Today's Gothic mix of violence, torture, and religion comes from this tale of textual appropriation. Or, to pick one jubilant and descriptive headline,
Christian Book Touting Manly Aggression Inspires Violent Fundamentalist Meth Trafficking Cult
The short version: one group, La Familia, is fond of extreme violence. It also admires John Eldredge’s Wild At Heart, a Christian tract about manliness and virtue. The Alternet article explores some connections between the two, as does this piece.
What's Gothic about this story? It actually fields like a scratch mix of 1790s Gothic, both British and American. Extreme violence: check. Religion playing a role in support of bad authority: check. Problematic masculinity, alongside machismo: check. Bad authority become tyrannical, even semi-autonomous, unto being a parallel state: check.
All we need now to complete the picture is a tormented heroine, after which we could go either the Ann Radcliffe or "Monk" Lewis route.
We've been tracking Mexican-US drug war Gothic recently, here and here.
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