Pod Meets WorldOur celebration of “And Then There Was Shawn” rolls on to Halloween, now with Professor Rider Strong holding Office Hours and riding solo to dive deep into why this episode has resonated, and stuck, with fans for so long.
Rider engages in an in-depth analysis with horror scholar Kristopher Woofter, who shares his expert opinion on the evolution of horror in the ‘90s and the history of the slasher.
Find out more about the “rules” of horror, the lure of a “mask,” and so much more in this scream-filled, and Strong, episode of Pod Meets World!
Welcome to Office Hours with Rider Strong, a special edition of Pod meets World where writer takes over and is never told he's ruining the fun. Yes, it's a time for inquiry, research, analysis, and all in all taking things way too seriously. It's a safe space where it's never just a romp. I'm your host and only host, Rider Strong. Thanks for joining me today on our show. Let's get high falutin about the most absurd episode of Boy Meets World. The Infamous and then there was Sean. As many of you know, I have a deep and abiding love for horror films, and so I saw this episode as a chance to not only overthink twenty two minutes of children's television, but to delve into the culture, history and meaning of my favorite genre. What makes horror such a and during staple of film and television? Why do we even like things that scare us? Is horror a way to deal with trauma or a dark indulgence of our worst impulses? And how did Boy meets World manage to make an episode that some say is hilarious while others say they still have nightmares about it. Well, to get at some of these questions and more, I decided to seek out an expert, a professional, and amazingly I found the perfect person, someone with all the smarts, all the education, who was still willing to come on a podcast and talk about a half hour of ABC's TGIF lineup from nineteen ninety eight. Today, I'm thrilled to welcome guest Christopher Woofter, an academic powerhouse in the world of horror studies. Christopher is a scholar of film, television, literature, and popular culture. A prolific writer and editor's contributions can be found across numerous publications that interrogate the ways horror reflects and refracts societal fears. He earned his PhD in Film and Moving Image from Concord University, and he's edited or co edited several influential works, including American Twilight, The Cinema of Toby Hooper, and Fear and Learning Essays on the pedagogy of horror, which have greatly helped shape academic discussions on horror and likely relevant to today's discussion. He edited a book that took an extensive look at the work of Buffy the Vampire Slayer showrunner Joss Whedon and his many contributions to film and TV titled Joss Whedon Versus the Horror Tradition. Currently, Christopher is a professor of English at Dawson College in Montreal, where he teaches courses in horror cinema and Gothic literature, and he is also well known for his involvement in genre film festivals and conferences, where he brings his critical expertise to engage with both scholarly and fan communities alike. So get ready for a conversation that goes deep into the academic side of horror with someone who has literally spent his entire career thinking, writing, and teaching about what scares us. Please welcome Christopher Woofter. Thank you so much for joining me. I know this is quite a bizarre, a little assignment. Before we get into the episode or anything, I'm curious. Had you ever seen an episode of Boy Meets World before?
Well?
I have now, so this is this is quite an intro.
Yeah, it's all new to me, not that I've heard of the show, of course, But.
Right, well, so what were you watching back in the nineties.
In the nineties, I was watching Star Trek Voyager of all Things, right, yeah, and then I came to probably the nineties show. The two nineties shows that I watched the most of were Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Supernatural, which kind of started late in the nineties. But but Buffy I came too late, so I wasn't watching a lot of TV in the nineties. I thought I was a big film you know, film scholar.
Guys right already. So so were you already interested in horror films back then?
Yeah? Since since I was like eight years old.
What was the first horror film you remember seeing?
One of the first ones I remember watching with my brother staying over at my aunt's house and we it was Amityville to the Possession, which in retrospect, if you look at that film now, it's quite cheesy. It's still there are moments and that even the like the menu, the DVD menu is terrifying. So it's you know, it has yeah, it has some it has its moments, right, and it worked. It worked on you as a kid, Yeah, it definitely.
