WEBVTT - The Monsters of the Future, Part 1 0:00:00.160 --> 0:00:07.200 Brought to you by Toyota. Let's go places. Welcome to 0:00:07.400 --> 0:00:14.840 Forward Thinking. Hey everyone, and welcome to Forward Thinking, the 0:00:14.880 --> 0:00:17.599 podcast that looks at the future and says he did 0:00:17.640 --> 0:00:22.479 the mash. I'm Joe McCormick, I'm La and our other host, 0:00:22.560 --> 0:00:26.360 Jonathan Strickland, is not with us today he is on vacation, 0:00:26.800 --> 0:00:29.960 but joining us in the podcast studio is a very 0:00:29.960 --> 0:00:33.840 special guest, Robert Lamb. Introduce yourself. Robert. Hey, Well, I'm 0:00:33.840 --> 0:00:37.400 the co host of Stuff to Blow Your Mind podcast, blogs, 0:00:38.120 --> 0:00:41.320 video sceries here at how Stuff Works. Uh, co workers 0:00:41.479 --> 0:00:43.480 to the two of you, and uh, it's it's great 0:00:43.520 --> 0:00:46.440 to be here to discuss the topic here. It's really 0:00:46.440 --> 0:00:49.239 great to have you. And I'm especially excited to have 0:00:49.360 --> 0:00:51.839 Robert today because I would say he is the local 0:00:51.880 --> 0:00:57.800 House Stuff Works resident expert on our topic, which is monsters. Yes. Uh, 0:00:57.880 --> 0:01:00.080 In fact, you have a show called Monster Science and 0:01:00.080 --> 0:01:02.520 Stuff to Blow your Mind. Yes and uh and actually 0:01:02.520 --> 0:01:06.120 now it's hosted on the House Stuff Works YouTube page itself. 0:01:06.160 --> 0:01:08.520 But but yeah, I always and I've always been a 0:01:08.520 --> 0:01:11.479 monster fan since I was a kid, and since my 0:01:11.480 --> 0:01:14.880 my job here at work involves looking at the scientific world. 0:01:15.160 --> 0:01:18.000 I've over time just sort of try to see how 0:01:18.120 --> 0:01:20.800 much I can I can go to the monster well 0:01:20.880 --> 0:01:24.200 and bring stuff back in and combine work and UH 0:01:24.240 --> 0:01:26.880 and passion together, and and I find that they generally 0:01:26.880 --> 0:01:30.199 go together quite nicely. So Robert's going to be joining 0:01:30.319 --> 0:01:34.800 us in two episodes, two different parts talking about monsters. 0:01:34.840 --> 0:01:36.840 In this first part today, we're going to talk about 0:01:37.560 --> 0:01:42.920 trends in monster lore, in monster thinking, in monster imagination, 0:01:43.319 --> 0:01:46.399 and what monsters are. Yeah, what monsters are, where they 0:01:46.440 --> 0:01:50.120 come from, and what relationship they bear to the societies 0:01:50.160 --> 0:01:53.480 that create them, and especially the times in which they're created. 0:01:53.960 --> 0:01:56.400 And in the second episode we're going to talk about 0:01:56.960 --> 0:02:01.320 future trends and monsters and make some predictions and prognostications 0:02:01.360 --> 0:02:03.760 and and maybe we'll find out if they come true, 0:02:04.000 --> 0:02:06.080 or maybe monsters will get us and we won't find out. 0:02:06.160 --> 0:02:09.079 But for today, we're going to talk about where monsters 0:02:09.120 --> 0:02:11.200 come from. You might be thinking, why are we talking 0:02:11.200 --> 0:02:14.280 about monsters in a show about the future, um, But 0:02:14.360 --> 0:02:17.120 the future of monsters is actually a really interesting topic 0:02:17.160 --> 0:02:19.160 that has a lot to do with both the the 0:02:19.280 --> 0:02:22.400 history and the current technology and all kinds of cultural 0:02:22.440 --> 0:02:26.000 factors going on. So what is the future of the monster, 0:02:26.080 --> 0:02:29.480 And by that I mean what are the monsters of tomorrow? 0:02:29.520 --> 0:02:33.680 Can we guess what kinds of creatures, ghoules, ghosts will 0:02:33.800 --> 0:02:36.440 terrify us in that thirty to fifty year period in 0:02:36.480 --> 0:02:39.800 the future. We so often reference what does the next 0:02:39.800 --> 0:02:43.440 generation of horror stories look like? In order to predict 0:02:43.520 --> 0:02:45.440 what the future of monsters is going to look like. 0:02:45.480 --> 0:02:47.920 I think we need to first investigate what a monster 0:02:48.200 --> 0:02:51.320 is and how monsters are made? So what is a monster? 