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www.fantastikajournal.com Fantastika Journal • Volume 5 • Issue 1 • May 2021

GOTHFLIX: A CONFERENCE CELEBRATING NETFLIX AND THE GOTHIC (FEBRUARY 1-2, 2020) Conference Report by Kat Humphries

Gothflix: A Conference Celebrating Netflix and the Gothic. Lancaster University, UK, 1- 2 February 2020.

Gothflix: A Conference Celebrating Netflix and the Gothic took place at Lancaster University across Saturday 1 and Sunday 2 February 2020. The genesis of this conference was a conversation between convenors Luke Turley (Lancaster University, UK) and Jessica White (University of Liverpool, UK), before presenting together on a panel at Reimagining the Gothic with a Vengeance: Returns, Revenge, Reckonings (University of Sheffield, 2019). What began as a tentative plan for another group panel the following year quickly evolved into a dedicated conference on Netflix and the Gothic, funded by the International Gothic Association, the British Academy of Film, Television and Screen Studies, and the Department of English Literature and Creative Writing at Lancaster University.

The conference began on Saturday morning with a panel entitled “Gothic Laughter,” featuring papers by Shaina Paggett (Keele University, UK) and Kerry Gorill (Manchester Metropolitan University, UK). Paggett’s paper, “Comedy as a Coping Mechanism? The Hidden Gothic in Netflix Comedies” was a very interesting place to start, focusing as it did on three shows that are by no means obvious examples of the Gothic: Fuller House (2016-current), One Day at a Time (2017-current), and GLOW (2017-current). Paggett explored how these shows feature Gothic undertones and themes relating to death and hardship, emphasising the potential use of humour to work through trauma. Gorill’s paper, “Curing Toxic Masculinity: Is Daybreak’s Adults-Only Armageddon an Effective Antidote?”, focused on a show with similar comedic elements, Daybreak (2019), in particular its depiction of American masculinity in a world where young men no longer have father-figures to whom they can turn. Gorill touched on several models of American masculinity, in particular the enduring models of the pioneer / cowboy and the 1950s patriarch, with elements of both evident in the show’s lead male character, Josh. Gorill’s suggestion that toxic masculinity endures through being passed down to younger generations by older male role models was especially thought- provoking.

Of the two parallel panels that followed, I attended “Self and Selfhood,” with papers by Kerry Dodd (Lancaster University, UK), Kate Harvey (University of Stirling, UK) and Matthew Melia (Kingston University, UK). Dodd’s paper, “You are not in Control: Glitch Horror and the Loss of Agency

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in the Digital Age,” used the interactive film Black Mirror: Bandersnatch (2018) to demonstrate the ways in which our growing dependence on technology is matched by a rise in technological anxiety and ‘user panic.’ Like other episodes of Charlie Brooker’s Black Mirror (2011-current), Dodd concluded that although on the surface the narrative of Bandersnatch appears to be about technology, it is really about human ethics and morality. Harvey’s paper on “‘Restricted Intellectual Property’: Agency, Identity & Sestrahood in Orphan Black” explored not only the hybrid identities of the show’s fictional characters, but also the interesting and somewhat convoluted production history of the show itself. Ultimately, she suggested, Orphan Black (2013-2017) is the story of women trying to break free from a patriarchal system. Finally, Melia’s paper, entitled “I am the Pretty Thing That Lives in the House: Samuel Beckett and the Gothic,” compared the Netflix original film of its title (2016) to the work of Samuel Beckett, noting similarities in the depiction of empathy towards monsters among other visual and contextual parallels.

After a break for lunch we reconvened for a keynote from Sorcha Ní Fhlainn (Manchester Metropolitan University, UK), chaired by Luke Turley entitled “‘No Future’, or the Gothic 1980s: Revisiting the ReDecade, Reagan’s American, and Chasing Our Futures (Again).” This was timely, as the topic of nostalgia for the 1980s had come up several times during the morning’s panels and formed the main thread for Ní Fhlainn’s paper. She discussed the popularity of revivals of old television (TV) series and cycles noting that the children of the 1980s, who grew up with the works of Wes Craven, John Carpenter, James Cameron, and Ridley Scott, are the film and TV executives of today. This may account for the many attempts, for example in shows like Stranger Things (2016-current), to generate nostalgia for a lost time of childhood magic through use of 1980s references and ephemera.

