Blog Post #4 - The Other in the Funny Games

The Other in the Funny Games

Yoo Hyung Justina Lee

The movie Funny Game (1997) directed by Michael Haneke is a kind of horror film which makes the audiences uncomfortable not by showing gored visual effects, but by drawing the audiences into the direct crime scene. For most of the years, the reason people enjoyed horror films was that the spectators can detach themselves from the monsters that appear in the movie. Watching the monsters’ villainous performances, the viewers feel relief in either thinking that they are not as evil as the monster, or thinking that this is fictional situation happening only in the movie, not in reality. Funny Games, in this sense, goes into deeper horror from other movies since the direct address and questioning to the audience forces the viewers to be at the exact moment with the psychopaths impotently.

What makes the monsters horrifying? It is the ‘otherness’ which clearly draws line from normal me and abnormal subject. According to Robin Woods, the ‘otherness’ can be defined various ways in the horror films and it “functions not simply as something external to the culture or to the self, but also as what is repressed (though never destroyed) in the self and projected outward in order to be hated and disowned” (Wood 27) Not only alienated from conventional norm of being normal, the scariness is something hidden inside which is later expressed in a distorted way.

Speaking of repressed, there is an interesting connection between the white costume and repressed, in Korean perspective. Koreans are known as the white-clad people. Under 36 years of colonization of Japan, Korean people were forced to wear white clothes with no decorations or colors for the most of the times. Even after the independence, still the pure white clothes represent the harsh times of suffer or repression. In Korean perspective, pure white clothes of the two psychopaths are the repressed, especially in this case, who have a strong anger to explode at any moment.

If the movie follows the traditional horror movie rule,’ the other’ should be these repressed psychopaths who symbol rebellions opposed to the white-bourgeoisie family. The audiences then should rather enjoy the movie, relieving from the fact that the otherness only exists in the movie, which cannot harm them outside the screen. However, the constant questioning and the direct address straight from the screen confine the audience in the situation together with the victims, which breaks the fourth wall and makes them to choose the side of either with the psychopaths or the family. The question from the psychopath rushes the spectators to choose the side. Whichever choice the audience makes, it will lead to uncomfortableness for them. If they choose to side with the psychopaths, it means that they are for the other, which ironically does not make them the other anymore. If they choose to side with the family, it is still uncomfortable, since the viewers already know that the family will lose the bet and not survive for the entire movie. It is hard to watch the family getting tortured, as well as to support the psychopaths to win the bet since they are villains without good reasons. .

The monsters in this movie are depicted the repressed of the society who are ready to rebel or torture those who oppose to them. However, Funny Game does not simply show the monsters, but takes a step forward and brings the spectators into the movie and be involved in the situation. The audiences are forced to sympathize within the characters and think about how these repressed can be applied in reality, which truly makes them not only uncomfortable, also horrified.

Work Cited
Wood, Robin. "The American Nightmare: Horror in the 70s". (1979): 25-32. Print.