0:02:51.960 --> 0:02:55.400 While we were preparing for this episode, Robert You loaned 0:02:55.440 --> 0:02:58.600 U is a really great book called Us Speaking of Monsters. 0:02:58.639 --> 0:03:03.520 I believe compilation shin of essays on the cultural study 0:03:03.639 --> 0:03:06.960 I guess of monster ology. Right. David J. Skull wrote 0:03:06.960 --> 0:03:09.120 a forward to this book called what we talked About 0:03:09.200 --> 0:03:12.000 When We talk about Monsters, and he went a little 0:03:12.040 --> 0:03:14.680 bit into the history of the idea of monsters in 0:03:14.720 --> 0:03:18.560 the word itself. So the word monster, he says, innered English, 0:03:19.000 --> 0:03:21.440 uh in about the time of Shakespeare. So that would 0:03:21.440 --> 0:03:24.279 put it in the late fifteen hundreds early sixteen hundreds, 0:03:24.400 --> 0:03:26.360 which is the part of the history of English we 0:03:26.400 --> 0:03:29.920 call early modern English. It's the kind of English that 0:03:30.000 --> 0:03:33.000 people today can sort of understand if you go back 0:03:33.120 --> 0:03:37.600 much further. It's hard to understand without training um and 0:03:37.720 --> 0:03:41.000 the characters of Shakespeare. Actually, he says, find occasion to 0:03:41.040 --> 0:03:43.920 speak the word more than eighty times. I looked this up. 0:03:43.960 --> 0:03:46.800 A lot of this is in the Tempest, talking about 0:03:46.800 --> 0:03:50.480 the character Caliban, the sort of fishy monster. He's referred 0:03:50.480 --> 0:03:53.240 to as a very shallow monster, a most perfidious and 0:03:53.320 --> 0:03:57.240 drunken monster, and a puppy headed monster, and a strange 0:03:57.280 --> 0:04:00.760 fish by the jester, I think, calls him all these things. 0:04:00.800 --> 0:04:02.880 But he's sort of taking pity on the monster at 0:04:02.920 --> 0:04:07.880 the same time that he's lamenting his monstrous nous um. 0:04:07.960 --> 0:04:10.680 So Skull goes on to say that the term descends 0:04:10.680 --> 0:04:13.800 from the Latin noun monstrum, which means sort of a 0:04:13.880 --> 0:04:16.599 divine important. I guess that would be like a bad omen, 0:04:17.680 --> 0:04:20.960 and that it comes to English through the French mon arre, 0:04:22.640 --> 0:04:29.640 not monary. French anyway means too worn. And he adds 0:04:29.640 --> 0:04:31.680 at the end, I love this that his favorite is 0:04:31.720 --> 0:04:39.560 the archaic adjective monster ferous monsters. Yes, yes, right in 0:04:39.600 --> 0:04:42.640 the middle. It's a good word. It should come back. 0:04:42.880 --> 0:04:45.520 So it's right there in the etymology of the word. Basically, 0:04:45.560 --> 0:04:48.400 a monster is a warning. It's a bad omen and 0:04:48.560 --> 0:04:53.400 instructive lesson. Uh Skull also says, quote, monsters are slippery, 0:04:53.400 --> 0:04:57.560 ever adaptive metaphors, but above all their natural teachers and 0:04:57.640 --> 0:05:02.920 teaching tools. Monsters demo straight things. Get what he did there, 0:05:03.839 --> 0:05:06.600 and I think that that the words actually are linked 0:05:06.600 --> 0:05:10.919 at the route they demonstrate things, usually of a cautionary kind. 0:05:11.400 --> 0:05:14.600 But also the idea of monsters wasn't always the domain 0:05:14.760 --> 0:05:18.760 of fantastical beings, right, That's another thing that he talks about, right, 0:05:18.920 --> 0:05:23.480 that these terrifying predatory creatures like vampires and werewolves weren't 0:05:23.480 --> 0:05:25.920 always the only thing you think of when you use 0:05:26.000 --> 0:05:29.960 the word monster. It was often, unfortunately, applied to regular 0:05:30.040 --> 0:05:33.640 humans who were born with physical deformities, who were often 0:05:33.920 --> 0:05:37.359 and in previous centuries, treated as sort of strange curiosities 0:05:37.400 --> 0:05:40.799 are collected in carnival shows. Even in the twentieth century, 0:05:40.800 --> 0:05:44.880 I think the association remained because the American film director 0:05:44.960 --> 0:05:48.400 Todd Browning, he was the guy who directed Universal's Dracula, 0:05:48.520 --> 0:05:53.160 the Big One Bella Legosie Dracula. Obviously he had success 0:05:53.200 --> 0:05:56.839 with