Well, you know, it's so funny to me because, like you know, in this episode, my character Sean is presented as this horror expert, you know, and he's basically just giving the uh, the the rules straight from Scream, you know, all this sort of But I also just love the idea that Sean loves horror films because I also have always loved horror films, and it seems like one of those things that you either fall in love with when you're a kid, usually we're a teenager, and they become extremely important to certain kids. I was one of those kids. You know, for me, it was Stephen King books and then finding the movies as I got older. Why do you think that is? Why do you think that horror speaks to some children essentially more than others?
I think in part because a lot of people will say, and there was a movement in horror scholarship to say this too, that there was this kind of Catharsis aspect where you know, you watch horror because it kind of therapizes you, or you know, there's therapeutic or purification rituals, all these things, dating rituals. There was all kinds of attempts to figure out why people are drawn to it. I think for me, part of it was that my mom was a horror fan, so I saw some of that modeled. But I also was an extremely sensitive kid, and there is something in horror that I think appeals to those folks who are kind of extra hyper sensitive to their surroundings and you know, just trying to figure out the world and why you're so like, why you take everything on so intensely. I think horror was a way to kind of not exorcise, but exercise that in myself.
Right, you mentioned that there are these movements to try and sort of like determine the cultural roots of or the cultural rationale for horror's appeal. But are you saying that it never really got settled or is that not a popular approach nowadays?
It's not really popular anymore, you know, it's it was there's like attempts to legitimize the study of horror by going back to scholarship on tragedy, so even even all the way back to Aristotle, and Aristotle's question was why, you know, why do we like tragedy because it's it's gruesome, it's horrible, and why would we Why is that entertaining? And the Catharsis model was drawn from that because it was this purification almost like a ritual you go to to sort of you know, like you know, draw that out of yourself or something or or yeah, but yeah, but.
Now it is. But but nowadays that's not the standard interpretation like what where's where is that landed? I guess is what I'm asking.
Yeah, so it moved from that to Okay, so horror studies of horror legitimate because we can talk about Aristotle to horror studies, or legitimate because we can talk about media vial you know, kind of text or because we can. And then Caryl Clover, who wrote Men Women in Chainsaws is a medievalist, you know, like or you know, then it goes to psychoanalysis. So let's let's look at how you know, we've got cultural trauma and we've got personal trauma and horror films to dip into that and and you know, kind of reveal that to ourselves even though we it's that sort of collective unconscious that horror draws on. And sure, all of that is fair game. But I think now where we are is looking at more affective models where people are really talking about fully embodied responses to horror, and you know, audiences that are that are there because they also appreciate horror as a as an aesthetic. You know, horror films are beautiful even when they're dumb, you know. There they have great music. I listened to horror movie soundtracks when I write and read, as long as they don't have too much melody. Uh so, yeah, so it's I think it's that now it's moving towards this kind of can we how do we think through the body, How do we experience this kind of entertainment through a kind of embodied intellect? You know, like that doesn't just limit you know, our our intellect to this sort of distant, you know, critical distancing that something like Cabin in the Woods is all.
About, right, Yeah, because Kavin in the Woods definitely plays on the Catharsis model.
It's it's it's.
Made literal, right, they're like sacrificing children for entertainment or to pure the world, purify the world in some way.
Yeah, And it's it's got all kinds of interesting interesting, Like it's more interesting as a kind of a cultural critique than it is as a critique of horror.
But for me, well yeah, no, I mean I loved your essay on it, and it was so interesting because I hadn't quite realized how much it seemed more about reality TV, which was incredibly popular at that time, and it's right. I mean the second you said that, I was like, Oh, that's what this movie is actually more about than horror films. It's just using a horror film to basically make a reality TV show out of it. I thought that was really insightful.
Yeah, you know, the only reason I came up with that was my work at the time, and I'm actually working on revising this it's going to come out soon. Is on intersections of documentary and horror, and so I was looking at like, how how do you horror aesthetics and documentary aesthetics? What are they? What do they share? You know? One of one of the things they share is an interest in knowledge, right, just what do we get to know? What do we get to learn? And so Cavin in the Woods it's you know, it's a that's just a stinker of a film in a way, because it's every time it promises you some sort of knowledge that what you learn is strips away your enjoyment of the actual you know. Anyway, that's my take on it. I I wrote about the film because I didn't like it and it made me angry, But I liked it better after I wrote about it.
