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Media Journal #1 – Influential Media: A Likely Story

It was a Friday afternoon, and school was almost over. My fourth-grade teacher had assigned each of the students in my class a book to take home and `qawread for a report. I was assigned to read A Likely Place by Paula Fox. With no prior knowledge of the author or the book title, I was not sure what to expect. At first glance, the cover did not seem too exciting, nor the title. Nevertheless, I knew I had to read it for homework, and it would be my only source of entertainment as I had been grounded that week. 

The following day, I would spend the entirety of the afternoon reading the short illustrated 57-page chapter book. Finishing it before dinner, I felt a sense of warmth and comfort. The plot was nothing too exciting, yet it was not uninteresting. Some of my favorite books to read at the time were fantasy adventures, especially ones with female protagonists. A Likely Place was slower paced, the main protagonist, Lewis, was a Caucasian boy, and his conflict in the story was not too high stakes. Despite these things, I was still able to enjoy the story because I could relate to Lewis in some ways. He was nine years old, and I was about nine or ten at the time. Lewis had parents who were overprotective and always assuming how he feels. If I ever felt sad, frustrated, angry, or confused, my parents might start out asking how I feel. However, it would soon turn into them telling me about what I could have done or should have done or that I am ridiculous. Lewis was not doing too well in school, and his teacher berates him. Luckily, my teacher at the time was caring and understanding, but I was still having a hard time with school work. Lewis quickly made friends with an older gentleman named Mr. Madruga in a park. Similarly, I found it easier to make friends with older people than people my age. However, that was where our similarities ended. 

Lewis planned to find a cave in the park to hide from his parents until he was ready to run away to Alaska. He wanted to run away because he felt misunderstood. I understood how he felt, but even then, I did not feel it was enough to justify him abandoning his parents. If it were me, I would run away if I felt that my parents did not love me anymore. I knew my parents did not understand me all of the time, but that was ok.  I did not understand them all of the time, either. One thing I knew for sure was that they loved me very much and that I loved them. Even if I wanted to run away, I would not have been able to do it because I knew that the outside world was dangerous and at home was where I was safest. As a young adult, I now know that if I were to commit to running away from home, I would have a high chance of not making it out on the streets. A young African-American girl like myself would have been kidnapped, and it would not make the news. Lewis, a young Caucasian boy, would have a better chance of being found if he were kidnapped. He would make news headlines, and the police would send out search parties to look for him. I do not think that the author, Paula Fox, a Caucasian woman, would have thought about those things while writing the novel. Her main goal was to have it appeal to a broader child audience. It was and still is typical for the default character to be a Caucasian male in stories, and at the time, I did not question it. Since race was not an essential factor in this book, I am particularly upset with the way the story was handled. 

Another aspect of the story that mainly stuck with me was Lewis’s relationship with his elderly friend, Mr. Madruga. The two meet on a park bench and form an instant bond over how they both find the English language to be particularly challenging to understand at times. Lewis learns that Mr. Madruga is an adoptive citizen from Spain. He has up and left his home because he no longer wants to be treated as an invalid by his caretaker son-in-law. It is easy for Mr. Madruga to empathize with Lewis because of their similar situations. As someone who knows what it is like to not have a say in the way they are being cared for, Mr. Madruga is not like the other adults in Lewis’s life. Mr. Madruga treats Lewis as an equal and with respect, caring to listen to how he feels genuinely. This special bond is what allows them to strike up a deal with one another. If Mr. Madruga helps Lewis find a cave to hide away in, then he will help Mr. Madruga write a letter to his son-in-law. Both characters uphold their respective end of the deal and surprisingly gain something more from their time together. Mr. Madruga’s letter to his son-in-law causes him to write a letter back to him apologizing for the way he treated him and agreeing to give him more freedom and be more sensitive towards his wants as much as his needs if he were to return home. The letter provokes a change of heart in Mr. Madruga, and he decides to return home, encouraging Lewis to do the same. In the end, they both learn that if they were to start the line of communication with their loved ones, then they could work towards a healthier relationship. Fourth-grade Sky was someone who found communication with her parents to be complicated. The overall message of the book probably did not stick with me as well as Lewis and Mr. Madruga’s unusual friendship. I did not wholly agree with it at the time. I believed that even if I told my parents how I felt, they still would continue to patronize me. In reality, that was how our relationship turned out to be. It would take several years before my parents would begin to show me the respect I felt I deserved. Although the book has its flaws, I feel like if it serves as a good starting point for a conversation about child to adult relationships. The book did have discussion questions at the end of small groups. Paula Fox did intend for her short story to be a conversation piece between adults and children, allowing them to open up about their feelings and strengthen their relationships. If this discussion were to happen in class among my peers, it could have made a significant impact on me. However, I am quite content with the fact that A Likely Place brought me peace during a tough time.

Media Journal #2 – Fear: Childhood Nightmare Fuel: Monster House

Monster House (2006) directed by Gil Kenan and produced by Robert Zemeckis and Steven Spielberg, is an animated horror movie that haunted me as a child. It is a film about a group of tweens investigating a creepy old neighbor’s house, only to find out that it is alive. Together they must destroy the house before it terrorizes the neighborhood children on Halloween. Revisiting the film as an adult, I admire how ridiculous the premise sounds. What should not work does, however, due to the way the story is executed through clever uses of camera movement, sound, and character design. Encompassing all of these important factors is the use of motion capture that brings the CGI animation to life in such a way that it enters the uncanny valley.