that, but right after browning success with Dracula, he 0:05:56.960 --> 0:06:00.760 made the movie Freaks in nineteen thirty two, which essentially 0:06:01.279 --> 0:06:04.760 doomed his career. It was not well received at the time. 0:06:04.839 --> 0:06:07.520 To put it lightly, it focused on people who worked 0:06:07.520 --> 0:06:10.560 in a carnival freak show and featured actors with real 0:06:10.680 --> 0:06:15.279 physical abnormalities. Audiences at the time really couldn't deal with this. 0:06:15.440 --> 0:06:18.240 It shocked them, it scandalized them, and I think a 0:06:18.320 --> 0:06:21.320 lot of why they reacted negatively was the fact that 0:06:21.360 --> 0:06:24.040 the so called freaks weren't the bad guys in the film. 0:06:24.120 --> 0:06:27.320 You were asked to empathize with them. So it's really 0:06:27.320 --> 0:06:29.760 ahead of its time. Yeah, a lot of people think so. 0:06:30.160 --> 0:06:32.360 Time has been kind to it, so to say, a 0:06:32.360 --> 0:06:36.479 lot of critics now really like it. Um. But today, fortunately, 0:06:36.560 --> 0:06:39.120 I think we don't really have that association with real 0:06:39.240 --> 0:06:43.599 normal humans anymore. We we we think of the monster 0:06:43.680 --> 0:06:46.839 as a creature today in the past eighty or ninety 0:06:46.920 --> 0:06:49.200 years of horror movies in the West, I think it's 0:06:49.240 --> 0:06:52.840 been shaped into and I put this definition forward as 0:06:52.880 --> 0:06:55.760 something for us to knock down or supply with more 0:06:55.839 --> 0:06:59.760 nuanced something like a not entirely human creature that is 0:06:59.800 --> 0:07:03.880 the object of terror. What do y'all think about that? Yeah? 0:07:03.920 --> 0:07:06.400 I would say so, though I mean when you start 0:07:06.480 --> 0:07:09.640 breaking apart examples of monsters and you look to other 0:07:09.680 --> 0:07:11.880 things that exist in and just pop culture. I mean 0:07:11.880 --> 0:07:13.960 look at look at say comic book characters, look at 0:07:13.960 --> 0:07:16.920 the X Men, like so many of these creatures are 0:07:17.000 --> 0:07:22.240 essentially monsters, beasts. Yeah, they're monsters, Their monsters, creatures, their hybrids, 0:07:22.680 --> 0:07:26.920 they in their various are very simbolism um caught up 0:07:26.920 --> 0:07:29.440 in their design. But we don't necessarily think of say 0:07:29.440 --> 0:07:33.120 Wolverine as a monster. That's a good point. Maybe you 0:07:33.160 --> 0:07:35.360 would say he's not the object of terror. I don't know, 0:07:35.440 --> 0:07:41.000 there's something inherently negative about the monster. Of course, then again, 0:07:41.080 --> 0:07:43.240 you could look at all of the cute, cie monsters 0:07:43.280 --> 0:07:48.040 we have today. You know that that cute little Frankenstein's. 0:07:48.080 --> 0:07:50.120 So I don't know, it's a complicated concept, and I 0:07:50.160 --> 0:07:53.280 think because it's complicated, we need to look to somebody 0:07:53.320 --> 0:07:56.480 who has actually done some writing on this subject, who's 0:07:56.720 --> 0:07:59.880 spent time researching it. And Robert you pointed us to 0:08:00.400 --> 0:08:04.560 a professor named Jeffrey Jerome Cohen, who is a professor 0:08:04.560 --> 0:08:07.320 of English at George Washington University. How did you come 0:08:07.320 --> 0:08:10.280 across Cohen? Well, I came across his work in the 0:08:10.520 --> 0:08:13.280 book we mentioned earlier speaking of monsters. Uh, there's a 0:08:13.760 --> 0:08:16.800 uh kind of an abbreviated and cut up version of 0:08:16.920 --> 0:08:19.800 one of his essays that appears early on in that book. 0:08:19.920 --> 0:08:21.480 And and I just thought that he did a great 0:08:21.560 --> 0:08:25.320 job knocking out some of these, uh, these core areas 0:08:25.920 --> 0:08:28.760 of monstrosity, one of these these different areas where we 0:08:28.760 --> 0:08:30.520 can look at a monster and say, this is what 0:08:30.560 --> 0:08:32.720 it is, this is what it does, uh, you know, 0:08:32.800 --> 0:08:36.880 from a cultural and symbolic uh way of thinking, all right, 0:08:36.960 --> 0:08:40.920 like how we create and and portray monsters in