Right, and you, and you're a fan of Whedon in general. I mean you came came to his work through Buffy and you're a big Buffy supporter.
Yeah. I think I think Buffy's I think it's just u it's a monument, Like it's a it's an absolute masterful. Even when it's weak, it's not weak. And you know, I think it's just such a cultural touchstone series.
Yeah. And so you know, it's interesting that so Buffy came out right around the time of this episode and we're you know, we're clearly a different universe and dealing with our own, our own, you know, culture in a way. But I'm curious what what was Could you just give a background of what was happening to horror in general in the nineties, Like we're I mean, we're clearly referencing the Kevin Williamson era. What was that era all about? Like what was happening to horror films?
Yeah, you know, it's interesting because that that decade kicks off with Silence of the Lambs, and you know, Jonathan Demi refused to call it a horror film, and it I mean, partly I think that was that was its Oscar promotional. You know, Juggernaut was trying to thriller, right, and that's the thing. It's a it's a thriller. It's a psycho thriller. It's all, you know, again going back to psychoanalysis, to the model for like, let's legitimize this project, and you know that that couldn't be more of a horror film, and you know, the decade kind of kicks off with that. I don't know, it's like almost like horror is there, but same thing with the nineteen forties. Horror is there, but we're going to deny that by calling it other things like film noir or the paranoid Woman's film or you know, these these things that come up in the forties come back in the nineties. So we just get the psycho thriller, the serial killer film. You know, is Henry Portford of a serial Killer a horror film? Yes? Is it a serial killer film? Yes? But you know, yeah, in the nineties on television, I mean, we have The X Files, which isn't shy about being a horror leaning series. And then I think one of the kind of wonderful things about that you know era, that Kevin Williamson era that produces things like Buffy is that there's a kind of interest in looking at how horror works and looking at its parts and doing a kind of anatomy of horror, and you get you know, I actually had to write a review, a film review for a local Montreal newspaper that doesn't exist anymore, on Urban Legend, and I you know, I gave it one star and was just like, this is just so bad, you know, just like like it's so bad you look around behind you to see if anyone's still in the cinema, you know, if anyone was there in the first place. But but it it's, uh, if I look back at those films, I'm much more interested in them now because they're they're actually engaging with the genre in ways that are more than just it's uh interest, you know, the interest in the psyche and in psychology. They're interested in how the genre works.
Right, Yeah, I mean they're self conscious in a way, right. I Mean it was like, I think for a lot of people watching Scream might have been the first time they ever sort of recognized tropes as a concept, you know, let alone the specific tropes that they were playing with. And you know, we do a little bit of that in this episode two, what what was the next evolution? Like, once everybody sort of knew the rules that we all learned from Scream and I know what you did last summer, what happened to horror next?
Well, it's hard to you know, it's because even in the Cabin in the Woods essay, I talk about trying to resist the sort of of evolutionary, you know, kind of model of horror. But because it's always hybridizing, and there's always you know, there's always a little bit of exploitation that many people would say, oh, that's back from the seventies. But there's there's a little of that, there's a little of the psychology, there's a little of you know, a whole lot of things. But I would say that the the next big kind of smash and crash was when David Edelstein coined the term torture porn, right, And that's right around the time of this this episode. And you know, you're getting what now I think some people call the new French extreme. So there was a French kind of version of so called torture porn. All all of that, you know, meant to tag a group of films that were hostile and can't. Why can't I think of others fun.
Fever to a lesser extent, but.
Saw for sure, And you know that these films were trying to push some envelopes around spectacle. Yeah. Sure, and they were, you know, like the slasher film is a cycle in the eighties and the and these new these sort of so called new extremist films come out, and it's it's a way, you know, horror was always were. Creators are always talking to each other, and I think that's one of the reasons we call these things cycles. You know that certainly there is a movement there, but they come and go, and you know, I don't think that you can divorce something like the violent spectacle films that people call torture porn from films in the seventies and and sixties that were being made in you know, in Europe, and the Mondo film for example, or things like that.
