C (5:53)

Hi Mike. Thanks. It's good to be here.

B (5:55)

So I was surprised to learn, in looking at the material about you and your book and all and the subtitle of your book, that this whole love affair with creativity is pretty recent.

C (6:07)

Yeah, so as you mentioned, creativity now has this kind of divine status. Seemingly everybody is chasing it, is trying to foster it as a personal goal. We try to foster it in our in our organizations, in our schools, in our economies yet 75 years ago, almost nobody used that word. Now, I did trace this kind of creativity craze to about the post World War II era. That's when we really started seeing people talking about creativity and having scientific conferences on the nature of creativity and writing books, books and pamphlets on creativity and devising creative thinking methods like brainstorming and other things like that to try to sort of manufacture creativity. So it is a fairly recent phenomenon.

B (7:04)

And when this all started to happen after World War II, was there a force that made it happen? Was there a big guru, a creativity guru or what got the ball rolling?

C (7:17)

In a way? Probably a lot of people started liking the idea of creativity. At the same time, however, there were some major forces, some figures. It was kind of a loose coalition of people, including some psychologists like J.P. guilford and Frank Baron and Calvin Taylor and some others whose names we don't usually remember unless we're psychologists or historians of social science. And then there were business people like Alex Osborne, who also is a name not many people know, but he invented brainstorming, which is something we probably do know. And so there were kind of a, like I said, a loose coalition of people who all were sometimes in the same room together. They were reading each other's stuff, they were supporting each other's work. And they created a kind of a sort of critical mass of literature on creativity that continues to be influential to this day. Their reasons were varied. They came from different places. Some were from advertising, some were from psychometrics, which is the psychology of mental testing. And they were kind of coming from all over the place. But they agreed on certain key things about the world they were living in. One was that it was overly organized, too bureaucratic, too conformist. So they. They sought the nature of individual imagination or individual ingenuity. And that was something that they called creativity. And that's what really started the first psychological studies into creativity.

B (8:52)

So today, creativity, when you say the word to people, it's this idea of, you know, thinking outside the box, of coming up with new ways of doing things, of coming up with interesting and exciting way. And so what's wrong with that?

C (9:10)

Nothing wrong with that necessarily. I think it overstates the extent to which that kind of stuff is actually valuable. So if you look at most of what needs to be done for our world to keep on ticking, for our economy to keep on ticking, most of it is actually pretty mundane. Now, that doesn't necessarily make it fun to work on, but for a lot of people it's does make it quite satisfying to do their job, do it well. I think this world needs experts. I think the world needs lots of very competent tradespeople, people who are very good with their tools and kind of know the right and wrong way to do things. So I'm not opposed to creativity. Hey, I love art, I love music. I love when people come up with interesting new solutions for everyday things. I'm for all of that, and I'm certainly for independent things thought. But I think that in the business world, creativity has become a bit of a buzzword that kind of overstates the importance of, you know, as you said, thinking outside the box.

B (10:16)

So it sounds like there are two things going on that in the arts, yes, there is creativity. Because if there wasn't, if people weren't creative in different ways, every song would sound the same, every picture would look the same. So there is some creativity there. However, in just everyday business life and just life in general, maybe there's not as much creativity going on or can go on as we think.

C (10:45)

That's right. Although I actually think I would beg to differ about your characterization of the arts. I think even in the arts, technical mastery and very sort of mundane, repetitive things like knowing how to mix paint or how to play an instrument properly or things like that are really more important than we like to talk about them being. And if you. There's an old saying, when artists get together, they don't talk about creativity, they talk about the price of paint. And I think there's some truth to that, that even art is kind of, in many cases, really a craft as much as anything else. And if you look at some of the great artists who have characterized, you know, punctuated the 20th century, even the post World War II era, like, I don't know, Mark Rothko or Jackson Pollock, you know, they basically chose one thing and kind of stuck to it. So the generation of novelty for its own sake I don't think has ever been as much a part of the arts as we like to think it is.

