Monsters To Society: The Role Of Monsters In Our Society

In the 2014 article The Devil in Disguise: Modern Monsters and their Metaphors, published by The Geek Anthropologist website, author Emma Louis Backe talks about the “monsters” surrounding pop culture and their hidden significance and meaning. Author Emma Backe an Anthropology and English major explains that explains that with each “monster” we see an underlying threat to human life as we know it. She states that pop culture has taken these images and made them a reincarnation of our fears. That these creatures are symbolic of incurable disease, indestructible beings, the undead, loss of humanity and extinction. Emma claims that we have moved from dismissing and ignoring these fears to confronting them in a more literal and real way. In the

Our society monsters today would be sex predators. Those people are crazy and will do anything to get what they want. Why would you ever want to hurt your peers let alone kids? People like that amaze me. Sex predators have to be mentally ill to do a disgusting crime like that. In a jail being a sex predator is the worst crime because to them molesting a child is worse than murder. Studies show that sex offenders are the highest population to be murdered in jail.

When people hear the word monster, they usually picture in their minds images of vampires, zombies, demons, ghouls, or other physical supernatural beings. However, today's society contains its own modern monsters contained in minds of people or in systems in society, as opposed to some type of physical entity. Examples for modern monsters of today can be pressure and apathy, but caring too much has more effect and negative results rather than apathy’s effect of caring too little.

Monster! What image formulates in your mind when you hear that term? Is it a fictional beast, an alien from another planet, a violent creature? How about the scum of society, a child molester, murderer, someone who cheats and steals from others with no remorse? Or do you think of a damaged human being, the unfortunate souls with conditions and appearances that are considered abnormal? I firmly believe that society as a whole has twisted this term into something it isn’t, twisted our view of those people into something they aren’t, and it’s time for that to stop.

The Monster Culture Seven theses written by Jeffrey Cohen discusses seven areas of monstrous aspects that have appeared in our culture due to a number of reasons by society. The story of the immortal cells of Henrietta Lacks can be intertwined in several of the thesis on monsters. Four areas I found to most correlate are Thesis I: The Monster’s Body Is a Cultural Body as it relates to Night Doctors, Thesis II: The Monster Always Escapes comparing to the HeLA bomb chapter in the book, Lastly, Thesis IV: The Monster Dwells at the Gates of Difference reflecting on the race of Henrietta and the concept of black genes/cells running thru all of mankind regardless of color. The Monster concepts in Jeffrey Cohen’s article interrelate to the story of Henrietta Lacks based on her story reads like science fiction and

“The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street” is a screenplay by Rod Serling that was televised as part of the Twilight Zone television series, a popular series that began in 1959 and is still televised today. After reading and then watching the selection, I prefer the teleplay better than the episode. The reason I prefer the teleplay are based on the characters, actions, and visual effects. The first reason is the characters, I like imagining how the characters behave, and be able to make them act how I think that character would act, while you can’t do that in a episode. I like to make the character my own while in the episode, if I played the part I would be told how to play that person. Instead of being told I like to make that character my

Michael Myers is known for his uncontrollable killing of his own bloodline. Known from the Halloween film series, after killing his older sister and being locked up in a mental institute for fifteen years, Myers escapes and goes on the search for his remaining family member, his little sister. He not only goes through challenges to get rid of anyone related to him, but he also kills any innocent soul that might get in his way. He has this immortality that aids him to survive any type of death that is inflicted on him. Why does a normal kid with a troubled childhood who grew up in the suburbs have this immortal life and need to kill his family? It is said that The Curse of Thorn was allocated on Michael by a cult. Compelling him to be an invincible

With funding support by Ohio Humanities, Madeline Muntersbjorn, PhD, will lead the discussion, Why Monsters Matter, 7 p.m. Wed. Oct. 26, at the Way Public Library, 101 E. Indiana Ave., Perrysburg. Muntersbjorn is an associate professor of philosophy with the University of Toledo. The discussion will examine how and why humans create monsters; and, if over time, are there common themes and purposes other than to scare. The 30-45 minute discussion is free as is parking.

