It dawns on me that not everyone out there has taken a slew of Literary Analysis courses in college while desperately trying to take enough classes to keep financial aid after you’ve run out of coursework in your own major. So, I thought I’d drop some words on you.
Now, this isn’t to say that you have to engage critically with all the media you enjoy, although I will warn you that once you start, it’s hard to turn it off and you may go through a phase of, “Sweet Zombie Jesus, can’t I enjoy ANYTHING anymore?” Seriously, I don’t think I’ll every be able to really listen to the Rolling Stones ever again after, and that didn’t even take critical analysis, seeing the lyrics to “Brown Sugar” because who the fucking fuck writes that?!?!? Only the fact that Mick Jagger is a mushmouth kept me from that stunning revelation for so long.
But I’m also able to enjoy some truly bad films: The Dead Want Women
So, I don’t always think critically about films I’m watching. Sometimes I just tune out and enjoy them.
But sometimes you come across media that makes you make the Golden Retriever confronted with something baffling face, and you want the tools to figure out what it is that’s so puzzling, offensive, or just stupid about something.
A lot of the critical thinking I do surrounds horror films. I read a lot of books dedicated to pulling apart the concepts of Horror to try to figure out what makes them tick, and what makes us want to watch them. And what informs what we like.
I’ve talked before about how I don’t consider Hostel, Saw or any of the torture porn films to actually be horror. Just as I don’t consider The Silence of the Lambs
Anyway, if you want a basic primer on engaging with horror critically, I would start with Stephen King’s Danse Macabre
But when engaging critically with media, ask yourself a few questions:
1. What are the tropes involved here? Horror is rife with tropes. The sluts (of both/all genders) are the first to die. The virgin nearly always lives. The jock is a rapist douche, and will die because of it. The “other” is terrifying and dangerous. “Playing God” always ends poorly.
2. What do those tropes say? What are they shorthand for? Well, in horror they’re painted with pretty broad brushes, I mean, Horror as a genre is pretty much just morality plays over and over. If you have sex (usually premarital) you’re going to die, sexuality is dangerous. If you use drugs, you’re going to die. If you are mean to people, you’re going to die. Purity is strength. And science is usually out of control, if not actively evil (looking at you, Resident Evil).
3. Then think about the dominant culture and how that informs these tropes. This is especially helpful when viewing older films, just like when reading older books. I really like H.P. Lovecraft, but the man was a raging racist, even by the standards of his own time, and had some serious issues surrounding sex, and probably his mother. Which leads me to:
4. Don’t excuse the problematic shit. Read the Social Justice League’s article on “How to be a Fan of Problematic Things.” Like I said, I really enjoy H.P. Lovecraft, but I don’t deny that he was racist and misogynist like whoa. I also like Manly Wade Wellman, particularly his Silver John the Balladeer and his John Thunstone stuff, but man, talk about racist and sexist. Recognize that it is problematic as fuck, even as you enjoy the craft that went into
This is the thing that cracks me up. Horror is considered this outre genre, disreputable, trashy, but for the most part it spends the majority of its time reinforcing the norms of the society that rejects it. The only really subversive thing about the genre as a whole, is it’s dedication to the Final Girl trope. Like I said in my review of The Cabin In The Woods 
Speaking of subtext, I’m watching Dante’s Inferno: An Animated Epic 
To engage critically with media, think beyond what the words are telling you to what the actions are showing you. If there are three POC characters, and they’re all murdered quickly after fulfilling various stereotypical roles, then, yes, that film is racist. If the only female characters are the virgin and the whore, and the whore dies, well, that’s pretty fucking misogynist, now isn’t it, no matter how many “girl power” lines are uttered. Think about what the film-makers are showing you, not just what they’re telling you.
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“Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters” doesn’t have anachronisms. It’s a fantasy movie. It’s not set in a genuine point in history and therefore in that world they can have whatever technology they want whenever they want.
Besides, they totally make fun of that aspect when they show missing children labels attached to milk bottles. (By the way, do people in America seriously have ‘missing children’ notices on their milk? Or is that just in movies?)
Also there’s a very good reason why people generally think of “Silence of the Lambs” as a psychological thriller rather than as horror. It’s got nothing to do with the content of the movie though. They were marketing it as horror until they realised that it was in with a chance at an Oscar. Then suddenly they stopped marketing it as horror. “Black Swan” is another one where people are like “oh no, that’s a GOOD movie, so that can’t be horror.” Not to say your own labels are wrong, but I think a lot of people out there use the label “psychological thriller” because they think it would sully a film to call it a “horror movie”.