming social value, because it might encourage people to expand their sexual horizons”. In court, on December 30, a psychiatrist testified that the “variety of sex acts shown in ‘Deep Throat’ were all well within the bounds of normal behaviour and that viewing them would lighten the load of guilt and shame often associated with sex.” On March 1 1973, Deep Throat was found obscene in New York City by Judge Joel Tyler.
Following the decision, handed down at 11 a.m., police entered the World Theater and seized a print of Deep Throat. However, Deep Throat continued to show in certain cities in some theaters. In fact, Deep Throat continued to open in various theaters across America until 1976. After taking out the exhibitors of the film, the FBI went after the filmmakers. In 1976, Harry Reems was found guilty of obscenity and conspiracy for appearing in Deep Throat. He was sentenced to five years in jail. “For the first time in U.S. history,” narrator of the film Inside Deep Throat, Dennis Hopper notes, “an actor had been convicted for merely playing a part.” Famous actors such as Jack Nicholson and Warren Beatty helped Reems get acquitted on appeal. His conviction was overturned during the Carter Administration. So why did Nixon gag so badly over Deep Throat? The film was a popular porn movie produced the the mafia, which could be one reason. However, his attack on the film and pornography did extract attention away from other scandalous evils being committed by the Nixon Administration. Many people believed that pornography was filthy and Nixon gained support by going head to head with Deep Throat and the most successful hardcore film of the time. It is rather ironic that Nixon, the nemesis of Deep Throat, was undone by Deep Throat the informant. Fenton Bailey, director of Inside Deep Throat stated that “Deep Throat, the Watergate source was this outlaw voice, this almost forbidden voice speaking out against corruption. Deep Throat the movie was also a voice speaking out for sexual freedom” Nixon attempted to gain the trust and the like of people by cracking down on pornography and distracting attention away from the Watergate Scandal.
After the early 70s, pornography began to change. The tragedy of AIDS struck and killed several pornographic actors such as John Holmes, Wade Nichols and Chuck Vincent. Some say that the sexual revolution of the 70s caught AIDS and died. Perhaps the government had won the battle over pornography and filth. However, porno chic appeared to have died long before that. If in 1972, Deep Throat gave hope to the idea that sex might emerge with major Hollywood cinema, films such as Spielberg’s Jaws and George Lucas’ Star Wars in the late seventies certainly killed that idea. Films were now appealing more to teenagers, children and younger generations. The biggest change occurred in 1982, when films went straight to video. It seems as though pornography has lost it’s innocence as well. No longer can one see a hardcore film with a simple, freckled girl-next-door type like Linda Lovelace. Sex in pornographic films is no longer humorous and experimental, it is just down right dirty. However, the popularity of Deep Throat has not all been forgotten. The documentary Inside Deep Throat was released in 2005 and it was very successful, just like Deep Throat was in the early 70s. Exhibition of Deep Throat, although not always a success (as it was taken to court several times) still resulted in approximately $600 million in revenue from film spectators34. While the Nixon Administration tried to bury Deep Throat and pornography in order to draw attention away from the Watergate Scandal, they only made it more popular. The creators of Deep Throat could not have asked (or afforded) better publicity. The film is truly a social and political phenomenon. The days of Deep Throat and porno chic are dead, but are not forgotten.
By. Lianne Spiderbaby. Copyright.
Follow me on Twitter: @liannemac
This essay on 'DEEP THROAT' would not be possible without quotes and research from:
Bibliography
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Canby, Vincent. “What Are We To Think Of ‘Deep Throat’?” New York Times 21 Jan. 1973;
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Clark, Roy Peter. Oral History: How Deep Throat Changed America 1 June. 2005. 4 November. 2005.
Deep Throat. Dir. Gerry Damiano. Perf. Harry Reems. 1972. DVD. VCA DVD, 1998.
Ephron, Nora. Linda Lovelace. Esquire Magazine. February 1973. 4 November 2005.
