Media Portrayal to Supernatural Ghost & Its Impact on Audience

Media Portrayal to Supernatural Ghost & Its Impact on Audience

Ghost or Supernatural energy/ entity is very much a subjective in the thoughts of human kind. It had always been a very unique experience for those whom had experienced it whereas, it literally do not even exist for those do not believe in it. Diverse beliefs and religions around the globe depict different ideologies about the existence of supernatural entities or ghost in their own ways. But one common thing that the universe agrees is "certainly these entities does no good" if ever they exist. On top of this, Media being the ultimate mind-sculpting tool also adds more influence of these entities into its audience. Looking back in history of movie making, this horror genre grabbed peoples' attention since 1890s itself through a three-minute-long movie titled 'Le Manoir du diable' directed by French filmmaker Georges Méliès that means 'The House of the Devils' in English. Since then, horror film has showcased different beliefs about Supernatural entities and the rating for these types of movies was also high in demand from that period of time. But all of these conceptions will not be uphold without a base called 'religion and beliefs' of a society.

            Thus, going back to different theories about ghost and supernatural entities by different religions,  ("ghost & spirits,”) a website by ghost busters whom practice Christianity clarifies that ghost or super natural entities are those whom were dead unexpectedly or in sudden. By not having the ability to accept the reality, their souls are being trapped in this world. The authors of this site elaborates that these entities could be world bounded for several reasons such as to look over their loved ones or just because they do not feel it's fair for them to die and return back to their origin.  In addition to this, in bible also it states about the demons and devils, which are second highly rated element of any horror movies.  ("Christian beliefs in,”) mentions bible verse, 2 Peter 2:4, "For if God spared not the angels that sinned, but cast them down to hell, and delivered them into chains of darkness, to be reserved unto judgment."  Which means the demons are the rebellion angels, sentence to be grounded into hell.  A lot more lines thoroughly describes what are the characters of demon and what bad it does to the human kind which are much similar ones which are being visible through horror movies we watch from Hollywood film makers.

            But an interesting contradiction to Christianity's theory is the Islamic beliefs and holy verses in Al-Quran. The Muslims seems not to believe in ghost entirely if at all supernatural entities or ghost is defined as dead peoples' spirits. Muslims belief that once a person is dead, there will be a death angel comes to extracts the soul from the body, wrap it and carry it, which eventually will return to the grave. This will be followed by an grave questioning session and the soul remains there itself until the resurrection day. 'Jinn' is the supernatural entity that being stated by Al-Quran Surah Baqarah, verse 275 as 'Those who consume interest cannot stand on the Day of Resurrection except as one stands who is being beaten by Satan into insanity being possessed. That is because they say, "Trade is just like interest." But Allah has permitted trade and has forbidden interest'. However, Jinn are the super natural entity that Muslims believe.  It is an invisible being of great physical strength and they are the ones, which can possess humans. Yet weirdly, these approaches towards ghost or super natural entity in horror movies are rarely taken as concept very including Malay horror movies.

            By the same token, Hinduism comes with more interesting facts about Ghost and supernatural entities. According to Thiruvasagam a holy scripture states "kallaai, manitharaai peyaai, kananggalaai, val asuraraagi, munivaraai thevaraai, sellaa nindra ithaavarasanggamathul ella pirapum.." which describes ghost and supernatural entity as a species in the world which does not harm human kind in any way. Hindus believe that the dead spirits do exist but they do no harm because they have no solid form. Unfortunately, this theory just remains as theories and any Tamil horror films does not portray this as well.

            Watching Hollywood ghost movies periodically has a very profound influence towards the production of non-English horror movies itself. The concept or profile of ghost /supernatural entity itself are being illustrated as according to Hollywood ghosts trends. For examples 'jangan pandang belakang', 'hantu kak limah', 'susuk' and 'congkak' narrates majorly about spirits and black magic, which initially does not belong to Malay culture or beliefs. Media being a dynamic contriving tool, it seeds contradicting and false knowledge into a society without screening its impact on its audiences.