Yeah, I mean, it was it was. It was interesting for me because you know, I worked on Cavin Fever with Eli Roth, and he was very you know, self conscious about what he was doing. You know, He's like, I want to bring he was so sick of what he called, you know, Pg. Thirteen horror. He was like, no, we got to bring back the hard r because he you know, grew up in the seventies and eighties with those really you know Texas Chainsaw. It was like a touchstone and where it's just you know, the violence is so front and center, and so you know, he was always very self caught, and it was interesting to see that that's exactly what happened. You know, working on Cavin Feever, we were like, oh, we're going to show nudity, We're going to have so much blood, it's going to be so extreme. And then sure enough for the next you know, eight years, watching all these films come out that sort of did the same thing, and then of course it moved on and you know, now it got called torture porn and sort of shoved under the rug in some ways. Yeah, it's interesting how these things go in so in cycles. Why do you think that there's such a sort of inferiority or insecurity about horror, Like, why why is it that horror has taken so long to be recognized as a legitimate form.
Well, it seems it is interesting because you know, the first films that were made are right in line with the first horror films that were made, so like eighteen ninety six, we're looking at you know, Thomas Edison makes a couple of test reels in his studio that he called monkey Shines, which just was meant to be a way of like Shenanigans, right, so that what they're doing is camera tests. But in the monkey Shiness reels, which you can watch on YouTube, it's basically this fuzzed out shadow figure like moving around. But it's absolutely terrifying. It's not it isn't the world's first unintentional horror film in some ways. But so I write about that in my work. It's so interesting, and you know Jackyl and Hyde and Frankenstein get very early pre twentieth century adaptations. Yeah, yeah, So so why the you know, why it takes I would say in nineteen in the nineteen late seventies is when there was a Toronto International Film Festival group of people who did a panel on horror and it was Tony Williams and a few other Robin Wood was another one, very famous horror scholar, and they did this sort of well, they did the panel and then they did a book and for this festival of festivals was the publisher and it was one of the first kind of collections and acts of horror scholarship, and they were unapologetic about it. But like right after that you get books like Carol Clover's Men, Women in Chainsaws and Planks of Reason by Christopher Sheridan Barry Grant. Those are kind of early, you know, early attempts early still the seventies, but early for horror studies, attempts to talk about the genre in ways that were more than just I don't know, kind of panic or you know, cultural panics, moral like that. And what's interesting though, is that a lot of like Carol Clover's book begins with this sort of this preface where she says, you know, look, I watched three hundred slasher movies to make to write this book. Don't think I'm insane or something like that, and it's a yeah, it's like this apologetic tone. Right, I'm I'm writing a study about horror. It's okay, mom, I'm fine. You know, So I don't know, like what what made it because there there are so many brilliant films, you know, throughout the from the advent of cinema to the seventies. But yeah, it does take that long for I think Gothic studies is maybe partly why horror doesn't get into the game early. There's an early study of horror called an Illustrated History of the Horror Film like Carlos Clarence, and that's a book that has been fairly long out of print, and that I think that was in the early sixties. But yeah, it's just there's this big gap. I don't know.
All right, let's get into And then there was Sean so As, your first first boy Meets World episode, which is a strange way to go in. But did what did you think of the episode overall? No wrong opinions?
Well, so, okay, so I have my like my character list here too because I have to refer to it to know the cat my so As as an episode, and I still haven't. I was going to try to watch the pilot, but I didn't. I didn't watch that either, So I really am only talking about this episode. Yeah, I was surprised that I found it funny because I was expecting, you know, because like if I if I watch Family Ties or something like that, now, I'm not going to find that funny. I just don't really. But like in this case. You know, it was interesting to see William Daniels because I only know him as the voice of Night, writer of The Car and Night Writer, I guess. But yeah, I thought I was. I was interested in the episode for a number of reasons that weren't entirely about its horror leanings, including this sort of young adult you know, kind of like raining in your emotions kind of angle. That really interesting. I mean, I'm always going to read you know, you were making jokes in the in your invitation to do this about like we're going to talk about placing this in the pantheon of horror. But and so I'll always you know, if you want me to get serious about a cultural object that maybe some people would be like, Oh that doesn't you know, I'm in so awesome. So yeah, I found the episode really interesting. I thought I thought the kind of locked room aspect of it was interesting. There's a bit of an Agatha Christie you know, well, I mean even the title is a reference to Agatha Christie, right, and then there were none.