Farewell Deep Throat? So Long, Miss Jones? Time Magazine 13 May, 1974. 4 November 2005.
Goldstein, Al. Deep Throat (1972). Screw Magazine. 5, June 1972. 4 November 2005.
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Inside Deep Throat. Inside Inside Deep Throat 2004. 4 november. 2005.
Inside Deep Throat. Dir. Fenton Bailey and Randy Barbato. Narr. Dennis Hopper. 2005. DVD. Universal Pictures, 2005.
Lane, Anthony. Oral Values: Inside Deep Throat The New Yorker 28 February. 2005. 4 November 2005.
McClintock, Anne. “Gonad The Barbarian And The Venus Flytrap: Portraying The Female and Male Orgasm,” pp.111-131 in Sex Exposed. New Jersey: Rutgers University Press, 1993.
McNeil, Legs and Osbourne, Jennifer. The Other Hollywood: The Uncensored Oral History of the Porn Film Industry. New York: Regan Books, 2005. pp. 10 - 453.
Montgomery, Paul L. “Behaviour In ‘Throat’ Termed Normal”. New York Times 30 Dec. 1972; ProQuest Historical Newspapers The New York Times (1851 - 2001) pp. 49.
Montgomery, Paul L. “Film Critic Says ‘Deep Throat’ Could Expand Sexual Horizons”. New York Times 21 Dec. 1972; ProQuest Historical Newspapers The New York Times (1851 - 2001) pp. 40.
Montgomery, Paul L.. “State Loses A Round In Pornography Fight”. New York Times 26 Nov. 1972; ProQuest Historical Newspapers The New York Times (1851 - 2001) pp. 97.
Olsen., Keith W. Watergate: The Presidential Scandal That Shook America. Kansas: University Press Of Kansas, 2003. pp. 10-45.
Pinsky, Appellate Judge Mike. The Rise And Fall and Rise Of Harry Reems: A DVD Verdict Interview 20 Sept. 2005. 4 November. 2005.
Special To The New York Times. “Deep Throat, Disputed Sex Film, Opens Near Princeton; No Legal Step Set”. New York Times 28 Sept. 1972; ProQuest Historical Newspapers The New York Times (1851 - 2001) pp. 98.
Williams, Linda. “Pornographies on/scene: Diff’rent Strokes For Diff’rent Folks,” pp.233-265 in Sex Exposed. New Jersey: Rutgers University Press, 1993.
I am a writer, film reviewer, teacher, and cinema scholar (University of Toronto, Honours BA), specializing in horror and genre films. Prior to writing for blogs, websites, zines, and magazines, I wrote two successful essays/thesis on 'Grindhouse Theatres and Spectatorship Practices: NYC & Toronto" and "Deep Throat: A Filmic Perspective on the Watergate Scandal and the War On Pornography".
Follow me on twitter at @liannemac and visit here often!
The American film industry changed more between 1970 and 1985 than at any other period in its history, except for the coming of sound. In the 1970s, horror films were at their peak because America itself was a horror show. The Vietnam War was in full force; the government was corrupt; police were shooting students for exercising their rights and protesting; technology was replacing workers, leaving many without jobs. The American hero of World War II had vanished, and directors such as Tobe Hooper were compelled to comment on this disappearance in their films. From the early 70s and throughout the early 80s, the American horror film underwent a rapid changes. In this essay, I will be examining two films directed by Tobe Hooper: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974) and The Funhouse (1981). I will use these films to stamp out social and historical meanings of the periods in question, as well as include a formal analysis of each film. Both of these films derive from the horror genre and I will make specific note of the changes and shifts that occur between the films coming from their respective years. I will then examine the ideological tensions and social anxieties that The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and The Funhouse reflect in the different eras which they were released. The questioning of authority in the 70s spread logically to a questioning of the entire social structure that validated it, and ultimately to patriarchy itself: the family, and the symbolic figure of the Father in all its manifestations. In the 80s, there was still no resolution of these conflicts and instead, they were forgotten and masqueraded. This was reflected in horror films; they diminished, defused and rendered safe all the major radical movements that had gained so much in the 70s, especially radical feminism and the assault on patriarchy. As a result, horror films in the 80s presented much more secure and dominant father/male figures, and violent repression against women. Tobe Hooper’s The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and The Funhouse illustrate these changes.