our culture, right, 0:08:41.000 --> 0:08:43.559 And I think Cohen does an excellent job. I found 0:08:43.559 --> 0:08:46.000 this really illuminating, and I'm and I'm glad you sent 0:08:46.040 --> 0:08:49.640 it to us. So he has seventh dcs about what 0:08:49.720 --> 0:08:52.000 a monster is, what it represents, and I think we 0:08:52.040 --> 0:08:54.240 should just run through them quickly because they will help 0:08:54.559 --> 0:08:56.920 color our discussion of what the monsters of the future 0:08:56.960 --> 0:08:59.000 are going to be. So the first one of them, 0:08:59.000 --> 0:09:01.920 and I think this is sort of a good starting ground, 0:09:02.000 --> 0:09:05.240 is that he says the monster's body is a cultural body. 0:09:05.559 --> 0:09:07.400 And I think what he means by that is that 0:09:07.760 --> 0:09:11.280 the form of the monster is not arbitrary. It's a metaphor, 0:09:11.480 --> 0:09:15.120 it's a signifier. It's a distinct product of the certain 0:09:15.160 --> 0:09:18.160 time and place in which it was created, and it 0:09:18.280 --> 0:09:21.760 actually means something. Yeah, I mean it's very much like 0:09:21.800 --> 0:09:24.840 science fiction in that regard, because science fiction is is 0:09:25.080 --> 0:09:27.880 is interesting in its ability to predict what the future 0:09:27.880 --> 0:09:30.480 will be like, but it's always far more interesting in 0:09:30.559 --> 0:09:32.920 telling us what people were thinking about at the time, 0:09:33.040 --> 0:09:35.880 how they were looking into the future, what their anxieties 0:09:35.920 --> 0:09:37.960 were exactly. Yeah, and you see that that kind of 0:09:37.960 --> 0:09:42.800 those anxieties also manifested in the monster. Yeah, so his 0:09:42.880 --> 0:09:46.800 second thesis is that the monster always escapes. Actually found 0:09:46.840 --> 0:09:49.240 this the most difficult to get it exactly what his 0:09:49.400 --> 0:09:52.079 meaning was. But Lauren, I think you you read something 0:09:52.080 --> 0:09:56.120 about hopelessness into this. Yeah, i'd call hopelessness really this 0:09:56.280 --> 0:09:59.120 aspect of what monsters are, how we use them, because 0:09:59.559 --> 0:10:01.480 the thing is they're not as scary if they can 0:10:01.480 --> 0:10:04.560 be permanently defeated. So so they always come back. You know, 0:10:04.600 --> 0:10:08.560 there's always that last scare or that possibility of a return, 0:10:09.160 --> 0:10:11.920 and they always shift through that the kind of little 0:10:12.960 --> 0:10:15.160 right right, you know, so like whenever one grave clothes 0:10:15.240 --> 0:10:21.839 is another opens. Yeah. Sorry, they're they're also, um right there, 0:10:21.840 --> 0:10:23.800 they're changeable, and I think that that's part of the 0:10:23.840 --> 0:10:27.079 scary thing about monsters, like, like, you know, being that 0:10:27.200 --> 0:10:29.600 change itself is scary, So it works as that sort 0:10:29.640 --> 0:10:32.200 of metaphor too. Yeah, that makes sense, I guess, which 0:10:32.240 --> 0:10:35.400 leads us really into his next thesis, being that the 0:10:35.440 --> 0:10:39.400 monster is the harbinger of category crisis. This one, I 0:10:39.440 --> 0:10:42.880 think is really important. So basically he's saying that a 0:10:42.920 --> 0:10:47.880 monster cannot be neatly categorized. It doesn't fit into the 0:10:47.920 --> 0:10:51.920 taxonomy we create of things in existence. It implies a 0:10:52.080 --> 0:10:56.520 mixing of classes or categories. He says that monsters are 0:10:56.559 --> 0:11:02.600 quote disturbing hybrids with quote externally incoherent bodies, a form 0:11:02.760 --> 0:11:07.480 suspended between forms that threatens to smash distinctions. And I 0:11:07.480 --> 0:11:09.640 think this rings very true to me. I sat there 0:11:09.640 --> 0:11:13.520 trying to think about monsters, and almost all popular monsters 0:11:13.559 --> 0:11:17.760 I can think of represents some form of deep category confusion. 0:11:18.280 --> 0:11:22.920 So all undead creatures, ghosts, vampires, zombies, mummies, whatever you 0:11:22.960 --> 0:11:26.000 can think of, they confuse categories of life and death. 