By: Chris Stead

Asherra, having just started a new job, has been a little swamped lately so I’ll be your guide again through another column on the third generation. Let’s consider movies for just a moment. Visual media is such a heavy influence on culture today that it seems only reasonable that it would influence the goth culture. Though on network television it has become painfully obvious that the Goth culture is having a bigger impact on the popular world that vice versa, but this is not so with regard to movies.

Generally Goths tend to be culturally aware, intellectual and artistic. This combination of traits lends itself nicely to the silver screen. Yes, film will hit home more often for the general Goth than what happened on survivor last week. With this in mind, Asherra mentioned in her very first column that many times when people think Goth, they thing of Tim Burton. Why? Because Tim Burton started setting the standard for all things dark, gloomy and dreary with characters like Lydia Deats in Beetlejuice back in the eighties.

Lydia is the spooky little goth girl that wanders around moping about her parent’s overpoweringly mundane lifestyle and bemoaning life itself. Wynona Ryder couldn’t have played a better role at that time. Burton went on to make the single most Gothy movie Disney ever produced, “Nightmare Before Christmas.” It seems that everyone thinks of “Nightmare…” when they think of Goth, if nothing else for the ubiquitous black and white stripes everywhere. This movie has influence the Goth movement from the moment it hit theaters. Now any time that people hear anything that resembles music from Danny Elfman, they immediately think of that movie. Play some of the creepier tracks from Oingo Boingo and see how people react in the scene.

Another notable “creepy” actress is Christina Ricci. After playing Wednesday Addams in two movies, every time that people think of tall, thin girls with long black hair and a mopey attitude, this is the precise image that comes to mind. Mind you, Wednesday Addams of the original black and white TV show was not nearly so creepy or diabolical. This is fantastic and really sets the stage for people to emulate film. I have a friend that was called Wednesday for years. Even now I still slip from time to time and call her Wednesday.

Finally, one movie that every Goth across the globe has seen for certain is “The Crow.” Not only was this a movie that was originally a comic book (which is a topic I will save for another time), but it was turned into a dark action movie that has become a Goth movie collection standard. The best part of the whole movie is, not only was it a movie about love lost, mourning and pain, but the actor playing the tragic hero actually died during filming, which give the whole movie a particular mystique. What more could a good Goth ask for?

Other movies have had an effect on the culture to a greater or lesser extent. These movies have been dramas like “Donnie Darko” and horror movies like “The Exorcist.” Horror, Drama, Comedy and mixtures of these styles have defined how we look at the world, while we look through our black rimmed eyes. So the next time that you don those spiderweb or striped stockings or take your eyeliner to your face in some unorthodox way, stop and think about it a minute. You might just be surprised.