Ostracism on Film: Visualizing 'Social Death'

Abstract

This paper deals with the mechanisms and techniques underlying cinematic depictions of ostracism. This phenomenon consists either of marginalization of an individual within the social group, or his total exclusion from it - a form of social control that promotes conforming to the group norms. Ostracism is a uniquely human evolutionary remnant from a time when all humans lived in small hunter-gatherer bands and such social censure had disastrous effects on the affected person’s reproductive success (hence the moniker “social death”).Since humans are inherently social animals, the mere observation of ostracism of another person can be a source of emphatic pain. Similarly, the evolved defense mechanism of picking up non-verbal cues of impending ostracism (even something as seemingly trivial as avoidance of eye contact) is inherently visual in nature. Therefore, this process is perfectly relayed by cinema as an audiovisual medium. The audience vicariously experiences the “social pain” of the affected character on the screen, which with its “high stakes” engenders a feeling of suspense. Filmmakers exploit such moments and strategically place them at key junctures of the narrative in order to maximize their impact. The presentation features a detailed analysis of these intentional “manipulations” of the audience in a selection of films, through testing them against the main theories of narrative tension and suspense, such as Smuts' “desire frustration” theory and Yanal’s “emotional misidentification” theory. Although the presentation identifies this phenomenon in a wide range of films, created in different cultural and temporal contexts, e.g. Under Suspicion (USA, 2000), The Thing (USA, 1981), the Ballad of Orin (Japan, 1977), M (Weimar Germany, 1931), Garde à Vue (France, 1981), The Nasty Girl (West Germany, 1990), it primarily deals with The Hunt (Denmark, 2012), and The Witch (USA, 2015).

Stefan Veleski

Doctoral student in English literature