Why do we like to be scared?

Dear readers

Tonight I just have a thoughtful post.  I was considering the other day why we like to be scared.  

I tend to watch a lot of scary things even though I spend most of my time behind a cushion, terrified. 

So why do I like to be scared?

Well, for a start it is a type of escapism, however, it would be really wrong to just say that and not consider anything else.  

For a start, I think the scare factor sometimes makes our adrenaline pump, and maybe it even makes us feel happy about our own lives because that is not happening to us - maybe it makes us feel lucky and thankful.  

Usually, we can describe whatever type of killer we meet as a monster.  As discussed in my list yesterday, Hannibal Lecter is a serial killer and cannibal, yet he is capable of appearing as an upstanding citizen.  This could be an expression of the unknown - do we really know our neighbour or our friend? It's possible to open the newspaper and find that your neighbour or family or friend has committed a crime - maybe an unthinkable crime, and we feel like we don't really know the person because we didn't imagine they are capable of the crime.  There is a lot on the news at the moment about people being caught with indecent images of children - which is despicable in my eyes and I would be distraught to find out I was their friend or neighbour.  Maybe this type of monster shows our social anxieties of the unknown.  

I link to Hannibal Lecter in particular as I have just sat and watched Hannibal Rising on BBC3.  It covers Hannibal's childhood and what had happened to him that made him turn into the person he is during Silence of the Lambs.  The film was terrifying and brutal, yet how his experience during the war must have affected him, and finding out he had been fed his own little sister in a stew was unthinkable - I found myself thinking 'wow, no wonder he was driven mad and wanted revenge.'  Yes, it was only a story, thankfully.  

So, being scared can signify society and what we are afraid of, maybe it's even a way of accepting that sometimes bad things happen in society too! 

Do you like scary films?  Why do you think people like to be scared?  Do you think it represents society?

Let me know what you think!

Laters, Janet