Introduction
The Ring is a 2002 American horror film directed by Gore Verbinski. Horror films are among the most popular types of films in the United States. Therefore, The Ring provides the public with various forms of illusion, which are portrayed in the movie. The main issues of interest in this movie include cultural prohibitions regarding sex, violence and death. Horror films serve as good means of critical analyses of individuals’ unconscious memories. In addition, such films act as reflections of repression and denial.
Film Studies
In The Ring, television is portrayed as an active tool of exploitation and untimely death. In this film, a haunted videotape leads to the demise of its viewers precisely seven days from the initial viewing. The viewers of the haunted tape are obliged to produce replicas of the tape and forward them to second parties within seven days. Television is used as a metaphysical channel that links the worlds of the dead and the living. Samara, therefore, uses mass media seek vengeance against the public.
The consequences of improper parenting are revealed in this film since the absence of both parents (Rachel and Noah) in Aidan’s life puts his life in jeopardy. Aidan spends much of his time glued to the television because his parents do not spend time with him. Consequently, he watches a horror film, The Ring, in which he is threatened with death by supernatural forces. Noah and Rachel’s workaholic characters jeopardize their son’s life. They are compelled to instruct their child to make a copy of the tape and transfer the curse to a third party.
This film portrays the theme of vengeance particularly when Samara, an eight-year-old girl, avenges her death and unceremonious burial. The fact that her body was dumped makes her spirit angry with the people who reside in the buildings erected on top of the well where her body was thrown.
Samara sets out to kill the people who happen to watch the video that she created by “thermographic projection” as her revenge mission. She crawls out through the television screens to kill her victims who have failed to transfer the curse after seven days of watching the tape.
The Ring portrays the widespread social issue of addiction to the media. The film revolves around the current generation, which has a high affinity for mass media. Examples are Noah, a freelance photographic journalist, Rachel, who is employed by a major metropolitan newspaper in Seattle as an investigative reporter and their son Aidan who spends most of his time watching television.
The two parents (Rachel and Noah) choose to spend a lot of time working instead of having a personal relationship with their son, which makes him a television addict. The absence of parents in children’s lives causes a significant proportion of children to shift their attention to other destructive activities such as watching horror films.
Sacrifice is the perfect way to salvage a perishing family. Rachel leaves her job to take care of her son and in the process breaks the curse. She also earns her status as Aidan’s mother by spending more time with her son. The death of Aidan’s father helps bring forth a new generation that is free of their parents’ sins. Overall, this film centers on the cultural anxiety brought about by the mass media through the use of television as an instrument of manipulation and vice.