=Paper=
{{Paper
|id=Vol-2811/Paper07
|storemode=property
|title=UNIVERSAL MONSTERS - The Early Posthuman Cultural Icons
|pdfUrl=https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-2811/Paper07.pdf
|volume=Vol-2811
|authors=Penny Papageorgopoulou,Dimitris Charitos
}}
==UNIVERSAL MONSTERS - The Early Posthuman Cultural Icons==
https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-2811/Paper07.pdf
UNIVERSAL MONSTERS
THE EARLY POSTHUMAN CULTURAL ICONS
Penny Papageorgopoulou1 & Dimitris Charitos2
1PhD Candidate, Department of Communication and Media Studies, National and Kapodistrian
University of Athens, e-mail:penny_papageorgopoulou@yahoo.com
2Associate Professor, Department of Communication and Media Studies, National and
Kapodistrian University of Athens,e-mail: dvrchitect@gmail.com
Abstract
In the early decades of cinema, spanning from the 1920s until the late 1950s, Universal
Studios became the home of monsters, releasing numerous original films, as well as
sequels and spin-offs featuring monster characters, including Dracula, Frankenstein,
The Mummy, The Invisible Man, Bride of Frankenstein, The Wolf Man and Creature
from the Black Lagoon. These films set the standards for a new horror genre that soon
became a blockbuster and turn the different, the uncanny, the monstrous into the favourite
characters of the audience. In this paper, we explore the Universal Monsters as the early
cinematic depictions of the posthuman; “hybrid figures that blur the boundaries among
humans, animals and machines”, creatures of “partial identities and contradictory
standpoints”. More specifically, we explore in which way, each of the Monsters acts as
an iconic figure of the post-anthropocentric model and defines the cultural impact of
these “organic monsters” on comprehending the paradox of difference, synthesizing
both “taboo and desire” of the posthuman future.
Keywords: posthumanism, Universal Monsters, Universal Studios, film, cinema
Introduction
monster, n., adv., and adj.
A mythical creature which is part animal and part human, or combines elements of two
or more animal forms, and is frequently of great size and ferocious appearance. Later,
more generally: any imaginary creature that is large, ugly, and frightening (Oxford
English Dictionary).
In medieval times, the hybrid figure bearing diverse biological, botanical and racial
features, without fully assimilating them was highly correlated with monstrosity;
“monstrum” bore two meanings: “that which warns” (monere) and “that which reveals”
(demonstrare) (Young, 2006). However, the word “monster”, according to Haraway
(1991), “shares more than its root with the word, to demonstrate. Monsters signify”.
Monsters are boundary creatures; symians, cyborgs and women, acting as a destabilizing
force to the great Western narratives (Haraway, 1991).
Every monster human imagination created and depicted within tales, myths and
Copyright © 2018 for this paper by its authors. Use permitted under Creative
Commons License Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) DCAC 2018.
Digital Culture & Audiovisual Challenges: Interdisciplinary Creativity In Arts And Technology
legends represents the menace and insecurity threatening individuals’ identities;
according to Foucault, as the history of knowledge changes, so does the form of the
monsters, who are always “on the prowl”, ghosting society’s norms related to
identification (Kearney, 2005). Supernatural entities and monsters, real or imaginary
allies and enemies, all inhabiting at the lands of the dead and the unknown; they do
belong to the “others”, a fusion of myth, history, biology and imagination. These
“others”, different and distant to social norms, are used as a boundary to define licit
social characteristics and individual identities (Hiller, 2006).
Therefore, monsters represent the opportunities of the posthuman future, shifting
the anthropocentric, humanist perception of the classical ideal man, perfectly depicted
at Da Vinci’s Vitruvian Man, towards the forge of non-unitary identities and multiple
allegiances between human and the “others”: anthropomorphic, zoo-morphic, organic
and earth others (Braidotti, 2013b). For this reason, monsters are not to be considered
as harbingers of cultural decadence, rather as “the unfolding of virtual possibilities that
point to positive alternativities for us all” (Braidotti, 2000).
In horror, thriller and sci-fi films, the portrayal of monsters has got them “stuck in
an ambivalent spectacle of fascination and horror, norm and deviance” (Volkart, 1997).