The United States of America was undergoing some major changes in the late 1960s and the early 1970s. In the wake of the 1960s many of the social dimensions and perspective towards issues were increasingly seen in much more liberal perspectives. The corporate culture was changing in the 1970s as well, where the hierarchy between supervisor and subordinates became increasingly flat and equal. This had influence in social interaction and the family relationship as well. The role of women in nuclear families took radical shift from those of earlier generations. Women held important roles in society outside of the home and women had jobs on par with men. Social norms and laws were increasingly framed in favor of women. At the start of the 70s, President Nixon proved to be popular with the American people, in that he sent the last American troops from Vietnam, and took some steps forward in normalizing relations with China and Russia. However, the Watergate scandal erupted soon after which put the entire Nixon administration in jeopardy. He resigned his post in 1974, the year in which Hooper’s The Texas Chainsaw Massacre was released (to be discussed further later). Due to the war in Vietnam and the Watergate scandal, there was a sudden lack of confidence and assertiveness in authoritative establishments. The obvious monstrousity of the war undermined the credibility of the system and this questioning of authority spread logically to a questioning of the entire social structure that validated it, and ultimately to patriarchy itself: feminism was on the rise, social institutions, the family, and the symbolic figure of the father were all questioned during this period.
Before discussing the 1980s and the changes taking place in America, it is imperative to examine the feminist movement of the 1970s further, especially in terms of the cinema and film theory. Feminism is a diverse collection of social theories and political movements largely motivated by or concerning the experiences of women. As a social movement, feminism largely focuses on limiting or eradicating gender inequality and promoting woman’s rights, interests, and issues in society. It also incorporates concern about the effect of gender roles on men, and encouragement for men to change and transcend traditional male roles and norms of masculinity. The feminist movement became\popular and widespread in the 1970s due to the increasing number of women working outside of the home, branching out of the stereotypical nuclear family setting with the dominant male father figure at the forefront. At this time, advancements were also being made in feminist film theory. Film theorist Laura Mulvey published her article Visual Pleasure And Narrative Cinema in Screen journal in 1975 and the article is so influential and important that it is still taught in almost all cinema studies courses in North America. According to Mulvey’s paradigm, the threat of castration (as absence and lack) posed by the image of the female form in Hollywood cinema is contained through a sexualized objectification of that form, whether fetishistic-scopohphilic (woman displayed as erotic spectacle, rendered through unthreatening by the aggressive, controlling male gaze) or sadistic-voyueristic (woman investigated and eventually controlled through punishment) in nature. This articulation of punishment towards women in the cinema will be examined further in this essay’s discussion of horror movies in the 80s, including Hooper’s The Funhouse.