0:11:26.080 --> 0:11:30.959 They violate our taxonomy of of life. Animal hybrid monsters 0:11:31.000 --> 0:11:34.520 like werewolves confuse the categories of the sapient human and 0:11:34.640 --> 0:11:36.880 on one hand, and the mindless beast on the other. 0:11:37.520 --> 0:11:39.280 And when you start looking at this you kind of 0:11:39.280 --> 0:11:42.760 see it everywhere. I was just thinking about Ridley Scott's Alien, 0:11:42.840 --> 0:11:46.520 where the xeno morph was designed by hr Geeger, and 0:11:46.679 --> 0:11:50.600 that incorporates a kind of abstract esthetic category confusion because 0:11:50.720 --> 0:11:54.240 it appears to blend both biological and mechanical. I also 0:11:54.280 --> 0:11:56.120 read it as a little bit of our fear of 0:11:56.160 --> 0:11:59.920 the illogical or or write the uncategorical. Um, you know, 0:12:00.000 --> 0:12:03.360 stuff that we can't understand or define, which represents stuff 0:12:03.360 --> 0:12:06.720 that we can control, which sucks. Yeah, I mean the 0:12:06.720 --> 0:12:09.480 beast man is the great example really. I mean, whether 0:12:09.520 --> 0:12:12.439 you're talking about a werewolf or an eighth man or 0:12:12.440 --> 0:12:14.120 a moon beast or what have you, is that you 0:12:14.200 --> 0:12:18.600 see that, Uh, that that divide between the the so 0:12:18.920 --> 0:12:20.920 the higher functions of the mind and the way that 0:12:21.120 --> 0:12:25.120 we we want to be and then our our beasteal nature, 0:12:25.280 --> 0:12:28.280 you know. And that's something we've wrestled with forever. You know. 0:12:28.320 --> 0:12:30.200 There's how do we separate the two? How do we 0:12:30.240 --> 0:12:32.839 come to terms with the with the you know, the 0:12:33.200 --> 0:12:35.840 best deal ruttings in our heart, you know, and uh, 0:12:35.920 --> 0:12:39.560 and so in that the monster becomes this category crisis 0:12:39.920 --> 0:12:42.520 uh in in another flesh, but also within our own 0:12:42.520 --> 0:12:46.000 flesh and our within our own experience. Yeah. I think 0:12:46.040 --> 0:12:49.080 it makes sense that category confusion like that causes fear 0:12:49.160 --> 0:12:52.240 because we have these heuristics for how we deal with 0:12:52.280 --> 0:12:54.720 things in the real world. You you encounter a problem, 0:12:55.000 --> 0:12:57.760 and if you can quickly categorize it and something you've 0:12:57.800 --> 0:13:01.319 dealt with before, you probably have a set rules established 0:13:01.360 --> 0:13:04.200 on here's what I do when I meet A. But 0:13:04.320 --> 0:13:06.640 if you meet A mixed with B, you can't use 0:13:06.640 --> 0:13:10.160 either set of rules. And also, frequently our internal problems 0:13:10.480 --> 0:13:14.760 or internal conflicts are a lot less easy to ascribe 0:13:14.800 --> 0:13:16.640 to it to a single you know, to to see 0:13:16.640 --> 0:13:20.120 in the black and white kind of way. Yeah, totally okay. 0:13:20.120 --> 0:13:23.760 So Cohen's next thesis is very related to this, I think, 0:13:23.760 --> 0:13:26.880 which is that the monster dwells at the gates of difference. 0:13:27.440 --> 0:13:30.920 In other words, the monster is difference embodied. Cohen says 0:13:31.000 --> 0:13:35.440 quote by revealing that difference is arbitrary and potentially free floating, 0:13:35.679 --> 0:13:39.440 mutable rather than essential, the monster threatens to destroy not 0:13:39.559 --> 0:13:43.280 just individual members of society, but the very cultural apparatus 0:13:43.520 --> 0:13:47.680 through which individuality is constituted and allowed. So this is 0:13:47.760 --> 0:13:51.240 kind of the classic other, you know, capital oh other Yeah, um, 0:13:51.640 --> 0:13:54.720 you know, specifically persecuted segments of the population based on 0:13:54.800 --> 0:13:57.960 religion or class or sexuality or gender, sex or race 0:13:58.120 --> 0:14:01.160 or culture of origin or x cetera, like like anything 0:14:01.280 --> 0:14:04.040 about your neighbor that is different than you and therefore 0:14:04.120 --> 0:14:07.480 kind of freaky. Um and and yeah, that that it 0:14:07.520 --> 0:14:10.920 can demonstrate I think, either our fear of the other, 0:14:11.200 --> 0:14:14.040 or our fear of being the other, of