Oh I didn't know that.
Yeah, it's an Agatha Christie.
Oh but that's so cool.
Yeah, I mean, at least I think I think it's gestures to that at least, and that's kind of one of the things about the episode that was interesting is that it's it's doing that scream thing, but it's also gesturing out to these other traditions of horror mystery suspense that I thought we were really yeah, really fast.
Yeah, that's a good point. I hadn't quite thought it, but it really it almost is like a murder mystery, like dinner party gathering. You know, it's like, it's not you, and then it's you and you know, and everybody's getting killed off one by one. Yeah, it's it's a it's a it's a lot going on in that episode. So it turns out to be this sort of uh, you know, my character Sean is the killer, and he's processing the fact that his you know, his friends have broken up and you know how so I know we've talked a little bit about but how has like something like that been interpreted in films, you know, like, is horror typically a way for somebody to process something personal psychological or is it a broader cultural anxiety that we're usually analyzing film.
I think I mean certainly both. But the you know, the ghost story, for example, is the classic form of working out the past, right that the you know, the ghost is there too to terrify you into a truth or acknowledging a truth that has happened, and you know that that we then have to to grapple with in the present. And sometimes it just a matter of digging up that dead body that tells you there was you know, there's a nun in the basement or whatever. But during the time this episode was made, you know, there's a little bit of a I don't know, there's a little bit of a turn inward. You know, certainly the Gothic aspect of this episode is that individual, you know, Trauma Sean, that that character is working out response to a really big change in his life. Right. I think the comment is I've only ever known you as a couple, and so you've kind of shaken my whole metaphysics, you know, of my in the world. And yeah that I think. You know, Buffy does this too with especially the first season. But high school, the high school is hell kind of model, right, you know, Monsters of the Week, the monsters are often you know, I feel like I'm becoming invisible. I feel like I am, you know, inferior to my brother to the point where he becomes a Frankenstein monster. And you know, so, let's say it very much that sort of micro cosmic horror of your personal life, you know, ballooning out to a whole era of development in youth. Yeah.
I love the you know, just the idea of the ordinary being suddenly terrified. You know. I feel like that you know, you you, I know, you teach Shirley Jackson. I feel like she's the queen of that, right. It's like you never even know why you're scared. You're just terrified of a small town or the way people are acting so normal. And in this case, I love the fact that the school becomes a murder, you know, that it becomes terrified, and it's the same set we've used every every episode, and you know, but all the sort of regular things become horror, you know, just baffling and scary, and I think it's part of the reason why some people are genuinely cared by this episode.
You know.
Can you talk about setting and the importance of setting in horror.
Films, Yeah, for sure, And actually in this episode. I've always found high schools terrifying, even when they're not, you know, contextualized as horror because long rows of lockers and things like that, they're just there. There's nothing there but a maze of possibility for violence and terror and torture. And but yeah, I think setting and horror. I mean it's funny because a lot of well it's a testimonial too, how this episode functions suddenly as horror is that you with horror. You know, the classic line there is that production of horror doesn't really take much. You just have to turn the lights out. And you know you're and that I'm undercutting a lot of very beautiful, wonderful you know, craft work and horror and aesthetics that people take a lot of pains to create. But essentially, you know, you can create horror by diminishing are uh uh interaction or our access to detail in a setting.
So you know, I my character lays out all these these rules right which we all know from Scream, and I feel like they've been reiterated over and over again. You know, all the doors are going to be locked, Virgins never die. How have the rules changed since since you know nineteen ninety eight? Have the have the rules of horror films that evolved from this point?
