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Author Topic: Sex and Monsters (Warning!)  (Read 23064 times)
Fausto
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« on: June 04, 2007, 06:06:26 PM »

A while back, I was watching the first season DVD of masters of horror, and there was a short segment where the directors were sitting together and talking. One of them briefly mentioned how each of the horror movie monsters has its own sexual theme behind it, mentioning a few. After a time, I started thinking about this, and the more I did, the more I came up with other possible themes (some of these are from the segment, the rest are my own interperetation):

Vampires - Sex with a stranger

Werewolves - Loss of inhibition, sexual repression

Frankenstien's Monster - Masterbation, Homosexuality (reproductive act without female involvement)

Witchcraft - Sadomasochism (ritualistic actions taken to exert control over another)

Aliens - Rape/Bodily violation (anal probe, anyone?)


So...do you agree? Disagree? Can you think of any others that I havent thought of?




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« Reply #1 on: June 04, 2007, 06:34:45 PM »

Well...........I suppose to some degree. More so with the Vampire and Aliens than the other monsters. I see what the directors are looking at, but I can also see how mixing or switching these themes with other monsters could make for some interesting new monster films.

Why couldn't Frankenstien carry a whip and carry on intelligent conversations with his victims?

Why couldn't earth be a hedonistic nudist colony for Aliens who come here to escape their repressed solar system.

Why not Werewolves who collect butterflies during sudden eclipse for their sadomasochist rituals. (ok, maybe not)



« Last Edit: June 04, 2007, 11:35:40 PM by Scott » Logged

Allhallowsday
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« Reply #2 on: June 04, 2007, 07:40:00 PM »

Why couldn't Frankenstien carry a whip and carry on intelligent conversations with his victims?
Hi Scott, Have you seen FRANKENSTEIN UNBOUND (1990)?  Based on Brian Aldiss' novel, the film is close to what you describe! 
Have you seen FRANKENSTEIN: THE TRUE STORY made for TV 1973 (the creature is articulate throughout!) ?
« Last Edit: June 04, 2007, 07:43:07 PM by Allhallowsday » Logged

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« Reply #3 on: June 04, 2007, 08:03:17 PM »

Cheers Applause for a great topic.  Gets the gears working upstairs.

I've been laboring to apply this line of reasoning to my favorite horror genre...zombies! I'm kinda stuck though in mid-conception.

I 've got the myriad facets of society that zombies can represent in general down, but in a sexual aspect...well that's a headscratcher.  Does it involve singleminded obsession to have and consume?  How about something like an ex or jilted lover with an inability to let go/move on/get on with 'life'?   I'll be ironing this one out for a little while...

ps.  Meanwhile, what about killer bees?  Do they qualify for this?  Mindless male aggression directed by a domineering female?

What about piranha?  Fascinating stuff to think about.  Thumbup

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« Reply #4 on: June 04, 2007, 08:25:24 PM »

One of the reasons put forward for the proliferation of vampire fiction during the Victorian Era was that a vampire's bite was basically sex without getting naked and touching each other's privates.  A way of reaching orgasm without the guilt of actually having sex would have appealed to the very repressed people then.

And I can't see the words werewolves and sex together without thinking of Howling II, which makes me giggle uncontrollably.  In dream interpretation, one of the meanings for seeing weres in your dreams is because of barely suppressed rage, anger, and aggression, so I would argue that it's equivalent in sexual terms would be closer to rape than to just really uninhibited sex.

I agree with your assessments of the last three though, especially aliens.  That's definitely cold, clinical violation.
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« Reply #5 on: June 04, 2007, 10:51:17 PM »

Why couldn't Frankenstien carry a whip and carry on intelligent conversations with his victims?
Hi Scott, Have you seen FRANKENSTEIN UNBOUND (1990)?  Based on Brian Aldiss' novel, the film is close to what you describe! 
Have you seen FRANKENSTEIN: THE TRUE STORY made for TV 1973 (the creature is articulate throughout!) ?


Being the completist that I am. I'm embarrassed to admit that I have not seen either Frankenstein, but will diligently put them on my list of films to view. Karma for you Allhallowsday. Not so much for having watched the films, but for having watched them in New Jersey.   TeddyR Thanks.

The most recent version of Frankenstien I have seen Mary Shelleys Frankenstein (1994) starring Robert Deniro.

Also to correct my own mistake I should have put "Why couldn't Frankenstiens monster carried a whip and carry on intelligent conversations with his victims".
« Last Edit: June 04, 2007, 10:54:25 PM by Scott » Logged

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« Reply #6 on: June 05, 2007, 05:24:01 AM »

Cheers Applause for a great topic.  Gets the gears working upstairs.