In the opening scene of the film, sound proves to be an effective tool to affect the mood of the audience. An insert shot of a girl’s tricycle wheels racing through fallen autumn leaves is what cues a cheery and whimsical score to come in. The camera then pans up to follow the girl as she sings and rides her tricycle down the block. At this moment, the audience is made to feel at ease. The danger that lies within the film is not near yet, it will not show up later in the film. All of a sudden the music stops when the girl gets her tricycle stuck on Old Man Nebbercracker’s front lawn. An air of silence warns the audience that something is not quite right. The little girl feels this too as she begins to hesitate while singing. She then stops completely as she realizes that she cannot get herself out of the rut she is in. A spooky score begins and the creak of wooden floorboards is heard as the camera follows a leaf falling onto Nebbercracker’s front porch. The audience now knows that something frightening is going to come out from within the run-down house. Next, the camera zooms in on the doorknob as it turns with a metallic sound. Nebbercracker’s deep exhaling and grumbling can be heard as he slams the front door open. Rearing his ugly head from the shadows, he yells at the little girl to get off his lawn. While this is happening, the music swells with a loud horn and drum section. The threat had now been revealed to the audience and they are made to feel frightened with the little girl as she sees her beloved tricycle be ripped apart by the old man. Timing for the music and the use of sound effects in these key moments within the scene elevate it to just the right level of intensity. It plays along with the audience’s expectations of what a kids’ movie is supposed to be and subsequently subverts them. As a result, they are now aware that anything can happen. 

“Stay Away From My House” is a scene in which the motion capture technology works to the film’s advantage in terms of traumatizing audience members. The film’s protagonist, DJ, and his friend Chowder look on in horror as Chowder’s basketball rolls across the street and onto Nebbercracker’s front lawn. DJ gathers up the courage to retrieve it, but as he reaches down to pick it up, Nebbercracker bursts through the front door. He chases DJ around, eventually catches up to him, lifts him off the ground, and screams in his face. As the music intensifies, Nebbercracker’s heart beats faster and faster until it dramatically pauses, ceasing Nebbercracker’s wrath. Letting out a few groans, his eyes widen and his mouth drops open. His facial muscles begin to contort, finally resting in an angry scowl, with eyebrows furled, nose scrunched, and mouth snarled. The camera pans down as Nebbercracker’s pale and ghastly face falls onto the ground, overtaking the entirety of the frame, staring on with dead and fearful eyes. Then, the camera zooms out to show a traumatized D.J. trapped under his creepy neighbor’s lifeless body. Overall, the realness of Nebbercracker’s facial expressions in this scene perfectly conveys the horror and tragedy of the situation. Audience members are forced to experience this gruesome moment with D.J. as the camera gives some claustrophobic point of view close-ups of Nebbercracker’s ugly face. They empathize with DJ as he witnesses his neighbor suffer a heart attack. As a child, I would have been scared out of my mind, believing that D.J’s trespassing had inadvertently killed Nebbercracker. 

The scene that begins the climax of the film is one that utilizes lean-out and insert shots to heighten the drama of the moment and emphasize the new threat that the house imposes on the main characters. Returning home from the hospital, Nebbercracker finds D.J. and his friends on his front lawn. Ready to scold them once more, D.J. confesses that they’ve been in his house and now know what happened to his wife. Knowing that he needs to defend himself, he explains the full story. His wife’s death was caused by an accident and how her soul inhabited the house itself. As he attempts to go back inside the monster house, D.J. stops him, telling him to let his wife go. In a close-up shot, D.J. extends his hand in a sign of friendship and Nebbercracker takes it. The camera leans out to a point of view shot that looks inside out from one of the house’s second-floor windows. From there the camera cuts to some extreme close up shots of the roots of the nearby trees being ripped out of the ground from either side of the house. A quick pan up shows that the trees have become the monster house’s arms and the roots, its hands. In my ten-year-old mind, I would have been filled with dread as I anxiously anticipated for what would happen next. The camera then cuts to a wide shot of the house in its full and terrifying monster form with Nebbercracker and D.J. cowering underneath it. Lifting off the ground, the house nears the screen and chases after them. At this moment, my heart would have raced as I hoped that the “good guys” would successfully escape the house’s advance and destroy it once and for all. Even though I had seen the house come to life in earlier scenes, I had not expected it to displace itself from its place on the ground. The lead up to this moment is what makes this the best scare in the entirety of the film in my opinion. 

In conclusion, Monster House proves itself to more than a children’s Halloween movie. It is inventive and unique in that it takes the cliches of a haunted house and the creepy neighbor across the street of typical horror films and turns them on their heads. Using the motion capture technology of the day to its advantage, Robert Zemeckis, Steven Spielberg, and were able to craft truly disturbing images. As an adult re-watching certain clips from the film, I am no longer frightened by it. However, I can see it continuing to terrify children today.

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