Misery - Week 4 New Weird

What makes ‘Misery’ by Stephen King so great is that it explores his own paranoia. The fear of the monsters of man (or in this case women) is arguably the deepest fear of them all. Humanities darker deeds is not fictional like monsters or ghost for it happens almost everyday. There are about 16,238 murders per year in the US meaning there are around 44 homicides each day(IAC 2014). That is much more then shark attacks, lightning strikes and spider bite fatalities combined! 

King goes through the worst case scenario for himself a top selling writer just like Paul Sheldon is in the novel. The novel Misery is a thrilling tale how an obsessive fan becomes deadly when Paul decides to end his long historical romantic book series “Misery”. Paul does this to branch off to a different type of genre. It is easy to see how King may feel the same way but fears for his own Anne to come for him. 

When it comes to horrific fans going after to attack their idol no story does it more compelling(sorry Stephen King) then 'Perfect Blue’. ‘Perfect Blue’ animated film  directed by Satoshi the story about how a pop singer wants to become an actress. She sheds her good girl persona to follow this new genre much how Paul Sheldon starts to curse in his newer works. Just like in Misery a die hard fan hates the new now ‘tainted” idol. What makes the movie so compelling is how it shadows a real criminal event the Bjork stalker in 1996. Ricardo Lopez the Bjork’s (a famous pop singer) stalker who after Bjork started public seeing someone went crazy. He video taped himself creating a boom that he planed to send to Bjork then kill himself. They boom was found in time to save the singer but Ricardo wasn’t so lucky. What lead him to this as he explains in his videos is that the singer was no longer “herself” or in reality what he perceived as who she was. Just as Anne saw that with the more graphic novels was not Paul as she saw him thus forcing him to fit to her view or just as the others kill him. 

With the growing expiation of people on social media we have found that it is easier then have to develop a fan base of some kind. A place where we only show those watching the persona or sides to our selves we let them see. With that being said stories like these are becoming more and more relatable because you no longer have to be a pop singer or a best selling novelist to be well known and in turn have an obsessive fan base. Even with in my own very small 300 followers on Instagram there could be an unstable person there who if I change how I showed myself may react violently. With the rise of technology stalking has become easier then ever creating a new classification Cyberstalking. No, I don’t mean the cyberstalking you do on Facebook of that person you like or your ex partner. I’m talking about abusive harassment that exculpates to behavior that directly harms victim be physical or mental. The terrifying reality is, is that this now could happen to anyone. You could have an Anne or a Ricardo as you speak and just not know it yet. ‘Misery’ reminds us of the worst case scenario of what could happen when we put our selves out into the world no matter the platform. A warning we have to consider each time we post, write, sing or become known. 

 

Work cited: 

“How Many People Are Murdered Every Day in the United States?” Reference, IAC Publishing, 11 Apr. 2014, www.reference.com/government-politics/many-people-murdered-day-united-states-4ce42c4182d89232.