Traumatic origins in Hart and Ringu

Abstract

Popular culture is a domain for legal thinking: a domain in which we can explore how law is “made up,” as Elaine Scarry says, before it is “made real”.1 In this piece, we explore a popular horror film for what it reveals about the nature of legal authority and how the origins of law are “made up”. Surprisingly to many, perhaps, authority and rRules and authority are integral not only to law, but to the horror genre are key concerns of horror, which is why it is productive to think of certain horror films as exercises in legal thinking.