An Essay on the Monstrous

 Copyright 2021 by Gary L. Pullman

Source: Public domain

What is “monstrous”? Does the concept change, thereby altering the understanding of the meaning of the term; do merely the specific instances, the incarnations, so to speak, of the monstrous change; or is there a modification of both the understanding and the incarnations?

 

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Certainly, the idea of the origin of monsters has changed. Once, monsters were considered omens, or signs warning of divine displeasure, or anger, concerning various types of behavior. Later, monsters were regarded merely as mistakes, or “freaks,” of nature. The origin of monsters, once supernatural, became natural. The hermaphrodite became Frankenstein's creature; the Biblical behemoth became the great white shark of Jaws. (Between these extremes, perhaps, as the great white whale, Herman Melville's Moby Dick.)

 

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Prior to the shift from a supernatural to a natural cause of monsters, there had been a shift in the way in which the world, or the universe, was understood. When God had been in charge of the universe He'd created, the universe and everything in it had had been meaningful; in God's plan, there was a place for everything, and everything was expected to stay in its assigned place. The universe was an orderly and planned place, because it had been created according to God's plan, or a design, and existence was teleological. Monsters were beings or forces that disrupted the orderliness of the universe, sought to disrupt God's plan, or showed disobedience to God's will, either by tempting others to sin or by giving in to sin (and sin itself was, quite simply, disobedience to God's will). Anything that differed form God's plan was a monster or was monstrous.

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When the idea of an accidental, mechanical universe replaced the concept of a divinely created and planned universe, only nature existed (or, if God were to be granted existence, He was seen, first, as indifferent to the universe, as the Deists viewed him, or as irrelevant.) Offenses became unnatural actions, behavior which was not grounded in nature. Anything that “went against nature” was a monster or monstrous. Indeed, a naturalistic understanding of the universe is seen in the change in viewing monsters and the monstrous that is indicated in the etymology, or history, of the word “monster,” which, according to the Online Etymology Dictionary, originally referred to a “"divine omen (especially one indicating misfortune), portent, sign” and, only about the fourteenth century became understood as meaning “malformed animal or human, creature afflicted with a birth defect.”

 Source: Public domain

Although some continue to believe that God exists, that He created the world and human beings, the latter in his own “image and likeness,” according to a plan and that the universe is consequently not only orderly, but purposeful, teleological, and meaningful, many others believe that God either does not exist or, if He does, His existence is inconsequential and that human beings must chart their own courses. In the former conception of the universe, wrongdoing is evil, and it is evil because it involves intentional disobedience to God's will; in the latter conception of the universe, wrongdoing is immoral because it is counter to that which is natural. In the former universe, the monstrous takes the form of demons and unrepentant sinners. In the latter universe, evil takes the form of “freaks” of nature, such as maladapted mutants, victims of birth defects, or the psychologically defective: grotesques, cripples, and cannibals.

Alternatively, in a naturalistic universe, monsters may be social misfits. Not only serial killers, sadists, and psychopaths, but also any group that is unconventional, or “other,” or is vilified or ostracized by the dominant social group (e. g., a community or a nation), examples of whom, historically, include homosexuals, Romani people, “savage” “Indians,” current or former martial enemies, cult members, and so forth.

 

Source: Public domain

Our line of inquiry leads, at last, a question and a conclusion. First, what happens when we run out of monsters? As our ideas of the monstrous change, monsters lose their monstrosity: homosexuals, Romani people, Native Americans, the nations that joined together as World War II's Axis powers, members of religious organizations once condemned as “cults” and “sects” have, today, become acceptable. Their members are no longer monsters. As the pool of candidates for monstrosity shrinks, what shall become of the very idea of monstrosity itself? Who will become the monsters of the future, when all the monsters of the present and the past are no longer considered monstrous?

 

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 The answer to this question, it seems, is that we shall be left with the few actions that are universally condemned, that are unacceptable in all lands, everywhere. We might list among such behaviors incest, rape, premeditated murder that is unsanctioned by the state (that is not, in effect, condoned as a necessary wartime activity), child abuse, and, perhaps, cannibalism, which leaves, as monsters, the incestuous lover, the rapist, the murderer, the child abuser, and the cannibal. These could be the only monsters that remain in the future.