The crisis in ideological and social anxieties of the 70s had not been resolved by the early 80s. Instead, it had simply been forgotten and masked. Feminism had become threatening to the structure and the standard American nuclear family. A trend in throughout the 80s was to bring back the all American male hero. These ideas are reflected in films such as Rambo. Ronald Reagan’s election to the presidency in 1980 made him a causal agent of an intersection between government policy, changes in Hollywood’s patterns of ownership, and prevailing trends in American economic and cultural relations. Upon being elected president, Reagan announced his program of cutting back taxes and remove government regulations as a means for making industry, for prosperity. Hollywood and the film industry became vertically and horizontally integrated under major conglomerates under Reaganomics. Reagan believed that capitalism was at stake unless the United States could stop the aggression between America and Russia. Reagan’s personal philosophy for the country as a self regulating marketplace was predicated on the concepts that capitalism is a social contract between government and people and that the individual’s freedom to pursue his own economic welfare was a attribute of democracy. The Reagan era was exemplar for competitive individualistic attitudes, but also those of being a responsible husband and father. The nuclear family, ordered on the basis of patriarchal gender roles, became a site for the reproduction of values that enabled middle class families and individuals to reproduce generation to generation. These clear -cut roles between men and women provided a template for Hollywood’s construction of the success ethic in films coming out of the 1980s, even those of the horror genre. Whatever the feminist movement had jeopardized, the strong, individualistic male figure was taking back the dominant role in terms of the family and the workplace. The horror film in the 1970s underwent changes and shifts that reflected the changes in society, culture and politics occuring from the 1970s into the 1980s.
When the 1970s began, the horror film was a fundamentally disreputable form, associated closely with exploitation films, yet in the course of the decade, horror gained popularity and articulated itself as a genre all on it’s own. Horror became mainstream, vital and influential. Horror films became more gruesome, violent, disgusting and more confused. Horror movies in the 1970s had a critical function. The films participated and depicted in metaphorical ways what Gregory Waller calls “America’s public debates”. The films would engage with current events such as Watergate, the prolonged withdrawl from Vietnam, the destruction of patriarchy and the nuclear family. Robin Wood states that the flowering of the horror genre in the 70s can bee seen in retrospect to be completely logical and inevitable whereas, it declines in the 80s when horror’s original and essential meaning is preserved and repressed. This idea of the cinema being entrenched with repression, especially that of the horror genre is very interesting because it relates to theories described by Sigmund Freud (those dreaded psychoanalytical theories that are taught in almost every high school and post-secondary institutions).
Freud suggested that the mind possesses a number of defense mechanisms to attempt to prevent conflicts from becoming too acute, one of these being the concept of repression. The function of repression is to push conflicts back into the unconscious. When a person experiences the impulse to behave or react in a certain way which the super-ego deems to be deserving of punishment (for example, the impulse to rape or act violently towards someone), then it is possible for the mind to push it away, to repress it into the unconscious. Basic repression is necessary and universal. It aids our capacity for self control and helps human beings recognize consideration for the well being of other people. This theory leads one to question what levels of repression are active in terms of the alienated labor or the patriarchal family. There is a particularly severe repression of female activity and aggressiveness in our culture today as there was in the 1970s and 1980s. The feminist movement was acting out against this in the 1970s and in the 1980s, women were repressed, oppressed, and punished. Examining horror films from the 70s and throughout the 80s, this shift back to repression of women and reconstruction of the patriarchal family is clearly evident. The Hollywood cinema has recognized horror as both American and familial, horror films help to define good, ethical values that the Reagan administration were trying to convince people are still capable of reaffirmation. The horror films of the 1970s would end with a sense that the monster could not be destroyed and that the repressed could never be exterminated. Horror films in the 80s instead ended with the destruction of the monster and the young lovers, or the family united and safe. This ideological shift is evident in the difference between Hooper’s films The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and The Funhouse.
In Tobe Hooper’s The Texas Chainsaw Massacre there is a conflict between traditional American values and the values of the lost hippie generation, represented by the disenfranchised cannibal family and their carefree, self-involved victims. The film opens with a disclaimer that what the spectator is about to see is a true story (and, insofar as the film is loosely based on the murders of Ed Geinn, as was Hitchcock’s Psycho, the spectator can take the disclaimer somewhat literally), set in the summer of 1973. The film begins with a jolt into the gruesome world: blinding flashes from a flashbulb reveal the carnage and decaying corpses while a voice-over gives a report about the crimes. The setting of this film is extremely realistic and the natural lighting and the hand-held camera support this enhanced realistic feel. A series of powerful images of the slaughterhouse, a blazing sun, and a dried-up swimming hole convey the plight of the younger generation of characters. The teenage characters in the film are traveling in the countryside in search of their grandfather’s grave and his old house. Sally, her wheelchair ridden brother Franklin, Jerry, Kirk and Pam stumble upon a lot more than they bargained for, however. The teenagers pick up a hitchhiker, who explains that his family used to work at the local slaughterhouse, until they were replaced by machines. Since then, the spectator later finds out, the family has resorted to cannibalism, and the teenagers are soon to become their next meal. Joseph Maddrey suggests that the family are:
“victimes of capitalism, America’s victims and their resort to cannibalism
is simply the logical end of human relations under capitalism. In essence,
this is another example of America devouring itself.”