I've been laboring to apply this line of reasoning to my favorite horror genre...zombies! I'm kinda stuck though in mid-conception.

I 've got the myriad facets of society that zombies can represent in general down, but in a sexual aspect...well that's a headscratcher.  Does it involve singleminded obsession to have and consume?  How about something like an ex or jilted lover with an inability to let go/move on/get on with 'life'?   I'll be ironing this one out for a little while...

ps.  Meanwhile, what about killer bees?  Do they qualify for this?  Mindless male aggression directed by a domineering female?

What about piranha?  Fascinating stuff to think about.  Thumbup



Zombies,in the traditional sense (ie. WHITE ZOMBIE), a need for total control,sexual and otherwise). Domination kinda thing...Jeffry Dahmer tried to make sex zombies with a power drill,if I do recall...he also thought by eating parts of the body it would make them a part of himself...and they would be his forever...and it gave him a hard-on. Ugh. Creepy.

Slasher movies: Serial killers find the act of killing a subsitute for sex. Most serial killers are sexual sadists.

Now,I'd like to her what kinda sex trip would GODZILLA represent...except maybe Bigger is better? BounceGiggle
« Last Edit: June 05, 2007, 05:34:31 AM by RCMerchant » Logged

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« Reply #7 on: June 05, 2007, 05:54:51 AM »

I always figured the werewolf was meant to frighten young children away from strangers and the vampire was meant to frighten adolescent girls away from men who'd take advantage of them.

The werewolf would typically be a man encountered in the woods, when you were traveling alone, who would turn into a monster and eat you.  It's a simple message: stay away from strangers.

The vampire is a little more complex: he would seduce you, take something from you, make you bleed, and then you'd be changed forever.  It's not hard to imaging mothers and grannies telling their teenage daughters vampire stories to keep them away from salacious men.
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« Reply #8 on: June 05, 2007, 08:07:06 AM »

Why couldn't Frankenstien carry a whip and carry on intelligent conversations with his victims?
Hi Scott, Have you seen FRANKENSTEIN UNBOUND (1990)?  Based on Brian Aldiss' novel, the film is close to what you describe! 
Have you seen FRANKENSTEIN: THE TRUE STORY made for TV 1973 (the creature is articulate throughout!) ?

And let's don't forget Andy Warhol's Frankenstein and Frankenhooker!

OK, let's take a stab at this:

Zombies - Instinctual procreation, as stereotypified by "the south".  Get hitched, have sex, make babies before you get your driver's license.

Frankenstein - Vanity and body modification!  Breast augmentation?  Penis removal?  Eyebrow waxing?  Nipple rings?

Vampires - Like sleeping with rockstars... outlandish decor, stylish garb, pale skin and track marks!

Werewolves - Doggie style?

Pumpkinhead - Amish sex, which of course is only between Ehemann und Frau.

Leatherface - Kissing the chef.

Michael/Jason - The strong, silent type.

Ghosts - Masturbatory fantasies.

"Holiday" Killers (Silent Night, Deadly Night, etc.) - Probably filed somewhere with Adult Babies.

Aliens - Sex toys, gadgets, and accessories!

Cryptkeeper - May/December relationship.

Phantasm - Tall, dark and handsome!

Demonic Possession - Marriage.
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dean
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« Reply #9 on: June 05, 2007, 08:46:37 AM »


In terms of stereotypical 'monsters' in what I term, "Old timey" literature, that is, all the classic monsters, they all have their purposes and own thematic mythologies.

I had a lot of fun with this type of topic based around Vampires back at Uni.  Did an essay on The Vampire Myth, which was lots of fun.

Talking about sexuality, Vampires were very much a sexual threat.  Based on the times etc, they were a symbol of many things, like promiscuity, to the dark seduction of your own sexual desires etc etc.

Werewolves very much have that theme of unbridled, uncontrolled lust I suppose, if you were to put it in that way.  Very similar in a sense to the Dr Jekkyl and Mr Hyde type idea of repression versus uninhibited monster without a conscience.

Witches were that hedonistic style of open female sexuality and said threat of that.  Almost the flipside of the vampire.  Whereas the Vampire [ie Dracula] preyed upon women and turned them from nice women into sexually dangerous 'beasts' via the bite, the purpose of a Witch was pretty much to corrupt man into destroying themselves with sin.  To a fashion of course. 

Ghosts very much have that sense of the voyeur.  I also agree with DodgingGrunge in that they seem like masturbatory fantasies.  Plus you've also got that idea of possession by ghost in terms of controlling you into doing things you wouldn't do, but in a way kind of 'want' to do.

