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The Horrors of Childhood
In Freud’s view, the first years of life are a torturous process of domestication, in which the child must learn to repress and control his primal impulses. Development is a “psychosexual” process, because the psychology of the child is determined in large part by the way in which he controls his sexual and aggressive drives. In Freud’s words, the endpoint of psychosexual development is an individual capable of “lieben und arbeiten”—the ability to love and to work. If you can balance a healthy intimate relationship with a productive and satisfying career, you’ve got it made. Freud would be the first to admit, “to love and to work” is not as easy as it sounds.
Vampires
Freud’s first stage of psychosexual development is the oral stage, in which libido energy is directed towards the mouth. A person with an oral fixation typically displays a need for emotional soothing through oral stimulation. Overeating, alcoholism, sucking on pens or pencils, biting fingernails, chewing gum and smoking may all be symptoms of an oral fixation. Freud himself smoked several cigars a day. When his contemporaries attempted to analyze “the Master,” pointing out the possible oral fixation behind his nasty habit, as well as the phallic quality of cigars, Freud responded with uncharacteristic glibness, saying “sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.”
In retrospect, Freud should have taken this problem more seriously, as his twilight years were spent in painful agony suffering from a severe case of jaw cancer. Each year the surgeons cut away more and more of his jaw and lower mouth. At the end of his life, he could not derive any oral pleasure whatsoever. Speaking, eating and smoking were excruciatingly painful for him. The doctors finally gave him an overdose of morphine to take him out of his misery.
For Freud, the coexistence of oral pain and pleasure inspired a sadomasochistic tinge to psychosexuality. This distinctly Freudian leitmotif has certainly found expression in movies. Horror films in particular capture the sadomasochistic qualities of the oral fixation. Movie monsters obtain their pleasure through the experience of causing pain in their typically female victims. In It’s Alive (1974), a mutant baby is an avaricious monster whose bloodthirsty aggression is matched only by its desire for his mother. The scene in which the fanged “It” suckles greedily at his mother’s bloody breast depicts a startlingly literal link between the psychosexual desire of infants and the sadomasochistic desire of monsters. Of course, the most famous depiction of the psychosexual id monster can be seen in vampire films, the most popular category of the horror movie genre.
Dracula (1931)
The vampire picture is a superb example of a classic oral fixation. Dracula’s (Bela Lugosi) libidinous desire can only be gratified by drinking the life fluid from the flesh of a young maiden. Though, theoretically, the monster only needs blood to survive, vampires chose only pretty young women as their victims, rather than non-human animals or men. The symbolism is clearly psychosexual. The infant needs to suck the warm milk from the breast of his young mother in order to survive. Dracula must suck the warm blood from the neck of a young maiden in order to survive. The link between the infant’s psychosexual desire to nurse and the vampire’s psychosexual thirst for blood is visually depicted in the final sequence of Nosferatu (1922), in which the shadow of Count Orlok’s (Max Shrek) hand clutches his beautiful victim’s breast, just before he sucks her blood.
The sadomasochistic element of vampirism is also infantile in origin. When the infant begins teething, nursing becomes a painful experience for the mother. The baby, according to Freud, becomes aware of his ability to inflict pain on his mother. This very first experience of power in the individual’s life is extremely significant, because it introduces the element of pain as a psychological feature within Baby’s most central relationship, his relationship with Mother. Somewhere deep inside the unconscious, the psychological links between pain, desire and love exist as a remnant of the oral stage.
Dracula is the quintessential vampire story because it symbolizes the unconscious oedipal issues in a very lucid way. Dracula is in love with Mina, just as Baby is in love with Mother. Dracula desires complete and utter possession of Mina, just as Baby desires complete possession of Mother. Dracula feels aggression towards Mina’s lover and desires to kill him, just as Baby feels aggression towards Father. And Dracula’s primal desire for Mina can only be satiated by sucking blood from her body, just as Baby’s desire for Mother can only be satiated by suckling at her breast.