B (11:51)

It would seem that a lot of creativity is incremental, but it's still creativity. And just because it's not all brand new doesn't mean it isn't creative. It's just building on what we've had before. But it's still. I mean, you. You look at a movie and, you know, the story might be just like, wow, I didn't see that coming. That was amazing how they did that. And yeah, it's sort of maybe done before, but not like this. And so it's. It's different. It's not all different, but it's still pretty creative.

C (12:29)

Yeah, it's true. I do think that most that things that even feel really new and refreshing to us are, as you said, just kind of incrementally different from what came before. I think if things are too new, we just think they're weird. So we actually quite like to know that most 90 or 99% of what's going to go on in any given song or movie or painting or you know, a technology for that matter. But it's that little extra that surprises us and that we do enjoy. And I. And so I think that kind of. That's maybe also the extent to which creativity is important in the production of those things. I think that mastering forms can be just as important as coming up with the new ideas.

B (13:19)

So I get what you're saying, that maybe creativity has been a bit overhyped, but so what? I mean, what's the harm? What could that possibly do to get in the way of something else?

C (13:32)

Well, that's a good question. Why do I call it a cult? That sounds like it's a bad thing. Mostly, as I said, I have nothing against creativity and most of the meanings that we mean it. But one of the problems is that it's a very vague word. It's a very vague term and it kind of always has been. So for one thing, it's vague about whether it is talking about art or technology or anything else. It's also vague about whether it's talking about genius or these everyday acts of kind of incremental cleverness that we were just talking about. And I think that's by design. I think that the people who write about creativity and who have been writing about creativity for 75 years have always wanted to keep those meanings kind of together and in balance. But I think that that can do some sort of nefarious work. So I'll give you an example. There was a big craze in urban economic development. It's still going on to some extent, but it was particularly strong in the early 2000s and 2010s, and that was the creative cities phenomenon. The idea was that if you were a city that was struggling, a post industrial place that had lost a lot of manufacturing, and you were looking for a way to revive your economy, well, instead of doing kind of lame things like building stadiums and malls and boring office campuses, office parks, you should attract the creative class to your city. These people who are creatives, they're artists and designers and musicians and maybe tech people too. And they together will kind of create this creative energy which will spur innovation. And if you're a company, you should move to these cities because this is where these people are now. Creativity sounds great. The idea that creativity is the thing that's going to power this new economic revival sounds wonderful because like you said, we associate creativity with the arts and with, with humane things and things that are kind of unobjectionable and morally good. But what a lot of the actual development was in high tech companies, which seem to qualify as creative, though not in the same way as the arts, again were kind of conflating these two ideas of creativity. And most of the development that was done came from real estate speculation due to the presence of highly paid, again, technical workers, not of artists, not of low paid, you know, performance artists and musicians that were supposed to be the ones at the center of this.

B (16:18)

