http://agmiller1996.blogspot.com/2012/10/red-riding-hood-spoiler-review.html
After watching Red
Riding Hood (2011), starring Amanda Seyfried as Valerie, the main character,
I was reminded of the mass hysteria section of the textbook and the chapter in the
book Why People Believe Weird Things;
it is not exactly the same as a mass hysteria event, but it had
similarities. In the movie, the setting
is a remote, medieval village on the edge of a forest up in the mountains. The village has been terrorized by werewolves
in the past, and the attacks start up again because it is getting close to the
blood moon, which is the only time a werewolf can pass on the curse to another
person. Normally the villagers make sacrifices
of their finest livestock every full moon in order to keep the werewolf at
bay. After Valerie’s sister is killed by
the wolf, the Father of the village church calls upon Father Solomon, a known
werewolf and witch hunter. Father
Solomon and his group represent the more powerful group of people internally
controlling the villagers. They don’t
let anyone leave their homes during the night; they go through everyone’s belongings
searching for evidence of the werewolf or witchcraft. During one of the searches, Father Solomon
and his men discover a boy hiding in a tower, who has a card with the devil
painted on it because he likes doing magic card tricks. The boy has some kind of mental handicap,
which is obvious to everyone. Despite
this, Father Solomon uses the card as clear evidence that the boy is in touch
with the black arts and his twisted speech is apparently evidence that he
communicates with the devil. When Father Solomon demands to know who the
werewolf is, the boy is silent, and therefore, gets put into a metal elephant
with a fire lit beneath it as a form of torture to get him to tell the
truth.
The boy’s sister, Roxanne, goes to Father Solomon to bargain
for her brother. She uses the
information that she knows of a witch, Valerie, because Valerie was able to
communicate with the werewolf and Roxanne witnessed it happen. Valerie gets put in chains and brought in
front of the people of the village, so Roxanne can accuse her of being a
witch. Roxanne claims as her evidence
that Valerie can climb the tallest trees, grew faster than the other girls,
wears a red cloak, which is the color of the devil, and can speak to the
werewolf. Valerie does not deny any of
the accusations, which seals her fate as being considered a witch in Father
Solomon’s eyes. He suggests they
sacrifice her to get to the werewolf, and anyone who opposes that get
silenced. The majority of the people is
silent or agrees to sacrifice Valerie though.
This is an example of when people start to accuse and be accused. Because Father Solomon told the villagers
that the werewolf lives among them, the villagers are all suspicious of each
other, are quick to point fingers, and paranoid. Peter and Henry both care about Valerie, but
both are still both suspicious of the other being the werewolf. Also, while Henry is working in his
blacksmith shop, Valerie’s grandmother comes in and accuses him of being the werewolf,
but Henry throws the accusation right back at her because he claims she smells
just like the werewolf. Henry knows the
smell because he was there when his father was killed by the werewolf. Valerie’s father also gets arrested because Father
Solomon doesn’t trust anyone associated with the witch. Accusations, paranoia, and suspicion are
controlling everyone’s actions.
After Henry saves Valerie and is leading her to safety, she
pulls her knife out because she is not sure whether or not he is the werewolf. Shortly after, Valerie tries to take sanctuary
at the church, but Father Solomon forces her to stay off the grounds to lure
the werewolf out. However, some of the
villagers change their minds about condemning Valerie and pull her onto the
church grounds, pushing her behind them to protect her. The next day when Valerie is on her way to
visit her grandmother, she runs into Peter in the woods and stabs him in the
stomach because she thinks he could be the werewolf too. He was missing the
night before while the werewolf was in the village, so she no longer trusts
him. I won’t tell who the werewolf is
because I don’t want to ruin the movie for anyone who wants to watch it…so many
people are accused and suspected that you’ll never predict the werewolf.
In today’s world, werewolves are mythical creatures that
some people do actually believe exist. In
the movie’s story, werewolves are actually real and have been terrorizing
people for hundreds of years. The way
the villagers respond to this particular crisis is similar to the way people
acted about witches. An initial person was
accused of participating in the black arts, demons, etc., which caused other
accusations to come about. A smell was
associated with the werewolf, and a more powerful group of people came to hunt
it down, taking control away from the villagers and instructing them on how to
identify someone associating with the werewolf such as witchcraft. As the hysteria went on, however, some of the
villagers who had condemned Valerie protected her in the end when the werewolf
was there to take her. Father Solomon,
who had initiated and encouraged much of the paranoia, was killed by one of his
own men too. The tables turned.
Here’s a trailer to the movie:
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