Monster Identification
I identify with monsters.
Not all monsters all the time (after all, some of them can be pretty unattractive) but a good many of them all the same.
Like me, monsters are harried. The monster is, first and foremost, a creature at odds with the world. Life – in the form of angry villagers, Japanese scientists, or various and sundry law-enforcement agencies -- is always nipping at his heels. People just won’t leave him alone. Sure, the monster has usually done something to call this harassment down upon himself. He’s dragged someone’s wife or fiancée off to his cave, or eaten someone’s dog, or thrown a blind girl into a lake. But in doing so, the monster was only operating out of an earnest – if clumsy – desire to secure some small bit of happiness. He was just being who he was. And in return, what does he get? It’s a feeling I sympathize with deeply.
Of course, there are other, more mysterious reasons why I identify with monsters as well. Monsters, to my mind, stand for a kind of invisible country: one where there are no rules or regulations – or at least none of the kind we find here in the ordinary world. As a kid, when I encountered a monster that really represented this world powerfully – the Wolf Man or the Creature from the Black Lagoon, say – I’d get this uncanny feeling of… identification. It was like seeing the flag of some strange country and getting an instant desire to want to stand and give one’s pledge of allegiance to it.
I got that feeling all through childhood, and even into my teens. And… I still get it today, on occasion (though nothing like as often as I would back then). It’s the real reason horror movies are just… different from all other movies for me: the reason why, in my crowded, harried, and too often mystery-free world, they still matter.
I couldn't agree with you more. As a kid I really identified with The Wolf Man. Probably a little too much since I found a book at my school library that was suppose to have the secret ritual for turning yourself into a werewolf, it would have worked if I lived by the ocean dang it!
Later in college I saw Clive Barker's Nightbreed and wanted to move to Midian. I really did, and I was so pissed at David Cronenberg for messing up my meca and bringing the humans to the home of the monsters who just wanted to be who they were and not be burned at the stake any longer.
I've always identified with the monsters, frankly because I was always an outsider and so were they. To this day I still side with the outsiders.
I just bought my sixth month old son a Godzilla toy, hopefully he won't be an outsider like I was, but at least he'll have his monsters to comfort him when he gets home from a tough day at school.
I once journaled monsters have social issues that only people can relate to. A scary thought, huh? But feel a little more comfortable in my own skin having read your & Microwave's connection to them. Like monsters, many of us are misunderstood. Think maybe that's why horror characters endure and endear themselves with audiences. Monsters mirror our own faces--behind our public masks, fears, frustrations, abrasiveness, and failed attempts to successfully mesh with others on many levels. Monsters are as real to us as we let them be. As individuals we must strive to be more real despite lack of guarantees of unconditional acceptance. Wonder if creature from the Black Lagoon inspired Ninja Turtles? They favor. As for monsters, I identify with The Invisible. Overlooked. Fearing the unknown. Also vampires. V's remind me of human souls seeking to be filled with the Holy Spirit. Something eternal. Something more... Random thoughts...Pt this was a favorite by you. Thanks.(But I still don't want to look in the mirror. :) )