being placed 0:14:14.160 --> 0:14:17.560 as that undesirable right. I think part of what he's 0:14:17.559 --> 0:14:20.360 saying is that the idea of the monster as the 0:14:20.400 --> 0:14:24.080 other sort of brings into focus the fact that you 0:14:24.160 --> 0:14:27.480 are not normal by your own virtues, that it's sort 0:14:27.480 --> 0:14:30.720 of arbitrary that you're in the normal camp, and that 0:14:30.920 --> 0:14:35.000 at a moment's notice, you could be in the other camp. Yeah. 0:14:35.000 --> 0:14:36.840 I mean, my mind instantly turns to some of the 0:14:36.840 --> 0:14:41.960 old red scare monsters and terrifying science fiction that you 0:14:42.000 --> 0:14:44.480 solve the day, whereas you know, the body Snatchers is 0:14:44.480 --> 0:14:48.960 that it's some sort of communist force from from outside 0:14:48.960 --> 0:14:52.200 of our world, that the Dupier version it conquered the world. 0:14:53.840 --> 0:14:55.760 And another thing I love about this is just the 0:14:55.760 --> 0:14:59.560 the idea of monsters sort of emerging these uh, these 0:14:59.680 --> 0:15:02.600 these kind of fault lines in our culture, you know, 0:15:02.720 --> 0:15:05.120 these uh, which which which brings to mind some of 0:15:05.160 --> 0:15:08.600 the theories I've I've read about serial killers, particularly in 0:15:08.640 --> 0:15:10.920 the United States, where you see that the trend rising 0:15:10.920 --> 0:15:14.080 in the sixties, obviously a time of great social change, 0:15:14.400 --> 0:15:17.960 peaking in the nineteen eighties. Uh, we're still you have 0:15:18.160 --> 0:15:22.040 change taking place, technological change, culture is changing. Everything seems 0:15:22.040 --> 0:15:23.760 to be changed. You know, we're still sort of clean 0:15:23.840 --> 0:15:26.520 to that idea that the future is going to live 0:15:26.600 --> 0:15:29.480 up to our expectations, and then it begins to fall off. 0:15:29.880 --> 0:15:31.920 And then but then at the same time, you also 0:15:32.000 --> 0:15:33.680 see you know, if you want to go with sort 0:15:33.680 --> 0:15:38.400 of the media um view on serial killers, Uh, you 0:15:38.440 --> 0:15:41.400 see fewer slasher films. You see the the the psychotic 0:15:41.720 --> 0:15:43.440 in the woods with the with the knife sort of 0:15:43.440 --> 0:15:46.640 falling out of favor. Uh, and you see the more 0:15:46.640 --> 0:15:51.160 purely monstrous ideas uh coming to light in cinema totally. Yeah. 0:15:51.560 --> 0:15:54.040 So the next thesis is that the monster polices the 0:15:54.040 --> 0:15:56.720 borders of the possible. I think we are all pretty 0:15:56.720 --> 0:16:00.520 familiar with this. It's simply that the more stir is 0:16:00.560 --> 0:16:03.920 at the edge of knowledge. Uh, it's it's border patrol. Yeah, 0:16:04.040 --> 0:16:08.720 it's it's um exposing the danger inherent in being curious 0:16:08.800 --> 0:16:12.560 or in questioning standards are in stepping outside of convention, 0:16:12.640 --> 0:16:15.360 you know, off the path um to take the classic 0:16:15.360 --> 0:16:17.880 fairy tale kind of look at it um and and 0:16:18.000 --> 0:16:22.080 it's interesting, he says, specifically because the monster itself is 0:16:22.120 --> 0:16:26.920 transgressive and also punishes people who transgress. Right, So this 0:16:26.960 --> 0:16:29.960 could be all different kinds of transgressions. Actually I said knowledge, 0:16:30.000 --> 0:16:32.640 but it could be there's a place you're not supposed 0:16:32.720 --> 0:16:35.000 to go, and if you go there, there's a monster, 0:16:35.520 --> 0:16:38.520 or there's knowledge you shouldn't pursue, and if you pursue it, 0:16:38.560 --> 0:16:40.440 you create a monster. Or there's a way that you 0:16:40.480 --> 0:16:43.520 should be and if you are different than you're a monster. 0:16:43.640 --> 0:16:46.320 Exactly right, where do you create one? Yeah, I mean Frankenstein, 0:16:46.400 --> 0:16:49.320 which will discuss later, you know, as the classic example. 