            Overall these media portrayal of ghost and supernatural entities always leave its audience in a superstitious state of mind where it is a belief or practice that is not based on facts or events that can be proven. And it is very old belief. It is an ancient time belief system during the absence of science to explain the cause and effects on an occurrence or illness. The specific elements Media uses to manifest ghost or supernatural entity in horror movies such as bruising finger prints on one's body and greater amount of hair loss during shower always put the audience in a very superstitious state believing ghost or some sort of curse had obliged on them. Moreover, crow or owl sitting on a tree branch beside the house and black cat crossing your way is also said as bad sign to a beginning.  In extremes some audience do not allow their kids touch any types of objects, especially dolls that they found from unknown places with an imagination of it being a 'Voo-doo' doll.

            Current horror movies like insidious and conjuring, film makers with the intension to create most realistic spooky experience, takes a lot of effort to build chilling emotions by using creepy soundtracks and several indirect approaches to show case their ghosts compared to last time. Although the moviemakers deserve good credits for their terrific highly artistic work, the audience ends up terrified and drowns in fear.  Consuming these sort of movie a commoner does not even dares to use a lift by his/her own, no ladies go to washroom without a company, employees does not prefer staying back and finishing up their work in the office. Thus, this certainly does not develop a healthy society.

            Watching or reading materials in relevance with ghost and supernatural entities, which are being broadcasted or published by media, is also threatening viewers mentally and physically. All streams of media in existence have always showed that these types of entities are much powerful than human kind. Most of the time for the producers’ ideas to come up with another series of a movie, these entities are shown as undefeatable and to be continuing haunting people. This also damages the health of a viewer while watching the movie. In a research article from University of Minnesota, it states that Living under constant threat or fear weakens our physical immune system and can cause cardiovascular damage, gastrointestinal problems such as ulcers and irritable bowel syndrome, and decreased fertility. Other consequences of long-term fear include fatigue, clinical depression, accelerated ageing, and even premature death. In addition to physical illness, mental illness possess people in fear as well by leaving them with a very low self esteem and put them into a imaginary or illusion world where they fail to perform in reality.

            Besides this, Media portrayal upon ghost and supernatural entity has huge contribution in deviating people from being religious. Consistency of these contented programs has build faith in people of ghost more than the God. Exaggerations and fictional character developments of this super natural entities convince audiences to find ghost more interesting and interactive compared to God.  A recent study from researchers at the University of Augsburg, Germany and the University of Wisconsin-Madison found that people are more likely to watch movies with gory scenes of violence if they felt there was meaning in confronting violent aspects of real life. Thus, the nature of audience itself is being very negative and the media portrayal is feeding them perfectly dragging them away from spiritual life, which can lead one's life into brighter future with morality.

             Diverting from spiritual paths, this ghost or supernatural entity's portrayal by media also inspires the audience to commit into unwanted act like placing spells on themselves for better future which totally forbidden from the religious aspect.  Putting a curse on one another and carrying out devil worshiping for short cuts in life to earn quick money, beauty and love are some awful acts, which are being done. The movie 'susuk' was a best example where the film maker wanted to show how these black magic entities can give a person temporary beauty with a lot of pain at the end. Yet, being ordinary audience the chances of them getting exposed to these things are higher than learning from the movie.

            On top of these, Media portrayal on supernatural entities had also helped out a whole new unwanted industry of spell-casters among our society. This industry has now become the top industry in taking innocent peoples' money by cheating them doing those rituals shown in films.   Giving away prediction numbers for lottery, providing cursed liquids to manipulate a person and trap ghost and evil entity to work for a person to steal money from others are the popular jobs done by these spell-casters. Certainly, media is the only party deserves to take this blame. Developing ignorance into people's minds, social problems are also being acted out by these types of spell-casters. Rapes attempted during exorcism by a victim are also a few extreme outcomes of these kinds of horror genre movies.

            Entertainment should be fun and enjoyable. Horror movies are meant to be a new experience through watching or reading it. But as much the filmmakers and editors making it real and believable the society will be falling apart. This certainly because the consistency of media portrayal in horror genre items are always higher than the positive ones based of its sensational feel to it.  Understanding the Power of media is very essential for every single person is about to produce a horror genre item with supernatural entity because a movie or a write up surely can speculate strong ideas and thoughts into one's head.