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April 20 2008
Movies about the supernatural usually do well at the box office. The genre can be further subdivided into such types as the vampire flick, the werewolf movie and films about marauding zombies, but the most popular form is the ghost story. So popular are ghost stories that they have spilled over into network TV shows such as Medium and Ghost Whisperer. The common theme in all of these films is the idea that there are restless spirits of the dead who come back from the Great Beyond to haunt the living. These ghosts may be sinister or benevolent, but they always want to communicate with us.
One reason that ghost stories are so popular is that, while they scare us, we hope they contain a kernel of truth. You're probably glad that vampires, werewolves and zombies are just fantasies and you wouldn't want to meet any of them on your way home some night. However, if a ghost appeared to you, your fright might be mixed with relief because such an apparition would prove the existence of life after death.
If there is one thing shared by all of the World's religions, it's the promise of an afterlife. It could be convincingly argued that there would be no religions if death did not exist.
Not only is "life after death" a contradiction in terms, but any afterlife might be far less attractive than we think it would be. Imagine that some sort of soul will leave your body at the moment of your death and that this spirit will continue to exist after your physical self has decomposed. What sort of existence would such a spirit have? Well, it would see nothing because of having no eyes. With no ears, it wouldn't hear anything. Lacking a nose and a nervous system, it wouldn't have any sense of smell or touch. In short, it would be oblivious to its surroundings and have about as much awareness as a puff of steam does. This isn't what most of us imagine as Heaven.
If ghosts did exist, there are any number of former battlefields and concentration camps that should be swarming with them. So far, no such phenomenon has been observed.
However, logic flies out through the nearest window when we confront the terror of our own death. Films about ghosts will continue to be popular so long as they scare people less than the thought that death means oblivion.
What about you? Do you like movies about ghosts? If so, why? I'd be interested to know.
George
P.S. Check out my books at:
http://stores.lulu.com/store.php?fAcctID=893655 |
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Posted by gjcondon on 2008-04-20 15:35:58 | Rating: | Views: 106
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