This theme of the older generation encountering with the hippie generation and the anxeities felt there are again portrayed in a scene near the beginning of the film when the teens are traveling through Texas and they stop near a cemetery to visit Sally and Franklin’s grandfather’s grave. Older men are gathering near the cemetery, and a drink man struggles to hold his head up, while he lies in the grass; in a drunken stupor the man says, “you laugh at an old man, it’s them that laughs last that know better!” This statement is the first clash of old vs. new tensions in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Further problems with the new generation are laid out for the audience when the teenagers pick up the first member of the cannibal family, the Hitchhiker. After the Hitchhiker mentions he was coming from the slaughterhouse, Franklin asks the Hitchhiker questions about the new methods of cattle slaughtering and mentions that his uncle used to work for the slaughterhouse; Franklin mentions earlier in the film that he and Sally’s grandfather used to sell cattle to the slaughterhouse as well. These statements about Franklin and Sally’s family blur the lines between good and evil. Although the Hitchhiker and his family are repulsive and cannibalistic, it is only because their jobs and means of funding were ripped away from them and they have resulted to cannibalism as a result. Perhaps if Sally and Franklin’s family were unable to get jobs after the slaughterhouse, they would have met the same fate. The Hitchhiker says he does not work at the slaughterhouse, but his whole family once worked there. He then comments about the new, ineffiecent method of killing the cattle, he asserts that the cows die faster the old way, and the new way puts people (like his family) out of work. The Hitchhiker inexplicably grabs Franklin’s knife and begins to slowly slice into his own left palm. He is obviously insane. The Hitchhiker invites the teenagers to dinner at his house, and they refuse. Not accepting the Hitchhiker’s invitation is an unhealthy addition to his family’s history of rejection. In this sense, the character of Franklin becomes closer to the cannibal family because he also feels rejection throughout the film because of his disability. He often gets jealous, angry and frustrated at the others for not helping him or staying with him while he is stuck in a wheelchair. The character of Franklin and the cannibal family in relation to the definitions of normality and monster are almost reversed at certain times during the film. The teenagers in the film for the most part are unchracterized, but Franklin is grotesque, fat, and annoying, and almost as psychotic as his nemesis Leatherface. He associates himself with the Hitchhiker when he discusses his family’s own history in the slaughter business and then later, he too wonders if he could slice his own hang open as the Hitchhiker had done earlier.
In terms of the formal aspects of the film, tension is created by quick editing in the scene where Sally is at the cannibal family’s dinner party. In this scene, the family has tied her to a chair and set her at the head of the table. The camera captures a composed deep focus shot of the very top of sally’s head, as the family sits on the edge of the table with Grandpa at the other end. There is neither a low or high angle, but Sally is at the top of the hierarchy because of her position at the table. Several POV shots are used to convey what Sally is seeing through her own eyes, the horrors that sit across the table from her. Hooper’s use of iconography in this scene are crucial and significant. There are bones on the wall, and the chair in which Sally is sitting in is made of human flesh. Most of the shots in this scene are medium shots or medium long shots, so that the spectator can indulge in the gruesome setting and explore it for themselves. Hooper invites the spectator to explore the world of the cannibals and to question what America, in it’s own state of horror has done to the family. Later in the scene, extreme close ups are used to convey the terror that Sally is feeling. She realizes that the family wants to eat her, and she begs them to be set free, but they have other intentions for her. The extreme close ups of her eyeballs, her mouth, and her cheek disorient and upset the viewer. The shots are too close for comfort and on top of Sally’s screaming, there are horrifying pig sounds playing on top of the dialogue track that are extremely unpleasant. The scene overall is an assault on the spectator. Extreme close ups of Sally’s wide eyeball are juxtapositioned with shots of the Hitchhiker. Together, the shots create an upsetting, disturbing feelings for the spectator.
