Title: Metaphors in Cinema: Gigantic Monsters
Proposed Research: The metaphors in films like Godzilla, Big Bug Movies (Them, Tarantula), and King Kong. The trauma and fear of war, science, and humanity.
Question: Develop an argument about how humans deal with their fear of death through the use of one or more monsters (zombies, vampires, etc.…) Monsters like Godzilla are important for humans who are coping with a fear of death. The use of monsters is to lessen the fear of that pending imminent threat and or distress of waiting for a catastrophe to happen. The symbolism in these films shows how humans see other humans as monstrous. They have no other way to represent that so they show it through huge threatening, bugs or monsters. In movies
They are used as a tool to warn people and show them dangers that are inevitable or have happened. The best thing about movies like Godzilla and Tarantula are the metaphors. The saturation of metaphors is immense. This show the importance of films like these in the cinematic industry. People have a way to express emotions and show fears. In the article” Looking straight at "Them!" Understanding the Big Bug Movies of the 1950s”, William M. Tsutsui states that “ Critics and historians have invariably interpreted these cinematic big bugs as symbolic manifestations of Cold War era anxieties, including nuclear fear, concern over communist infiltration, ambivalence about science, and technocratic authority”( Tsutsui, pg. 237). Indeed, most of the big bug movies, and gigantic monster movies are there as a representation of peoples anxieties pertaining to the situation that certain group of people is experiencing like war, or fear. The film Godzilla helped its viewers deal with the trauma they had about the atomic age. It wasn’t a secret a fear you had to keep to yourself because the film in a way helped connect people from different countries to have a little sympathy for their fellow human being misfortunes. Likewise, in American films like the Lotus are used to show the dangers in agriculture when using insect sides and how it makes a super bug that ends up killing humans. These films have many realty’s to them because insecticides in fact do make super-bugs that have a defense against pesticides and grow stronger thus killing the crop and consequentially symbolically the human race no food no living being. The science fiction films of the 50’s helped people deal and cope with the unknown whether it was science or
Which I’m sure was an empowering moment when those effect by the bomb first watched the film. Another example of monsters symbolizing our fears are vampires. Vampires have been used in a variety of angels, but they started out as the fears of the unknown. They were conceived during the outbreak of the plague and other diseases. Dracula on the other hand was a metaphor of human evil. He can help us understand the monsters we meet in everyday life disguised as everyday people. Dracula is known as the prince of darkness. In “Dracula as Metaphor for Human Evil” author, Steven G Herbert claims ”Count Dracula is the quintessence of the evil creatures we meet in our everyday life, the darkness embodied in our fellowmen and in our own hearts. The vampires symbology can help us recognize the monsters without even as we confront their reflection within.” (62) Godzilla, Frankenstein, and Dracula are all prime examples of societies fears and vulnerabilities and the hidden truths for why we create
Jeffery Cohen's first thesis states “the monster's body is a cultural body”. Monsters give meaning to culture. A monsters characteristics come from a culture's most deep-seated fears and fantasies. Monsters are metaphors and pure representative allegories. What a society chooses to make monstrous says a lot about that society’s people. Monsters help us express and find our darkest places, deepest fears, or creepiest thoughts. Monsters that scare us,vampires, zombies, witches, help us cope with what we dread most in life. Fear of the monstrous has brought communities and cultures together. Society is made up of different beliefs, ideas, and cultural actions. Within society there are always outcasts, people that do not fit into the norm or do not follow the status quo. Those people that do not fit in become monsters that are feared almost unanimously by the people who stick to the status quo.
Monsters and the Moral Imagination, written by Stephen Asma, presents many possible outcomes as to why monsters are the rise. Mr. Asma discusses why monster portrayals could be on the rise in movies, books, and stories throughout his subsection Monsters are on the Rise. Perhaps the rise is due to traumatic events in recent history such as the holocaust or the terroristic attacks of 9/11 in
In order to scare us, books, movies, and television shows will take the most ordinary things and make it into a monster. For instance, the movie IT takes a clown and turns it into
Literature and film have always held a strange relationship with the idea of technological progress. On one hand, with the advent of the printing press and the refinements of motion picture technology that are continuing to this day, both literature and film owe a great deal of their success to the technological advancements that bring them to widespread audiences. Yet certain films and works of literature have also never shied away from portraying the dangers that a lust for such progress can bring with it. The modern output of science-fiction novels and films found its genesis in speculative ponderings on the effect such progress could hold for the every day population, and just as often as not those speculations were damning. Mary Shelley's novel Frankenstein and Fritz Lang's silent film Metropolis are two such works that hold great importance in the overall canon of science-fiction in that they are both seen as the first of their kind. It is often said that Mary Shelley, with her authorship of Frankenstein, gave birth to the science-fiction novel, breathing it into life as Frankenstein does his monster, and Lang's Metropolis is certainly a candidate for the first genuine science-fiction film (though a case can be made for Georges Méliès' 1902 film Le Voyage Dans la Lune, his film was barely fifteen minutes long whereas Lang's film, with its near three-hour original length and its blending of both ideas and stunning visuals, is much closer to what we now consider a modern science-fiction film). Yet though both works are separated by the medium with which they're presented, not to mention a period of over two-hundred years between their respective releases, they present a shared warning about the dangers that man's need fo...