Oral Fixation. Count Dracula’s (Bela Lugosi) compulsion to suck the blood of his maidenly victim (Helen Chandler) recalls the infant/mother relationship in the oral stage of psychosexual development. Dracula (1931), Universal Pictures.
Another Freudian element of the vampire myth is the symbolic link between the undead and the “unconscious.” Dracula is an undead spirit, an ancient monster who must hide during the day and can only come out at night. Similarly, our early childhood memories are unconscious issues. They are repressed during the consciousness of the day, but they come out through our dreams at night. Like the immortal undead, the unconscious exists on a psychological dimension that is not affected by time or space. No matter how old we get, or how far we move away from home, the unconscious issues forged in infancy will always remain the same. And when unconscious issues are analyzed and brought out into the conscious light of day, they lose their psychological power, just as Dracula disintegrates when he is exposed to the daylight.
Finally, there are some direct parallels between the symbolism of the cross in vampire movies and the resolution of the Oedipal complex. Dracula in particular epitomizes both basic forces within the id: Eros, the drive for sex and love, and Thanatos, the drive towards death and aggression. The dashing young hero in vampire movies represents the developing ego, who must overcome the primordial egocentrism of the id. The hero in Dracula is aided by Professor Van Helsing, an older father figure who instructs the hero about important traditions and legends. He tells the hero how to defeat the monster, just as Father supplies the child with the morals that comprise the superego. Van Helsing shows the hero that the cross, the symbol of Christianity, can stop Dracula. Similarly, it is the duty of both the biological father at home and the priestly Father of the church to show the developing child that religion, with its powers of guilt and fear, can repress the libidinous desire of the id monster.
Hannibal the Cannibal
Sixty years after Dracula hit the screens in 1931, a new monster was introduced to film audiences in the Silence of the Lambs (1991). Though the vampire genre has persisted, the ancient supernatural monster has lost much of its power to terrify viewers. Contemporary audiences have become more sophisticated. Raised watching horror movies on television and on the screen, today’s audiences need monsters that are real threats. Modern movie monsters are serial killers, psychopathic ghouls who take pleasure in killing. Serial killers are much more terrifying than the traditional monsters because they wear a human face. They walk among us. They could be sitting next to us in the movie theater or on the bus.
Voted by the American Film Institute as the #1 movie villain of all times, Dr. Hannibal Lecter (Anthony Hopkins) is the most terrifying of the new monsters. He combines some of the classical threats of the vampire with the modern, real-life threat of the serial killer. Like Dracula, Lecter is a predator who preys on human beings. He is a madman with a peculiarly morbid oral fixation, deriving both sexual and aggressive gratification through his mouth. As a cannibal, Lecter superedes Dracula in depravity, since there is no greater taboo than eating human flesh. Hannibal’s cannibalism is even more psychologically disturbing than Dracula’s vampirism, because Dracula, after all, was not human, while Hannibal is a living person, just like his victims.
Perhaps the most unnerving element of Lecter’s character, even more than his unusual appetite, is the fact that he is a psychoanalyst. Rather than using his knowledge of the mind to help people, Lecter uses his prodigious insight to get into people’s heads
so he can use their issues against them. He is the worst kind of sadist, a doctor that tortures instead of heals and who uses his psychiatric knowledge to inflict the most pain possible. While Lecter’s hypocrisy disgusts us, the irony of his character simultaneously intrigues us. We would imagine that a man who studied psychology his entire life, a master of the field, would have a superior control over his unconscious impulses. Yet in Lecter we see the complete anarchy of the id. Rather than being the master of his own desires, Lecter has absolutely no inhibitions at all. He lets his libido run wild. We, as viewers, are faced with the precarious question: Is Hannibal Lecter crazy? Or is he simply a sane man who has chosen to relieve himself of the unconscious constraints and inhibitions that he understands so well?
