"Babadook"Leather Bookmark, meSP4RK4RT t1_iwedie4 wrote
Reply to comment by Optymistyk in "Babadook"Leather Bookmark, me by kswades
When the monster is revealed to be the manifestation of mental illness, and you realize the monster doesn't just exist in the "reel" world, but the "real" world, that's when the movie terrified me, and became one of my favorite horror movies.
fluency t1_iwfuet1 wrote
It’s not about mental illness, it’s about unprocessed grief and trauma.
Bronsteins-Panzerzug t1_iwg5jlq wrote
„It’s not about coughing and sneezing, it’s about catching a cold“
fluency t1_iwga66g wrote
Unprocessed grief and trauma are not the same as mental illness, and calling them the cause of mental illness is a gross oversimplification. They can be a cause, but rarely on their own.
JohnnyBlaize420 t1_iwh0ztq wrote
It’s about both in a way, her grief turned to hatred of her own child so much so that it developed into her hating regretting and despising her child because he’s all that is left after the loss of her husband, this is why the kid appears extra annoying to us it’s because we see what she sees. At the end she realizes that it’s apart of her for she’ll always miss her husband so she feeds it and keeps it at bay and controls her hate and anger and sadness. Very impactful and beautiful film tbh.
Bronsteins-Panzerzug t1_iwgaf39 wrote
They suffer from extreme paranoid delusions lol
fluency t1_iwgapkm wrote
Thats one interpretation. Another, perhaps more powerful one, is to view it as a metaphor.
Bronsteins-Panzerzug t1_iwgawn1 wrote
…for mental illness
fluency t1_iwgb7er wrote
No, a metaphor for unprocessed trauma. The ending where she accepts the Babadook, keeps it in the basement and feeds it, the line «you can’t get rid of the Babadook,» all of it presents as a metaphor for the process of working through trauma and grief. In the end, she accepts the darkness of her trauma as a part of herself.
Bronsteins-Panzerzug t1_iwgd4b0 wrote
None of the things you just said contradict or diminish the mental illness interpretation.
[deleted] t1_iwgdtqy wrote
[removed]
GoddamnJiveTurkey t1_iwgechw wrote
You can’t get rid of it, but you can learn to tame it. And it’ll flare up, act angry, try to take over your life again, but you learn to put it back in that basement time after time.
GoddamnJiveTurkey t1_iwge3l4 wrote
Absolutely. The movie was about grief and loss - it wasn’t necessarily a horror movie. I watched it expecting something spooky and got something completely different. People that watched the whole thing and still didn’t get the message make me want to bang my head against a wall.
BobTheBogan t1_iwehjks wrote
that and it's just marilyn manson with a huge mouth and a coat
goodlittlesquid t1_iwhs36c wrote
The design is actually based off Lon Chaney's London After Midnight
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