“Where the City Started and the Suburbs Ended”: The (Sub)urban Confinement of Post-Industrial America in David Robert Mitchell’s It Follows
-
Alan Mattli
Alan Mattli is an affiliated postdoctoral researcher in English and American Literature at the University of Zurich. He received a PhD in 2023 for his dissertation“The Conservative Mystery Lover Will Object”: Revisionist Crime Fiction in the U.S. , which offers an analysis of post-war American crime fiction as a key theater of postmodern literature. Alan Mattli also holds a BA and an MA in English Literature and Linguistics and Film Studies as well as a BA in Swiss History, all from the University of Zurich. Other research interests include twentieth-century literature, American horror fiction and film, the politics of popular art, and video game theory. He also works as a film critic.
Abstract
David Robert Mitchell’s 2014 horror film It Follows revolves around a young Detroit woman who is being stalked at a walking pace by a shape-shifting entity – a curse she can only pass on by engaging in sexual intercourse. The film has conventionally been read as a metaphor on the social and cultural stigma surrounding sexually transmitted diseases and sexual activity in general. This chapter offers an alternative approach: theoretically underpinned by Monika Fludernik’s definitions of confinement, it interprets the film as a multi-layered narrative of confinement whose central thematic concern is not sex but the troubled economic predicament of Detroit and its suburban environs. More specifically, the chapter argues that the film’s horror is rooted in its depiction of Detroit’s decaying post-industrial cityscape, its identification of the suburbs as a false utopia, and the main characters’ lack of socioeconomic prospects, which critically impairs their spatial and social mobility.
Abstract
David Robert Mitchell’s 2014 horror film It Follows revolves around a young Detroit woman who is being stalked at a walking pace by a shape-shifting entity – a curse she can only pass on by engaging in sexual intercourse. The film has conventionally been read as a metaphor on the social and cultural stigma surrounding sexually transmitted diseases and sexual activity in general. This chapter offers an alternative approach: theoretically underpinned by Monika Fludernik’s definitions of confinement, it interprets the film as a multi-layered narrative of confinement whose central thematic concern is not sex but the troubled economic predicament of Detroit and its suburban environs. More specifically, the chapter argues that the film’s horror is rooted in its depiction of Detroit’s decaying post-industrial cityscape, its identification of the suburbs as a false utopia, and the main characters’ lack of socioeconomic prospects, which critically impairs their spatial and social mobility.
Chapters in this book
- Acknowledgments 5
- Table of Contents 7
- Confinement Studies in American Popular Culture 1
-
Part I: Confinement Narratives on the Screen
-
Cinema and TV Series
- The Individual vs. the Institution: Narratives of Confinement in New Hollywood Cinema 15
- Trapped in Bluebeard’s Castle: Disney’s Beauty and the Beast as a Self-Contradictory Story of Empowerment and Imprisonment 31
- (Dis)ableing the Confinement: Guillermo del Toro’s The Shape of Water and Mark Medoff’s Children of a Lesser God 47
- Transformative Power of Confinement and Subversion of Identity in The Experiment (2010) 63
- “Where the City Started and the Suburbs Ended”: The (Sub)urban Confinement of Post-Industrial America in David Robert Mitchell’s It Follows 87
- Never Let Me Go: Home, Family, and Confinement in Umma 103
- Confinement and Consciousness: Exploring the ‘ Nomadic Consciousness’ in Maid 117
-
Documentaries
- Incarceration Documentaries after the Curious Eclipse of Prison Ethnography 133
- Dream in Place: Understanding Confinement through the Tactics of Fiction in Crystal Moselle’s The Wolfpack 151
-
Part II: Confinement Narratives from/about American Prisons
- Claudia Jones and Angela Davis: Literature in Confinement 171
- Confined to the Margins: Necropolitics, American Identity, and Racial Separation in Assata by Assata Shakur 185
- Into the Lone Star Labyrinth: Texas Prison System Reflects The Death Gate Cycle Prison 201
- Our Time on the Rock: Narrating Voluntary Confinement in Tommy Orange’s There There 217
- “Have You Ever Seen a More Focused Killing Machine?” The Extreme Spectacle of Carceral Punishment in Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah’s Chain-Gang All-Stars 235
-
Part III: Confinement Narratives within Performances
- Taylor Swift’s American Retreat: Covid, Cardigans, and Confinement in folklore 253
- In The Devil's Grip: Competing Narratives of Confinement in X: The Life and Times of Malcolm X Opera 269
- Index
Chapters in this book
- Acknowledgments 5
- Table of Contents 7
- Confinement Studies in American Popular Culture 1
-
Part I: Confinement Narratives on the Screen
-
Cinema and TV Series
- The Individual vs. the Institution: Narratives of Confinement in New Hollywood Cinema 15
- Trapped in Bluebeard’s Castle: Disney’s Beauty and the Beast as a Self-Contradictory Story of Empowerment and Imprisonment 31
- (Dis)ableing the Confinement: Guillermo del Toro’s The Shape of Water and Mark Medoff’s Children of a Lesser God 47
- Transformative Power of Confinement and Subversion of Identity in The Experiment (2010) 63
- “Where the City Started and the Suburbs Ended”: The (Sub)urban Confinement of Post-Industrial America in David Robert Mitchell’s It Follows 87
- Never Let Me Go: Home, Family, and Confinement in Umma 103
- Confinement and Consciousness: Exploring the ‘ Nomadic Consciousness’ in Maid 117
-
Documentaries
- Incarceration Documentaries after the Curious Eclipse of Prison Ethnography 133
- Dream in Place: Understanding Confinement through the Tactics of Fiction in Crystal Moselle’s The Wolfpack 151
-
Part II: Confinement Narratives from/about American Prisons
- Claudia Jones and Angela Davis: Literature in Confinement 171
- Confined to the Margins: Necropolitics, American Identity, and Racial Separation in Assata by Assata Shakur 185
- Into the Lone Star Labyrinth: Texas Prison System Reflects The Death Gate Cycle Prison 201
- Our Time on the Rock: Narrating Voluntary Confinement in Tommy Orange’s There There 217
- “Have You Ever Seen a More Focused Killing Machine?” The Extreme Spectacle of Carceral Punishment in Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah’s Chain-Gang All-Stars 235
-
Part III: Confinement Narratives within Performances
- Taylor Swift’s American Retreat: Covid, Cardigans, and Confinement in folklore 253
- In The Devil's Grip: Competing Narratives of Confinement in X: The Life and Times of Malcolm X Opera 269
- Index
