1 The unbearable unrightness of the righteous and sympathy for the Devil
War on dissent, forced loyalties and Zombieâs The Devilâs Rejects (2005)
DOI: 10.4324/9781315601601-2
Horror cinema in the United States has sustained an increasingly stable position within popular culture since the 1980s (Browne and Browne 2001, p.408). While the majority of horror films strive to entertain the popular masses by employing much taboo and transgression, some do succeed in challenging culturally accepted mainstream attitudes. This makes for a curious interplay between traditional perceptions attached to popular culture, that it is controlled by the âeliteâ and therefore induces the audienceâs passivity, and opposing postmodernist attitudes that recognise mainstream phenomena as a potential facility for political dissent.
Popular culture has the power to express meaning that stands in non-agreement or opposition to dominant societal ideas (Dale and Foy 2010, p.4). This is often accomplished through the use of âcovert messagingâ which masks political opposition in the guise of mainstream entertainment. As a result, popular horror films, in particular, have the capacity to subtly challenge an audience into re-evaluating their own views on social and political situations. The commercial character of this popular genre helps account for the way in which it epitomises the spirit of the era, while its conventional and familiar nature enables horror films to provide âreassuringâ comfort food to its audience.
Many horror films therefore inherently demand political categorisation as the genre embodies our collective nightmares, the terror of a culture expressed in its cinema (Wood 1984, pp.191â192). As the horror genre possesses a unique capacity to epitomise a collective sense of the world, such films permit their audience to subvert dominant mainstream values, such as bourgeois patriarchal standards. It is not the genre that is most disturbing, but the precarious national eras that such films radically revolt against. What is it about the politically tumultuous post-9/11 period that ignited a cinematic renaissance of heartland-set horror? What can Post-9/11 Heartland Horror films tell us about the nature of dissent in the post-9/11 United States?
Bushâs âWar on Dissentâ
On 11 September 2001, horrendous images of death, destruction and catastrophic carnage invaded our homes as Islamic terrorists committed unprecedented acts of terrorism in the United States. After hijacking four passenger aircrafts, al-Qaeda launched suicide attacks, flying two airplanes respectively into the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in New York. While the third would strike the Pentagon, the fourth plane, likely headed for the Capitol Building in Washington, DC, suffered defeat. For Chomsky (2011, pp.22â63), although deeming it useful to bear in mind that the attacks could have been much worse, this was a symbolic assault that targeted values cherished in the West, such asâfreedom, tolerance, prosperity, religious pluralism and universal suffrageâ.
Nine days after 9/11, President George W. Bush (2001 a, n.p.) would address the American public launching a narrative detailing the nationâs response to the attacks. On further analysis of this sequence of events, it becomes awfully clear that Bushâs narrative constituted repeated attempts to justify an intervention in both Afghanistan and Iraq as he endeavoured to bolster quintessential American values, such as liberty, democracy and integrity. In the hope of managing public opinion, the Bush administration successfully engineered, what many now believe to be, a manipulative and propaganda-driven moral panic with all measures leading to a catastrophe of enormous proportions (Bonn 2010, pp.2â4). Unsurprisingly, Bushâs banging on the drums of war would create an environment utterly intolerant of opposition to the administrationâs plans for retribution.
When lead singer, Natalie Maines, of American country music band the Dixie Chicks, inadvertently declared that she was affronted to hail from Texas, as it was the birthplace of President Bush, the trio suffered a torrent of abuse (Associated Press 2007, n.p.). Subjected to restricted country radio broadcast and ostracised at the Academy of Country Music Awards, the band gave voice to the severity of the criticism that they received, in song, âNot Ready to Make Niceâ (2006). According to the âChicks, the unwarranted condemnation that they faced recommended that they âtow the ropeâ as mere servers of entertainment or it would end in their demise. Regardless, the bandâs protest song went on to win three Grammy Awards suggesting that a significant portion of the rest of the country had expressed a renewed interest in country music that daringly critiqued difficult times.
On the other hand, confederate flag-waving country music artist Toby Keithâs single âCourtesy of the Red, White and Blue (The Angry American)â (2002) topped the Billboard Country Singles chart. Successfully promoting xenophobia through this notoriously white form of popular culture, Keith fervently commends the US militaryâs severe response to 9/11 in the song, while crudely threatening to assault the terrorists. For many, Keithâs song was defiantly patriotic and constituted an anger-stricken counter-blow reaction to 9/11, whereas the Dixie Chicksâ song was regarded as a treacherous condemnation of God and country. Both artists were undoubtedly exercising their freedom of speech, yet while Keith was hailed a national hero, the âChicks were advised to remain silent on political matters.