Uh, that's an interesting question because that like when we talk about those kind of rules, they're slasher film rules, right, So and has the has the neo slasher or these recent slasher films, have they changed anything. Okay, So if you if you look at the difference between Terrifier and Terrifier Too, the misogyny in Terrifier is turned in Terrifier Too into a girl power kind of narrative. I'm all for that, but but there's something in some ways, there's something so self conscious about it that it feels like it's not it's not real. It's just a gesture to a kind of it's like an idea. Yeah, yeah, like we're doing it. We can't do this any you know, this time, so we're going to have to you know, apologize for our previous and and yes, Terrifier has some really bad, you know missage, but but it's also you know, it's a visceral film, uh, in ways that the sequel isn't, And the sequel starts to kind of build this narrative. And I think that that is what I'm noticing in something like Thanksgiving, where you know, that could have just been a string of really great set pieces but instead it's so it's so interested in developing the near and creating this sort of almost mythical you know, background and everything that it uses some of the viscerality. That's what I would say, is like the kind of I don't know, there's a bit of a dilution of the earlier slasher rules in those films. It's almost like after Scream, we're not allowed to just be You're not allowed to just make a slasher film. You have to make a canny slasher film or you know, the one that so that you know what you're.
Where characters are smarter or somewhat more self aware. Yeah. Yeah, And I feel like, you know, the major shift that that started happening with the Scream self consciousness was around gender, you know, because you finally had these female characters. You know, in the seventies and eighties, it was men making horror films primarily, right, and there was always this sort of you know, uh sexualization of women, and then of course the Final Girl Trope. There were all these tropes sort of built around gender, and I feel like the nineties it started, you know, to change. Do you think that you know, we have somebody like Buffy especially you know, a real really empowered How how has gender been reflected it, you know, specifically in the nineties and then moving into today.
I think I think Buffy is an interesting case because Joss Whedon said that Buffy was he wanted to take the Final Girl, move her from this screaming, helpless figure to a powerful figure, and and in that sense he's he's kind of well, he's wrong, because the Final Girl is a powerful character and also readable, you know, kind of not as a trans character, but definitely readable in different registers of gender. So there's a you know, the classic Carol Clover talks about this, but their names tend to be not they are they're androgynous names, right they they aren't necessarily like sexual in the same way that their friends are, So there's a bit of a querying aspect to them. They're a little less readable than the other characters. They're a little more reluctant, and they're not as they're more observant, right, So there, and that's what gets them out of things. So I would say that those are actually kind of interestingly, if they're not full on role models, they're at least more complicated than that sort of Oh, they were, you know, they were just running away screaming, versus the Buffy model where she's sort of like it's the apocalypse, beep beep me, you know, like I'll take care of it. But yeah, so I think I think the recent films they're almost if they're doing Slasher up front, they almost have they feel like they have to make the character so powerful she's a superhero almost and right, you know.
So it's interesting to me that it's in some ways a lot of the things that you're saying are the more ideological horror film becomes or the more like sort of idea driven sometimes the less successful of a horror film it is.
Yeah, it can be that way. Robin Wood was one of the kind of famous people who talks about this, like he calls some films progressive and some reactionary, based on you know, in some cases, whether or not evil is punished or who it's punished by, and whether or not the narrative remains open to ambiguity or closed in a sort of safe zone. So you know, the ghost story can tend to encourage covative conservative you know, it's almost a conservative structure, right, It's sort of if it's a satisfying closure, the mystery gets solved. That said, you know that well, and then Wood talks about something like the exorcistem calls it conservative because the Catholic Church as an authority, you know, exercises, exorcizes and power and is successful. But then it's like, but but you you know, you need to think about like I think horror is always a little like anything else, is a little bit aware of being liberal and also unaware of being a little conservative in some ways. But in the Exorcist you have a case that's really fascinating where besides the fact that you're watching you know, extreme embodied pain and torture in a child's body, you're also watching that in a priest's conflict, you know, so there and it's sort of like, oh, so the ending erases all that, you know. It's that's where we get into the weird politics of horror, where you know, they if they do end and it's closed up and and sealed up, then we think of it as, you know, be conservative because what we want to see is that on that conflict ongoing. So yeah, for sure, all.
