dc.description.abstract | Tracing the etymology of the monster [le monstre], Jacques Derrida points to the
verb ‘demonstrate’ [montrer]. In turn, in Latin monstrum derives from the verb monere,
which means ‘warn’ and ‘remind’, wherein is also rooted a well known nowadays noun
— monitor. Etymology tells us, therefore, that the monster is the same as ‘what reveals
/ unveils’, and the monster itself constitutes some construct, a projection of our imagination.
Humanoid monsters are the characters of modern culture that are capable of
lifting the veil and shedding light on what has been repressed and hidden - an uncomfortable
truth about ourselves — people and our culture. The monster reveals what is
ambivalent in a human, and what goes beyond the accepted social, political and cultural
norms.
Starting from the birth of modernity and the established wherein autocracy of reason
that seeks to either subjugate or exclude anything that is Different, humanoid monsters,
such as vampires, zombies, ghosts, aliens and cyborgs, represent the danger of
the ‘return of the excluded’. The logic of separation and discipline, characteristic of the
modern times, results in the exclusion of what is primordial, primitive, particularistic,
irrational and ‘dirty’. Eventually, what is subject to exclusion is what is in conflict
with the idea of universal humanity. However, due to a simple dialectic, what has been
excluded becomes an inseparable ‘shadow’ of the affirmed values. Therefore modernity
in an ideal (and desired) form, hence as a project, turns out to be continually under
threat of the regressive come back to / of what is non-modern. The threat of such regress
is posed (especially within popular culture) by various characters of monstrosities.
Monsters remind us, at the same time, that man was, is and will be a defective creation,
just like Frankenstein of Mary Shelley's novel — a degenerated creature, expelled
beyond the limits of natural order, neither alive nor dead. However, unlike pre-modern
monsters which were ‘the monsters of ban’ guarding the boundaries of the possible and
preventing excessive exploration (of the world, of otherness, etc.), modern monstrosity
is presented as something that has been already internalised - something that exists
among us, as well as in the very core of modernity. The increased popularity of monsters
results from the obliteration of the boundaries between man and the monster,
who, contrary to pre-modern times, becomes part of the human community. In this
respect, today's world resembles a (global) village in the style of Bon Temps from True
Blood series, where a vampire, shapeshifter or a witch is more common than a ‘normal’
man - because nowadays real people no longer exist. The prospect we are confronted
with through the world of True Blood series comprises all homophobic fears that have
accumulated over the last century: the awareness that we remain people as long as we
are able to hide our monstrosity from the eyes of others.
Monstruarium of modernity is also the history of the revolution within our culture.
Symbolically it would be illustrated by the way that monsters and people have moved
from Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus by Mary Shelley, wherein a new creation is rejected and forced into exile outside the human community, to Prometheus by
Ridley Scott, in which it is people who discover that they had been repelled by their
‘proto-human creators’ and thus reduced to the role of monsters who were to be
destroyed.
Entering the mainstream of cultural research, the book focuses on the political
dimension of monstrosities by following historic transformations of monstrous characters
as a response to threats in Western culture. The monster is interpreted by me
in the view of homophobic fears, which express our apprehension for representatives
of other social groups whom we are not able to regard as ‘ones of us’. And thus vampires
are often queer characters expressing homosexual fears (The Vampyre by Polidori,
Carmilla by Le Fanu, a series of Anne Rice) but also the apprehension for immigrants
or the emancipation of women (Dracula). On the other hand, zombies reflect the fear
of black people (White Zombie, Night of the Living Dead), immigrants (Dawn of the
Dead), the inhabitants of the Middle East (Land of the Dead), as well as of the plagues
of post-modern societies, such as aging and obesity (Death Becomes Her). Apparitions,
ghosts and phantoms are characters (beginning with the Ghost of the Father in Hamlet
by Shakespeare) which come to ‘get even with us’, therefore their appearance is often
associated with the ongoing economic crisis (Amityville, POLTERGEIST, American Horror
Story). The alien is most often the character expressing the fear of immigrants (the
prose by HP Lovecraft, District 9), but also of the growing role of women in the modern
world (Species), the AIDS epidemic (The Thing), or ‘alienated’ corporations (Alien). In
contrast, androids and cyborgs are mainly characters of the fear of the growing impact
of technology on human life (Blade Runner, The Terminator, I, Robot, Surrogates).
The book explains cultural transformation of the most popular monsters of contemporary
culture. It refers both to classical texts, reinterpreting them in an innovative
way, and to the latest texts of popular culture (literature, film, TV series, comic book),
tracing the current changes in the presentation of monstrosities. In addition, it provides
a deep reflection upon the state of the entire modern culture and the role new media
serve in it. The basic thesis advanced in the book is the statement that a change in the
demonstration of monsters in the latest texts encourages attempts to resign oneself
to the awareness of the historicity of the idea of man, humanism, but also of (post)
modernity itself. | pl_PL |