The Moral Authority of Friday the 13th

Despite its potential roots in Christian lore (the death of Jesus having occurred on a Friday) or the phenomenon of triskaidekaphobia (fear of the number 13), the happenstance of the thirteenth day of the month falling on a Friday will be forever associated with Jason Voorhees, an icon of cinematic horror first spotted leaping out of Crystal Lake at the conclusion of the 1980 low-budget horror film Friday the 13^th.

     
After thirty-five years and twelve movies (including a journey into space, a battle with fellow 80s icon Freddy Krueger, and a 2009 remake), the murderous Jason is dyed into the wool of American popular culture, familiar to even those who avoid horror films and, at least in my own estimation, has become something of a crusader for conservative Judeo-Christian morality.

     
A cursory reading of the works of Jonathan Edwards, the highly influential eighteenth century preacher, reveals a view of a protestant God that rages with an unbridled wrath for humankind. In his classic sermon “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God,” Edwards writes, “The bow of God’s wrath is bent, and the arrow made ready on the string, and justice bends the arrow at your heart, and strains the bow, and it is nothing but the mere pleasure of God, and that of an angry God, without any promise or obligation at all, that keeps the arrow one moment from being made drunk with your blood.”

     
This is an ominous and menacing portrait of God to be sure, and, lest you believe Edwards to be an old fashioned aberration, a view that is held by many modern religious practitioners and denominations here in the enlightened confines of the twenty-first century. And, in Edwards’ defense, the pages of the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament are rife with the horror and gore brought about by an incensed God.

     
In the world of Friday the 13^th where teenagers (and some adults) partake of illicit drugs, wanton sex, and…gasp…skinny dipping, Jason Voorhees has emerged as a nightmarish fundamentalist Christian champion, God’s unstoppable angel of Death imposing permanent judgment on those who fail to sprinkle their door with the blood of moral uprightness. He is the arrow straining against Jonathan Edwards’ righteous bow. He is the Moral Majority of the 1980s. He is the True Love Waits movement. He is Focus on the Family. He is the Family Research Council.

     
While in most fright films or literature the horror is a result of an inversion of the natural or sacred order (e.g. Dracula’s blood communion, Dr. Frankenstein creating life, etc.), Jason’s role is to actually preserve that order. In a culture that will give up its moral judgment when you pry it from its cold dead fingers, using conservative politics as a blunt weapon against religiously inspired issues such as comprehensive sex education in public schools, reproductive choice for women and families, and even drug legalization, embodies the spirit of death and oppression that Jason Voorhees has become a cultural symbol of.

     
Perhaps, for us so liberally inclined, Friday the 13^th should become a day of giving to progressive causes and institutions such as the ACLU or Planned Parenthood. Just as Jason will return in a planned thirteenth film as well as an upcoming television series, our culture will forever be combatting the seemingly unstoppable conservative impetus to legislate and control morality, a metaphorical machete that slices through our rights as we look on in abject horror.