We're talking about creativity and how maybe it's not all it's cracked up to be. My guest is Samuel Franklin. He's author of a book, the Cult of Creativity, A surprisingly recent history Introducing your new Dell PC. Powered by the Intel Core Ultra processor, it helps you handle a lot, even when your holiday to do list gets to be a lot because it's built with all day battery plus powerful AI features that help you do it all with ease, from editing images to drafting emails, to summarizing large documents, to multitasking. So you can organize your holiday shopping and make custom holiday decor and search for great holiday deals and respond to holiday requests and customer questions and customers requesting custom things and plan the perfect holiday dinner for vegans, vegetarians, pescatarians and Uncle Mike's carnivore diet. Luckily, you can get a PC that helps you do it all faster so you can get it all done. That's the power of a Dell PC with Intel inside, backed by Dell's price match guarantee. Get yours today@dell.com deals, terms and conditions apply. See Dell.com for details. As the weather cools, I'm getting clothes that are warm, durable and built to last. And for me, the only place to get them is Quint's. They've become my go to for fall staples. My favorites, their pants, cashmere sweaters and their polo shirts. The quality is first rate and I find myself reaching for my Quint's clothes more than anything else in my closet. Their 100% Mongolian cashmere sweaters start at just 60 bucks, which is incredible when you realize how soft and well made they are. And their polo shirts, they just have a better fit than any other I've ever tried. And if you're looking for outerwear, Quince has classic fit denim, real leather and wool pieces that look sharp and are built to last. And I've got my eye on this suede trucker jacket. It's casual but still really polished. And it's perfect for layering this fall. Here's what makes Quince different. They work directly with ethical factories and top artisans, cutting out the middlemen so you get premium quality at half the cost of similar brands. And it's not just clothes. Quince has expanded into bedding, bath cookware, even travel accessories with the same focus on quality and value. Layer up this fall with pieces that feel as good as they look. Go to Quince.comSYSK for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns. Now available in Canada too. That's Q U I N C E Quince.comSYSK Free shipping and 365 day returns. Quince.comSYSK so Sam, this whole idea of creativity in the workplace seems very benign to me. What's wrong with wanting more creative ideas in the workplace? It doesn't mean you have to follow them. It doesn't mean you have to do anything with them. And maybe there would be a great idea that comes along in the process that really would be helpful, but I just don't see the harm in fostering that idea.

C (19:54)

Absolutely. And that's fine and that's great. And I think it's probably better to work for one of those companies than one that says we don't care what you think. However, I think there are a few other kind of downsides. We were talking about the downsides to this cult of creativity earlier. And one does have to do with how creativity is promoted within organizations. And one thing I think it does is it can get sometimes when companies are talking about promoting creativity, they're talking about promoting flexibility. Because some of the ideas that came out of the 1950s and 60s about creativity was that creative people, the creative person was this new kind of figure that came out of there. The creative people are flexible, they're tolerant, they can deal with change. They are not risk averse. Now that's great, that can be lovely. But what it can also do is it can convince people to say instead of clocking in at nine and out at five and then enjoying their leisure time, it can convince them to work all night. Because that's what a creative person would do, that's what an artist would do. It can convince them that they need to have a lot of passion for their work. That again would cause them to work over the weekend or work all hours, never stop. It can also part of the idea of creativity is that creative people don't really work for money. They work for the, the project itself. They work for the sake of the work. And so maybe we don't need to pay creative people as much. Maybe money won't be really the incentive. It will be other things like beanbag chairs and ping pong tables, these amenities in workplaces that will supposedly make work more fun and thus more creative and make people want to stay there longer and maybe make them settle for less pay. So I think a lot of the, the kind of general degradation of work that we've seen, the chipping away of pensions and benefits and the move to hiring people temp or on contingent labor or outsourcing, a lot of that has been done in the name of creativity under this idea that creativity thrives on that kind of risk and dynamism. And I think that a lot of people have bought into it because it does feel quite fun and it's quite, it's quite flattering to think of yourself as creative. But I think it's convinced a lot of us to settle for a lot less than we deserve.

B (22:26)

It would seem hard to imagine anyone ever saying, well, what we need is less creativity. Because that sounds like, well, how dare you. You're stomping on my thought process, my whatever it is that, you know, it's like the genie's out of the bottle that creativity is here to stay. Because that's what I thrive on.

C (22:52)

I think that one thing that we overestimate about the importance of creativity, okay, One often hears that we need creativity. Like you said, we need more creativity all the time because we have big problems to solve. I agree. We have big problems to solve and I agree that we're going to need to be thinking, yeah, creatively. But I think most of the good ideas that we need to solve a lot of the world's problems, a lot of those ideas are already there. They're already known, they've been tested out. What's standing in the way is things like political will or resources or solidarity. And so I think that the idea that we should stimulate creativity because it's going to solve our problems, I think allows us to be a bit complacent. And it sounds so great and it sounds so fun, like we're all just going to be out there solving problems. But I think it's actually going to take us a Little bit more than that. We're going to roll up our sleeves, it's going to be muddy, it's going to be messy, it might be boring or hard or frustrating at times. And it might not be about our own special viewpoint of the world. It might be about working with others. So I think that, yes, of course it would be absurd to say that we don't need as much creativity, but I think we maybe don't need to say that we need more creativity as much as we do.