Right, So back to back to Boy meets World for a second. You know, one of the things, because people do find this episode scary, and I think one of the reasons is just this question of tone, right, like why why is the sitcom suddenly murdering people? And why is there blood in the walls? So how have you how how have you found the relationship between humor and horror, because they often work really well together. So I just love to hear your thoughts on, you know, how how comedy has been used in horror.
So my my favorite if we're going to the episode, my favorite two things are a total balance of comedy and horror, or one of them is the I have to make I have to make notes on this, the sort of like that that they you know, the announcement is made that like I'm sure that as soon as we turn away, something's going to you know, like run or we're not going to miss something running behind us or in front of us. And that happens twice in the episode. It's funny, but it's also a jump scare totally and it and also, you know, I think one of the reasons people, you know, you can laugh because it is funny, but you're the viewers of the show who probably you know, they're not coming to that show to see horror. It destabilizes the setting of the high school, right, so you're never sure where this is going to appear again, and especially when it appears right in front of the camera, between the characters and your point of view, it's quite shocking. So that's one element where the humor and horror work really well together. And the other one is the hilarious scream kind of test, you know, sort of like I'm the best screamer? No, and then Jennifer love Hewitt comes in and she's like, the best screamer, come on you, like really?
So I'm curious how you feel. I mean, you obviously you loved horror at one point, you got into this this field, and you've dedicated so much of your life to to the to the form. Do you ever feel like enough is enough? Like you're sick of it, you wish you would just started doing romantic comedies or or I guess maybe the bigger the bigger question is do you ever feel like you're you're analyzing too much, or that you're that you're taking something too seriously.
I was worried that I would take this episode too seriously, but but and you know, when I realized how how carefully it leans into the tropes. I started to get really interested do in my general work. No, I I just think that you know that you often get questions from people who don't watch horror or read horror, like how can you be drawn to this? You know, it's so I couldn't even watch five minutes of a horror movie. And I'm often saying like, well, horror isn't just one thing, and you know, it's a there's an aesthetic there that's very broad. You know, you can go from beautiful, quiet, shadowy gothic to upfront, in your face spectacle horror and everything in between. And with all of that there, and you know, the Shirley Jackson's out there and the Carmen Maria Machado's out there. You know, like, I just think that it's just everybody is, you know, in this horror discourse, whether you're a creator or a scholar. I think you're just always finding new things to to inspire you. And you know, my work right now is largely in horror television. I'm writing on the eighties Friday the thirteenth, the series and great.
Yeah, No, I wanted to ask you what you're working on now and what you've got, what you got coming up. So that's what you're focused on is the eighties horror TV.
Yeah, which is what was kind of intriguing about this watching this episode because I'm watching a decade later, you know, kind of what's possible. Yeah, we're I'm writing a book with a scholar, Aaron Giannini, and we're working on this eighties during the rag sorry, horror during the Reagan era, and so it's Freddy's Nightmares Tales from the Dark Side. I'm wearing my shirt today and uh, you know, Friday the thirteenth, the series and Dark Dark Room some others, a lot of anthology series that, you know, are what's interesting about those shows in terms of this Boy Meets World episode is the degree to which they can and cannot show violence, right, And you know, I was really fascinating did by the first death in Why Am I? And then there was Sean is a pencil through the forehead and then the great you know shot of the pencil drawing a line down the wall as he you know, slides down the wall. But there's no blood in that God the only blood is written is very you know, almost like a nice font, you know, on the the wayboard. But so there, you know, that episode is very careful about how it showed. I mean that, but that's extreme violence. Like the scissors in the back and the pencil through the brain. How you die because six books fall on you, I don't know. But but the pencil to the brain I get. And then there's but there's no blood and that's where you know. Even one of the reasons Buffy the Vampire Slayer when they killed the vampires they turned to dust is because the show couldn't show a lot of blood. Wow, So they came up with this dust idea.
Right, So in some ways you have to be so creative to just avoid the violence.
Wow.
All right, well, thank you so much for taking the time to watch this episode multiple times. Any any final thoughts on Unboy mets World and then there was Sean.
