Lecture 2 / Monsters We Make / 08

Lecture 2 / Monsters We Make / 08

Monsters & Monstrosity

What is a Monster?

Webster: 1. A structurally abnormal or grotesquely deformed animal or plant. 2. An animal, plant, or object of frightening or strange shape. 3. An extremely vicious or wicked person.

Class Exercise:

List “Monstrous Items” under these three Categories:

·  People

·  Creations

·  Ideas

Discussion

·  What are the Similarities?

·  What are the Differences?

·  Why?

Monsters stem from fear, misunderstanding, ignorance, un-explained phenomena, taboo, xenophobia, morality, and intolerance. More importantly, monsters are vehicles used to bring order from chaos. Through storytelling, myths, and legends, cultural “truths” are passed on from one generation to the next. In fact monsters are not only created by storytellers with individual perceptions but are also shaped by the society that they exist in.

Fear (and the Monster) as a Tool:

Typically, the monster is a tool used in storytelling to meet one of these three agenda’s:

·  Political: Influence and Manipulation

·  Social: Structuring and Ethical Coding

·  Cultural: Morality and Principle Reinforcement

The best way to elicit action from your listener is to create fear (horror being the stronger approach).

Perception versus Reality:

Since monsters are drawn from our perceptions of reality, monsters from outside of our culture may indeed not be considered monsters by their cultures. That is to say, just because ‘we’ perceive something as monstrous, doesn’t mean someone else does. Monstrosity is as much fear as it is our perception as shaped by our political, social, and cultural beliefs (coding).

Class Readings:

The Greek Cyclops Theory

Dr Brown, The Grave Robber

Critical Thinking and Monsters

Critical thinking is basically an assessment of a claim. If I say the world is flat you would naturally assess that claim with your knowledge and your facts. Eventually you will reach a decision and except or reject my claim based on your knowledge, observation, research, examination, and thought on my claim. This is “Critical Thinking”. It is usually easier to conduct critical thinking when you have all the facts. I a perfect world we would know everything, but we don’t. To counter this, we use templates or windows with which to view a problem. This framework is called a Rubric.

For this class, all readings, film viewings, and responses will first consider this baseline rubric:

·  Who is the Monster?

·  Why are they a Monster?

·  Who makes the Monster?

·  Why do they make the Monster?

·  How do these answers change throughout the text?

This rubric is important for three main reasons:

It will help focus your thoughts on a finite set of variables before you expand your thoughts and ideas.

It will help you unlock the basic methodologies and meanings forwarded by the author / artist.

It will help structure your response to the work and serve as basis for discussion.

The “Murkyness” of Monstrosity:

In more complex stories, the maker can at any point outstrip the monster in “monstrosity”. In essence, the tables can be turned. Modern day storytelling relies on a three-dimensional continuum composed of three elements:

·  Monstrosity

·  Essence

·  Process

Where essence is the “nature” of the monster and process is the “evolution” or more simply put, what it “is” and how it “changes”. This in turn is affected by how monstrous or less monstrous the monster becomes as it evolves. The same is in effect for the monster maker.

As you can see monstrosity is a complex subject. What seemed so “black & white” is not always so.