Very interesting about this scene, the scene following it and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre in general is the fact that although Sally is being tortured and the family wants to kill her and eat her, the notion of rape or sexual perversion is never alluted to. Horror films (especially those in the 80s, which we will see later with The Funhouse) often release a certain amount of sexuality that is always presented as perverted and excessive. Often the female is punished for her sexual enjoyment or forwardness or the psycho killer has sadistic tendencies. In The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, sexuality is morphed into violence and cannibalism. There are no suggestions in the film that Sally is the object of a sexual threat. David Cook sites an article in his book by Stephen Koch, explaining that Koch argues that The Texas Chainsaw Massacre invokes sex killings so much so that it can be discredited as a “vile little piece of sick crap”. I completely disagree with this statement. Nowhere in this film is sex alluded to. Not even the teenagers engage in sexual acts amongst each other, which is quite rare in the horror genre. The film does not exploit or punish the female in sexual ways. In her article, Her Body, Himself: Gender In The Slasher Film, Carol Clover discusses a theory of The Final Girl, the lone woman who stands at the end of the movie, still alive after having seen her friends killed.
“She often shows more courage and level-headedness than her crying
male counterpart ... (her gender) is compromised by her masculine
interests, her inevitable sexual reluctance, her apartness from other girls,
sometimes her name ... her unfemininity is signaled clearly by her exercise
of the 'active, investigating gaze' normally reserved for males and hideously
punished in females.”
Sally is left as the Final Girl in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and although Clover’s theory works for The Funhouse as well (Amy is the only one left alive), the film also portrays a sense of punishment towards her and the other female character in the film.
I want to make one last point about The Texas Chainsaw Massacre in terms of the family and patriarchal society being broken down in the 1970s. The all-male family of cannibals in the film derives from a long American tradition in film history deriving from the classical Western of the studio era. The absence of woman deprives the family of their social sense and meaning. However, no where in the film are women blamed for this absence as they are in The Funhouse (which will be examined further later). No one in the cannibal family makes a comment about a dead mother or the reason they eat people is due to the fact that a mother-figure is not present in the homestead. Despite the family’s monstrousness, a degree of uncertainty is still present in the way in which they are depicted. This is rooted in the spectator’s sense of them as a family unit. They are held together and the spectator cannot cleanly dissociate themselves from them. The cannibal family are victims as well, of the slaughter house enviornment, of capitalism, of the United States of America.
Horror films in the 1980s often depict two distinguishable chracteristics: violence against women and the reinstallation of the dominant father figure in the nuclear family. Tobe Hooper’s The Funhouse, although at the beginning of this decade, has both of these themes working in the film. To put it simply, what has changed since horror movies or the 1970s?: the motivation for the slaughter on both the ideological and narrative level. Teenagers are depicted as primiscuous and they are punished for it, and women are punished just for being women. The monster is in place not as a result of the screw-ups made by American government and society, but instead to avenge itself on liberated female freedom and the dislocation of patriarchal society. Four teenagers: Amy, Buzz, Richie, and Liz travel to the carnival which has just come to town. After eating cotton candy, smoking pot and making out, Richie suggests they stay the night in The Funhouse. They all agree and decide to take the last ride before the attraction shuts down. As they stay in the funhouse, the four witness a horrific murder against a psychic reader by a very large man in a Frankenstein mask. After the murder has taken place, they decide to get out of the funhouse as fast as possible, but on the way, Richie takes some of the money earned by the man who runs the funhouse. The owner is furious about the missing money and sends his freak son in the Frankenstein mask to take care of the theives. Now the four teens are locked in the funhouse, being stalked and killed one after the other by the freak son in the mask who is really a horribly deformed and mentally challenged man.
