I have to admit, I was pretty surprised to read Carroll's examination of the analogy between the experience of art-horror and religious experience. Since we have spent much of our class time so far talking about the revulsion and disgust brought on by Dracula, the ants, Norman Bates, and Will Farrell, it seemed like a pretty big jump to start comparing these characters to God. This discussion did follow Carroll's overview of Lovecraft's "cosmic awe" theory, which does contain elements that would be comparable to personal human experiences with God, e.g., the natural inclination toward the existence of unfamiliar power. However, Carroll explicitly characterizes the emotion of cosmic fear with "moral revulsion" (162). If moral revulsion is part of the horror genre, how can we compare it to religious experience?
For me, it's just too much of a stretch to go from fear and disgust, to wonder and awe, to religious experience when trying to describe horror's attractive power. It's clear that people are attracted to the unsavory - just look at the headlines at the Kroger magazine stand proclaiming the good news that 1) Noah's Ark has been found on Jupiter and 2) it's housing bin Laden's love child. People definitely crave the weird, uncanny, and horrifying, but I really don't think that it's a substitute for religious experience.
For that, let's look at the NFL. Nothing horrifying there.
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