Source: Public domain

But they won't be. Here's why: horror is a type of fantasy fiction. As such, it includes characters, actions, places, causes, motives, and purposes that are unacceptable in more realistic fiction or drama. There is room for demons and witches, alongside werewolves and vampires, as well as the monsters embodying truly universally condemned behaviors and the people (or characters) who perform them. For this reason, horror fiction will never be without the monsters of old, even if, metaphysically, epistemologically, scientifically, and otherwise, they have long ago worn out their welcome. Fantasy has had, has, and always will have a home for them.

Meanwhile, however, the history of horror fiction has provided a way to identify threats that, rightly or wrongly, dominant societies have considered dangerous to their welfare or survival, and these threats, once they are seen as no longer threatening, have likewise shown what perceived menaces, in the final analysis, are not dangerous to social welfare, just as they identify the true menaces, the true monsters, that are condemned not just her or there for a time, but everywhere, at all times.

Monsters and the Monster Makers Who Make Them

Copyright 2020 by Gary L. Pullman

Transformation is the changing of a person, place, or thing from one state into another. (In this post, we're limiting our consideration of transformation and its effects to concrete entities, although, of course, abstractions, such as ideas, moral principles, emotions, attitudes, values, and beliefs can and are often also transformed.) Such transformations, as might be expected, often, in turn, produce sometimes dramatic effects.

Some transformations, such as that of a caterpillar into a butterfly or a fetus into an infant) are natural. Others are induced. In times past, magic was the means by which transformations were evoked; today, science is likely to be the means of effecting such changes.

 For example, according to Ovid's account of the myth concerning Hermaphroditus, the god Hermes, in answer to the prayer of the nymph Salmacis, transformed the fifteen-year-old youth Hermaphroditus and his admirer, Salmacis herself, into a single person who possessed the adolescent's male sex and the nymph's female sex.

Today, such a “metamorphosis” would, of course, result from hormone therapy and surgery, and its cause wouldn't be a nymph's desire to be united forever with the object of her love (or passion), but gender dysphoria (at least as the cause of the condition is presently understood).

In some instances, sexual transformations are central to horror films. In such movies, a transvestite or a transgender person is frequently the villain, and he or she (usually she) is not typically portrayed with compassion or sensitivity. Psycho, Sleepaway Camp, and Insidious: Chapter 2 are some of the better-known horror movies that feature transvestite or transgender “monsters.”

But transformations need not be sexual. They can involve genetic mutation (a male scientist becomes a fly in The Fly), age and physical appearance (the succubus in The Shining changes from a beautiful young woman into an old crone), animality (men and women transform into werewolves in The Howling), insectoid (Debbie changes into a cockroach in A Nightmare on Elm Street 4), multiple personalities (Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde), and many other types of change.

Ovid himself suggests various types of transformations in his Metamorphoses. Such changes include changes of inanimate objects into human beings; men and women into divinities or other supernatural beings; a youth into a hermaphrodite; a woman into a man; men and women into animals, birds, stones, flowers, and a cloud; and a supernatural being into a plant.

 

Some of the metamorphoses of which Ovid writes were likely intended as rewards: Galatea's transformation from a statue into a woman; a fisherman's transformation into a sea god; Chiron's transformation into a celestial constellation. Other metamorphoses, however, were probably meant to be punishments of hubris or some other offense, as were those in which human beings were turned into stone. In some cases, as that of Syrinx, the metamorphosis was for protection. Regardless of the reason for such extreme changes, however, it seems such transformations would not be entirely devoid of horror.

In horror fiction, such changes are always extreme and, well, horrifying. They are horrifying for several reasons. They are

• beyond control, making those who are transformed helpless;
• usually for the worse—something more valuable—or, at least, more valued—is lost than that which is gained: humanity, youth and beauty, oneself;
• either irreversible or recurrent (that which is lost, in other words, is irretrievably lost or can be regained only for a time and is constantly under threat);
• sudden, often without warning, and do not, therefore, allow their victims time to reflect upon their fate or to “adjust” to a change that will have monumental and lasting effects on them throughout their lives as well as those who love—or even simply know—them;
• likely to alter the victim's self-image, self-confidence, and self-esteem;
• apt to endanger the victim, subjecting him or her to scorn, ostracism, incarceration, physical or sexual assault, or even murder.

Imagine that you are an adolescent boy who is suddenly neither a boy nor a girl and, paradoxically, both; that you are a beautiful young woman transformed into an old crone; that you are a man become a fly, a wolf, or a cockroach; or that you now have two personalities. Imagine that this astonishing change occurred instantly, only a moment ago, without warning or anticipation. You are yourself, but you are also, most assuredly, not yourself. You are a freak, a monster, who will be treated as such by others, feared and shunned, hunted and stalked.

