Adapting Spanish Ghost Story Conventions: The Orphanage Essay.

Introduction to The Orphanage and its socio-cultural approach

Question:

How does The Orphanage adapt Hollywood horror genre conventions to suit the fairy tale quality of the Spanish ghost story and to engage with Spain’s traumatic cultural history?

With the time of introduction in the cinema, in 20^th century, the horror genre has been mainly to evoke the anxiety and the visceral responses which comes from the audience. The prominent genre is about the filmmakers like Alfred, George etc., who are famous at the crafting of different plotlines and the disturbing concepts. Considering about the narrative approach, the essay will focus on the demonstration through the applications with the socio-cultural approach where The Orphanage adapts the traditional Hollywood horror genre conventions to bring the light to the traumatic events of Spanish people (Stadler & McWilliam, 235). This is mainly in the lives of both adult and children who are endured under the regime of Francisco Franco. The Orphanage has been considered internationally as one of the Spain’s most popular horror film of 21^st century. It can resonate culturally with the nation with proper throughput in the world. There is a need to identify about the film as horror under the influence of the Spanish where there is a link to the Hollywood genre conventions to suit the fairy tale quality of Spanish ghost story with properly engaging in the cultural theory as well. With this, the essay will focus on the conventions and the aesthetic approach to note about the strength and the weakness. This will investigate about adapting and retaining the sense of elements of Spanish ghost stories that represent the cultural history (Buxton, 325). The consideration is about the parameters and to work over the examination from the film, with using children for the moral ambiguity, abandoning the isolation of the house settings and conversion of the disbelieving father. The childlike symbols and references are to the fairy tales in the film.

The categorisation of The Orphanage in the supernatural horror genre has bene mainly for the focus on films and the television programs. They are set to classify the groups and sub-groups by the different similarities to work on the films and the television programs (Kroenert, 28). The genre is about leading the contention, which according to Sarah Berry Flint, has the debate about the different reasoning for invoking the film scholars for proper implementation process and the critical evaluation. There have been different description tools where genre is able to serve the different levels based on the cultural patterns. The audiences, where genre provides a proper and clear description about the socio-discursive frameworks and the expectation horizon is for the viewers to bring the film that they see. The postulates are set in the sense where the genres are not textual but have certain constraints related to the social forms and standards. The genre claims about the extension to the cultural category with the operations based on the industry, audience and the cultural practices. This implies a proper film must be defined for the audience explicit interpretation which is considered important for the interpretation where there are different personalised viewing practices (Buxton, 324). The resonating social and the cultural people in the movie is to analyse about the applications with the key approaches to work on the strengthen and the weakness which could be inherent in the films. The viewers also work on modifying the generic frameworks and participating in the constructive approach where there is a proper categorisation of the films and definitive influence on advertising, merchandising and the like. The academics and the scholars hold the study of the textual and the formalised analysis to make use of the genre in the different ways where there is a need to analyse the approaches like the aesthetic standards. They tend to bear the strength and the limitations as well.

Categorization of The Orphanage in the supernatural horror genre

The approach is based on the focus of the textual elements where the conventions are for the characters, setting, plotting and working over the different factors which include the mise-en-scene, performance and the proper standards of the film. The strength of the aesthetic approach focuses on the variations with the differences which are set in the film. The major strength is about the variations and the differences that are to exist in the genre which also allow the processing of the genre texts, and conforming to the establishing of codes and conventions. They are the merits to work over the formula, cliched forms and the stereotypical formats. With this, there is a need to focus on the approach which provides a proper standard and the principles to handle the criteria relating to the film categorisation (Lázaro-Reboll, 4). The horror films are having different characteristics which are for the identification of the culture escaping mode. They are, according to Professor Jane Stadler, the horror which tends to transform and then displaces the fear as well. The audience do not have to face any fear. The horror is considered to be the major cultural phobia with the taboos and the trauma which is set through properly exploring about the different states of the boundary between the life and the death. For this, sanity and madness with the consciousness and unconsciousness, holds the body. The focus of the work is also on the analysis of the films where there is genre that rest upon the ability to frighten the audiences with analysis of the texts and determining the conventions that are effective as well. The horror films tend to take hold of hyperbolized aesthetic tropes where the indication is about producing a comedic and terrifying story with better experience for the viewers. This will help in reaching towards the hybridity and considering about the rigidity to be applied to fluid and the abstract (Balanzategui, 1) . The purpose is about identifying the Hollywood horror conventions which adapts to the Spanish ghost story and the cultural history forms where there are results of analysis that are definite enough as well.