They are the 'classic' monsters, but as we have seen, you can easily put this to modern day monsters as well, especially the slasher substituting for sex etc.

I wonder what "The Mummy" would represent?
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DodgingGrunge
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« Reply #10 on: June 05, 2007, 10:49:46 AM »

I wonder what "The Mummy" would represent?

OK, two possible answers:

1)  Bondage!
2)  Oedipus Complex... *gnuck gnuck*
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« Reply #11 on: June 05, 2007, 11:36:38 PM »

The Mummy: taken from the various versions over the years.

Obsessive or forbidden love, to the point of self-destruction
Infidelity
Body Mutilation/Modification
I can see the bondage theme, or at least the binding and restraint part of it

Werewolves:
beastiality
exhibitionism - "letting it all out" when the moon is full

Frankenstein's Monster:
I don't see a sexual theme as much as the one of rejecting or denying God that comes up in discusssions, man creating "unnatural" life in HIS own image. From the origninal novel you could get a variation of an Oedipus Complex theme. The monster causing the destruction of people in the Dr.'s life (directly or indirectly). The "child" lashing out at the "father" who has things, like love, that he cannot.

To go with Snivelly mention of Victiorian vampire fiction, there was also the paranoia about blood and diseases, like "consumption"/TB. The blood on the lips with a vampire's bite could parallel the blood on the lips of a loved one coughing up blood from the disease. It could also be an outlet for repressed homoerotic feelings when the vampire and victim were the same gender. Even now look at how often you have female on female vampire action in vampire movies if just to show some skin.

Slasher flicks: again often represent repression. The killer punishes the fornicating teens for their actions and desires. I can't help thinking of the mousy girl in Friday the 13th Part Seven who dresses up when she thinks she's going to have a rendezous with aguy who has no interest in her. She only dresses in a sexy manner, in her mind anyway, doesn't actually get to do anything and gets killed for it.

I hope this topic keeps going, it's interesting, just hope I have more time to devote to it.

Let's not forget monsters like the incubus and succubus, BTW.
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« Reply #12 on: June 07, 2007, 05:47:35 AM »

Where's Menard when you need him? I think his warped mind could come up with some monsterous sex acts! HEY,MENARD!!! MONSTER SEX OVER HERE!!! MENARD! HEY! SEX!!! LOOKY! SEX!!!  hot
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« Reply #13 on: June 07, 2007, 07:06:24 AM »

Where's Menard when you need him? I think his warped mind could come up with some monsterous sex acts! HEY,MENARD!!! MONSTER SEX OVER HERE!!! MENARD! HEY! SEX!!! LOOKY! SEX!!!  hot

That is probably the perfect way to get his attention.  I'm going to have to remember that for the next time we need him in a thread.  You could also use that to distract him.  For most people, I use the old trick of pointing behind them and yelling, "Look!  Hailey's Comet!"  With Menard, you point behind him and yell, "Look!  Monster sex!"

I've been wanting to actually add something to this, but have been working on a review and such.  Any good reply will take a while to craft.  Have we covered ROBOTS yet?  It seems like those are often about losing control or being controlled.
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« Reply #14 on: June 07, 2007, 10:15:21 AM »

With vampires, it always kind of strikes me odd that people would ascribe such a sexual symbolism to them. In all practicality, if vampires were truly undead, their blood wouldn't flow and it would be entirely impossible for vampire males to "get it up" for any actual sex. Vampire females, similarly deprived, would be entirely frigid. When it comes to having the dead preying on the living, it seems to me that whatever the symbolism has been in the past, vampires these days could be a symbol for people who suck all the fun out of life. (I also recall seeing the cover of a news magazine some years ago with a vampire on it and the question: "Worried about your taxes?" Vampires are apparently multi-purpose symbols.)

With werewolves, rage is more the focus than anything sexual. A few flicks have capitalized on how a passionate fury and a passionate lust might dovetail together, however. There's also the symbolism of transformation, which serves rather well for tales of domestic abuse. Consider how, when you ask a battered woman about her abuser, she always tells you he was such a nice guy when she first knew him. The guy himself might even admit he doesn't know what came over him that would make him do such a horrible thing to the ones he loves. It's as if, by night, he turns into this mindless beast...

Aliens have so many different purposes that I doubt it can all be confined to just one symbolism. The Aliens of the movie starring Sigourney Weaver, for instance, were obviously a hugely exaggerated symbol of fear of pregnancy. (It's always seemed rather unjust to me that the unborn child is so brutally demonized in these films when it's the mothers who can be truly monstrous by murdering their unborn infants. Where are all the tales of vicious creatures who eat their young?) The aliens of Star Trek, on the other hand, tend to be examples of the idea that there would be all kinds of other cultures on other planets just as there are on this one. Then there are aliens that serve as something like stand-ins for divine figures, such as E.T. (He does help the preteen Elliot get kind of frisky with one of his female classmates, though. Remember that?)