That is the true nature of the monster who becomes monstrous through metamorphosis, whether the change is effected through magic or technology. A successful horror story that derives its horror from the existential transformation of a character succeeds when it shows that the true horror of this situation is not in the change itself but in the effects of the metamorphosis—and then portrays those effects so well that the audience or the reader, vicariously experiencing them, feels the “monster's” pain, suffers with the monster, and, in effect, becomes the monster, helpless, overwhelmed, the worse for wear, irretrievably altered, suffering losses of confidence and self-esteem; scorned, ostracized, incarcerated, physically or sexually assaulted, or even murdered.

The monster is redeemed, if redeemed at all, by the knowledge that those who make monsters are more monstrous than the monsters they make.

NOTE: The author does not mean to imply that transgender individuals are "monsters." He is alluding to Hermaphroditus, as this mythical figure's metamorphosis is described in Ovid's poem, and to the concepts of the ancients regarding conditions that are now explained and understood scientifically. Transgender individuals are certainly not monsters or in any sense monstrous.

The Etymology of Horror

Copyright 2019 by Gary L. Pullman

The Online Etymology Dictionary is not only interesting in itself, but it is also a reminder of the beliefs, attitudes, and, yes, fears (among other influences) that inspire words associated with language and, in the case of the topic for this post, horror.

 

“Troll,” for example, originally alluded to a “supernatural being in Scandinavian mythology and folklore and derived from the Old Norse troll, referring to a “giant being not of the human race, evil spirit, monster.” Its first recorded use, the Online Etymology Dictionary states, was in a court document concerning a case associated with witchcraft and sorcery. Allegedly, “a certain [witch named] Catherine” witnessed trolls rise from a churchyard in Hildiswick.” First conceived as giants, they were later believed to be “dwarfs and imps supposed to live in caves or under the ground.” Moreover, these formerly fierce beings became “obliging and neighbourly; freely lending and borrowing, and elsewise keeping up a friendly intercourse with mankind,” their thieving ways notwithstanding.

The dictionary's entry concerning the werewolf indicates that belief in these creatures, as people “'with the power to turn into a wolf' . . . . was widespread in the Middle Ages.” Apparently, it was also widely believed in Persia, where present-day Iran's ancestors named the October Varkazana, or the month of the “Wolf-Men.” 

Teratology, once the study of monsters, is now the study of physical abnormalities, such as those resulting from birth defects and “reproductive and developmentally-mediated disorders.” Its previous subject matter provides some interesting and, indeed, surprising insights into the origin of the concept of the monster as a horrific figure. Originally, a monster was an omen, sent by God to warn humanity (or a nation) of his displeasure; if the people didn't repent of their wickedness, God would follow his warning with punishment. Thus, for example, a pair of conjoined twins or a hermaphrodite would be taken as an admonitory message to be ignored at a people's own peril. As the Online Etymology Dictionary entry for this term reads, in part, “monster” derives from “Latin monstrum,” referring to a 'divine omen (especially one indicating misfortune), portent, sign; abnormal shape; monster, monstrosity,' [and means a] figuratively 'repulsive character, object of dread, awful deed, [or] abomination.'” Writers and readers of contemporary horror fiction might do well to keep this history of the word's meaning in mind the next time they take up a copy of Frankenstein or The Island of Dr. Moreau. Couldn't the scientists' monsters have been warnings sent by God, through the labors of Frankenstein and Dr. Moreau?

The lamia first seems to have been envisioned as a mermaid-vampire hybrid, but was later envisioned as a half-woman, half-serpent vampiric creature. Interestingly, the transformation of the lamia from mermaid to serpent-woman might have been suggested by the word lamia's association with “swallowing,” just as her erotic charm might have been suggested by the word's original link to lechery and her sorcery to the term's original connection to sorcery: “female demon, late 14c., from Latin lamia [meaning] 'witch, sorceress, vampire,' from Greek lamia [meaning] 'female vampire, man-eating monster,' literally 'swallower, lecher,' from laimos 'throat, gullet.'” The snake-like form of the lamia might have been based upon the idea that she was something of a personified gullet, since a snake has such a form.