Dissent, to have a view that sits on the contrary to the popular, is an especially common reaction to war and unfortunately so is silencing it (Chang 2002). In recent times, Vietnam veteran and United States Senator John F. Kerry (Associated Press 2006, n.p.) accused the Republican backed Bush administration of sparking a âspirit of intoleranceâ, that was both wrong and dangerous, in order to silence dissent over the Iraq War (2003â2011). Society does, indeed, have an obligation to dissent if they perceive something to be fundamentally wrong, yet it would seem that few governments could continue to exist without a high volume of quasi-voluntary conformity from their citizens. It may come as no surprise, therefore, that dissent regarding 9/11 and its aftermath was heavily stifled as censorship, surveillance and unwarranted force was aimed at those who leaked files, spoke out, resigned, or refused to deploy in disapproval of government actions. As Romero (2003, p.i) stated in a report composed by the American Civil Liberties Union subsequent to 9/11, âdissent if you must, but proceed at your own riskâ.
American actor Danny Glover proceeded at his own risk during his Amnesty International speech in 2003 when he labelled America, the âgreatest purveyor of violence in the worldâ (Korten 2001, n.p.). Gloverâs comments elicited such deep-seated criticism that many called for his arrest, prosecution, even death, and finally, expulsion from his own country, the United States. For Lovell (2009, p.8), the sheer desperation of this post-9/11 escalation of dissent, unseen since Vietnam, can be attributed to not only the rise of militarism, but globalisation, Third World debt and environmental degradation.
The spirit of intolerance promoted by the Bush administration, which would assault Americaâs constitutional freedoms, was surely initiated on the eve of the dubiously authorised USA Patriot Act (2001). While this new legislation was designed to enable the United States to intercept and obstruct terrorism, it placed Amendment Rights and freedom of speech in grave danger, granted US officials permission to use unnecessary surveillance power and was employed by the government to curtail the civil rights of non-citizens on exceptional grounds (Chang 2002, pp.43â45). Indeed, the loose and all-encompassing nature of the Act, broadly covering domestic terrorism, was, and still could be, used to incriminate a multitude of protest activities. The Bush administrationâs silencing of dissent in the post-9/11 era eroded the civil liberties and privacy of a nation while impacting the lives of many immigrants. As anxiety-ridden patriotism thrived amongst a nation forced to inhabit an atmosphere of unease, deep-seated criticism would inevitably emerge regarding the moral, ethical and economical consequences of the highly contentious war.
The American publicâs support for the ongoing âWar on Terrorâ has since been deemed a symptom of wilful blindness and a distinct refusal to acknowledge US global domination (Monbiot 2003, n.p.). The often-exonerated Bush administration stands accused of enforcing blanket governmental warrants to purposefully reduce the civil liberties of its own citizens (Singel 2008, n.p.). The relentless âWar on Terrorâ, or the âtask that does not endâ, as Bush (2001 a, n.p.) so aptly described it, has been identified as not only impossible to define, but also insolvable â since terror is the target, there is no identifiable enemy (Richissin 2004, n.p.). More recent and profound criticism of the administrationâs tendency to operate within the bounds of media hysteria and bold hypocrisy, has added much insult to injury as global anti-Americanism gathers speed. As long as American forces continue to occupy Afghanistan, Iraq and North West Pakistan, resentment toward the West is surely set to flourish.
It is in the light of such national âwoundsâ, inflicted by the political repercussions of 9/11 and the âWar on Terrorâ, that Blake (2008) argues for the necessity of the contemporary âhillbilly horrorâ film in particular. Again, for Blake, the figure of the hillbilly, as barbaric social deviant and victim of the nationâs endeavour to marginalise those who refuse to be assimilated into dominant norms, serves as a potent reminder of Americaâs failure to bring into being a hegemonic national identity. With the demonisation of difference and the reduction of civil liberties heavily associated with the post-9/11 era, it is perhaps unsurprising that the quasi-liberated rural dweller would resurface in the American horror film once again. Such fictional rural âdevilsâ are said to make it painfully clear that American citizens are not, will never be, and have not ever been, âfreeâ in the sense that subjective ideologies such as Bushâs affirmed (ibid., p.196).
The ever-evolving relevancy of rural horror
The resistance, rebellion and all-around hell-raising associated with the archetypal âhillbillyâ in American rural horror is evidently relevant to the stifling nature of the post-9/11 term which the films starkly allegorise. I will say, however, that to attach the term âhillbilly horrorâ to this significant era of new rural horror is to obscure, ignore and limit other American rural horror films that do not exclusively employ tired and stereotypical depictions of âmonstrousâ rural dwellers. The American rural horror films most worthy of critical consideration, for my money, are those that do not appear to directly recontextualise the quintessential âhick flickâ narratives of the post-Vietnam era. If this book was to target remakes and other more direct reworkings of already canonised films, the study would surely imply that twenty-first-century American rural horror is somewhat stagnant, underdeveloped and unoriginal.