B (24:17)

Well, it does seem like there's a language problem here because, for example, I mean, when Thomas Edison created the first movie projector, the first movie and projected it onto a wall, I mean, no one had ever thought to do that before. So that was really creative. But the act of making it happen is more of a scientific, mechanical process that maybe isn't, quote, creative. But without the creative idea, there would be no process, There would be no way to get that picture on the wall. So was it creative or was it just a mechanical process? I don't know. The idea was pretty creative.

C (25:02)

Great. There's a couple, couple good things there. So first of all, if Edison taught us anything, it's that trial and error work really well. Throwing a bunch of money at a bunch of very well trained people works really well that you don't actually need to rely on that spark of genius or that spark of inspiration to get new stuff. Even though we think of him as this guy with a light bulb going off over his head, most of his innovations and ideas, including I should mention, the light bulb itself, were a not things that other people hadn't thought of. People knew that that was possible for years. It was well understood that a filament inside a vacuum bulb would make light. The problem was finding the right material that would last the right amount of time for the lowest amount of money to make it affordable, economically feasible. That was Edison's innovation. And his other innovation was getting a bunch of people in the same room to do that thing. So actual technological innovation, even artistic innovation, really happens quite socially, as you mentioned before. It happens quite incrementally. But of course there are moments of ideas happening there, definitely. The thing is that we don't really have any general theory of how ideas come about the word creativity. The concept of creativity came into our language to give us a way to think about what that thing might be. Can we find the law, the natural laws of idea coming up with can we find what it is about people's psychology, about their attitudes, about their personality, their cognitive Abilities that can tell us how people get ideas. And if we can find that, then how can we reproduce it in a way that can give us more and more ideas all the time? And I can tell you, based on the research that I've done into the whole psychological quest to find. To find the psychological basis of creativity, they can't find anything. There's no real unifying thing about coming up with ideas. It happens in so many different ways. Sometimes it's serendipity. Sometimes it's comes to you in the shower. Sometimes it comes to you after hours of hard work. Sometimes it's because you're working in the middle of night, sometimes in the middle of the day. Sometimes it's because you're in a city. Sometimes it's because you're in the country. Like for every you line up 10 different artists and they'll have 10 different ways of doing things and ways of coming up with ideas. And that's just the artists. You add into that people who develop products and designers and architects and fashion designers. You have so many different ways that ideas come about. And I think that the idea of creativity, it's this word that gives us the sense that there is some common phenomenon there that we can grab onto and understand. And I just don't think it's the case.

B (27:59)

You know, it is such an untouchable topic. You know, you can't criticize creativity and we've all bought into that. So it's really quite refreshing to hear this other view of creativity and maybe a more realistic view. I've been talking to Samuel Franklin. He's a cultural historian and author of the book the Cult of Creativity, A surprisingly recent history. There's a link to his book in the show notes. Thank you for coming on and talking about this, Sam.

C (28:29)

Thanks, Mike. It has really been a pleasure. It's been a fun talk. Thanks for having me on.

E (28:35)

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D (31:28)

Hi Mike.

B (31:29)

So what's the appeal of horror films to you? Why do you study them? What's so special about them?

D (31:36)

One of the reasons why I think horror films are really interesting to look at as opposed to say, romantic comedies, is that horror is one of the few genres that actually promises to deliver on an emotion. Like, I know some dramas might promise to be a tear jerker. Comedies want to make you laugh, but horror movies are saying that they're going to actually trigger fright, like trigger fear in your body. That's something that's not just emotional, it's physical.

B (32:04)

Well, that's a really good point. And good horror films do just that. But, but why do people like that? I mean, it seems like you wouldn't want to be frightened, you wouldn't want to be scared, but people like it.

