Negative Aesthetics:
Pity, Pain, Horror

A lecture by Professor Cynthia Freeland
Department of Philosophy
University of Houston

College of the Mainland Fine Arts Gallery
Texas City, Texas
March 12, 1998, 2 p.m.

College of Charleston
Charleston, South Carolina
March 16, 1998

1. The problem of "negative aesthetics":

How do we explain the fact that humans can take pleasure in the representation of painful things? Is this ever legitimate, or was Plato right (in Republic Book X) to say it is perverse and sick, so that this kind of art should be banned from the ideal state?

Current cases: Photography by Joel-Peter Wtikin and Andres Serrano; performance art using blood or pain; political art by Jenny Holtzer or Leon Golub, etc.
Historical cases in visual art: representations of martyrs, Hell, murders, or war
My interest: Horror Movies (compare to other examples: melodramas, gangster films, disaster movies, emergency TV shows)

2. Some explanations of negative aesthetics:

A. Aristotle (384-322 B.C.)'s Defense of Tragedy in the Poetics
We donšt enjoy the actual content of pain and suffering but we have a kind of moral reaction of katharsis (pity and fear) to the structured story (plot). Aristotle was particuarly critical of authors who rely on spectacle.
B. Immanuel Kant, Critique of Judgement (1791), The Sublime
The sublime is something so vast it is painful and frightening, but also elevating and awesome. (Mountains, the Grand Canyon, a hurricane, etc.) The self is divided into two parts: imagination is pained, but reason is elevated when we identify with the grandeur of the object. (The Titanic?)
C. Freud's Explanation of the Uncanny ("Unheimlich"), 1919
The uncanny involves a "repetition compulsion", a psychological need to repeat a critical early trauma. Example: "The Sandman" by Hoffmann, story of a man who learns he has fallen in love with an artificial doll. (Modern version: Blade Runner)
D. Summary of these explanations:
- i. The object has two parts, painful content vs. pleasurable form.
- ii. The subject has two parts, one which suffers, one which enjoys.

3. My explanation of horror

i. (Good) horror movies have painful content but pleasurable form.

ii. When we see horror, we are scared or repulsed, but we can also enjoy the form, and enjoy thinking about problems that the film raises about good and evil.
Example: Hellraiser (Clive Barker, 1987)
[For an informative and well-illustrated site about this series, visit The Hellbound Web, by tripps.]

Cynthia Freeland is co-editor of Philosophy and Film (Routledge, 1995) and has published on ancient tragedy, the aesthetics of the sublime, and the philosophy of horror. She has spoken on Dracula for the Houston Ballet's Dracula and has curated a horror film series for the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. A long-time horror movie fan, she is currently at work on a book, The Naked and the Undead, on issues of good, evil, and gender in horror films. It will be published by Westview Press in 1999.

March 12, 1998
Cynthia Freeland's Home Page

Negative Aesthetics: Pity, Pain, Horror

1. The problem of "negative aesthetics":

2. Some explanations of negative aesthetics:

3. My explanation of horror

Negative Aesthetics:
Pity, Pain, Horror