The Devilâs Rejects (2005) could, indeed, be categorised as a âhillbilly horrorâ film. Zombie certainly pays much homage to 1970s neo-horror, his rural protagonists possess a rebel persona that is reminiscent of the stereotypical âhillbillyâ of former American horror. Even so, the âmonstrous physicality, all rotten teeth and rapacious sexualityâ that Blake (2012, p.188) deems characteristic of the archetypal âhillbilly horrorâ film, is not evident here. Furthermore, the âbackwoodsâ tropes that Murphy (2013, p.149) lists in taxonomy of the rural gothic in American horror cinema seem somewhat outdated when read in relation to Zombieâs film. The protagonists of new American rural horror may inhabit the margins of society, yet they are no longer feral, degenerate, inbred and incestuous. This is, of course, with exception to a number of post-9/11 remakes of 1970s âhillbilly horrorâ, plus some shockingly unoriginal films of the new era.
The classâgender dynamic, outlined by Clover (1992) in her analysis of Post-Vietnam rural horror films, in which primal country dwellers seek revenge on upper-middle-class city folk, is challenged by Post-9/11 Heartland Horror. The films that constitute this new rural subgenre frequently goad the audience into sympathising with not the upper- to middle-class characters, but instead with the supposed âbarbariansâ victimised by them. This trope reversal sits in complete contrast to archetypal âHixploitationâ films, such as Deliverance (1972). The important evolution of such genre conventions, which demonstrate the ways in which Post-9/11 Heartland Horror is distinctly unique among many other rural-set horror films, perhaps remain unidentified due to the authority that scholarship such as Cloverâs still holds in this already limited field.
The renaissance of rural horror in the post-9/11 era was unanticipated as several critics prophesied on the genreâs demise following the attacks. Pervasive posttraumatic responses to the assault, such as âit was like a movieâ (Briefel and Miller 2012, p.1), did not help the horror genreâs odds of survival, yet the American horror film still embodied an ideal medium with which to bring meaning and representation to the atrocities and their aftermath. Hollywoodâs unwillingness to examine the perplexing impact of 9/11, paved the way for alternative cinemas, not confined by the same political correctness and biographical obligations, to challenge the political repercussions of the event. Burdens of terrorism too painful to encounter directly were addressed via the Post-9/11 Heartland Horror filmâs well-oiled cinematic metaphor as it exposed, and as it continues to address, the cracks in the fabric of a culture.
Chapter 1 will explore how this subgenre exhibits a desire and function to, as David Cronenberg (in Rodley 1996, p.xvi) might put it, âshow the unshowable [and] speak the unspeakableâ byembodying issues that characterise the historical trauma of 9/11 and the consequential âWar on Terrorâ. Zombieâs The Devilâs Rejects, does indeed, establish a space where the primary regulations of our own reality no longer apply in order to explicitly critique the collective burdens of a nation. This analysis of Zombieâs film will uncover the ways in which the subgenre critiques the nature of dissent in the post-9/11 era.
The Devilâs Rejects follows a murderous family of serial killers, the Fireflys, and their attempt to escape the grasp of the local Sheriff Wydell (William Forsythe). Wydell soon becomes as ruthless as his target in his quest to reap revenge for the killing of his brother in Zombieâs previous film, House of 1000 Corpses (2003). It is the understanding of Chapter 1 that Zombieâs film absorbed, and thus projects, the collective concerns of the American public at large coming to terms with an environment that discouraged disunity and dissent. The implicit critique of dissent encapsulated within The Devilâs Rejects may not have been possible for some audiences to discern on initial viewing and so, this chapter will slow the film down, pausing over the points of correlation between the text (narrative, visuals and sound) and the cultural context to which it corresponds.
What appears to reverberate loudest in this particular interpretation of the film is its capacity to allegorically rail against the false dilemmas, forced loyalties and silenced dissent of the post-9/11 era. Ultimately, the subgenre functions as an imaginative resource that could give voice to those marginalised and disempowered voices at a time of great political turbulence. A critique of authority heavily resonates within the films as blind adherence to a ârighteousâ and elect minority is deemed the greatest adversary of the truth.
âIndefensible on a moral levelâ: The Devilâs Rejects
Surprisingly, the cultural politics of The Devilâs Rejects failed to be articulated and discussed by critics on its reception. While Zombieâs debut, House of 1000 Corpses, makes protagonists of the same psychotic Firefly family featured in The Devilâs Rejects, the latter sequel is a distinct improvement on its predecessor. Interestingly, House of 1000 Corpses was critically denounced on its release as cheesy, vapid, contrived and shallow. While the film was completed before 9/11, this Universal-financed âfreak of natureâ continually clashed with censor...
