On Creeps and Creepiness, etc.

Anthony Perkins as Norman Bates in 

Hitchcock's creepy horror Psycho (1960)  

 

 

I. 

 

We have been using the term creepy in English for quite some time. 

 

But it's only in our present century that the word has really come into its own. And today, almost any form of behaviour that seems to stray one micro-aggression beyond the narrow bounds of what is regarded as normal and appropriate - even if entirely non-threatening - is stigmatised as creepy and the individual who commits such behaviour branded a creep.  

 

What's going on? Why do so many people get the creeps around others and feel so creeped out around strangers they find unattractive or simply a little different? 

 

The fact that the concept of creepiness has increasingly become the subject of psychological research and philosophical interest - in the way that the uncanny was once the fashionable topic of investigation - demonstrates that something is going on within the contemporary cultural sensibility. 

 

Ironically, it seems that the more safe spaces we create the greater the general unease in society - particularly amongst the young, who apparently regard every glance, every smile, every greeting, every compliment, and every other positive social act as offensive, or intrusive, or creepy, simply because it's unsolicited.        

 

Again, why is that and what's going on? Why do so many people feel so vulnerable and uncomfortable? Why do they think they have had their personal space violated when someone simply sits close to them on the bus or sends them a love letter in the post? [1]     

 

II. 

 

I say people, but we know that it's mostly women who are creeped out and that the vast majority of those thought to be creepy are male: usually slightly older men who happen to be a bit odd-looking or unfashionably dressed; men with strange hobbies and poor personal hygiene; men who are involuntary celibates and still living with their mothers; men who are maybe just shy and awkward in company; men that society dismisses as loners and losers ... etc. [2]        

 

Now, I understand that men are usually more responsible for acts of violence - including sexual violence - than women. And I appreciate how female intuition may have evolved as a protective measure in response to potentially dangerous situations and that being able to detect a creepy guy might literally be a matter of life or death (albeit on extremely rare occasions).  

 

But there's a point when being naturally suspicious and cautious around strangers tips over into cultural paranoia and the way in which masculinity is now often characterised as toxic in and of itself - and male sexuality as pervy - seems to me problematic. Not all men are rapists and not all men are creeps.

 

Personally, I think we should value (maybe even learn to love) those ambiguous and rather unpredictable individuals who display a little quirkiness and queerness - or even out-and-out creepiness; isn't that what The Addams Family taught us? [3]       

 

They're creepy and they're kooky ...

John Astin & Carolyn Jones as Gomez & Morticia Addams

 

 

Notes

 

[1] It does seem to me that, in our hypersensitive and easily offended age, even the most innocent gesture or innocuous remark can have serious consequences. Having said that, I'm aware that a lot of appalling behaviour and inappropriate conduct is carried on under the guise of having a laugh or just being friendly. I'm not denying there are real creeps in the world and that some of these are also real psychos or perverts, but most are simply neurotic. 

 

[2] Rightly or wrongly, if you're young, good-looking, talented, rich and successful, you can certainly get away with far more than if you're none of the above. Once you pass a certain point, however - when, for example, you hit fifty - what was once seen as charisma or charm or genius becomes creepiness or even abusive behaviour. 

 

[3] Having said that, if Norman Bates invites you to supper, it's advisable to say no. And if you get the willies when staying in a strange house, it's probably best to skedaddle (as my mother would say). 

      Finally, I'd quite like to ask those unhappy individuals considered creepy, but who desperately want the world to accept them: Did you ever just consider acting normal?

 

 

Musical bonus 1: 'Creep' (1992), the debut single by Radiohead, which can also be found on the album Pablo Honey (Parlophone, 1993): click here. 

 

Musical Bonus 2: I actually much prefer this track by Danish singer Camille Jones entitled 'The Creeps'. Originally released on Tommy Boy Music in 2005, it was brilliantly remixed by Fedde Le Grand in 2007. However, I'm a little concerned that my liking the video by Marcus Adams might make me seem a little creepy to female readers ...   

 

 

This post is for Síomón Solomon.  

Reflections on The Bat 1: Theodore Roethke and the Unheimlich

Germaine Richier: Bat (1948-51)

Etching and aquatint on paper (385 x 536 mm)

Several days after first reading and I'm still haunted by Roethke's magnificent poem The Bat ...

It's not the bat by day who disturbs me; the bat who is cousin to the mouse and likes to hang out (literally) in the attic of an aging house and whose fingers make a hat about his head. I'm perfectly fine with the thought of such a creature, whose heart beats so slowly we think him dead.

Indeed, I don't even fear the bat who loops in crazy figures half the night. Just so long as he keeps his distance and, more importantly, keeps his own countenance. It's only when he comes too close and reveals that something is amiss or out of place that I'm disturbed; when, as Roethke writes, it becomes apparent that even mice with wings can wear a human face.

In my mind, such an image is uncanny to the nth degree. So much so, that one is tempted to use the more ambiguous (and thus more troubling) German term, unheimlich, which Roethke, as the son of a German immigrant, might appreciate. For unheimlich means more than outside of one's normal experience and familiar frame of reference (or beyond one's ken, as our friends north of the border might say).

Roethke's human-faced bat is not just a bit creepy or queer: it is that which should have remained forever in the shadows and never been spoken of, but which has - thanks to him - come to light and to language; it is thus the un-secret (and here we recall that heimlich doesn't just mean homely, but also that which is hidden or concealed).

In a proto-Freudian sense that looks back to Schelling, the unheimlich is, we might say - and I'm going to have to consult with my friend Simon Solomon on this - the obscene intrusion of the occult into the known world in such a manner that it curdles the milk and violates the natural order of things.


Notes

To read The Bat, by Theodore Roethke, please visit the Poetry and Literature page of the US Library of Congress: click here.

To read part two of this post on French sculptress Germaine Richier and her 1946 piece La Chauve-souris, click here.

To read the post that anticipates or prefigures this one on Roethke and the Bat Boy, click here.

Germaine Richier's brilliant artwork seen here can be viewed by appointment at Tate Britain's Prints and Drawings Rooms (Ref. number P11286) .