Alluring, the lamia enthralled men with her charms (and, perhaps, with a bit of witchery, but, when her beauty and magic were no longer strong enough an attraction, she would kill and devour him, as the following passage suggests:

Also kynde erreþ in som beestes wondirliche j-schape, as it fareþ in a beest þat hatte lamia, þat haþ an heed as a mayde & body as a grym fissche[;] whan þat best lamya may fynde ony man, first a flatereþ wiþ hym with a wommannes face and makeþ hym ligge by here while he may dure, & whanne he may noferþere suffice to here lecherye þanne he rendeþ hym and sleþ and eteþ hym. [Bartholomew Glanville, c. 1360, "De proprietatibus rerum," translated by John of Trevisa]

Translation: An error among some kinds of animals sometimes results in a wondrous shape, such as that of the lamia, which has a woman's head and the body of a horrible fish. When a lamia finds a man, it flatters him with its beauty and makes him linger beside her until her charms no longer enthrall him, whereupon she slays and eats him. [Bartholomew Glanville, c. 1360, the Property of Things, translated by John of Trevisa]

Many other words associated with horror fiction also have interesting origins and histories, some of which could suggest new takes on old topics or altogether new approaches to such fiction.

Monsters in Our Midst

Copyright 2018 by Gary L. Pullman

In horror fiction, monsters originate from only a handful of sources:

• Natural
  • Physiological (e. g., mutation or birth defect)
  • Natural catastrophe
  • Human
    • Psychological
    • Social
    • Scientific/Technological
• Supernatural
  • Angelic/Demonic
  • Divine

Within this framework, the specific contents of these categories change, sometimes vanishing (at least for a time) or being replaced by newer understandings of the concept of the monstrous.

For example, among the ancients, hermaphrodites were considered omens from God. Signs of his displeasure, humans with both male and female sex organs were viewed as warnings form God. Their existence bespoke His wrath and the punishment that He would soon visit upon his sinful people.

Today, hermaphrodism is understood as an effect of male hormones, an adrenal glans disorder, or aromatase deficiency. In other words, the condition results from natural, not supernatural, causes. In male-to-female or female-to-male transgender transgender cases, the cause of gender dysphoria is corrected through hormone therapy, gender-confirmation surgery, and other surgical or medical procedures. Its cause is psychological; its remedy is medical and surgical.

With the change in the understanding of the causes of hermaphroditism and transgender conditions, intersex individuals are seldom cast as “monsters” in contemporary horror fiction, and, when they are cast as such, as in Sleepaway Camp (1983), critics, like much of the general public, movie-going and otherwise, are offended by such representations.

Likewise, zombies, as they are depicted today, more often result from radiation, mental disorders, pathogens, or accidents during scientific experiments than from voodoo or magic. These fundamental changes, both in the way we view the world and the basis of epistemology, have led to changes in the nature and origin of the zombie.

In short, the category of horror “monster,” which once included hermaphrodites as omens of God's displeasure and imminent wrath, are now more frequently seen as having experienced a hormonal or glandular problem or as having experienced gender dysphoria. Their conditions are caused by physiological or psychological, not supernatural or divine, agencies. Zombies, likewise, have been given a natural, rather than a supernatural, origin.

Frequently, horror movie monsters are seen as representing metaphors for political, social, or cultural events typical of particular time periods:

Godzilla (1954) has been seen as representing the nuclear bombs that the United States dropped on Nagasaki and Hiroshima, Japan, in 1945.

Them! (1954) ends with a caution about the dangers of “the Atomic Age,” as myrmecologist Dr. Harold Medford warns, “When Man entered the Atomic Age, he opened the door to a new world. What we may eventually find in that new world, nobody can predict.”

The 1966 science fiction-horror movie Invasion of the Body Snatchers, in which people were replaced with alien look-alikes, has been regarded as an allegory for both McCarthyism and communism.

Some critics regard The Fly (1986) as a metaphor for AIDS, although director David Cronenberg said he intended the horror movie to be a metaphor for “aging and death.”

Although no horror movie seems to sum up more recent decades, a film in which political figures instigate armies of ordinary citizens to go to war against one another might be just the type of film to symbolize the current state of affairs in the United States, wherein Antifa and Democratic protesters, encouraged and emboldened by otherworldly or demonic, hypnotic versions of Senator Maxine Waters, who exalts the public confrontation of individuals who disagree with her party, and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who claims civility is impossible between Democrats and those who oppose them, attack their opponents in the street, confront political appointees during meals in public restaurants, disrupt Senate hearings, and attack the Supreme Court Building, eventually precipitating a war that endangers the entire country. Such an allegorical film, called, perhaps, Demonic Uprising would certainly capture the spirit of our age.