In “Monster Culture (Seven Theses)” Cohen states that monsters are created by the “time, feeling, and place it was made.” (4) It’s developed by a cultural moment at the time in which the monster was created. If you read into thesis number two you will see that a monster never dies. If the monster dies, there is always a good chance it will come back. Thesis three shows us that monsters seem to appear at a time of crisis, which is out of the ordinary. In thesis four, Cohen explains that the monsters are like humans, but they don’t deserve the same treatment as us because they are out of the ordinary. Most of the monsters are based on “cultural, political, economic, sexual, or racial differences.” (7) In thesis five there are borders that don’t

Jeffery Jerome Cohen’s article “Monster Culture (Seven Theses)” is very enticing, and introduces details about monsters that can often be forgotten. Cohen gives seven different theses, yet he ties them all perfectly into one argument. He gives us an insight to “cultures through the monsters they bear” (4). Monsters can be real or they can be fictional, but what they can represent goes far beyond how they are perceived. In Thesis IV he gives many examples of different races, and different sexualities and how they are treated.

As the friendly neighbors on Maple Street, do their daily chores, a flash of light occurs. It leaves them in a state of confusion.Wondering what it was was or where’d it come from. Fourteen year old Tommy pops up the idea of it was aliens. They begin to ask questions. So they start to go against each other. The harder they went against each other the more paranoid they got of their surroundings. They began to accuse each other. They became so paranoid of each other to where they killed a man. That man, to be exact, was Pete Van Horne. This is a realistic story because they have neighbors, a fourteen year old boy who believes in aliens, a man who had been shot by a gun.

From time to time popular literature has made it’s way to the bring screen every now and again. Once the mass appeal from the text surfaces, these film industry companies to take them into their own hands, which usually altering the integrity of the text. Once specific example that can be found interesting is the representation of the monster in Frankenstein. In this text the exploration of why director, James Whale, had altered the appearance of the monster not only in the visual aspect, but also the internal knowledge he obtained in the novel, but not in the movie.

Monster and Men have been around for ample number of years. In addition to this, every circumstance they have been portrayed in literature of some sort varies from the author to the time period to the genre. Three indigenous pieces that differ from each other are obscure from the: Macbeth, Beowulf, and Frankenstein. All three writers published each for separate purposes. William Shakespeare Constructed Macbeth for the king and was hinting advice toward the king. In reflection, the epic poem of Beowulf is not similar to Frankenstein in anyway. However all of these pieces of literature have an allusion to monsters and men. In stating this monsters and men are not universal throughout the genres of tragedy, epic poem, and romanticism novel.

An inhumanly cruel or wicked person is what the dictionary defines a monster as. Following that definition, I think monsters are sex predators. It makes no sense to me why they do it. I would label them as terrorists. After all they terrify and terrorize the minds of girls, boys, men, and women. They are cruel and wicked people and they continue to multiply and not be stopped. No matter what age, race,or sexuality they are, it is not right and should not be tolerated.

I define a “monster” as, someone, or something that sticks out in society and that isn’t normal to an individual person. As such, it will leave an impact on that person and quite possibly will shape or define that person’s actions, behavior and future. I do not believe that a monster is always going to be the stereotypical creature, being or even a specific person. It could very easily be an object, an action or even an idea. I noticed when I was searching through the OED that there were numerous definitions for the word monster. I think that everyone’s definition is going to differ based on their opinions and that goes to the heart of my definition which is that the “monster” is unique to a person. What is a monster to me may not cause any behavior change or reaction from someone else. People interpret words differently and they will give it their own meaning based on what they believe and the environmental context in which they were raised. One definition that I found remarkable in the OED was; “something extraordinary or unnatural; an amazing event or occurrence; a prodigy, a marvel.” This is similar to my definition because I wasn’t thinking of a monster as something scary or bad. Instead, I was thinking of a monster as it relates to the topics: disease/sickness, mental illness, and addiction. Are these things a monster from the start or did they become a monster because of the behaviors that they cause in people when they are either confronted with them personally or