Explore some of the ideas,

summary and reflection

In
Essays and Images from Popular
Culture

BY KUNAKORN SUWANNARANGSRI
 Why We Crave Horror Movies
STEPHEN KING

THINKING AHEAD Do you like horror movies? Which ones terrify you? If they frighten you,
why do you watch them?

A horror movie is one of my favorite movies beside action, animation, fantastic movie.
There are many horror movies that I like for example, SAW I-IV, The ring, the Exorcist, Dawn of
the Dead. These all frighten me especially the exorcist because of the gruesome images and
plot of the story. The reason I really like a horror movie because they give me an excitement
feeling, give me a lot of imagination about ghost and gruesome stuffs. I like to watch the exciting
movies. I think it fun when watching horror movies alone at night time, the dark and quite
atmosphere always let me really into the movie.

Responding To the Topic

In the essay, Why We Crave Horror Movies” is King’s attempt to explain why we love it
-horror movies”. He also gives many great examples support for his essay. At the beginning of
essay, his statement “we are all mentally ill”, I totally agree with him because some horror
movies tend to like the excitement they receive from experiencing extreme nervousness,
disgust, panic and fear as several reasons supported ideas of craving behavior.

First, he claims that we watch a horror movie because challenging ourselves and show
that we are brave, not afraid like riding a roller coaster. He also implies that horror movies only
appeal to the young. "And horror movies, like roller coaster, have always been the special
province of the young". Second, he explains why we crave horror movies because we want to
reestablish our feeling of essential normality like fulfill entertainment and excitement in our lives.

According to Stephen King, "the horror film has become a modern version of public
lynching." Some people think it sort of fun indeed to watch others threatened or killed. Horror
movies can drive people, especially adult, to become like children again. I also agree that we
might be insane because we like to watch the violence and frighten story to express fear and
allow our emotion release. Moreover, because we all need to across the boundary lines
between reality and imagination, and horror movies can let us see things that impossible in
normal everyday life.
 Summary
Why We Crave Horror Movies

The article “Why We Crave Horror Movies” by Stephen King will be used as an example.
In King’s essay, I learned that he attempted to explain why some people love horror movies.
Since I also interested in horror movies, this essay grabbed my attention a lot. When I read
throughout the text, I had been thinking what he claimed in the text, which some of them I totally
agree, and some of them I didn’t even think about. He gave many possible reasons why we
crave horror movies to support for his essay. At the beginning, his statement “we are all
mentally ill” is very a good hook for me. I also thought about why we had to pay 4-5 bucks for
watching a horror movie. Why people wanted to see the scary thing? Therefore I kind of agree
with him that we are actually mentally ill. People like the excitement they experienced from the
nervousness. He claimed that we watch horror movies to challenge ourselves and show that we
are brave, like riding a roller coaster. He also implied that horror movies only appeal to young
people. “And horror movies, like roller coaster, have always been the special province of the
young”. In addition, he explained that we watched horror movies to reconfirm normalcy or to feel
normal by fulfilling entertainment and excitement in our lives. In his turning point in his essay,
“And we go to have fun”, which doesn’t make sense for me for the first time I read. However, in
class, I learned that the rest of his essay conversed that the reasons we crave horror movies not
only for having fun, but there were many reasons he considered. “The fun comes from seeing
other menaced- someone killed”. He said that because people today never get chance to watch
the public lynching or the public hanging anymore in real life. Therefore these people wanted to
fulfill their excitement by watching horror movies. “It is true that the mythic, Fairy- tale.” What
does it mean in this sentence? First I couldn’t analyze what its meaning, however I again
learned from the teacher. Children feel and imagine things immediately when they heard the
story, and horror movies allow us to feel like a child again. There is a continued people are on
somewhere on the line between normal and insane, but people who place themselves under the
line normal, they just actually hiding how insane they are. Our culture had been taught us what
is good, what is bad? Parents tried to shape their child to behavior and become civilize.
However, the anticivilization still in us, the horror movies allow us to get to depress, to feel fear
without doing something wrong or illegal. It is a job of horror movies to lead and allow people to
respond to their anticivilization.
 Identity in a Virtual World
MICHELLE JANA CHAN

THINKING AHEAD (p.123) online alter egos are called avatars.