Braidotti argues that since “the genre of science fiction horror movies is based on the
disturbance of cultural norms, it is then ideally placed to represent states of crisis and
change and to express the widespread anxiety of our times. As such this genre is as
unstoppable as the transformations it mirrors” (Braidotti, 2013a).
In this paper we explore the Universal Monsters, as the cultural depiction of the
transcendental fusion of species, the “hopeful monsters”; the things born “before their
time”, unbeknownst to the world if it is ready for them” (Mosley, 1990). Universal
Monsters, crossing the boundaries of monstrosity, illustrated what Freud called the
culture’s “unease” towards the embodiment of projected difference. They were the early
posthuman icons, embodying the human “historical, identitarian and technological
anxieties” (Herbrechter, 2013).
Universal’s Monsters
Since the mid-twenties, until the late fifties, Universal’s creative minds, based often on
popular novels, had given life to its iconic monsters, including hybrids of humans and
animals (The Wolf Man, Creature from the Blue Lagoon, Captive Wild Woman), hybrids of
humans and machines (Frankenstein, Bride of Frankenstein), disembodied entities (The
Invisible Man), as well as a number of mythical creatures (Count Dracula, The Mummy,
Phantom of the Opera, The Hunchback of Notre Damme). Although Universal had already
released six films featuring monsters during 1920s, it was in 1931 that Carl Laemmle Jr.,
Universal Studios founder’s son, an avid reader of classic literature, took the initiative to
bring to life Dracula and Frankenstein in two films that became overnight success and
defined the legacy of Universal to the shaping of horror cinema. Since then, Universal
Studios became the home of monsters, releasing numerous original films, sequels and
spin-offs, setting the standards for a new horror genre that soon became a blockbuster and
turn the different, the uncanny, the monstrous into the favourite characters of the audience.
Universal Monsters gave the early cinematic glimpses of the post-anthropocentric
Digital Culture & Audiovisual Challenges: Interdisciplinary Creativity In Arts And Technology
model, aligning to the three-phase process described by Braidotti, in order to keep zoe,
the “dynamic, self- organizing structure of life itself” at the centre, by eliminating the
core role of anthropos (Braidotti, 2013b) in the cultural and societal and ecological
structures. More specifically, we explore in which way, the Monsters act as iconic
figures of the “becoming-animal, becoming-earth and becoming- machine” processes
(Braidotti, 2013b) and define the cultural impact of these “organic monsters” being
neither total strangers nor a completely familiars (Braidotti, 1999), “awful and aweful”
at the same time, on comprehending the paradox of difference, synthesizing both “taboo
and desire” of the posthuman future (Graham, 2002).
becoming-animal
According to Braidotti, the “dialectics of otherness” has for long perpetuated human
exceptionalism patterns of power and rule both onto “anthropomorphic others” and non
human species. By eliminating the idea of anthropocentricism, the emergence of
sympoietic and symbiotic practices fostered between human and non human species are
allowed and reinforced, displacing humans from the hierarchical position they have
assumed among other species. (Braidotti, 2013b). In the same manner, Haraway highlights
the potential collaborative practices between species, which mark the beginning of a
new epoch, namely Cthulucene, and the companion species; different species mutually
affecting each other, coexisting and cofunctioning in ecologies devoid of known spatial
and temporal limits (Haraway, 2016). The term companion species is primarily used to
describe the emergence of animals as “part of a very particular historical relationship”
with humans as well as the developing coevolutionary relationships between these post-
cyborg entities, other species and technologies. In the material-semiotic paradigm, the
inhabitants of Cthulucene are products of sympoiesis, without proper genealogy, devoid
of genre, gender and any other conventional characteristics of human exceptionalism.
Braidotti (2013b) suggests, that in order to eliminate species-ism, it is crucial to re-
evaluate the bodies of species in the course of human – animal interaction; though such
representations entail imagining them as creatures of mixed characteristics and hybrid
formations. In 1935, Universal Studios released Werewolf of London, the first moving
picture focusing fully on the werewolf legend; the hybrid of animal and man and one of
the earliest cinematic depictions of the becoming- animal process. The film was directed
by Stuart Walker, and starring Henry Hull as Dr. Wilfred Glendon, a botanist turns into
the titular werewolf; the film exhibits several transformation scenes, offering innovative
depictions of the “human–animal continuum”. Lycanthropy is narrated as an infectious
condition between the species, marking a distinction between folklore and the cinematic
monster. Moreover, contrary to the werewolf tales, where a man transmutes completely
into a wolf, Dr. Glendon turns into a hybrid creature, bearing the features of both species
and retaining the intelligence of the human.
