Gothic Enough For You?

 “Capitalism – A Horror Story. Gothic Marxism and the Dark Side of the Radical Imagination” by Jon Greenaway, 2024

I’m not a fan of horror films of any kind, as there is enough real horror under capitalism.  Greenaway on the other hand is a fan.  In this book he wallows in a good number of modern horror movies and several books, The Jungle by Upton Sinclair, Frankenstein by Mary Shelley and Dracula by Bram Stoker.  These 3 are well known and have been thoroughly examined already.  This is all in the service of something he calls ‘Gothic Marxism.’  Greenaway is a Brit with a Ph.D from the Manchester Center for Gothic Studies, so you better listen.  Or not. 

I’ve only seen two of the films he mentions – Parasite and The Platform.  I had to stop watching the latter because it was so cruel and terrible.  It’s a about a multi-story structure of trickle-down food and cannibalism based on 133 class levels, with the bottom ones getting the least to no food.  Parasite is based on the conflict between a servant family and a wealthy family, with two sets of servants fighting and slaughtering each other to retain their jobs.  Both illuminate capitalist nightmares.

So what the f*ck is Gothic Marxism?  Greenaway riffs off of Marx’s use of vampire, ghost, body and horror images to extend the notion that there is an emancipatory and utopian side to political splatter films, a case I find weak. But you know Marxists, using dialectics to tease out the inner contradictions of anything.  He enlists surrealism, expressionism, Ernest Bloch and Walter Benjamin in his logic. Then he promotes TERF feminists and people as ‘fascists,’ so his materialism is somewhat twisted.   He maintains that these films don’t just embody the fears and damage of capitalist society, but also point towards a more human, utopian future. His ‘monsters’ are supposedly all figures of rebellion, like claiming Dracula didn’t want to work. Well, don’t all criminals have that aspiration?  Hobbesian communal and individual violence is the result in film after film. Witches, in the context of sexism, may be the outstanding exception. The ‘spectre’ still haunting capital and the Republican and Democratic Parties is another.  “Zombie” corporations exist, who will never pay their debts back. And yeah, the Stones did Sympathy for the Devil.  So there is some kind of bargain to be made with ‘Gothic’ Marxism, but perhaps not a deep one at all. 

Greenaway’s ‘gothic’ Marxism is based on the human body, which is the target of so much damage under capital – through work, war, weather, sickness, pregnancy, bad food, pollution, pandemics, starvation, addiction, crime, accidents and the like. Mortality has a habit of working like that. He calls the outcomes ‘necro-political’ and ‘necro-neoliberal’ class antagonisms in a world I have labeled verging on sado-capitalism.  “Gothic” in his mind is the haunting of the present by the past – a virtual description of conservatism.  Ghosts are the representatives of history, as ‘dead generations’ weigh like a nightmare on the minds of the living. As Faulkner put it, the past is never past.  How the past impacts the future positively is the problem for Greenaway – other than reminding all of the impermanency of social life. 

Saws All

The films covered, besides Parasite and The Platform are: the dystopian Purge and Saw franchises; Ready or Not, The Sadness, The Beach House, Crimes of the Future, Possessor, “VVitch,” “Suspira,” “Can the Monster Speak,” “Pulse,” Unfriended: Dark Web,” “Host,” “A Dark Song,” “Tell Me I’m Worthless” (book);

The real form of horror in culture today is not actual horror films, which are a niche commodity.  It is the overwhelming flood of murder stories – kidnapping, sexual assault, assassination, war, drug, gang, true crime, secret agent and serial killer TV shows, series and movies.  These reflect the increasing barbarity of societies on a plain level and their heroes are mostly cops, detectives, spies or civilians looking for justice or revenge.  Actual horror films pale in comparison, especially knowing their main audiences are teenagers and 20-somethings.  Films like “Get Out” reveal the horrors of liberal racism so they still have a role to play, but this film was missed by Greenaway as was the whole Black Mirror series.   A real ‘purge’ is coming in the U.S., while purges in Gaza, the West Bank and Lebanon are already here. Most older adults have by necessity moved on to a horror more real. 

If this kind of Left cultural criticism is your thing, or you read a lot of horror, than come on in and buy the book!

Prior blogspot reviews on this subject, us blog search box, upper left, to investigate our 17 year archive, using these terms: “The Jungle” (Sinclair); “Parasite,” “Monsters of the Market” (McNally); “Get Out” (Peele); “Capitalist Realism” (Fisher); “New Dark Age” (Bridle); “Capitalism, a Ghost Story” (Roy); “The Hunger Games,”

The Cultural Marxist / November 15, 2024