The infernal cultural complex: The Devil as a symbol and Jungian archetype of change in late twentieth century American popular culture

The success of various civil rights movements in America, starting in the 1960s, changed social stratification based on race, gender, and sexuality. Also, within the 1960s, the less discussed occult revival seemed to place the Devil everywhere America looked. Social events often highlighted how the Devil, as an inner, hidden evil, was found in White American Christian men. Some of these men, usually privileged in society, perceived that equal rights, along with the public revelation that much of America’s evil was committed by men like them, created a threat to their privileged positions in society, which developed into shared psychological trauma. This thesis examined the psychological effects of this perceived, shared cultural trauma through its expression in myth making using popular cultural narratives. In addition to using sociological theory and historical context, the analytical psychology of Jung was used, with emphasis on what Jung called the complex and the idea of cultural complexes, as put forward by later Jungian scholars. Because Jung stressed the importance of analysing myths to understand the cultural psyche behind their creation, three diverse types of popular culture, argued to be modern myth making, were examined. Three case studies explored the narratives of Hollywood films in the 1970s, investigative television programs of the 1980s, and grunge music videos from the 1990s, using a methodology which combines critical discourse analysis and Jungian amplification to interpret how the Devil is used to confront the evil located inside their creators. The data set found that although some othering occurred as a result of deviance from heterosexuality, the main archetypal force behind the Devil was one promoting a change towards the recognition of internal evil. The rich data set highlighted the success of combining Jungian amplification theory and critical discourse analysis as a methodology in sociological research.