Although the Werewolf of London established the cinematic lycanthropian mythos,
it remains to this day in the shadow of the Wolf Man, the second film of Universal
dealing with the werewolf legend. The Wolf Man was released six years later, becoming
Lon Chaney’s Jr. signature role, one that he would reprise four more times in respective
sequels (Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man (1943), House of Frankenstein (1944), House
Digital Culture & Audiovisual Challenges: Interdisciplinary Creativity In Arts And Technology
of Dracula (1945), Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein (1948)). The film, written
by Curt Siodmak, produced and directed by George Waggner, was a milestone
to the genre and influenced all subsequent cinematic depictions of the
lycanthrope, turning the Gothic Monster into a familiar, likeable creature,
breeding sympathy to the audience for the uncanny, the threatening forces of
normality.
The werewolf mythos manifested in one more Universal film, She-Wolf of London,
released in 1946, though without the introduction of another monster. However, two
iconic monsters, fusion of animal and man, celebrated the transpecies solidarity in six
more Universal films; Gill-Man (the Creature) and Ape Woman. Gill-Man, the main
character featured in Creature from the Black Lagoon, directed by Jack Arnold in 1954,
and two sequels, namely Revenge of the Creature (1955) and The Creature Walks
Among Us (1956), part-human and part-fish, powerful yet emotional, amphibious and
photophobic, represented the evolutionary link between human and sea animals dating
back to the Devonian period. Creature from the Black Lagoon, considered to be a crown
achievement of Universal Studios, was one of one the first 3D stereoscopic films, and
remains among the most memorable horror films of all time, introducing one audience’s
favourite monsters.
Similarly, Paula, the Ape Woman, one of the few female Universal Monsters,
depicted either as zoomorphic or as anthropomorphic other (dark skinned female) was
introduced in Captive Wild Woman (1943) and returned in two sequels, Jungle Woman
(1944) and The Jungle Captive (1945). The monsters, as well as the non-human others,
eg. the animals in the Captive Wild Woman film were often portrayed as being subject
to human exceptionalism, highlighting the prevailing morals and aesthetics of Western
society, marginalizing the abnormal, the deviant, the monster, the beast, which is
perceived as unfit to the paradigm of the Vitruvian Man. Monsters culturally represented
the imminent undermining force towards the grand Western narratives, paving the way
for the ideas of post-anthropocentric model.
becoming-earth
In Braidotti’s becoming-earth concept, the parameters of environmental and ecological
sustainability are highlighted, in a larger scale than the becoming-animal process; the
relationship between human species and nature needs to be redefined and reassessed,
since earth is the common ground upon which human, non human species and technology
display the symbiotic relationship of mutualism. The profound impact of humankind on
Earth has resulted in significant climate changes, disruption of ecosystems, extinction of
species, as well as overexploitation of natural resources amongst others. Anthropocene,
having been proposed as a formal subdivision of geological time scale, has emerged as
a trending concept across different disciplines, including science, art, literature and
philosophy, in order to describe the epoch, wherein collective human activity has
strongly influenced the planet. Becoming-earth emerges therefore as a crucial process in
shaping the posthuman subject, which encompasses the human, the animal and the earth
as a whole (Braidotti, 2013b). Even though Anthropocene mirrors the contemporary
zeitgeist, Haraway already challenges the term, stripping it from its epoch aspect, rather
Digital Culture & Audiovisual Challenges: Interdisciplinary Creativity In Arts And Technology
viewing it as a “boundary event” due to the discontinuities it signifies; Antropocene, she
suggests, should be rapidly overcome (Haraway, 2016). Becoming-earth introduces the
ways of surpassing Anthropocene times, focusing on two main themes: the development
of a sustainable, self-organizing materiality and the expansion of subjectivity of post-
anthropocentric relations towards non human entities, denying man his exclusive
prerogative. And although human species take pride in harnessing other species and
taming nature, monsters signify the shifting subjectivity; the “abnormalities” man has
failed to understand, the forces that strike with no prior warning or no physical
continuity, being depicted as zoomorphic, hybrid or embodied versions of natural
phenomena and disasters.
