Given the legendary place that Kubrick's The Shining occupies in cinema culture, it is perhaps unsurprising that it has been the subject of endless interpretation, including a few extreme readings. Filmmaker Rodney Ascher took on this subject in his 2013 documentary, Room 237 (subtitled "being an inquiry into The Shining in 9 parts"), in which he interviews five scholars about their various interpretations of The Shining's hidden meanings. Each of the interpretations mentioned in the film, which range from allegorical readings to full-blown conspiracy theories, are presented by the film as intensely personal ones, and Ascher resists editorializing on their veracity; for example, several critics begin explaining their theories by describing the circumstances in which they first watched The Shining. Although some consider the theories expressed in the film to be lacking in evidence (The New York Times called it "the revenge of the nerds ad infinitum"), the film offers, at minimum, a trip down the rabbit hole of fandom surrounding a beloved artifact of American cinema, however indulgent ("Fans Possessed").
History professor Geoffrey Cocks, for example, believes that the film is a statement on the horrors of the Holocaust. Citing the surfeit of the number 42 (a reference to the year in which the Germans decided to exterminate the Jews) in various scenes of the film, the German make of the typewriter with which Jack writes obsessively, and the plethora of imagery depicting eagles (an image used by the Nazis), Cocks asserts that Kubrick intentionally drew a connection between the evils of the Overlook Hotel to those of the Holocaust. For Cocks, the image of blood rushing from the hotel's elevator bank symbolizes the bloodshed that occurred at the hands of the Nazis during World War II.
Another theorist, Bill Blakemore, asserts that the imagery of bloodshed in The Shining refers to the history of violence against Native Americans. Evidence for this includes the moment in the film when Mr. Ullman gives the Torrances a tour of the Overlook, as he mentions that the hotel was built on a Native American burial ground. Ullman also mentions that the hotel suffered attacks from local tribes when it was being built, yet the hotel also appropriates Native American artwork for the murals adorning its walls. This tension between local natives and over-industrious white men was grounded in fact, as Kubrick apparently researched the history of the area surrounding Colorado's Stanley Hotel, the hotel on which Kubrick based the Overlook, finding evidence of real-life clashes between local Navajo tribes and white pioneers. Room 237 points to the jar of Calumet (meaning "peace pipe") baking powder, which depicts a Native American chief, that featured in the Overlook's kitchen storage room, suggesting that it further highlights the history of genocide against Native Americans in the world of the film.
Still another theorist in Room 237 reaches all the way back to Greek mythology, suggesting that Jack's encounter with the hedge maze is actually a reference to the myth of Theseus' battle with the Minotaur. In this myth, Theseus, an Athenian king, volunteers to slay the Minotaur, a monster that is half-man and half-bull, and to whom human sacrifices were ordered by the gods. According to most legends, Theseus found his way out of the maze by following a gold thread laid down by Ariadne, a woman who fell in love with him. In this reading of The Shining, Jack would allegorize the monstrous Minotaur, whereas Danny would be a stand-in for the hero, Theseus. According to Ascher's film, a poster in the Overlook Hotel's game room depicting a cowboy riding a bull calls to mind the figure of the minotaur, imagery that is followed up by the hedge maze as an allusion to Greek myth.
Room 237 posits other theories—including that Kubrick made The Shining as an apology for having let NASA use the technology behind 2001: A Space Odyssey to inform their faked film coverage of the moon landing—but Cocks' theory of the film as an indictment of the Holocaust emerges, for many, as the sole plausible reading. Persuasive or not, these theories point to the scope of The Shining's devoted fandom, much of which is likely willing to suspend disbelief if only to decipher Kubrick's secret messages (Room 237).
