We should all live in Room 237. And not (just) so we can make out with naked ghosts.
I recently re-watched Room 237, Rodney Ascher’s 2012 documentary about the many readings and conspiracy theories surrounding Stanley Kubrick’s seminal adaptation of Stephen King’s The Shining.
The documentary is itself a kind of dream, much like Kubrick’s original film. It weaves together the voices of several people explaining what The Shining is “really about.” The interviewees are not named (until the end credits) or shown on screen, and the film jumps from one to the other, creating a pastiche of creative close readings that range from the Extremely Plausible to the Can We Get This Person Some Help, Please. By the end of the film, I was kind of mesmerized by ideas and theories swirling around the enigmatic horror classic. And to add to the dizzying dreaminess of the documentary, its visuals are a tapestry of clips from not only The Shining, but also an array of other movies, by Kubrick and many others. The editing of this documentary (by Ascher himself) is downright masterful and the whole thing serves as a celebration of the ectoplasmic boundlessness of Kubrick’s cinematic masterpiece.
What We Can Learn from the Kooks
The film is enjoyable enough. And it manages to maintain a delicate balance. On on hand, it humorously mocks some theories as products of minds that probably need to get outside more. On the other hand it presents visual and historical corroborating evidence for most of those theories that make them plausible, and often downright compelling. I’m particularly keen to accept readings of The Shining that argue for a deep subtextual engagement with the Holocaust and the American genocide of Native Americans. However, though I must admit the film brings to light some compelling oddities about symbols concerning the American space program, I’m not quick to accept the film as Stanley Kubrick coming clean about had a hand in faking the moon landing. That is a fun conspiracy theory, but I can’t really go there in the end.
Conspiracy Theory and Teaching
All that said being said, watching Room 237 got me thinking about conspiratorial thinking and my job as a teacher.
Few things are as universally loathed by people like me (an educated college teacher) as conspiracy theories. CNN and MSNBC have shifted their entire profit models to the paranoid coverage of how conspiracy theories are going to destroy democracy as we know it. The creation and exploitation of this narrative has become, ironically, a conspiracy theory itself: a meta conspiracy theory about conspiracy theories. As Tolkien might have put it: “But they were all of them deceived. For another conspiracy theory was forged…one conspiracy theory to rule them all.”
I’m sure I’ll write about conspiracy theories from time to time in this newsletter, but let me just say here that I am not what you’d call a conspiracy theorist myself. I tend to find most of them to much more compellingly explained by mundane phenomena. That said, I very much enjoy reading about them. I personally find them to be fascinating examples of corporate storytelling and a kind of contemporary, evolving folklore. (I do understand that there are times when they become dangerous in the wrong hands — Jan. 6 is a recent example).
One positive thing about conspiratorial thinking is that it is creative. I honestly admire the work that people have put into their readings of The Shining as narrated in Room 237. For all their flaws, a conspiracy theorist doesn’t passively sit back and blindly consume the world as it’s delivered to them. Certainly, they often develop their own media ecosystems that can often trap them in a destructive feedback loop. This is the problem ultimately, but it is a problem shared by the paranoid CNN viewer as well, to be frank.
I wish that there was a more reliable way to harness the creative chaos of conspiratorial thinking.
As I watched the film, I kept thinking:
“Gosh these are some wacky readings, but doggone it I wish more students would take this kind of approach to the books and movies we talk about.”
Our educational system, which I’ve openly critiqued here before, heavily prioritizes measurable knowledge over the messy act of experience. The effect of this priority is to reduce education to that which can be measured. With the incentive structures of our learning institutions, we’ve basically responded to the motivational poster cliché “Life is a Journey, Not a Destination,” with a resounding “NOPE.” School is all about the results, the end-product, the “right answer.”
This is a horrendous development for the humanities. Artworks, regardless of media, are about anything other than the “right answer.” An artist (at least a good one) wants people to chew over their work, to luxuriate in its possibilities. This is most certainly true of Stanley Kubrick, one of the most enigmatic filmmakers we’ve produced as a culture. His work is steeped in ambiguity, which leads quite naturally to the kinds of deep dives and absurd readings of the Shining fans in Room 237. The conspiracy theories are probably the outcome he desired.
But our educational system prizes the mundane stance of those horrid YouTube channels that explain what x is “really about,” or what it “really means,” or whatever keeps an individual from having a personal experience with a work of art.
I do understand that there is a difference in kind between weird readings of a film and Flat Earth Theory and claims of mass election fraud.
But I can can’t help but wish more students brought the mindset of a wacko who insists on “doing your own research” when it comes to engaging with a work of art. Give me more conspiratorial readers and fewer people looking for the institutionally-sanctioned “right answer.”
More than almost anything, I want my students to approach a work of art like they’re Danny Torrance. I want them to pull up in their Big Wheel, approach the open door to Room 237 with a combination of fear and awe, and to push their way in, ready to meet whatever ghosts might be restlessly awaiting their presence. Then, I want them to overthink the experience, like the obsessed and creative minds of Room 237.
Great! Thanks for sharing!