Witches... well, there are actual witches. They're part of a quasi-sorcerous nature cult, and they call themselves Wiccans. They have lots of "skyclad" (nude) ceremonies, among other things. The more mythological witches that wear the pointy hats and fly around on brooms, though, are probably more a symbol of old anti-semitic caricatures of the Jews. A lot of anti-semitic propaganda from as late as Nazi Germany's pagan culture revival portrayed Jews, especially the women, as subhuman creatures with hooked noses that smelled bad, had poor eyesight and crooked backs, and were scheming to seduce men into sleeping with them in order to degrade the Aryan race and put the whole world under the control of some shadowy Jewish cabal portrayed in the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. In other words, as the old racist jibe goes, would you want your sister to marry one? (Or would you like to marry one yourself?)

Robots are a more modern symbol. You don't see quite so many mechanical men (or women) in the stuff from the 19th century. Frankenstein might be an early kind of robot, though, since he was partially based on older Jewish legends about the Gollum, a clay figure a rabbi was said to be capable of bringing to life to avenge wrongs and punish the persecutors whenever pogroms threatened his people. The sexual symbolism of this is asexual, producing children without any sex whatsoever. Rachel, a robot in Blade Runner with the personality of the tycoon Tyrell's niece, is also an asexual reproduction. In AI: Artificial Intelligence, the perversity of this kind of reproduction is played up even further, as David learns that not only is he a mere copy of his maker's actual deceased son, but his maker is planning on producing thousands or maybe millions of other copies. Robots are also convenient symbols of slavery, including--but not limited to--sexual slavery. David's pal Gigolo Joe is such a slave, and Rachel's odd love affair with Deckard in Blade Runner includes the possibility that he's as much a slave as she is, his purpose in the futuristic society being somewhat similar to that of the overseers on old Southern plantations.

Ghosts are ghosts. Exactly what sexual symbolism there might be to them rather depends on the movie, I think. In practical terms, ghosts can be everything from unseen malevolent killers (Final Destination) to friendly helpers (Casper). Ascribing anything specifically sexual to them seems to be a case of overanalysis. Ghost stories play more upon our fear of death, albeit death while distracted by sex in some of the cheesier slasher flicks.

Mummies are a symbol for old "dead and buried" relationships, former flames, ex-husbands, etc. No matter how you wrap them up, embalm them, and bury them in your mind, old love affairs have a way of dragging themselves back up from your past at the most inconvenient times.

Zombies, like vampires, may actually be a symbol of sterility and lifelessness. Zombie hordes sometimes do include zombified children, yet there's never such a thing in these stories as a zombie getting pregnant by another zombie and bearing a child; the only way child zombies come to exist is by children getting whatever disease the other zombies have gotten that makes them what they are. Zombies might, in other words, be symbols for various kinds of sodomy and STDs. Sodomy produces no children, and yet a sodomite culture can recruit children to be sodomites. When a child gets an STD, it's proof that the child has been molested. In other words, zombies play heavily on the link between homosexuality and pederasty, though the symbolism is by no means limited to this. (Sodomy and STDs aren't limited to homosexuals either, after all.)

Sexuality does indeed tend to play a role in all kinds of horror flicks; just don't try to ascribe everything to this. As a Christian, I have read enough literature on the subject of the supernatural that I see every reason to believe some sorcery and demonic possession is real, and not a mere literary device or figment of the imagination. At the same time, these are not widespread phenomena. A more common source of movie monsters is the fact that many monsters are myths that arise from a superstitious interpretation of real events. If a serial killer left one of his horribly mutilated victims on the outskirts of a medieval town, it's not too difficult to see where people might have gotten the idea that terrible things like werewolves and vampires might be preying on people at night. Old curses on Egyptian tombs are legendary. The legends of the much despised and persecuted Jews might seem more like horror stories to the persecutors against whom they were directed.

Our own modern legends include futuristic tales that play upon our fears--possibly justified--that technology will ultimately corrupt and/or enslave us. There are also fantasies and science fiction tales about space aliens and benevolent spirits who turn up just in time to save us all from ourselves in much the same way that there used to be fanciful medieval tales of a distant Christian kingdom that would come rescue the crusaders from the Islamic hordes, and the conquistadors of Spain came to America hoping to find a legendary fountain of youth. Fanciful as those tales were, it's worth remembering that they produced real results, both good and bad. Our own legends will have similar effects; we are not any better than our ancestors just because we sift our tales for meaning more thoroughly than they did.
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