Horror in the Catholic Seventies, Or, On the "Mindless and Hysterical Banality of the Evil Presented in The Exorcist"
This article examines The Exorcist (1973) through a close reading of James Baldwin’s critique in The Devil Finds Work (1976), exploring how the film reflected American Catholic anxieties in the post-Vatican II era. While audiences fixated on the film’s supernatural spectacle, Baldwin rooted the film...
| Main Author: | |
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| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Interlibrary Loan: | Interlibrary Loan for the Fachinformationsdienste (Specialized Information Services in Germany) |
| Published: |
2025
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| In: |
The journal of gods and monsters
Year: 2025, Volume: 5, Issue: 1, Pages: 59-64 |
| Further subjects: | B
James Baldwin
B Vatican II B Catholicism B The Exorcist B Whiteness |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (kostenfrei) |
| Summary: | This article examines The Exorcist (1973) through a close reading of James Baldwin’s critique in The Devil Finds Work (1976), exploring how the film reflected American Catholic anxieties in the post-Vatican II era. While audiences fixated on the film’s supernatural spectacle, Baldwin rooted the film’s horror in something much more concrete: (white) Americans’ desire for innocence amidst ongoing institutional violence. The article reads Catholic responses to the film alongside contemporaneous historical events, like the Attica prison uprising and clerical sexual abuse, and ultimately argues that the "mindless and hysterical banality of the evil" portrayed in The Exorcist masked deeper historical horrors while offering nostalgic comfort to Catholics navigating the transformation of their Church in the wake of Vatican II. |
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| ISSN: | 2689-7032 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: The journal of gods and monsters
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