The Shining has attracted an almost cult-like collective of fans who long to discover its
secrets.
What follows are our favorite fan theories we've gathered up from internet forums, fan
films and documentaries like Room 237, and just putting the movie on repeat until we
start coming up with our own kooky headcanons.
Out of all the theories out there about the true meaning of The Shining, one of the more
plausible ones is that the film is an allegorical tale about the genocide of Native Americans
by white settlers.
The most overt hint occurs when Stuart Ullman, a smiling white guy who dresses in red, white,
and blue, and has an American flag on his desk, casually mentions that the Overlook
is literally built over dead Native Americans.
"The site is supposed to be located on an Indian burial ground, and I believe they actually
had to repel a few Indian attacks as they were building it."
Throughout the hotel are depictions of Native Americans and Native American art motifs,
such as the enormous sand painting on the wall of the Colorado Lounge.
Jack even uses the phrase "White Man's Burden," in a conversation with Lloyd, a reference
to a poem by Rudyard Kipling that valorizes the colonization of natives by white imperialists,
Internet film scholar Kevin McLeod, who did a commentary track for the home video release
of the documentary Room 237, also claims that the film features a pair of hidden symbols
from another group of indigenous Americans, the Maya.
He asserts that in the iconic bright yellow film poster for The Shining, the extra wide
letter "T" in the title is actually a Mayan symbol, and that a repeating pattern in the
carpet of the Gold Room, a cross within a square, is actually the symbol for "yellow."
There are also a handful of strange but compelling parallels between the film and the real life
founding of Point Pleasant, West Virginia.
This was a horrific, bloody event with countless Native Americans casualties, but perhaps the
most famous Native person killed there was Hokolesqua, also known as Chief Cornstalk.
In 1777, Hokolesqua was killed by a mob seeking revenge for an attack that he'd had no part
of, and, of course, legend states that Hokolesqua's final words were a curse on the land that
would leave it, quote, "paralyzed by the stain of our blood."
"There are two things I know about white people: They love Rachael Ray, and they are terrified
of curses."
This statement has clear parallels to the famous wave of blood from the film, but believe
it or not, it's not the biggest link between the battle of Point Pleasant and The Shining.
In 1909, the same year the fictional Overlook Hotel was completed in the film, a real life
monument in Point Pleasant was struck by lightning, and the same thing happened again on July
4, 1921.
As any true Shining fan knows, July 4, 1921, is the date on the old photograph of Jack
from the final shot of the film.
Before we go any further, let's get one thing straight.
The moon landing wasn't faked.
Mythbusters did a whole episode about it..
Go watch Hidden Figures.
Educate yourself.
However, there has been a conspiracy theory circulating since before The Shining came
out that the Apollo 11 moon landing was faked, and that Stanley Kubrick was the one hired
by the government to shoot it.
It would obviously be nearly impossible to carry a secret like that without letting it
out somewhere, so could The Shining actually be Kubrick's covert confession?
"I don't think that's true."
Well, no.
but let's run down the conspiracy's favorite evidence.
There's Tang in the Overlook pantry, a product popularized through its association with the
space program.
In one scene, Danny is wearing a handmade sweater famously depicting Apollo 11 and the
Saturn V rocket.
Also, during the adaptation from the book to the film, the most haunted room in the
hotel changed room numbers, from 217 to 237, and according to Shining conspiracy theorists,
the distance to the moon is about 237,000 miles away.
In truth, it's more like 238,900 miles away on average, but we didn't know this until
the late '60s.
Maybe Kubrick was looking at an old textbook with out of date information when he and NASA
were trying to fool the entire world by faking the most documented news story of all time.
This could all be intentional, though.
By 1980, Kubrick was most likely aware of the conspiracy theory, since it sprung up
after he directed 2001: A Space Odyssey in 1968, and he also knew how closely people
analyzed his films for hidden meanings.
Maybe he decided to just mess with them a little for fun.
We all know what happens when it's all work and no play.
One of the most subtly haunting elements of the Overlook Hotel is that its layout constantly
seems to be shifting.
The bright exterior window in Ullman's office is completely nonsensical, because his office
is in the middle of the building.
And during a conversation between Wendy and Jack in the Colorado Lounge, a chair in the
background keeps appearing and disappearing again between shots.
And when Hallorann is giving a tour to Wendy and Danny, they step into one giant freezer,
but then exit from a different freezer across the room.
Kubrick was a notoriously meticulous filmmaker, so it seems unlikely that these strange occurrences
are just mistakes.
What else might they signify?
Maybe the Overlook isn't actually the Overlook at all.
Instead, it's Hell, where Jack must continually repeat the last winter of his life forever.
It's not that big of a stretch, as we already know the hotel has at least one other imprisoned,
killer ghost in the form of Grady, who sometimes doesn't seem to remember killing his family.
With this reading, many of the film's more puzzling lines suddenly become meaningful,
like Jack having an odd familiarity with the Overlook before he even arrives.
"When I came up here for my interview, it was as though I'd been here before."
Later, Grady tells him that he's always been the caretaker, and maybe that eternity at
the hotel is his reward for the sins of his life.
Remember, unlike Wendy and Danny, Jack is only ever seen in the Overlook or on the road
that leads up to it.
Whenever you're watching The Shining, Jack is always the caretaker.