D (32:18)

The mileage does vary depending on who you are. Because not everyone likes horror movies, but everyone does respond to horror movies, whether you want to or not. It's just part of how our brains work when we're watching the films. The predominant theory for why we enjoy horror movies is what's known as the stimulation transfer theory. Now I'm going to get a little bit technical, but it's not too much. Most people have heard about the fight or flight response that gets our adrenaline going. So that we can either take on a threat, a real life threat, or run away from it. When it comes to watching a horror film, it's thought that we are triggering that response in our bodies. But once our brains realize that we're not in danger, we're not interacting with a threat, we're not actually getting attacked by the monster that's on the screen, we can take the arousal, that stimulation that comes from being scared, and transfer it into pleasure. And so we go from being scared and having this high stimulation, kind of high strung hormones rushing throughout the body, and move that over into a more pleasant feeling because we know we're safe.

B (33:32)

So when people say they like scary movies, they like horror films, do those people tend to have other things in common? Is that a type of person that likes them or all kinds of people like horror films? It's just that one thing that seems to appeal to them.

D (33:51)

There has been some research that has looked at the types of people that enjoy horror films. There isn't one unifying sort of quality that where you can like walk down the street and stare at someone and say, I know that that person must enjoy horror films. But there's definitely some research that says that there are different categories of people that tend to like horror movies more. There are folks who are drawn to watching horror movies and in groups of people and are sort of known as a social horror movie watcher, or there are types of people who are more drawn to supernatural horror. And so there. There are definitely categories and types of horror movie people, but there isn't really a trait that unifies all horror movie lovers other than that they love horror movies. What I find in the communities that I've worked in, working with different people who write about horror and who spend a lot of time watching horror, is that they all tend to be pretty nerdy. But that's just my own personal experience in terms of talking to people in the horror community.

B (34:58)

There is a magic, and I guess it's with a lot of films, but with horror films in particular, that the people who are sitting there watching the movie know they're watching a movie, so there's really nothing to be afraid of. And yet we're scared, we're frightened. We jump when the monster pops out. Is that a movie making technique or what causes that when in fact there is no danger?

D (35:26)

I think a lot of it has to do with empathy, to be honest. And in my conversations with filmmakers and directors and sound designers and editors who have pieced together all of the creative aspects of, of horror films, when I ask them about their craft, it always comes down to empathy and really being able to put yourself in the shoes of the characters on screen and being able to recognize the behaviors that these characters are going through as they're facing some very scary situations. And there's been some research that's also posited that when we're watching horror movies, we're running through scenarios in our head of what we would do if we were in that same situation. Now, I wouldn't say that horror films would actually like, prepare you for an actual threatening situation if you were to run into a monster. But there is some research out there that suggests that by watching horror movies we are kind of running ourselves through the paces a little bit.

B (36:23)

Is there an agreement, a sense of what was the first horror film?

D (36:29)

The earliest horror films were among the first films ever made. So I think the first horror film that we sort of cite would be like Josh Melies the Haunted Castle. And that's from like the 1890s. But as long as movies have been being made, we've been making horror movies. We've been making spooky movies that feature, you know, haunted castles and ghosts and witches and the devil. It's been there since the beginning.

B (37:00)

And the people who make them, do they know that there is a formula for this, that if you want to scare people, this is how you do it? Or is every film different and creative in its own way in scaring people?

D (37:16)

I think there are a few tools in the toolbox that not only filmmakers have come to use as sort of a visual language for horror, but that viewers who are watching horror movies have come to expect. Like the jump scare is a perfect example of one of those tools that tends to have a formulaic approach to it. You have some sort of tension build off the top that lets us know that something's going to happen. You know, the music starts to creep up or maybe it suddenly gets very, very quiet. And then we as the viewer know that something's going to happen. And that something usually is, you know, a monster or a cat or Some thing popping out of nowhere with a musical sting. And jump scares almost always follow that same sort of formula to them, and we love them and they work. But other than that, there are pretty creative scares that come in with every filmmaker that comes on the scene.