Explanations for Evil, Part II

copyright 2008 by Gary L. Pullman

In the previous post, we saw how the explanation for the evil that is at the root of the bizarre incidents of the typical horror plot is an essential part of such a story line. However, although there are a variety of possible and potential sources of evil from which to choose (ignorance, indifference, inhumanity, sin, madness, and others), these sources are not inexhaustible, and, eventually, vary them as he or she may, the horror writer is going to run out of new (that is, not used previously by him or her in his or her fiction) types fairly soon. Therefore, the horror writer needs a few more tricks up his or her sleeve to assist in the maintenance of suspense and reader interest. Since, by nature, the explanation depends upon knowledge, the writer will not only provide information in dibs and dabs, piecemeal, as it were, on an as-needed basis, but he or she will also enhance the delivery of these bits and pieces of exposition by adopting one or more techniques, some of which we have compiled here:

Introduce a red herring. In other words, suggest a cause for the events that is, although plausible and potentially explanatory, turns out to be false or erroneous. Dean Koontz is a master of this approach. For example, in Phantoms, he suggests (through the thoughts and declarations of one of his characters) that the cause of the disappearances, deaths, and dismemberments of a small town's residents are the effects (perhaps) of a secret biological or chemical warfare agent. In fact, the cause turns out to be an ancient, egocentric creature who periodically feeds upon humans and whose physical structure is based upon petrolatum, enabling the survivors of his attacks to destroy him with oil-eating bacteria (no, we're not making this up). There really are such bacteria, of course. Some were used to clean up oil spills. However, the likelihood of a petrolatum-based organism seems spurious to say the least. Nevertheless, if the story is horrific and suspenseful enough, the readers will overlook the ultimate explanation as long as there is one and it could, however unlikely, be a dim possibility (even if the alternate, red herring theory makes more sense from a scientific point of view). What appears to be a guardian angel in Lightning turns out to be a time traveler from Nazi Germany. Are the bizarre incidents in Midnight the work of aliens? No, politicians and scientists have cooperated in creating a computer system to "convert" citizens to their way of thinking. What appears to be the results of fugue states and amnesia in The Bad Place are actually the effects of genetic mutations that resulted from hermaphroditic self-fertilization. Incest can have negative effects, apparently, even when its practice is limited strictly to oneself. Likewise, murderous fugue states are not responsible for the mayhem in Mr. Murder, as it turns out; the death and d estruction is the result of the actions of a genetically engineered clone. the supposed SWAT team in Dark Rivers of the Heart turns out to be a clandestine paramilitary group. The use of the red herring explanation suggests that nothing is as it appears to be--or shouldn't be, at le

Complicate the search for answers. As the characters seek to make sense of their experiences--that is, of the odd incidents happening to and around them--they happen upon a situation even more bizarre, complicated, and seemingly impossible.

Make the answer man part of the problem. The character from whom the others learn the explanation (herein after called "the answer man," even if he's a she rather than a he) may be part of the problem or, worse yet, he may be the problem.

Use the jigsaw approach. The explanation may depend upon each member of a group of characters contributing some knowledge of the total answer. This jigsaw puzzle approach allows further complications of the plot's conflict. First, somehow, the individual members of the group must rendezvous (and there may be some or many who want to prevent one or more--or all--of them from doing so); one or more may actually be eliminated before he or she or they can add his or her or their missing piece or pieces of the puzzle to complete the big picture (that is, the explanation as to the cause of the strange incidents or bizarre situations); or one or more of the answer men may decide to provide false information or may report erroneous information without any conscious intent to deceive.

Give the answer man an alternative motive. The answer man may have an ulterior motive--a reason not to explain the cause or to explain it falsely (that is, explain it away).

Use the missing-in-action (MIA) appraoch. Someone may know the secret--may even have known it from the get-go--but the answer man may be missing and have to be tracked down or incarcerated and have to be sprung. Alternatively, he might have passed the answer on to someone else, before being killed, so, now, this surrogate answer man must be found.

Let repentance be the key. An answer man, possibly working for the enemy, may refuse to divulge the answer until, repenting (for some believable reason), he repents, confessing everything.

Use the repressed memories approach. The answer man may have repressed his memories of the cause of the extraordinary incidents or astonishing situations and, although the information returns, in bits and pieces, it may nort always be reliable and accurate; he may have a few false memories (red herrings) among the "facts" he recalls, whether on his own or as a result of hypnosis.