The Orphanage works over aesthetics that have conventions to identify the horror game. With this, Spain cultural history is to define Francisco Franco and Spain struggle for democracy. Here, the iconography of the haunted house or the other forbidden place depicts the isolation which has contributed to fear of the unknown in the audience. The concept is related to the haunted with the ghosts who are common motif linked to the pasts. With the resonating with the history of Spain, it is under the dictatorship of Franco and the returns to democracy. According to historian James Ameland, the dictatorship is from the 1930s to 1960s. Here, the people also were seen to be missing in the house (166).

Aesthetic approach and strength and the weakness of horror genre conventions

The conversion of the husband of Laura, Carlos, has been found to be believing and completely rationalised thinking to believe in the movie as for the Horror films. There are different links to Freudian concepts with the return of the repressed characters with the horror films that tend to deny over the existence of the spiritual forms. Spain, after death of Franco in 1975, has been working over:

1. The politicians
2. The remnant of those who have been working on supporting the people who follow dictatorship.
3. The appointed successor, Prince Juan Carlos, who wanted to bring the democracy to Spain.

There have been disagreements which focus over the demands and the removal of the monarchy. This has been set with the concept of Francoist politicians and the military in Spain. Here, the concept is to make an attempt to the Spanish Civil War where Carlos is also convinced of the supernatural costs of son and wife (Jancovich, 6). The Hollywood horror convention tends to become suggestive with democracy which is about suffering in the dictatorship.

The representation is about the fear of characterisation with Tomas face and identity that could easily be obscured by the mask with forcing oneself to reveal about the deformation and the unnatural identity (Lázaro-Reboll, 4). This also combines with the forced separation from the peers with accidental murder through the process of bullying, positioning the audiences to the fear with sympathising with him. Buxton also argue about the horror genre where there is a confusion for the audience about the repulsion and sympathy. Hence, for this, the monster, Tomas, need to focus on the psychological conflicts with the experience of the monster. This will help in sympathising and working over the motif in the different films mainly through the characters of villains or monsters (Dawson, 10). The use of children in The Orphanage is about taking complete adaptation to the Spanish culture with the traditional fairy tale ghost story. The children have a proper susceptibility to the supernatural phenomenon with believing about the Hollywood film The Others. The use of children has been also including about the horror conventions with hark back to the fairy tale quality Spanish ghost story (Beal 9). The symbols are about the dolls, and the childhood games, with nursery rhymes to create a proper disturbance in the atmosphere which tends to permeate with entire film. For Peter Pan, Simon also asks Laura about reading and working over the films. Here, the disguise is about the child death with the exploration is about the Hollywood horror films like Joel Anderson Lake Mungo (2008).

The Orphanage adapts to the conventions for suiting the fairy tale quality of the ghost story which is in Spanish and then engaging with the cultural history as well. The evidence is about the different conventions and the horror of Hollywood like the characterisation of the children who are ambiguous as well (Dawson, 10). The conversion of the disbelieving father, Carlos, has been manipulated mainly for exploring the trauma, politics and the other unknowns in Spain. The other representation is about the characterisation of the antagonist as well as the film monster. Tomas face and identity are mainly obscured by the mask with distinguishing him as different and forcing to be unknown. The deformity is then combined with the other forced separation from the peers mainly because of the masks and accidental errors. This includes the children with the different child-like symbols and the fairy tales like Peter Pan to provide with a better quality to the horror film. This also confines to the horror genre with the unique standards set for the mixture of Spanish cultural history and overlaying the fairy tale. The film then presents a proper and a unique take for the traditional Spanish ghost story that leads to the development beyond any kind of the constraints of genre.

References

Amelang, James S. "Early Modern Spanish Cultural History: One Opinion." History Compass 4.1 (2006): 165-171.

Balanzategui, Jessica. "“You have a secret that you don't want to tell me”: The Child as Trauma in Spanish and American Horror Film." M/C Journal 17.4 (2014).

Beal, Timothy. "Our Monsters, Ourselves." The Chronicle Review9.11 (2001): B18.

Buxton, Rodney A. "The Horror Film: An Introduction." Journal of Film and Video 61.2 (2009): 70-71.

Dawson, M. “Analyse: Horror Movies as Modern Day Morality Tales – Conclusionss”. Left Field Cinema. 2008. Web.

Jancovich, Mark. "'A Real Shocker': Authenticity, genre and the struggle for distinction." Continuum: Journal of Media & Cultural Studies 14.1 (2000): 23-35.

Kroenert, Tim. "Reign of terror:[The rise and rise of the Australian horror genre.]." Inside Film: If 101 (2007): 28.

Lázaro-Reboll, Antonio. Spanish Horror Film. Edinburgh University Press, 2012.

Stadler, Jane, and Kelly McWilliam. Screen media: analysing film and television. Allen and Unwin, 2008.

Tudor, Andrew. "Why horror? The peculiar pleasures of a popular genre." Cultural studies 11.3 (1997): 443-463.