B (38:18)

Loud noises seem to be a big part of it, like the big bang, just that makes you jump.

D (38:25)

Absolutely. Loud noises are a huge part of horror films, usually following some sort of silence. And oftentimes a red herring is used in advance, sort of a false jump scare to prep us for the real scare.

B (38:39)

What makes a horror film a horror film? I mean, is there an acceptable and accepted definition of what is a horror film?

D (38:49)

This is a question that haunts people, because there isn't one true, 100% honored definition for what a horror film is. I personally think that if it's scary, it's a horror film, But I'm not as much of a purist as some folks might be. What the purists would probably say is that a horror film has to have a monster, and that monster should have some sort of supernatural element to it. Whether it's a ghost, whether it's a vampire, it should be supernatural in some form rather than a human monster. Because if you have a human monster who is in no way powered by the supernatural or somehow other, then it would be considered something that's more like a crime thriller or psychological thriller.

B (39:36)

Is there any kind of consensus on the quintessential horror film?

D (39:41)

Oftentimes I see people citing the Shining or the Thing as top for horror movies. And they're both great ones, and they both fit that definition. We have in the Shining, we have hauntings and ghosts, even though the horror at the center of the film is very, very human. And we have the Thing, which is an alien that is at the crux of or at the core of the horror. And both of them are often lauded as like the horror film of all time, either for the tension that the Shining creates in its scares or the sheer beauty, if you can call it that, of the gore and the practical effects in the Thing.

B (40:23)

I imagine there's research done when people watch horror films, and then, you know, you hook them up to a machine afterwards. And if that has happened, what happens? What do you see?

D (40:35)

There have been tons of research that have tried to look into the brain while we're watching horror movies or while we're watching violent scenes in horror movies. And we'll see a few things. We'll see a lot of activity in a part of the brain called the amygdala and that's the part of the brain that is responsible for that fight or flight response that I mentioned earlier. It's responsible for all sorts of types of arousals such as aggression and fear. And so that along with other. Other parts of the brain that form what's known as the limbic system, are all parts of the brain that respond to emotional arousal. So it really is getting to our emotions and getting to our fear centers when we are watching horror films.

B (41:20)

Well, it does seem, and I guess this is true of any genre of film, action, whatever, is that if you look back at horror films from the 50s or the 60s, they're not that scary today that there has to be a continuing. You have to continue to top the last horror film. Otherwise people yawn and say, yeah, so what? And does that seem to be the case?

D (41:46)

I think it's less that we're trying to top previous scares and that we just have to find the scares that resonate with where society is. A lot of the Films from the 50s or 60s dealt with scares that were really applicable to society at the time. Like looking at post war at that point, so communism and looking at radiation and how much we can trust our neighbors, like those were themes that we saw a lot during that era. Today we're seeing a lot of social horror like get out and nope, is another recent one. I'm saying both Jordan Peele films because they're great examples of social horrors that have come out that really resonate with where society is right now and what kind of fears we have around the people around us and where we think the world is going.

B (42:37)

When you ask people who enjoy horror films, is it just the fear is what they like, or is there some other satisfaction that comes at the end when it's all resolved and everything's over? Like they're the. Or is it just I like being scared.

D (42:57)

For some people, they just truly like being scared. But overall, I think the difference between watching a horror film that has a narrative and watching something scary unfold in real life is that we have that narrative piece to it. We get a conclusion, we get that rising action climax, and it follows a little bit of what we're expecting from a story. And I think there is satisfaction in seeing a character go through a horrific event and then come out of it, either in a world that's worse for it, or at least triumphant. In most horror movies, we do have a character come out triumphant and the monster is defeated, at least for a little while.

B (43:38)

Is there any indication that watching horror movies does anything for you in terms of like how you live or how you cope or anything like that?

