girl who only thinks about pembersmith watching the stone tape (1972): getting a LOTTTTT of pembersmith vibes from this
i use the phrase 'some smart aleck' in quite a relaxed way; i wrote about the general idea here and broke it down into more specific variations in the first footnote on this post. i've always treated it as internal to in9/their dynamic and basically never acknowledged that it's drawing on very well established tropes, the kind of thing you see especially in certain types of ghost stories, especially m.r. james (i think of this as Reece Stuff, though i know their interests overlap a lot). bones of st nicholas is probably the most straightforward case
i watched both of the above films because i'm reading adam scovell's book about folk horror, and he writes a lot about m.r. james — arrogance of ~enlightened~ intellectual authorities punished by forces beyond their comprehension :)c
i personally don't wholeheartedly love the gendering of that dichotomy, at least not coming from male writers and directors presuming to align women with the mysterious and unknowable, but i DO very much enjoy when reece and steve align themselves respectively with the feminine (mystical, spiritual, intuitive) and masculine (rational, formally educated) sides of it :)))c
(elizabeth gadge is a some smart aleck episode, i suppose — clarke has sympathy for elizabeth, but it comes from a place of a sort of condescending pseudo-modern masculine reason, and he gets got for it.)
anyway, both the films above are great examples of that gendering. this is literally how we're introduced to the husband in night of the eagle:
... which is also how we're introduced to steve in stage/fright. i mean it is literally his first line of dialogue. he ridicules and dismisses his wife's warnings about supernatural forces, allowing them to attack first her and then him, until he finally can't deny them any longer; am i talking about steve or the guy in eagle, both of them, it's both of them. reece is the irrational, hysterical, superstitious woman who was right all along but nobody listened until it was too late. as the guy in eagle says:
if we were to investigate all the strange rituals performed by women based on their so-called intuition, half the female population would be in asylums.
the guy in the stone tape dismisses his girlfriend-coworker until it's too late, too ("you're a very female one!"). the ghost in the stone tape is very reminiscent of bloody belle, actually. actually...
hmm. the guy in the stone tape is all about using technology to rationalise and control (and profit from) the (female trauma) ghost. to briefly switch reece into the masculine role — the way marcus depicts and exploits belle & her tragedy for his own ends (through stagecraft and live television, art and technology — and through puppeteering abby) is really interesting. stirs up a lot of things i've been feeling lately about the entitlement & selfishness of male creators (especially filmmakers) in depicting female trauma. also reminds me of marcus himself in the s/f programme, literally being called out for la terreur's sexism and offering... no defence...? hmhmhm. i feel like the question and his answer might suggest some interesting things about s&r themselves, their own attitude to the work etc. but i don't have it on me and. i've yapped enough