There are a lot of continuity errors and geographical oddities in The Shining, but maybe that's
because Jack and his family are hallucinating throughout their stay at the Overlook.
In fact, maybe they're the subject of a government-run science experiment.
According to this theory, Jack's employment at the Overlook is a front so that the US
government can test out mind control techniques on isolated test subjects, and all the supernatural
visions the Torrances experience are actually the results of these experiments.
It's a fun theory, but there's not much evidence to back it up, apart from a single incongruous
poster in the game room.
It's an image of a skier above the word "Monarch," which is the first time Danny sees the Grady
girls in the hotel.
However, during Jack's interview, Ullman claims that there's no skiing in the area, so why
would they advertise it in the game room?
And what is "Monarch?"
Well, it's actually Monarch Mountain, a ski resort that's been open in Colorado since
1939, but according to conspiracy theorists, Monarch was the name of a real-world CIA project
that attempted to discover the secrets of mind control.
In this reading of the film, the character Bill Watson, who seems like Stuart Ullman's
assistant, is actually the brains of the operation, a high-ranking government agent.
Notice that Watson is called into Ullman's office when Jack arrives, and yet he doesn't
get a job title, and he doesn't ask Jack any questions.
In fact, he doesn't have any dialogue at all other than a blunt "hi" later on.
He just sits there, watching as Ullman tells Jack about Grady and the Overlook's creepy
history, planting those ideas in Jack's head.
Later, when Ullman tells Watson to transport some luggage, Watson almost seems annoyed,
like he's not used to taking orders.
And when Ullman gives Jack a tour, Watson trails behind, watching everything and saying
nothing.
One unusual interpretation of The Shining is that it's less of an adaptation of Stephen
King's novel and actually a modern day retelling of the ancient Greek myth of Theseus and the
Minotaur.
Just like the labyrinth that houses the Minotaur in the myth, the Overlook has its hedge maze
where the movie hits its climax.
As Jack chases him, Danny escapes the maze by retracing his steps, just as Theseus escapes
the labyrinth by following back a ball of twine that he'd been unwinding as he walked.
Could this be a second meaning to the sign outside the Gold Room that advertises "the
Unwinding Hours"?
At several points in the film, Jack stares into the distance with a lowered head, but
with eyes pointed up, in the classic "Kubrick stare," a pose that's very evocative of a
bull getting ready to charge.
Some theorists even cite the "Monarch" poster in the game room, which again is for a real-life
ski resort you can go to, because the skier is a silhouette with strange proportions.
It's a stretch, but the mythical Minotaur was the descendant of a royal bloodline, which
leads to another oddly convincing connection.
In the original story, the Minotaur was the product of a union between a human and a beast,
and, well, the audience and Wendy definitely see something along those disturbing lines.
Something is up with this movie and mirrors.
Danny's first vision occurs in front of a mirror.
Jack recognizes the woman he's kissing in Room 237 is a corpse by looking into a mirror.
There's a long scene of Jack talking to Wendy that takes place entirely in a reflection.
Danny's creepy "redrum" graffiti can only be read correctly when mirrored.
The Grady girls are mirror images of each other.
The film even opens with a shot of a reflective lake, mirroring the scenery above it.
Perhaps the Overlook itself is a mirror, in that it's only torturing guests with the evil
that they bring with them.
That would explain why Jack, an alcoholic with a history of abusing his son, was corrupted
by the hotel, while Danny and Wendy were not.
Whether it's the true meaning of the movie or not, the use of mirrors is definitely an
intentional illustration of one of The Shining's deeper themes.
The idea of finding truth through looking backwards through history or looking into
mirrors occurs all throughout the movie, from the reveal of "redrum" as a terrifying warning
to Danny escaping his father in the hedge maze by retracing his steps.
By looking backwards, Danny avoids becoming a victim like the Grady children.
This idea of finding truth by turning backwards has led to some fans to try playing two projections
of The Shining on the same screen at the same time, one playing forwards and one playing
backwards to see if this finally reveals the movie's many secrets.
It might not have led to any deeper truths, but it has created some awesomely creepy imagery.
Then again, maybe this movie is the real mirror, and these fan theories say more about us than
they do about the film.
Not all Shining theories are deadly serious or profoundly deep, and some of them are so
wild that they're worth talking about for just how weird they are.
For example, writer and journalist Mary Katharine Ham has a theory that the story of the Shining
has been retold more recently…as Disney's Frozen.
Before the story begins, our tortured protagonist has a dark chapter in their past that looms
over their present, where they inadvertently injured an innocent young family member.
Then, that volatile character is put in charge of running a big castle in the snowy mountains.
Meanwhile, their innocent young family member is locked out of a forbidden room, and passes
the time by playing with toys in the hallway, and when things go bad, a wide-eyed, cheerful
character with prominent teeth tries to protect them.
Eventually, the pressure of this new job causes our dark and tortured protagonist to snap
and turn against their family.
The family is in over their heads, so it's up to an experienced expert at navigating
the snowy wastes to climb aboard their faithful mount to come to their rescue.
In the end, both movies end with a character getting frozen.
In one case, it's temporary, and in another, it's permanent, but you have to admit that
while everything might not line up, there's enough there to have some goofy fun with.
It's a weird, ridiculous, and truly wild "theory," but for some reason we just can't…let it
go.
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