D (43:48)

There's been some research that specifically looks at how we engage with horror movies and engage with grief in our lives. And it's been suggested that watching horror movie characters in movies like Hereditary or Midsommar or Scream, even these characters are navigating grief alongside some monstrous events. And being able to see characters go through all these feelings and come out with a narrative conclusion can help you with navigating your own feelings.

B (44:23)

Really.

D (44:24)

That was a really interesting study. It came out a few years ago looking specifically at horror movies as a grief processing tool.

B (44:31)

It does seem that in. In the world of filmmaking that horror movies aren't given quite the same consideration as other kinds of movies. They're not quite as, you know, I don't know, grown up or something.

D (44:44)

Horror as a genre occupies a little bit of a niche. It's still not super respected as like an award category, for example. So in that respect we don't see its popularity in, in the larger critical scheme of things. But in terms of actually who watches horror. I personally believe that everybody likes some form of horror film. They just necessarily like all forms of horror. And most people that I meet, when they say, oh, I don't like horror movies, usually they end up saying something like, but I love Midsommar or but I love teen scary movies like Scream and, or Final Destination. So it really comes down to it's not that they don't like being scared or they don't like horror. It's that there's just a. There's just a specific pie slice of horror that they really do find fun.

B (45:40)

Is it ever a case? Because maybe it's just me. But the best. I'm not a big horror movie fan, but like with roller coasters or other things, I like it when it's over. Like, I like, oh, thank God that's over. I mean, it's not that I didn't enjoy it, but more because I can exhale like, oh, God, thank you.

D (46:02)

Yeah. And you felt a little bit of the rush, even if you didn't necessarily enjoy the rush. I personally really hate freefall, the sense of free fall. So roller coasters that have a sense of free fall or jumping off a cliff into a lake. Not for me, but I get that same feeling that you just described where at the end of it I'm exhilarated, even though I'm glad that it's over and I don't want to do it again.

B (46:26)

Is there any research about, you know, you know, when Jaws came out and then after Jaws came out, you know, that there was. People were a lot more afraid of sharks. That watching that movie made you more afraid in general. Do people who watch horror films, are they fearful people, or are they able to watch a movie and say, that's a movie and I'm not afraid anymore, or do they go home and look under their bed for the monster under there?

D (46:54)

Jaws was a special case for sure in that it introduced the idea of. Of sharks as a threat where previously it wasn't seen as as much of a threat, and it actually led to the death of a lot of sharks. So that was a. A really interesting, if kind of sad social phenomenon. I don't know that there's ever been another movie quite like that that set off such a. Such a big and intense, like, fear reaction.

B (47:24)

And you, you mentioned that, you know, horror films are not an award category. But when I think of a movie like the Shining, which was just so great for so many reasons, and did it win any awards? I mean, it seems like, yeah, it was a horror film, but it was also just a great movie.

D (47:41)

I can't recall if the Shining won awards, but it was definitely, like, critically lauded. But what tends to happen is when a horror film gets critical acclaim, usually someone attached to that horror film says that, no, no, this isn't a horror film. That happened with the Exorcist, which is, you know, a classic horror film. But as soon as it started getting acclaim, sort of the language around it became, this isn't a horror film. It is a meditation on religion. The same thing happened around the Silence of the Lambs, which is. Toes the line between horror film and crime thriller. But it won an Academy Award. But as soon as that happened, we found people distancing it from horror and saying squarely that it is not horror at all or it cannot be considered horror. There's a certain sort of. I don't want to say elitism, but there is a certain sort of idea that the horror film is a lesser form of film. I don't subscribe to this belief, by the way, but there's. There's been sort of traditionally this idea that it's like a B movie or lower.

B (48:51)

Yeah, well, that. But that is. The reputation of horror films is, as you said, they're kind of. They kind of have that B movie reputation of, I think of some of those films from the 50s, the early 60s that were really kind of cheesy. And, you know, that's kind of the image you get when you hear the phrase horror film. It isn't the Shining or the Exorcist. It's more those, you know, the Day the monster ate Cincinnati kind of films.