These monsters constitute the cultural portrayal of the becoming-earth axis and
Universal Studios has pioneered in capturing them in film many decades ago. Gill-Man,
the Ape Woman, the giant spider of Tarantula (1955), the deadly snakes of the Cult of
the Cobra (1955), the praying mantis of The Deadly Mantis (1957), the caveman of
Monster on the Campus (1958) and the black meteorite fragments of The Monolith
Monsters (1957) belong amongst the earliest cinematic posthuman icons, questing the
anthropocentric hierarchical relations, representing the nature–culture continuum and
ghosting the margins between manmade world and nature. In Curucu, Beast of the
Amazon, directed and written by Curt Siodmak and released in 1956, Tom Payne
impersonating the birdlike monster, is protecting nature and the aboriginal people from
the western civilization ways and abuse, in an attempt to reverse the role of humans
from geological agents to biological ones, shifting audience’s view to the zoe-centered
perspective.
becoming-machine
The becoming-machine axis refers to the “biotechnologically mediated relations”
developing as the foundation of the posthuman subject, implying intimate relationships
between humans and machines, getting involved in mutual modification practices
(Braidotti, 2013b). The posthumanist environment becomes technologically mediated,
conditioning the relationships between humans, non human others and nature. The
role of the machine is not deterministic, rather enabling the transformation and
becoming (Braidotti, 2013b), as cyborgs become equally important to humans in the
social, economic and political aspects. Cyborgs and organic creatures are inextricably
intertwined; attacking one component of this alliance would lead to the destruction of
the other as well (Haraway, 2008). This transpecies interdependence requires the
comprehension of the emerging ethics that permeate the consolidated posthuman
ecology or “eco-sophy” in Braidotti’s terminology.
One of the cyborgian monsters that shaped western culture has undeniably been
Victor Frankenstein’s sapient creation in Mary Shelley’s novel, Frankenstein; or, The
Modern Prometheus, published in 1818. The Creature, epitomizing all the fears and
hopes of emerging technologies blurs the boundaries between man and machine, human
and non human, birth and creation, death and life, natural and artificial, inhabiting the
reader’s imagination as a composite monstrosity, bearing hybrid features that challenge
normality (Graham, 2002). The monster, robotic yet of human flesh is, according to
Digital Culture & Audiovisual Challenges: Interdisciplinary Creativity In Arts And Technology
Holmes (2008), “the most articulate person in the whole novel”, while Victor, his human
maker, assumes the role of a modern Prometheus, in his attempt to banish disease and
death from humanity. The emerging relationship between Victor and the Creature, as
well as between the Creature and other humans demands deidentification from the
humanistic morality and rationale, in the vein of Braidotti’s “post-anthropocentric
posthumanism” and the shift towards intricate practices of mutual becoming with the
cyborg. Yet it is the man who fails in the becoming-machine process, marginalizing the
Creature and failing the “praxis”; the grounded shared project he has tried to build with
the cyborg.
Universal Studios offered one of the first cinematic adaptions of Frankenstein, in
1931, with Boris Karloff portraying the Creature in one of the most iconic roles of horror
cinema. Directed by James Whale, and featuring the make-up work of Jack Pierce, who
has also been responsible for the look of the greatest Universal Monsters (including
Dracula, Wolf Man and the Mummy) the film reflected the German expressionistic style
and ruminated on the nature of man’s destructive hierarchical quest. Yet, the Creature’s
yearning for cultivating bonds with the human, as well certain humans’ effort to connect
socially and emotionally with the Creature in an equal relationship (eg. Maria, the
farmer’s young daughter) portray the opportunities of the becoming-machine axis.
Universal made horror movie history by changing the novel’s original ending in order
to allow for sequels, including Bride of Frankenstein (1935), Son of Frankenstein (1939),
The Ghost of Frankenstein (1942), Frankenstein meets the Wolf Man (1943), House of
Frankenstein (1944), House of Dracula (1945) and Abbott and Costello Meet
Frankenstein (1948).