0:16:49.360 --> 0:16:51.720 This is the reason Frankenstein is an adjective now in 0:16:51.760 --> 0:16:54.760 our science headlines. You know, you can't inevitably you go 0:16:54.800 --> 0:16:56.880 through you through your science headlines enough and you or 0:16:57.080 --> 0:17:00.600 you hear enough science commentary and you'll you'll they'll throw 0:17:00.600 --> 0:17:06.320 out the the F word regarding some particular scientific advancement 0:17:06.400 --> 0:17:11.679 or another, be it genetics and cloning, the neuroscience um 0:17:11.720 --> 0:17:15.400 generally regarding the human condition. But we hear it all 0:17:15.400 --> 0:17:17.879 the time. Yeah, we post a video about something and 0:17:17.920 --> 0:17:22.200 somebody it's either the matrix or it's frankens uh. The 0:17:22.200 --> 0:17:25.240 The idea of transgression, though, leads into the next thesis, 0:17:25.280 --> 0:17:27.639 which is, the fear of the monster is really a 0:17:27.720 --> 0:17:31.560 kind of desire um for for that sort of transgression, 0:17:31.640 --> 0:17:35.600 or for escapism, or for freedom from whatever you're bound by, 0:17:35.760 --> 0:17:38.680 or for sexy sex sex if you're putting it very literally, 0:17:38.800 --> 0:17:42.159 or etcetera. Right, Cohen says, quote the monster is continually 0:17:42.200 --> 0:17:46.040 linked to forbidden practices in order to normalize and enforce, 0:17:46.200 --> 0:17:49.439 but he also says the monster also attracts, And I 0:17:49.440 --> 0:17:52.320 think the idea is that because it's linked with the forbidden, 0:17:52.440 --> 0:17:56.560 it becomes associated with the no, no pleasures. So and 0:17:56.680 --> 0:18:02.040 so you have scientific way of putting it. Yeah, there's 0:18:02.040 --> 0:18:06.960 a general association between the monstrous and some kind of titilation. Right. Yeah, absolutely, 0:18:06.960 --> 0:18:09.040 it's supposed to sexy sex sex, which is also the 0:18:09.160 --> 0:18:12.919 extremely scientific way of putting that. Like the vampire is 0:18:12.960 --> 0:18:16.400 promiscuous and uh and in his or her own way 0:18:16.440 --> 0:18:19.800 and is ultimately staked for it, you know, I mean 0:18:20.880 --> 0:18:23.600 or or all of the teenagers who blank and then 0:18:23.720 --> 0:18:26.280 get killed terribly in slasher flicks. But it but it 0:18:26.359 --> 0:18:29.760 needed in general though. With you know, you see a 0:18:29.880 --> 0:18:33.080 really great monster and you can't help but want to 0:18:33.080 --> 0:18:35.680 be that monster. There's always a freedom and being the monster. 0:18:36.119 --> 0:18:39.760 There's a monster, yeah, and and you want to you know, 0:18:39.840 --> 0:18:41.920 really good monster you kind of identify with on some level, 0:18:42.119 --> 0:18:45.280 especially when you look at the like the classic universal monsters. 0:18:45.760 --> 0:18:47.679 I feel like that's one of the reasons they appeal 0:18:47.760 --> 0:18:52.399 so much to, especially like teenagers and younger people, you know, 0:18:52.400 --> 0:18:54.920 because here are these they're all outsiders. They're all outcast 0:18:55.280 --> 0:18:57.720 that have that have also found a certain strength in 0:18:57.800 --> 0:19:00.600 their outsider status. You know. So you can't but but 0:19:00.760 --> 0:19:02.520 want to be the creature from the Black Wool, and 0:19:02.520 --> 0:19:05.560 you can't help but but see yourself as Frankenstein. Yeah, 0:19:05.600 --> 0:19:11.040 and I don't anybody jumping right, I'd say even at 0:19:11.080 --> 0:19:15.480 a sort of baser level in the lower quality storytelling. 0:19:15.560 --> 0:19:19.040 Let's look at the Friday franchise. Early in the franchise, 0:19:19.080 --> 0:19:21.800 I think you are more genuinely asked to identify with 0:19:21.840 --> 0:19:25.760 the characters who are the ostensible victims to be with them. 0:19:25.800 --> 0:19:29.800 As time goes on, you can tell that the pitch 0:19:29.920 --> 0:19:33.399 to get the audience to identify with the human characters 0:19:33.920 --> 0:19:39.480 gets less and less. Yeah, it's clear that the audience 0:19:39.560 --> 0:19:42.399 is coming to identify with Jason. Yeah. Well, because the 0:19:43.200 --> 0:19:46.240 teenage characters get worse and worse is the films go on, 0:19:46.280 --> 0:19:48.359 I mean, and not not more poorly written. I mean 0:19:48.400 --> 0:19:51.480 they're terrible human beings, and so