D (49:19)

Yes, absolutely.

B (49:21)

I wouldn't consider Silence of the Lambs a horror film. But you said maybe it is. But I just, I think that more of a, as you said, a crime thriller more than a. I wouldn't never put it in a horror category.

D (49:34)

The Silence of the Lambs is born of a very tricky phase in the history of horror films where the 90s just came off of the 1980s sort of like influx of slasher films where there was a lot of larger than life characters like, like Freddy Krueger, like Jason Voorhees. And so in the early 90s especially we saw a dip towards realism in horror and crime thrillers tended, tended to take up more of our screen time than, than those more fantastic types of films. We really took a turn towards realism and that's where sort of Silence of the Lambs had its, had its, you know, time to shine.

B (50:21)

What are your favorite, what do you consider like the top couple of all time great horror films?

D (50:28)

The Shining and the Thing are up there. In terms of all time greats, if I'm being honest with what are my personal favorites? I love, I love more teen horror films like Scream and the Faculty, which I would not qualify as all time greats, but they're all time greats in my heart. But I think overall the ones that are classics like the Thing, like the Shining, like the Exorcist, they come up again and again because of the good reason that they are amazing films.

B (50:59)

Well, there's no doubt it is a powerful form of filmmaking because even when you consider when there's a horror film based on a book, as scary as the book can be, it doesn't evoke the emotions that a film can because of the power of the medium. We've been talking about horror films with Nina Nessith. She is a science writer and the name of her book is Nightmare the Science of Horror Films. And there's a link to that in the show notes. Thanks for coming on and talking about this, Nina.

D (51:30)

Thank you so much.

B (51:34)

I would suspect most people take a shower every day. That's good personal hygiene. But actually, could it be making you dirtier? According to medical researchers, every time we take a shower and rinse, we're actually just spreading around skin borne bacteria. That's why surgical teams and patients are restricted from showering before entering an operating room. Showering too much has also been found to be damaging to your skin. We're just washing off the protective outer layer which was trying to protect the fragile new cells underneath. So how often should you shower? Well, every other day is sufficient for most people, but if you can't stand the thought of that, keep your daily showers brief and avoid using really hot water and don't over scrub. And that is something you should know. If you wouldn't mind just taking a moment and it really takes just a second to leave a rating and review of this podcast on whatever platform you're listening on, it sure would be appreciated. I'm micahruthers. Thanks for listening today to something you should know Limu Emu and Doug Here we have the Limu Imu in its natural habitat, helping people customize their car insurance and save hundreds of with Liberty Mutual. Fascinating. It's accompanied by his natural ally, Doug.

F (53:02)

Uh, Limu is that guy with the binoculars watching us?

B (53:05)

Cut the camera. They see us. Only pay for what you need@libertymutual.com Liberty Liberty Liberty Liberty Savings Fairy Unwritten by Liberty Mutual Insurance Company and affiliates excludes Massachusetts.

F (53:15)

Hi there. Fred Greenhalgh here, director of audio dramas like DC High Volume Batman and Star Trek Khan. However, my one true love remains all things spooky. And I'm excited to say there's a new season of my horror podcast, Undertow. This season is called Familiar Haunts, standalone horror tales that reveal how the past is never truly gone and humanity may be the most ruthless monster of them all. Here's a sample from the first episode about a man who returns to the house he grew up in after receiving a creepy voicemail from his mother. Let's hear it, shall we? Mike, help me. I'm not alone in here. I'm not alone, chief.

C (53:50)

Just walking. Just walking toward me.

F (53:55)

Hear the rest by listening to Familiar Haunts, available on Undertow. Subscribe to Undertow wherever you get your podcasts, such as App. You're listening to me right now. In addition to the weekly releases of Familiar haunts, We have 11 previous seasons with everything from werewolf tales to underwater monsters and creepy reincarnated twins. So get your spooky fix by subscribing to Undertow.