The Bride of Frankenstein, the first sequel of Frankenstein, featuring Elsa
Lancaster both in the role of Mary Shelley and the Monster’s Mate, portrays the female
cyborg both monstrous and beautiful, in one of the most charming depictions of the
monster in cinema. The Monster’s Mate, as the female cyborg exploits the themes of
beauty beyond the fear of deceptiveness, as well as the indistinct borderline of human
and machine within the female body (Halberstam, 1991). Moreover, the film is one of
the first cinematic narratives allowing for queering readings, with main expression the
character of Doctor Pretorius, who does not abide to the social conventions and social
norms about gender and sexuality of the times, in the posthumanist vein.
the inhuman: life beyond death
Art taps into transcendental ideas beyond natural laws, social norms and bound
identities, giving names and bodies to what is feared, hoped and imagined, to monsters,
liminal creatures, sublime entities and transgressive characters. Through art all forms of
organic and inorganic entities, human and non human become interconnected and life’s
infinite possibilities are explored; in this sense art becomes inhuman. Moreover, art is of
posthuman nature, as it crosses the limits of embodiment and quests beyond the limits
of life beyond death (Braidotti, 2013b).
Apart from Frankenstein and its sequels, arguing the very essence of life and death,
Dracula (1931), directed by Tod Browning and starring Bela Lugosi as Count Dracula,
is a monumental film capturing the visions of immortality. Count Dracula, a
Digital Culture & Audiovisual Challenges: Interdisciplinary Creativity In Arts And Technology
shapeshifter of different embodied forms, human and non human, acts as an icon of
modern cinematic culture and becomes merely inhuman, connecting harmoniously with
a fabric of non human others (animals, insects, etc). The film also explores the inhuman
other residing within, when the ego does not “wholly sovereign”, in the Lucy Weston-
Vampire paradigm (Graham, 2002). Universal Studios released four sequels to the
original film, including Dracula’s Daughter (1936), Son of Dracula (1943), House of
Frankenstein (1944), and House of Dracula (1945).
Similarly, the inhuman subject is animated in The Mummy (1932), directed by Karl
Freund and starring Boris Karloff as Ardath Bay, Imhotep and the Mummy. The ancient
Egyptian monster inspires the dreams of immortality, through the powers of the occult,
in an early allegory of modern technology. The Mummy was followed by five sequels:
The Mummy’s Hand (1940), The Mummy’s Tomb (1942), The Mummy’s Ghost (1944),
The Mummy’s Curse (1944) and Abbott and Costello Meet The Mummy (1955). The
theme of life beyond death perpetuates in more Universal Monsters films, including Life
Returns (1935), Night Life of the Gods (1935), Black Friday (1940), The Mad Ghoul
(1943), The Mole People (1956), The Thing that Couldn’t Die (1958), Curse of the
Undead (1959) and The Leech Woman (1960).
Conclusions
Since the release of one of the greatest films of the silent era, Fritz Lang’s Metropolis,
the horror and science fiction genres have introduced the posthuman subjectivities that
surpass human rationale and species, building on a body of relationships between the
human, the non-human and the hybrid, confronting the “ontological hygiene” of Western
modernity (Graham, 2002).
The monster, as a single living organism that does not comply with the rules of any
certain species, albeit having its roots at least at one, distinguishes itself from the other
living beings by demonstrating “an excess of monstrosity rather than an infra-
monstrosity”. Human beings are “redundant monsters”; biological monsters that aspire
to become cultural monsters, aiming to cultural mutations and “meta-monsters”;
monsters that create monsters and monsters who quest for human traits outside human
species (Lestel, 2012).
In times where human exceptionalism is rejected, ecologies are at least trifold,
according to Haraway, including human and non human living species and technologies,
developing coevolutionary relationships and collaborative practices (Williams, 2018).
This compost of multispecies, infectious to one another, human and non human, get
mutually involved in sympoietic and symbiotic practices within systems of unspecified
temporal and spatial boundaries (Haraway, 2016).
Since the boundaries between science fiction and social reality is an “optical
illusion”, the cinematically illustrated “transgressed boundaries, potent fusions and
dangerous possibilities” abide to the Haraway’s “cyborg myth”, exploring the cyborg as
the cinematic monster; in “social and bodily realities” where humans harmoniously
coexist with animals and machines, and where humans are “not afraid of permanently
partial identities and contradictory standpoints” (Haraway, 1991).
Digital Culture & Audiovisual Challenges: Interdisciplinary Creativity In Arts And Technology
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