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Pink Gothic: The Cathartic Aesthetics of The Owl House

December 5, 2022

academia, aesthetics, affect, criticism, defiance, Gothic, visuality

Academic knowledge that doesn’t attempt to create something new isn’t worth a damn. So, to put my own academic expertise to good use, I coin the term Pink Gothic to refer to the aesthetics of The Owl House – particularly, how “Gothic pinkness” assigns a cathartic quality to these aesthetics.

If you already feel a bit overwhelmed – “too many unknown words!” – worry not. I plan to make this post accessible and interesting. So here’s a simpler way of expressing the same thing as above:

I decided to write a post where, inventing the term “Pink Gothic”, I explore how colors and other visual elements in a narrative are associated with the resolution of fears and anxieties – typically brought to the surface by the very same narrative. In this exploration, I use the animated fantasy series The Owl House as an example.

Indeed, it was the aesthetics of The Owl House that inspired me to reflect on this matter. It’s likely (if not highly likely for my usual readers) that you’re not familiar with The Owl House. Again, worry not. I will offer plenty of examples along the way.

aesthetics of the owl house pink gothic — Pink Gothic is all about **juxtaposition**; combining visually – and ultimately **affectively** – incongruent elements. When it comes to the aesthetics of *The Owl House*, in particular, their cathartic quality is a direct result of intelligent use of color, depth, and space

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Scooby-Doo Gothic: Beyond Supernatural Explained

May 30, 2022

Criticism

academia, Gothic, literature, superstition

Unless you’ve spent the last five decades on Mars, you must know Scooby-Doo – the fearless (cough, cough) cartoon dog chasing ghosts. Believe it or not, what we could refer to as Scooby-Doo Gothic goes back more than 200 years, to Ann Radcliffe’s The Mysteries of Udolpho (1794).

How, you might ask. What on earth could be the connection between one of the first texts of the Gothic canon and a cartoon show of the late 20th century?

The concept worth examining here – as you might have deducted from the title – is that of the supernatural explained; particularly, how it’s related to the supernatural accepted.

Briefly, there has been a long-standing tradition to divide Gothic texts into the one or the other category. We’ll take a closer look at both of them, and then I’ll explain why I think the differentiation itself is flawed.

In Scooby-Doo Gothic, there is a perfectly natural explanation for everything

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Southern Gothic Tropes: Meaning “Beyond the South”

February 21, 2022

Criticism

academia, criticism, Gothic

The so-called “Southern Gothic” is a subcategory of the Gothic mode that nominally revolves around the American South – as in, the Southern US States. However, as we’ll see in this post, Southern Gothic tropes far exceed the strict topical confines of the American South. Indeed, understanding these Southern Gothic tropes can reveal hidden meaning in a vast literary space.

As is the case with the Gothic in general, the Southern Gothic, too, is difficult to pinpoint. Perhaps paradoxically, considering its (again, nominal) narrow focus, the Southern Gothic describes not a place but an experience. Though Southern Gothic tropes are generally well-defined, as we’ll soon see, their metaphorical dimensions and repercussions are far more flexible.

In simpler words: The Southern Gothic isn’t about the US South.

So, let’s take an analytic but accessible look at this intriguing subcategory of the Gothic mode. We’ll start with a basic outline of Southern Gothic tropes, and then I’ll explain what these tropes really signify. As a result, we’ll discover why the Southern Gothic framework can inform our reading of a vast number of other narratives.

Southern Gothic Tropes — As with so many other things in literature, Southern Gothic tropes are more about the “how it feels”, **affect**, rather than the “what it is”

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