Inner Beasts
Freud’s second stage of psychosexual development is the anal stage, in which the toddler’s conflict over toilet training causes his libido energy to be directed towards the anus. Toilet training represents the escalating power struggle between parents and child. Often times, the traditional physical punishment of spanking is first experienced at this stage. The toddler will make some powerful unconscious associations while being spanked. Intense stimulation in the buttocks region results in both pleasure and pain, and the act of hostile aggression is delivered by the person that the child loves the most. At the anal stage, the child’s psychosexual development is tinged with sadomasochistic undertones of pleasure mixed with pain, and love expressed through aggression.
The central theme of the anal stage is the domestication of the human animal. Just as a dog must be housebroken in order to live among civilized humans, the human toddler must be toilet trained in order to become a civilized person. In becoming domesticated, the human being loses the essence of animal wildness that he was born with. Nevertheless, the animal drives, the id instincts towards sex and aggression, do not go away. They are merely repressed. The inner beast comes out in the dark of night, in our dreams and especially in the movies.
Evolutionary Regression
In horror movies featuring werewolves and other man-beasts, regression to the wild side of nature is disturbing and scary. Human beings are descended from lower beasts. This evolutionary chain is evident in the structure of the brain. The hindbrain is reptilian in nature, the midbrain is typically mammalian and the forebrain is the only part of the mind that is uniquely human. The evolutionary regression from man to beast symbolizes a neurological regression from the logical cerebrum in the forebrain to the emotional midbrain and the primal hindbrain. Audiences find the premise of evolutionary regression in movies such as The Wolf Man (1941) appealing because the character’s body is freed of all inhibitions and moral restraints. Suddenly, the body is all id and no superego. But the regression is also scary, because along with complete freedom comes a complete lack of control.
The Dual Nature of Man
In The Wolf Man, the werewolf’s (Lon Chaney Jr.) regression from man (Larry) to wild beast is biological (the disease of lycanthropy), but it is also a supernatural curse. His regression to a wolf occurs on the night of a full moon. The wolf only comes out at night because it symbolizes the repressed impulses and fears in our unconscious that only come out in our nightmares. In Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1920), the good doctor’s regression into a beastly villain is chemical, caused by a special drug. The story refers directly to the “dual nature of man” in the dialogue, and even the name, “Mr. Hyde,” is an obvious reference to the dark, beastly side of human nature that we hide away in our unconscious minds. The symbolism behind the name “Hyde” also represents the animalistic quality of the character, whose primal behavior resembles those of a wild animal covered in a furry hide. Like an animal, Hyde is anal expulsive, releasing all of his libido drives immediately and interested only in instantaneous gratification.
Dr. Jekyll’s story is set in the Victorian Age—the height of sexual repression. Dr. Jekyll (John Barrymore) epitomizes this age. He is saintly, virtuous and completely dedicated to his work. After being tempted by an immoral woman, Jekyll experiences carnal desire for the first time, but he is too inhibited to act upon his lust. He wonders: “Wouldn’t it be marvelous if the two natures in man could be separated—housed in two different bodies!” This desire for a psychic split is indicative of Jekyll’s anal retentive personality. His need for total control over himself and his inability to accept the wild side to his nature inspires him to create a drug that will completely divorce himself from his inner beast. Jekyll drinks the potion and transforms into Hyde. “In the impenetrable mask of another identity, Hyde sets forth upon a sea of license … to do what he, as Jekyll, could not do.”
Hyde indulges in sex, drugs and violence while Jekyll suffers guilt and remorse for his alter ego’s sins. In the end, when Hyde threatens the virginal purity of Jekyll’s true love, Jekyll finally musters the strength to overcome Hyde. He destroys both sides of his personality with a dose of poison. A similar denouement occurs at the end of The Wolf Man. When the werewolf is about to attack the girl that Larry loves, he is thwarted and killed by the representation of Larry’s moral conscience—his own father. In death, the werewolf transforms back into Larry, just as Hyde’s dead body transforms back into Jekyll. The message in both films is that the animal drives of sex and aggression are extremely powerful forces that cannot be fully repressed, but which nevertheless must be controlled. When they are released in a completely uninhibited manner, they can only be stopped by the equally powerful force of love.