Tobe Hooper starts The Funhouse with an intelligent and nostalgic bang: a double reference to older films Psycho and Halloween. This was a common trend in horror films of the 80s and 90s, they became more and more self-reflexive. As Amy showers in perparation for her upcoming date to the carnival, a familiar presence approaches the bathroom. The scene is shown as a point-of-view shot from the two eyeholes of a mask. The curtain if flung away, and the masked knife holding fiend drives the blade into Amy’s stomach. She screams in terror and the shots are almost identical to those in Psycho. Most of the shots are close-ups and combined with the horrifying music playing, a sense of fear is conveyed and felt by the spectator. Horror by this point is already a clearly defined genre, and the spectator would recognize certain signs the film gives out to them: the suspenseful music, the close ups, the POV shots from the killer’s perspective, and then the victim’s. The camera adopts the gaze of a mischievous young boy, who dons a clown mask and attacks his sister with a rubber knife. Shots are all shown in close-up and the editing style is very fast as it was in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. From this formal analysis, we can gather that editing and the way horror films are shot have not changed as much as plot structure, characters, narrative and the ideology that is entrenched into the films.
The teenagers decide to spend the night in the funhouse after peeking through a hole in one of the carnival tents at naked women. They are too young to be admitted into the ‘girls, girls, girls’ tent, so they sneak a peak through a hole in the tent while sharing a joint of marijuana. Once inside the funhouse, they commit other teenage sins by making out, getting naked, and considering pre-martial sex. After witnessing the murder of the fortune teller, they are killed off one by one. Although the spectator does not see it occur onscreen, it is assumed that Liz is killed after being sexually assaulted or raped by the monster. The monster in the film likes women, sees them as sexual objects and even pays the fortune teller for sexual contact. Liz offers her body to the monster so that he won’t kill her, and he accepts. She has a knife, however, and stabs him in the back. He gets very upset at this and kills her. There are several instances in the film where the female is punished. For example, Amy tells her younger brother that she will get revenge on him for the trick he played on her while she was in the shower. However, her brother ends up being the only person outside of the funhouse who knows she is trapped in there, and he decides not to tell anyone where she is even though he realizes that there is something very wrong with the carnival. While he stands staring at the funhouse, the spectator hears in a voice-over Amy’s comments made previously about getting revenge on her brother. Because of this, he decides not to help her and Amy undergoes torture and punishment in the funhouse. Earlier in the film, Liz coaxes Amy in the carnival washrooms to go all the way with Buzz. Is it made clear that Liz herself is not a virgin and she is quite confident in her sexual freedom. Later, Liz is punished by being killed and assaulted by the sexually perverted monster. The most interesting, yet subtle punishment and blame placed on women in the film is in a comment made by the Father (and funhouse owner) to his son. He says to his disfigured, monsterous son, “I didn’t mean to hurt you, it’s just that sometimes I get to drinkin’...ever since your mama left...”. The father is trying to coax his son into killing Amy and her friends. The son’s disformed face and wrongful actions are blamed on the absence of his mother. The dynamics between this father and son are similar to those between the family in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, only in The Funhouse everything that is wrong with the son and the family is blamed on the woman whereas in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, a mother is not mentioned and the cannibalistic family act the way that they do because of capitalism and the failures of America and authority.
