Gulf oil spill goes Gothic, or flinging the kill mud

The BP Gulf spill received a Gothic dimension this week, at least in political discourse.  A conservative commentator summons up horrors:

And now we have a videotape metaphor for all the public's fears: that clip we see every day, on every news show, of the well gushing black oil into the Gulf of Mexico and toward our shore. You actually don't get deadlier as a metaphor for the moment than that, the monster that lives deep beneath the sea.

Noonan's metaphor is well-chosen, since she's arguing for the Obama administration's weakness.  She casts the crisis not as a technological problem to be solved, but as an uncanny monster to be fought, and whose persistence reveals Obama's impotence.  Expect to see more of this from the American right.

From the other side of the spectrum, Greenpeace UK's new BP logo contest has some horror-themed results:

and

BP already offers a pretty violent rhetoric, most recently using "kill mud" in a "top kill" strategy.  

(gushercam screenshot snagged from this Guardian story)

Comments

[peter naegele]

I like this one:

http://cache.gawkerassets.com/assets/images/4/2010/05/500x_bpgoatse.jpg

[Bryan Alexander]

That's http://tinyurl.com/35me7v6, to get the link fitting this box. Thanks, Peter.