During the parallel panel sessions that afternoon I attended “Streaming the Weird,” featuring papers by Michael Wheatley (Royal Holloway, University of London, UK) and Valentino Paccosi (Lancaster University, UK). Wheatley’s paper, entitled “‘All Flesh is Grass’: Weirding Nature in Joe Hill and Stephen King’s In the Tall Grass,” was a fascinating exploration of the Netflix film adaptation (2019) of the co-written Horror novella (2012). Wheatley discussed the ways in which Horror moves in cycles, intertwining with the cultural concerns of the time, and thus we have several recent examples of nature in Horror as an active and dominant force, encouraging audiences to question our perceptions of the natural world. Paccosi’s paper, “Can we play D&D now? Stranger Things and the Re-Reading of the Lovecraftian through Dungeons and Dragons,” discussed the ways in which the characters of Netflix’s most successful original television show utilise their knowledge and experience of table top roleplaying games to navigate the frightening new world in which they find themselves. Though the Demogorgon ofStranger Things does not really resemble the creature of the same name from D&D, the children use taxonomy they do know to refer to a monster they cannot otherwise describe or comprehend, taming it through language, turning it into a creature they know can be defeated.

The second day of the conference began with a panel entitled “Victims and Villains” and featured papers by Emma Nagouse (University of Sheffield, UK), Evan Hayles Gledhill (University of

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Reading, UK) and Katrina Jan (University of Birmingham, UK). Nagouse’s paper, “When a Stranger Calls: Beauty and Blame in Riverdale and the Bible,” provided a unique and unexpected comparison of the attempted rape of Cheryl Blossom in Riverdale (2017-current) with artistic depictions of the biblical story “Susanna and The Elders” in Daniel 13. Nagouse explored the ways in which visual traditions of representing rape have changed over time, and how a serialised teen drama like Riverdale approaches such representation for a modern audience. Hayles Gledhill’s paper was entitled “’Can I be the helpless victim?’: The Scream franchise’s 20-year engagement with gender and genre,” considering the Netflix original series Scream (2015-current) in relation to other entries in the franchise. They concluded that the serialised format, streaming platform, and show’s return to older codes and conventions of Horror actually reinforce the sexist media norms that the older Scream films had been so effective in subverting. The final paper, Jan’s “Exploring the Sexualisation of Modern-Day Serial Killers on Netflix’sYou ,” discussed the romanticising and sexualisation of Joe, the main character of You (2018-current). Audience engagement was an important factor here, as questions were raised around how far a platform like Netflix is responsible for the way in which its content is received and interpreted.

After a short break, the next panel was “Dark Inheritances,” with papers by Dounia Ouided Hachelef (Manchester Metropolitan University, UK), Katie Lowe (University of Birmingham, UK) and Carly Stevenson (Sheffield University, UK). Hacelef’s paper, entitled “Dark is Power: The Resurgence of a New Generation Teenage Witch on Netflix,” engaged with Gothic aesthetics and representations of the witch in The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina (2018-2020). This was linked with discussion of the ‘happy’ and ‘pop’ Gothic and the image of female power within the character of the witch. Lowe presented “XOXO, Gothic Girl: Teenage Power and Anxiety in Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, 13 Reasons Why, and Stranger Things,” exploring modern manifestations of the traditional Gothic heroine in the titular Sabrina, Hannah from 13 Reasons Why (2017-current), and Eleven in Stranger Things. These characters are all teenage girls, forced into facing ‘monsters’ of varying forms while attempting to maintain their normality. The final paper was Stevenson’s “The Ethics of Empathy in You,” once again engaging with the representation of a charming serial killer, considering how far the show deconstructs popular romance tropes versus how far it actually reinforces damaging notions of gender, relationships, and race.