I do have one. I just I think that there's an interesting thing going on here with the through line of Seawan's you know, kind of disruption in his sort of narrative of his youth and friendship. There there's a moment where I think it's I don't think it's intentionally meant to unsettle anything. But early in the episode, Sean says something too. I think it's to Corey. Now Feeney knows I'm in the class. There's a line where it's almost like I wanted to be invisible. Right now you've done something that's made me visible, you know, without getting you know, super deeply serious about that. I actually think that's an interesting kind of young adult moment that the episode really does carry through to the end, and the multiple dream sequences that sort of do they end or do they not end? Right? You know, is the is the episode canon or is it all just a dream and it never stopped? You know, like there's a lot going on there. But but that that whole episode is the result of like an echo of this, like I don't want to be visible, and now I'm the murderer and the.
You know, yeah in the group, right, it's about being empowered in a way, you know, just growing up, Like you know, this is the last season of our show where we're in high school. You know, after this we go to college and the show changes a lot, you know, And I think, yeah, what you're talking about is is has been an evolution. I Mean that's pretty consistent from the beginning of Boy Meets World, you know, it's it's a coming of age store and starts with Corey as eleven year old, and you know, we're getting more and more empowered as the show goes on. So I think that that's that was a real anxiety that, you know, like my character as the poor kid, bad student who could kind of just coast and like never have to be visible. That's a really good point.
Yeah, it's easy watching this episode to think that because I think it's is it Corey, that's this sort of senseral he's boy. Yeah, he's the boy in this episode. You are like, it really is your it's it's your character's episode, which is very Yeah, it's very interesting that.
We've talked about a little bit on our podcast because I am you know, been kind of realizing how many episodes were about my character and realizing like, oh, I was a bigger part of the show than I ever really thought. And you know, one of the things that we've we've realized is that, of course, since Corey is the main character, since he's the boy that you're that the audience is primarily going to identify with, in some ways, he's a less interesting character you know, he's given less edges and let you know, he can't be you know, from a troubled family because his family is kind of has to be the comfort family that we you know, we go to. We look, you know, his parents are very good parents. His teacher is a good teacher. And so in some ways, yeah, us side characters get get more to do you know, we have more more dramatic arcs I guess in general.
Yeah, yeah, that's that's pretty cool. I will also add one more thing you that this episode comes. Let's see about four years, five years before an episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season six, episode seventeen. So you're you're in the same slot, okay, where Buffy thinks that she's in an insane asylum and she or she keeps there's like this flip flop between her as a slayer and her as insane because she keeps saying she's a slayer, but no one believes her. And there's a there's a sense there that the episode actually doesn't end on any clarity which version of reality is is.
Oh, so she could be an insane asylum this whole time and this is her dream, right the episode.
Wow, almost suggests that it could undo everything that's come before it, uh, you know, all some sort of delusion, and I feel like this this episode comes before that episode, and when when it suddenly becomes mister Feeney's fantasy of everybody saying like yes, sir, I know doubt uh. And then there's another appearance of the masked figure. It's it's it's going there a little.
Bit totally right. Well, it's it's very it's very much like the end of Nightmare on Elm Street, right where it's like, oh, it was all just a dream, but we're still in the dream. It's still there.
Yeah.
I love that stuff. Yeah, so that's a good point. Maybe maybe. And then there where Sean is the actual only canon for Boy Meets World. Everything else has just.
Been that's that's the way to spin it.
All right, Thank you so much. I really appreciate this, Chris. And let's stay in touch to I want to meet you if I'm ever up in Canada and come see a horror film with you.
Yeah. Absolutely. You know. My email is the one I use primarily, so reach out anytime.
All right, Thank you so much, Chris, all right, all right, see it so well. Thank you very much for listening. This has been Office Hours with Ryder Strong, a very special edition of Podmeats World. Thanks to Christopher Woofter for watching this episode and playing along, and thank you for joining us. You can follow us on Instagram at Pod meets World Show. You can send us your emails pod meets World Show at gmail dot com, and we have merch. Merch, Merch, merch. That's my psycho music merch Podmeetsworldshow dot com. We love you all. Pod dismissed