Do you have or would you like to have an avatar? Why? What would your avatar look like?
Would it be human or nonhuman? What would be its gender, its name, its race, and its age?
Why would you make these choices when you create your avatar?

I would love to create an avatar that look like myself the most, just for show how I look, but it is
not necessary exactly the same in real life, somehow I also wanted an avatar to express an
appearance and a character in another world, online world. My avatar would be a human avatar
and female, skinny, long dark brown hair; sometime I create my hair color differently than usual.
Race is not very important however I prefer light brown so people can satisfy that I am an Asian
girl.

PROBING CONTENT (P.125)

1. According to the essay, how can online identity be more “flexible” than real identity? How
do avatars usually differ from their real-life counterparts? Provide specifics in your
response.

In online world, people can create avatar to identify themselves but in virtual look for
example, some people maybe fat but in avatar they can portrait themselves skinny or
look even good than in real life. Moreover, Avatar generator also have many functions,
items or even accessories for people to put in there avatars.

4. Nick Yee states that virtual worlds “trap us even more” (para.12). More than what? In
what ways?

He states that in online worlds, a lot of people put themselves in the online worlds; they see
what they used to see and spend a lot of time in this world. The term “they trap us even
more” refer to what people see and spend time either money in the online world, because
in this world they don’t know what actually appear and what the truth is.

ANALYZING THE IMAGE (P.127)

3. How does the layout of the photograph mirror the idea of an alter ego or a spirit
personality? How effective is this visual composition?

The layout of the photograph gives the idea of an alter ego in which people create
avatars to express themselves in the virtual world in ways that cannot be done in the real
 world. Many people do not want to show their identity to the online world or even the
gaming world, so people create images that oppose their characters in real life.

4. How does seeing this photograph affect your reading? Pay particular attention to
paragraph 4 in which Chan discusses Robbie Cooper’s impression of Choi Seang Rak
and Uroo Ahs.

The reading surprised me because the professor of public policy and law, who I assume
should look like the professional, smart and imperturbable man but in his avatar, he
portrays himself as an Uroo Ahs, a cute little girl.

Summary
Globalization vs. Americanization
ANDREW LAM

In the article “Globalization vs. Americanization”, by Andrew Lam, he argued that we are
now seeing an Americanization of the world like eating at McDonald’s, listening to Madonna,
and shopping at mega malls.”, meaning that the globalization by the U.S. had affected many
people in the world. He stated his opinion that globalization is not the same as Americanization.
Lam used to live in Vietnam, and he was raised during the Vietnam War. Later, the war ended,
his family and him moved to America and learned something new. He examined that many
cities such as China and France are no longer fantasies, but they look the same because of
Americanization was spread over those cities. For example, in those cities we can see many
signs of McDonald all over the places. In addition, he talked about the technology of
communication which is now very easy for people around the world to contact each other.
However, when he compared his friend’s view with his own, they were different. He resembled
his differences with his friend with that of Disney and the novel “The English Patient” by
Ondaatje. Disney borrowed world narratives and made the complicated story to be like happily
ever after. On the other hand, the Ondaatje’s novel is a unique story that shows people
struggling with life. Even though American company like McDonald and mega malls spread
throughout the world, in returned, for example, Thai and Vietnam restaurants also increased in
America as well. Also other traditions and cultures still resist and will not fade out, even though
CNN and MTV are being a part of their multi socialization. However, we tend to forget that they
have dramatically changed our life style toward Americanization.
 Tyler Perry’s Money Machine
Eugene Robinson

“Tyler Perry’s Money Machine” by Eugene Robinson. In the short essay I learned about
the successful African American director, actor, and film-maker. He earned a ton of million
dollars from his movies. Before he became successful and well know like today, he actually
grew up from the very poor family. However he had a dream, and now he pursued his dream.
His movie Madea’s Family Reunion, earned 30$ dollars million weekend. I think he is very
clever guy since he rented the studio in Atlanta, where is a lot cheaper than Hollywood’s studio.
Most of his movies, based on the African American lives, for example, Why Did I Get Married?,
Madea’s Family, Girlfriends etc. which all of them had the strong respondents from black
viewers.