there's a they're also 0:19:51.520 --> 0:19:53.960 more poorly written. Well yes, but but so so there's 0:19:54.000 --> 0:19:56.879 a this this sound sociopathic, I know, but but if 0:19:56.880 --> 0:19:58.919 you think about it, there's really a pleasure in watching 0:19:58.920 --> 0:20:02.320 these awful people get terribly murdered. I think the Final 0:20:02.359 --> 0:20:05.280 Destination series, especially the latter ones, is a really good 0:20:05.280 --> 0:20:08.680 example of that. Yeah, I think that's totally true. Now, 0:20:08.720 --> 0:20:12.480 But when Jason goes to space and to the future X, 0:20:12.840 --> 0:20:15.159 I remember there being a lot of likable characters in 0:20:15.200 --> 0:20:19.320 one Android who who had to die at Jason's hands, though, 0:20:19.840 --> 0:20:22.040 so that one kind of breaks it altot. It's probably 0:20:22.080 --> 0:20:24.439 an inversion of its own trope. I think that. I 0:20:24.440 --> 0:20:26.080 think that's really what they were looking to do with 0:20:26.119 --> 0:20:30.280 that series. It's a very challenging film. I'll give you that. No, No, 0:20:30.359 --> 0:20:32.480 I think it is. Uh, Jason X is a smarter 0:20:32.600 --> 0:20:34.720 movie than some people give it credit for it. Yeah, 0:20:34.840 --> 0:20:36.720 it's it's what we're seeing if only to see uh 0:20:37.000 --> 0:20:39.880 Cronin Brook show up and bite. Oh no, I've seen it. Yeah, 0:20:39.920 --> 0:20:42.119 I actually haven't watched it. I need to check it out. No, 0:20:42.320 --> 0:20:44.919 you were in for a treat. I mean really, once 0:20:45.119 --> 0:20:47.680 a horror franchise goes into space, like, that's where it 0:20:47.680 --> 0:20:52.000 really hits the golden you know, Golden Age Frontier. Yes, 0:20:52.200 --> 0:20:55.639 I'm really pushing for Leprechaun in space in the hood. 0:20:55.720 --> 0:20:59.399 I think that's in the hood of space, Yes, the 0:20:59.400 --> 0:21:04.480 space hood. Okay, we have one thesis left. Seventh and 0:21:04.520 --> 0:21:07.679 final thesis is that the monster stands at the threshold 0:21:07.720 --> 0:21:11.640 of becoming. He says, monsters are children, and I think 0:21:12.119 --> 0:21:15.040 this makes sense. The monster looks back on us, so 0:21:15.160 --> 0:21:18.959 it is a way of criticizing us, interrogating us, and 0:21:19.000 --> 0:21:23.399 forcing us to consider why we created it. Uh. Sometimes 0:21:23.440 --> 0:21:26.480 they are literally our children, you know, in like Rosemary's 0:21:26.520 --> 0:21:29.000 Baby or The Exorcist or all of those other parental 0:21:29.040 --> 0:21:32.600 angst horror flicks that started cropping up in the nineteen 0:21:32.640 --> 0:21:37.399 seventies um up through the you know now tropes status 0:21:37.440 --> 0:21:40.000 of that creepy little kid that shows up in every 0:21:40.000 --> 0:21:43.520 single horror flick um, I mean, portrayed frequently by different actors, 0:21:43.560 --> 0:21:46.680 because kids have this pesky habit of growing um but 0:21:47.480 --> 0:21:50.000 uh less literally. I think it's also part of the 0:21:50.040 --> 0:21:54.240 reason why um Doppelganger horror resonates so intensely, because the 0:21:54.520 --> 0:21:57.840 monster there is is literally yourself or or ourselves I 0:21:57.880 --> 0:22:01.240 suppose um and and coping with at is is really 0:22:01.320 --> 0:22:03.399 unpleasant and and it's a natural thing that we have 0:22:03.480 --> 0:22:06.000 to do kind of every day. Okay, So, as we've 0:22:06.000 --> 0:22:10.359 seen from these thess, especially the first one, that monsters 0:22:10.520 --> 0:22:13.720 don't appear in a vacuum. They are a result of 0:22:13.760 --> 0:22:17.280 the conditions in the societies that imagine them or or 0:22:17.320 --> 0:22:21.280 revitalize them whenever they become popular again. They reflect a 0:22:21.440 --> 0:22:25.399 feeling and culture, and these feelings are caused by external events, 0:22:25.400 --> 0:22:29.840 So they could be social upheaval or changes in in values, 0:22:30.040 --> 0:22:33.119 or very often changes in technology and science. And I 0:22:33.200 --> 0:22:35.439 think we're gonna especially focus on that towards the end 0:22:35.440 --> 0:22:37.840