The American Horror of Jack Stauber's OPAL

Thank you for watching! I have included means to support me as well as some more accessible articles relevant to the topics in the video! Hope you enjoy! As you might be able to tell I also made a bunch of unique blender assets for this one! It's fun expanding the way I edit videos!

I like when I can walk to a local bakery and buy fresh baked bread. Unfortunately I live in America

Something I'm always surprised no one else has noticed (or, at least, spoken about): When Claire/Opal hears the siren's song from the house, you can see something white spilling from the windows. A lot of ppl think it's lace but to me it looks like a type of mushroom that has a white "veil". Mushrooms are often associated with rotting; the symbolism ofc being that the house and family are environments that both are rotting, and that are rotting Claire herself. Similarly, I think America is slowly rotting away.

So on the note of names, it’s easy to just latch onto Opal by itself, but what’s easier to miss is that Claire, like any name, has a meaning too. It’s the French word for bright, and also clear (it’s the root word for clarity, after all). Opal is a bright, multi-colored gemstone, but only as a hazy blur of colors. When you take Opal away from the picture, you have a clearer, horrid view of what’s actually going on in Claire’s life. A fantasy versus a reality.

Came for Opal, Stayed for the lesson on Isolationism

Never thought I'd see another interesting take on OPAL, but here we are. Quite fun to see. I relate to it a lot more as someone with Asperger's. That fear of being noticed but not embraced by those around you is crippling. Truly a horror masterpiece. That and Mirror Man slaps. That song has forever ruined mirrors for me.

The fathers obsession with his looks was also due in part to what the mother did to him in a split second scene seen in the mothers song, where it looks like she did something to make his face looked messed up.

Your essay reminds me of Night in the Woods - a game about a college dropout returning to her rural american hometown after a mental health crisis. A town so small there's only 1 doctor who is also the dentist and therapist, who told the main character that journeling and repressing her anger would fix her. A town that thrived when the mines and factories and unions were strong, until companies moved that work overseas and busted the unions. A town where the elderly are so desperate for the economic prosperity of the old days, that they literally started sacrificing people to a hole in the ground in the hopes that that would save their dying town. A town where one woman's parents saved up for her entire life for her to go to college, only for her to drop out; while another woman had the dream of college taken away from her the second her mother died of cancer.

Sorry babe, cant come to bed rn, my favourite youtube just dropped a video on a topic I have never heard of before

Man all your insight about American rural life is so true. I grew up in a small town, nearest freeway was a 20 minute drive away. I think city people just don't realize some of the little luxuries that aren't available in the country. For instance, I grew up not allowed to stream videos or music at home because we could only get limited wifi, and my mom needed it to work. I was the only one of my friends to get my own car (a used car thanks to an insurance payout from a deer totaling my dad's car lol), so I became "the friend that drives". Until then, I was basically stuck at home because there wasn't even a park within walking distance. In a lot of ways, I was still extremely blessed for what I had compared to some of my poorer friends. And my whole town was a lot better off than many other dying small towns. This isn't super relevant to the video anymore, I just wanted a chance to reflect on some of the things about growing up rural.

I'm so happy people are still talking about OPAL. I was literally ranting about how good it was just this past weekend, and then I find your acc and watch your SU videos, and then BAM next day opal video. Twas meant to be!

incredible commentary. isolation in american culture is the one thing i hate most about this country. the only way to survive as a marginalized person is to build your own community, your found family, and the way this society is structured intentionally makes that way more of a struggle than it should be. i'm doing my best to bring together my own found family, but it's not easy. this is a refreshing take on the masterpiece that is opal. thank you ❤

I feel like Mirror Man was ahead of his time, or maybe Jack Stauber was tuned into it ahead of time, because he really brings to mind the incel/toxic male empowerment movement that's only getting worse recently. Vanity of appearance and obsession with superficial luxury is stereotyped with women in the past, but with that movement I almost feel like that stereotype may be shifted onto men with later generations, as men become more vocal about insecurity with ability to perform, having a certain chin shape or skull shape, having the right hair, having the right clothes, and being able to pick up women. Mirror Man, a comparatively "effeminate" and high pitched voiced, aging and mediocre man looks at magazines and wonders why he isn't rich yet, why he isn't a "chad"-- I know, they must reject me because I was born with the "beta" features, it can't be a failure of my character or simple happenstance. He takes out his insecurities on others and makes excuses for his toxic behavior, retreating to self loathing when questioned. But it's alright, because he's working on himself. Superficially. And one day he will be that exaggerated male fantasy and you'll love him even if he is a jerk.

I always took the Dad’s song as being a male victim of DV, how that makes him lesser on all fronts. Never believed, no resources, implied to have been disfigured by his wife in the Mom’s song. Made to feel small, emasculated, a failure, Dad preens to the point of self-harm and insists this isn’t his final form It’s all a reaction to what Dad’s been told: turned him down, yells at him, tears him down. When Opal flees Granddad into Mom’s room, they don’t follow her. Dad camps out in the bathroom, he does not go into the master bedroom. He’s afraid of Mom, is how I took it Especially with how casually Mom tears into Opal (“Decided to be a person today?”). Same kind of insult in Dad’s song. Mom raising a fist to strike Opal also lends itself to the Mom abusing Dad Which is a whole different kind of isolating, on top of the rest

You rarely hear defences of parent figures that actually get to the root of huge problems in internet essays

As a not American I found this really interesting, there are places like that in Australia but for the most part we live in clusters where we atleast have a corner shop, a side effect of having to live around the edges of the country. That said, rural communities here do suffer from similar things to Opal, lack of healthcare, nonexistent mental healthcare, isolation etc.

Im so happy you're covering this! I love the short but I've seen very few videos diving into it, excited to see how you tackle it. Edit: Just finished the video and it was great! Looked at the short from a really interesting angle I hadn't thought of before.

with how much i enjoy jack stauber's work, its criminal that i'm just hearing about OPAL now. thanks for pointing me in its direction, and this was a fun analysis to watch afterwards

One thing I'd like to point out regarding the mother's part in this short is the allusion to drug abuse via the pills. The moment I got to that part, my immediate thought was "Yep, she's addicted to opiates" since opiate addiction is all too common in the midwest where I live, and I know a few folks in my family that, had they kept their kids, they would've treated said kids exactly like the mom treats Opal. Mental illness and substance abuse is just about everywhere in the less affluent parts of where I live, and it's sad both because of the direct harm it does to the adults and youth who deal with these mental health problems and addictions and because of the harm it does to kids who are being raised by these people. Mental health treatment should be more available and affordable than it is here in the US, especially in low income areas.

Something I'd really recommend (At least in America because I'm not sure of other countries) is becoming really paranoid of grocery stores, especially big box ones like Walmart or Publix. I've worked them and the amount of mold you'll find in the bakeries and bugs and freezer burnt food is insane. This country is slow poison I want out of.