Carol Clover’s theory can be applied to The Funhouse in a sense that Amy is left in the position of the Final Girl. However, Amy is not strong, levelheaded or independent. She cries for Buzz during the bulk of the film. When only Amy is left alive, she faces off with the monster in a final confrontation. Not nearly as headstrong or effective as the Final Girl Clover discusses, she basically just stands there screaming while the monster manages to electrocute himself, gets caught on a metal ceiling hook and is finally crushed to death between two wheels of the funhouse. The violence against women in this film and many other horrors in the 80s has generally been explained as a hysterical response to 70s feminism: the male spectator enjoys in engaging in revenge against the women in what Mulvey would argue was in a sadistic matter. Women have always been the main focus of threat and assault in the horror film. Italian horror director Dario Argento has argued that women are beautiful and vulnerable and he prefers to watch them get killed rather than a man or someone ugly. Brian DePalma elaborated on this further, stating that the spectator feels fear more often if a girl is killed rather than a male because you fear for her more due to her lack of strength.
The family dynamics in The Funhouse in the 80s are very different than those in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre from the 70s. With The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, the family is dysfunctional and cannibalistic due to what the horrors of America have done to them. The relations between Sally and her brother Franklin are not great either, most of the time Sally is angry with him due to his diability and she feels he is a burden to her life. Films in the 80s attempted to normalize once again the American nuclear family. In The Funhouse, Amy’s family is caring, supportive and ‘normal’. Her younger brother and her play pranks on each other and have a normal sibling on and off rivalry whereas in Texas, Sally and Franklin are burdened by his diability and the dependency he has on her. Amy’s father is placed as the dominant figure in the household and this is conveyed when he warns Amy not to go to the carnival because of the murders that happened there a few years ago. Amy agrees not to go and acts very sweet to him, but rebels later on and goes to the carnival anyway. Amy’s father can be understood in all senses as patriarchal authority, and when Amy rebels and goes to the carnival, she is punished for it and all of her friends end up dying. Patriarchal authority and the law assigns all elements of society back to their correct roles. This notion of the father and patriarchy is taken out of the trashcan where it was put in the 1970s and fully restored to normalcy in the 1980s. Even the father/owner of the funhouse holds power over his deformed son whereas the father of the cannibal family in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre did not.
Tobe Hooper directed both The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and The Funhouse within an eight year time span. Even though both films were directed by the same person, the ideology and social anxieties of the times (70s and later, 80s) are ingrained within the films. The anxieties and ideology are embeded in the characters, narrative, iconography, family relations and gender relations. In the late 1960s - 1970s, the youth generation were questioning society and the authority structures and institutions that validated it. The late 1970s and the 1980s failed in resolving any of the issues that had presented themselves and as a result, they were repressed, covered up, and forgotten (supported by theories of psychoanalysis). Horror films reflected maybe more so than any other genre, the problems within America in the 1970s, and then the genre helped put in place new standards of etiquette in the 1980s. Down with the female, up with patriarchy. Horror films then presented much more secure and dominant father/male figures, and violent repression against women. So where does this leave the horror genre in the 1990s and the 2000s? As for Tobe Hooper, he is still in the horror film business and he is still evolving with the times. The 1990s saw several slasher/horror films that were so self-reflexive in nature (a trend that The Funhouse perhaps started) that they mocked the anti-female and patriarchal attitudes of horror films in the 1980s. For example, in Wes Craven’s Scream, Sydney (Neve Campbell) makes a comment towards her killer, joking about how females often behaved in horror films. She says, “what's the point they're all the same, some stupid killer stalking some big-breasted girl who can't act and is always running up the stairs when she should be running out the front door, it's insulting.” This mockery is apparent in several other horror films of the 90s as well.
The horror films of the 2000s are all about ultra-violence and ultra-gore, borrowing from the horrific content of the 1970s. Perhaps this trend has come back for another run due to the Bush administration and America’s involvement in the war in Iraq? Horror films of today are depicting the same sort of animosities towards the war in Iraq as were the films of the 1970s towards the war in Vietnam. Only time (and much cinematic bloodshed) will tell!
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