Monsters are supposed to scare people and represent their fears. In most monster movies, the monster is a huge, ugly, non-human beast that terrorizes the city and destroys everything. But in the 1985 film The Stuff, the monster appears to be an innocuous dessert; what does that say about the fears of society? Jeffrey Jerome Cohen, an expert on monster culture, explains this and more in his article “Monster Culture (Seven Theses)” reprinted in the textbook Monsters in 2012. Cohen’s first thesis of monster culture, The Monster’s Body is a Cultural Body, argues that “The monster’s body quite literally incorporates fear, desire, anxiety, and fantasy, giving them life and an uncanny independence” (12). According to Cohen, the outward appearance of the monster reflects the fears and anxieties of the culture from which it originated. The first thesis says that the monster is not just a monster; it embodies the things the society wants to cast out as different from it, made into flesh.
But, somewhere in popular culture, the essence of the film was lost and Gojira was used as a caricature. As Gojira entered the mainstream and morphed into Godzilla, perceptions of Japanese culture followed suit. In class, we had discussed how outrageous and over-zealous Japan culture was perceived by western cultures; Gojira, the monster itself, is a perfect example. With evidence like subtle references to Lucky Dragon No. 5, Japan gave us a film to be dissected but our thoughts on Japan trivialized it. For example, in the American adaptation, the beginning of the film does not show the first attack made by Gojira under the water and the wreckage it had caused. Instead, Terry Morse, the American director compelled images of white, American men laying in rubble. When Gojira entered mainstream attention, we felt the need to make changes and ingrain our own beliefs. What does this say about our mindsets and how we approach discussions about cultures other than our
One could easily dismiss movies as superficial, unnecessarily violent spectacles, although such a viewpoint is distressingly pessimistic and myopic. In a given year, several films are released which have long-lasting effects on large numbers of individuals. These pictures speak
Ear piercing screams, blood splatters, loneliness, violence and isolated surroundings are only a handful of the themes mentioned in the analysis by Di Muzio in the movie Texas Chainsaw Massacre. These themes haunt the viewers significantly and especially children. The movie starts on a glorious note of friends united for a trip, only to see one their friend “struck on the head with a sledgehammer.” (Di Muzio, 2006, p. 279) This sets a tone of the unexpected and the directors emphasize greatly on scenes with numerous screams with utilizing blood to frighten their viewers. Fear is the product of our thoughts, it is temporary, but numerous individuals fail to realize the reality. The movie has the ability to attract audiences of different backgrounds to come together and partake in a visual entertainment of killing spree, keeping one in terror and on the edge of their seats at all times. Moreover, the antago...
Nowadays, people are still enticed by fear, they have a curiosity for the supernatural, evil and frightening. Although modern day society is supposedly politically correct, we are still an immoral society and many of us would treat a creature like Frankenstein’s creation or a vampire like Dracula like a monster. In this way, the novels still have social significance.
One might argue that the scariest horror films are those films which horrors portray a sense that something of that nature might actually happen in the real world. The beauty of horror films is that anything could theoretically be possible, like Freddy Krueger sticking his tongue through Nancy’s phone as he says, “I’m your boyfriend now, Nancy” or a horde of zombies stampeding through the cities of the United States wiping out humanity in its path. If one thinks about it long enough, anything we can perceive could happen. However, there is a line between the pure science fiction and those horror films which attempt to tackle a more realistic, social, cultural, psychological, or political problem in society.
Mathias Clasen is an associate professor of literature and media at Aarhus University in Denmark. He is a scholar of horror fiction and has wrote and edited three books on this subject. In chapter 11 of Darwin’s Bridge: Uniting the Humanities and Sciences, Clasen discusses his take on why we fear monsters in horror films. He believes that our fear of monsters is a product of evolution. Life for our ancestors was very treacherous. Since they were constantly dealing with threats of all proportions, from venomous animals to other aggressive humans, they have to evolve to survive. This resulted in what Clasen describes as a “species-typical cognitive architecture or hardware for danger management” (Clasen, 2016, p. 183). This is also known as
People are addicted to the synthetic feeling of being terrified. Modern day horror films are very different from the first horror films which date back to the late nineteenth century, but the goal of shocking the audience is still the same. Over the course of its existence, the horror industry has had to innovate new ways to keep its viewers on the edge of their seats. Horror films are frightening films created solely to ignite anxiety and panic within the viewers. Dread and alarm summon deep fears by captivating the audience with a shocking, terrifying, and unpredictable finale that leaves the viewer stunned.
Monsters have always been written about in various forms and types. They range from Dracula the vampire to Scylla the water monster to Pennywise the evil clown, each having its own special type of abilities and dreadfulness. Throughout the horror genre, these monsters are highly focused on to make the story or movie as horrific as possible. Usually these can be divided into two categories: the humanistic ones and the supernatural or horrific type. Each of these two groups makes its story better suited to the effect that author wants to achieve. By using a humanistic or horrific monster, the theme and effects on the character and reader differ depending on the type.
Movies are the most wonderful medium created by mankind. They can affect the subconscious as no other means can do. No television show, no book has a power like that of the audiovisual image projected on a large screen. Since its origins, cinema has always acted as a model that shapes attitudes and lifestyles, as a mirror in which we all look to decide our models and our patterns of behavior. That's why film movies have such a great influence on our perception of reality.