The Feminization of Horror: The Horror! The Horror!

copyright 2008 by Gary L. Pullman

Traditionally, the monsters of horror stories have had masculine character traits--or, at least, more masculine than feminine characteristics. The monster was aggressive, dominant, forceful, strong, self-reliant, tough, daring, competitive, and, in its own way, athletic and courageous. Today’s monsters, however, following the contemporary trend in which males seem, more and more, to be undergoing feminization, are also adopting more and more of the traits that have been associated, traditionally, with women.

Often, before killing its prey, the predatory monster will stalk it. Whether the intended victim is male or (as is more commonly the case) female, the audience (or reader) will identify with the human, over the monster. Therefore, since the victim is seen through the eyes of the monster-as-stalker, the audience, despite the gender of the individual moviegoer or reader, will identify with the victim, seeing him- or herself in this role. Whether the victim has traditional feminine traits per se, he or she will be defined in opposition to the monster’s hyper-masculinity and will be seen as weak, vulnerable, defenseless, helpless, imperiled. In short, the victim, regardless of his or her gender, will be a damsel, as it were, in distress.

Not only does the feminization of the victim, regardless of his or her gender, result from the threat of the hyper-masculine monster, but the larger community is characterized as feminine as well in many contemporary horror stories. The lone hero of Beowulf seldom makes an appearance to take on the monster in single combat. Instead, the monster is defeated by committee. To paraphrase Hillary Clinton, it takes a community to kill a monster. Traditionally, the characteristics that make community cooperation--like cooperation itself--possible are labeled feminine: unselfishness; sympathy; the affinity for establishing and maintaining interpersonal, familial, and communal relationships; yielding to others; helpfulness; loyalty; reliability; and sensitivity. Even such traditionally feminine qualities as secretiveness and understanding can help in the community’s cooperative effort to protect its members and to destroy the monster.


Although the monster itself retains many of the characteristics that, traditionally, are counted as masculine, it has also begun to be characterized, in some ways, as being feminine. In other words, it becomes a bestial sort of phallic woman. As such, it is often the antagonist of an equally hyper-masculinized phallic woman protagonist. Traditionally, the male body is considered to be normative. The female body has been labeled as not only derivative (Eve, after all is created from a rib taken from Adam), but also deviant: it is a deviation from the norm of the masculine physique. Possibly for this reason, some of the deviance of femininity is associated with the monster, as in Dracula’s ruby lips, the menstrual-like lunar cycles characteristic of the werewolf, and the wearing of feminine clothing by Norman Bates and even of female body parts and skin by The Silence of the Lambs’ Buffalo Bill. Moreover, the monster is often a disguised phallic woman in the sense that it is intent upon emasculating the male characters, by forcing male audience members to adopt the feminine role of exhibitionistic victim rather than the male role of voyeuristic stalker and by, sometimes literally, castrating them (that is, by dismembering them). When, instead of a community's cooperating to kill the monster, it is a woman, such as Lieutenant Ripley, in Alien and its sequels, Xena the Warrior Princess, or Buffy the Vampire Slayer, who takes upon herself such a duty, the feminization of the male is complete, for not only are the male members of the audience forced to adopt a feminine role and a feminine point of view as potential victims of a hyper-masculine monster, but their rescuer is female, rather than male, inverting the traditional polarities of the masculine-feminine continuum by positing phallic women as the protectors and rescuers of feminized males.


In horror fiction, women have been the traditional victims of the hyper-masculine monster. Some remain such. More and more often, however, their ranks are increased by male characters. While female characters, by definition as well as by reference to the traditional traits of femininity, are female, males as victims are not. Their being cast, as it were, into this role, therefore, constitutes a feminization of them and not merely a role reversal. They retain the male physique, but psychologically they are transformed. They become, as it were, women trapped in men’s bodies, or psychological hermaphrodites, or transsexuals.


By feminizing both male audience members-as-victims, their larger communities, and the monster itself (as well as, occasionally, the slayer of the monster), contemporary horror movies are part of the ongoing feminization of American (and, indeed, international) culture. Although some may find such a metamorphosis to be desirable, many others find it--in a word--horrific. It seems that all is grist for the mill, after all. Hence, the feminization of the contemporary male is another of the many themes and topics that writers of horror have adopted recently, as such television series as Xena, Warrior Princess and Buffy the Vampire Slayer and such movies as Psycho, Dressed To Kill, Alien and its sequels, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Next Generation (starring none other than Renee Zellweger!), The Silence of the Lambs, Species, Sleepaway Camp, The Descent, and others suggest.