The second keynote of the conference was from Lorna Jowett (University of Northampton, UK), chaired by Jessica White, entitled “TV Horror 2.0: [Subtitle Loading].” Jowett set out to explore the ways in which Horror on TV has been affected by changes in the format’s landscape, which has expanded greatly with the advent and proliferation of streaming services. There has been a vast increase in demand for content – we now expect a constant stream of content to meet our preferences, that we can watch at any time and from any location. Jowett noted that Netflix seem fairly reluctant to conform to traditional genre divisions – very few of its shows are categorised as ‘Horror,’ despite featuring obvious and explicit Horror content that we would immediately associate with the genre. The number of alternative streaming services alongside Netflix was also raised, as well as the inevitable fragmentation point when there are so many different platforms and so much content being generated that we have to choose between them.

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During the final parallel panels, I attended “Vampires and Zombies,” which featured papers by Roxanne Douglas (University of Warwick, UK), Teodora Niklova (Independent) and Stephen Curtis (University of Central Lancashire, UK). Douglas’s paper, “‘It feels like I’m giving my body something it needs in an intense and powerful way’: The Santa Clarita Diet and the Feminist Encounter with Binge/Self-Care/Pleasure Politics,” explored the atypical representation of the zombie presented in Santa Clarita Diet (2017-2019). Douglas considered the representation of the show’s main character Sheila as a lucid zombie, one who inhabits a hybrid state between mother and monster, negotiating the horror of her new condition whilst also exploring the freedom it gives her from societal norms, and how this reflects concerns of contemporary feminism. We moved from zombies to vampires in Niklova’s “Death by Running Water: Decolonizing the Vampire Narrative in Netflix’s Castlevania,” who discussed the show’s (2017-current) restoration of Dracula to his native land of Romania following Bram Stoker’s colonising act of removing him from his geographical and historical context in the 1897 novel. Then it was back to zombies in Curtis’ “They’re bodacious, they’re voracious, but altogether too loquacious; or, why won’t Netflix’s zombies stop talking?”. Curtis discussed the oversaturation of the zombie in modern popular culture, leading to the newer representation of the lucid zombie in shows like Santa Clarita Diet.

To conclude the weekend, we came together for a roundtable discussion featuring Sorcha Ni Fhlainn, Lorna Jowett, and Catherine Spooner (Lancaster University, UK), chaired by Luke Turley and Jessica White. This was a lively and thought-provoking discussion that celebrated the success of the conference whilst also noting absences, for example the lack of critical engagement with any Netflix documentaries or children’s programming. The streaming format was a subject of major interest, as we contemplated the future of TV and film and the risk of consuming all our content on a single platform leading to a homogenous viewing experience. Disappointment was expressed around the loss of the film/TV show as a physical object, the paratext that comes with VHS/DVD/ Blu-ray cases, the artwork, and special features. Platforms like Netflix have to produce their content with a different mindset to producers of the past, reacting to modern technology, contemporary audiences, and the sheer amount of choice we have these days in deciding what we watch.

A conference entirely focused around a streaming platform was somewhat revolutionary to attend, featuring input from the established fields of television and Gothic studies as well as covering new ground, paving the way for similar events and critical consideration in future. The team behind Gothflix hope to produce an edited collection from the conference, which should be of interest to anyone in the fields of television studies, Netflix, the Gothic, Horror etcetera as well as fans looking to learn more about their favourite Netflix original content.

BIONOTE

Kat Humphries is a postgraduate student of Fantasy Literature at the University of Glasgow, UK. Her dissertation explores the figure of the monster hunter hero in American Fantasy television, focusing specifically on Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1997-2003) and its impact on subsequent shows Supernatural (2005-2020) and Grimm (2011-2017). Her wider research interests include the rehabilitation of fictional villains, young adult media, and fat studies.

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