Phallic Symbols
For most children, the third stage of psychosexual development, the phallic stage, is their last experience before sexual inhibition, a time when it is still OK for them to run around naked, sleep in the same bed with their parents, play uninhibitedly with their genitals, and fantasize about marrying their mother or father. The Biblical story of Adam and Eve is symbolic of this stage. In the Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve feel no shame about their nakedness and find no reason to hide their sexuality. But when they eat from the tree of knowledge, they are punished by God, the eternal father figure, and cast out of the Garden forever. For children, the phallic stage ends when the Father ceases to be a benign, benevolent figure and turns into a source of fear and punishment. At that point, guilt becomes the dominant force in their psyches. Sex becomes a dirty and forbidden subject, and children are never able to return to that age of innocence again.
Guns
While resolving their Oedipal complexes, boys often become obsessed with weapons, turning every toy into an imaginary gun or knife. In addition to horror movies, little boys tend to love westerns, mainly because of their fascination with guns. In Shane, Joey’s obsession with guns is a running theme throughout the movie. In his first encounter with Shane, his boyish fidgeting with his little .22 caliber catches Shane off guard, causing Shane to draw on Joey with his six-shooters. Joey’s father tells Shane not to worry, “Joey’s gun ain’t loaded.” The symbolism is rather clear. Joey’s ego is represented by his developing phallus, his gun, which is small and unloaded. He is not mature yet. Shane’s guns, on the other hand, are extremely big, potent and fully loaded. Later on, Joey mumbles to himself: “I wish they gave me some bullets for this gun….” He wishes his gun were loaded like Shane’s, so he could be a man, too.
Even Joey understands that having a little gun isn’t the end of the world—it’s what you do with it that counts. In an integral scene, Joey asks Shane, “Will you teach me to shoot?” In essence, Joey is asking him: Will you teach me to be a man? Shane is reluctant to say yes, because he knows that it is a father’s role to teach his son to shoot, as it is a father’s role to teach his son how to be a man. But Joey is beginning to see Shane as a replacement father figure. In another scene, Joey measures Shane against his father when he asks, “Can you shoot as good as Shane, Pa?” In perhaps the most blatant use of the gun as phallic symbol, Joey contritely confesses to Shane, “I saw your gun … I took a look at it … are you mad … could I see it again?” Shane final
ly agrees to teach Joey how to shoot, but the shooting lesson is interrupted by Joey’s mother, who tells Shane, “Guns aren’t going to be a part of my boy’s life.” Shane puts his own character in a nutshell when he replies, “A gun is a tool Marion … a gun is as good or as bad as the man using it.”
Knives
One of the most controversial aspects of Freudian theory is the concept of castration anxiety. As the infant-child grows, he begins to realize that his Oedipal desire for sexual union with Mother is socially inappropriate. He also realizes that his rival for Mother’s love, Father, is infinitely more powerful than he is. The child feels aggression towards Father, and wishes he were out of the way so the son could have Mother all to himself. In this claustrophobic state of Oedipal mania, the son projects his own feelings of aggression onto Father, developing the paranoid notion that Father would like to destroy him so that Father could have Mother all to himself. The son’s fear of physical aggression at the hands of Father is validated when Father beats him for naughty behavior. In this sense, castration anxiety is the son’s fear that Father will destroy him. Castration anxiety becomes generalized into a broader fear of punishment and authority. The son’s Oedipal complex is initially resolved when the son ceases to fear Father as an aggressive rival, and begins to identify with him as a role model. At this point, castration anxiety evolves into a generalized sense of guilt, as the fear of Father and his punishment become internalized as a healthy moral conscience or “superego.”
Movies and the Mind Page 19