(Old-Timey) Pop Culture: Stephen King’s The Shining April 9, 2009
Posted by Onely in book review, film review, Pop Culture: Scourge of the Onelys, Reviews, We like. . ..Tags: isolation, nuclear family, single writer, stanley hotel, stephen king, the shining
7 comments
My sister and I recently ghost-toured The Stanley Hotel. The building inspired Stephen King‘s The Shining, his classic novel about a classic nuclear family–father, mother, and psychic son–who move to an isolated hotel in the mountains of Colorado to care for it during the snowed-in winter. After our tour, Caroline and I watched the The Shining miniseries, for the thrill of seeing good-looking actor types walk around the same places we commoners had just tread.
While watching, I got to thinking about whether the story is King’s commentary (conscious or not) on the Western world’s view of couplehood (and, by extension, the nuclear family) as the core unit of society, around which our lives should preferably be built. I’m interested to know what our Copious Readership thinks the plot “means”. Here’s what happens when our three fresh-faced heroes (Jack, Wendy, and little Danny) arrive at the hotel in October: (more…)
America’s Most Heteronormative Ghost April 8, 2009
Posted by Onely in Heteronormativity.Tags: estes park, living in sin, single hotel guests, stanley hotel, stanley hotel ghost tour, stanley hotel room 217, stephen king, the shining
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Some say the Stanley Hotel in Estes Park, Colorado is the most haunted building in America. My sister and I took a ghost tour there last weekend, and it’s definitely spooky, even though I think they have changed the color of the wainscotting since filming Stephen King’s The Shining there some years ago.
Our tour guide, a dynamic woman wearing a poofy black dress and calling herself “Scary Mary” (she could pull it off (the name, not the dress) ) told us about the spirit children singing London Bridge on the fourth floor, the piano in the ballroom that plays by itself, the ghostly maintenance men crawling around under the pipes, and about the head chambermaid loyal to the Stanleys for over a hundred years: Mrs. Wilson in the famous Room 217, where King wrote his book. (more…)
