Essays on the Monster in Culture
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Edited by Sorcha Ni Fhlainn Dark Reflections, Monstrous Reflections: Essays on the Monster in Culture Papers Presented at the 4th Global Conference Monsters and the Monstrous: Myths and Metaphors of Enduring Evil September 2006 Mansfield College, Oxford Edited by Sorcha Ni Fhlainn Oxford, United Kingdom Series Editors Dr Robert Fisher Dr Nancy Billias Advisory Board Dr Alejandro Cervantes-Carson Owen Kelly Professor Margaret Chatterjee Martin McGoldrick D r W a y n e Cristaudo Revd Stephen Morris Mira Crouch Professor John Parry Dr Phil Fitzsimmons Professor Peter Twohig Dr Jones Irwin Professor S Ram Vemuri Professor Asa Kasher Revd Dr Kenneth Wilson, O.B.E V o l u m e 43 A volume in the At the Interface project ‘Monsters and the Monstrous’ Published by the Inter-Disciplinary Press Oxford, United Kingdom First Edition 2008 8 Inter-Disciplinary Press 2008 All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. I S B N : 978-1-904710-42-4 Table of Contents Introduction xi Sorcha Ni Fhlainn Section 1. (In)Human Monsters 1. Loving the Alien: A Moral 3 Re-Evaluation of Paedophiles David White 2. From Victims to Victimizers: Child Abuse 13 and the Perpetuation of Evil Christina Rawls 3. Monstrous Makeovers: Transforming 23 ‘Monsters’ into Beauty Queens Peri Bradley 4. To be or not to be a Monster 33 Claudia Lindner Leporda 5. Moral pluralism in David Milch’s Deadwood 45 Diane Cook 6. Un/Monstrous Criminals - the ‘gay gang 59 murders’: ‘not like us’ and ‘just like us’ Kristen Davis Section 2. Visual Monstrosities 7. Alessa Unbound: The Monstrous Daughter 73 of Silent Hill Ewan Kirkland 8. They’re not even sure it’s a baby yet… 79 Body Horror in Eraserhead – Ils Huygens 9. Ur-Real Monsters: The Rhetorical Creation 87 of Monsters in Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games (MMORPGs) Marlin Bates 10. ‘Gorgeously repulsive, exquisitely fun, 99 dangerously beautiful’: Dog Women, Monstrous Births and Contemporary Women’s Art Maria Luísa Coelho 11. Torn Posters and Monstrous Images: Damage 113 and Spectacle – Jim Cross Section 3. Fearing the ‘Other’ 12. The Nymph and the Witch: Female Magical 137 Figures in the Works of Paracelsus Peter Kreuter 13. Inconceivable Beasts: The ‘Wonders of the East’ 143 In the Beowulf Manuscript Susan Kim & Asa Simon Mittman 14. Monstrous Genealogies: Reconstru(ct)ing 163 Teratical Females in A.S. Byatt’s Fiction Carmen-Veronica Borbély 15. Monstrous Modernity: Frankenstein’s Creature, 175 The Black, and Other Inassimilable Naturalistic Extremes Jane Anna Gordon 16. Why do Japanese Ghosts have No Legs? 189 Sexualized Female Ghosts and the Fear of Sexuality Natsumi Ikoma Section 4. Idols Revisited 17. Bill Condon's Mutable Monsters 203 Duane Kight 18. Quatermass and the Canon: A Critical 215 Re-appraisal of the 1950s Hammer Quatermass Films Christopher Auld 19. The Marquis de Sade: Building Walls 223 Paul Yoder 20. The Monstrous Hero: Medicine and 235 Monster-making in Late Victorian Literature Sylvia Pamboukain 21. Frankenstein: Volume III, Chapter VIII 247 Hester Reeve Section 5. National Monsters 22. Monstrous Nationalism: Wolf Creek and the 265 UnAustralian Anthony Gardner 23. American Monsters: Patricide in Shirley 275 Jackson and Lionel Shriver Bernice Murphy 24. Strange Hells: The British Soldier and ‘the 285 Monster’ on the Western Front Ross Wilson 25. “Seven Legs My True Love Has” Fantasies of 299 Female Monstrosity in American Horror Fiction Dara Downey 26. Monsters of Distorted Vision: The Poetics of 309 Flannery O’Connor – Ilanna Shiloh Section 6. Modernity and Modernism 27. The Sublime Monstrosity: C. Baudelaire on 319 Modernity – Loretta Vandi 28. Knowledge and the Monster: An Unfair 327 Epistemological Marginalization of the Creature? Sonia Ouaras Eschatology, Etymology and Estivation: The 337 Last Will and Testament of the Last Monster Phil Fitzsimmons 30. Questioning the Negative Value of Pain 345 Shona Hill 31. The Politics of Pornographic Pleasure in the 359 Legend of the Overfiend Saga Shelly Smarz 32. The Web Cam as the ‘Evil Eye’ in Child Internet 369 Exploitation Colette Kavanagh Section 7. Religion, Gods and Theodicy 33. The Depisction of the Monstrous in 381 Buddhist Literature 34. Our Gods are Monsters: Popular Cultural 391 Representations of the Evolution of Religion Charlene P. E. Burns 35. Monstrous Modernism, Monstrous Bodies: 403 Christian Iconography and “Degenerate Art” Jennifer McComas 36. Div(Demon), the Most Noxious Creature in 415 Ancient Iranian Myths Fariba Raeisi 37. A Mirror of Monsters: Escapes of Revenge 423 Tragedy Anna Kowalcze-Pawlik Introduction We live in a world inhabited by Monsters. Our monsters take human shape; dwell in our belief systems and in our culturally beloved texts, narrate the terrain of nationalism and politics, cultural idols and visual representations, surrounding us with images that are often grotesque, disturbing and revealing. What is revealed through these modern monsters leads us to a mirroring of the human self. Not only do we live in a world inhabited by monsters – we are monsters ourselves. Monstrosity appears in many guises in our culture – we often celebrate it as a defiance of bourgeois attitudes, or examine it beyond the confines of what is deemed morally acceptable. Declare your study in monsters to an unsuspecting colleague and gauge their reaction – I find it is questioned with caution, and probed with an eye of suspicion. By investigating our monsters, we reveal the complexities of our culture, past and present. We deconstruct the power that monsters are given in today’s over-saturated media, where the use of the word ‘monster’ is fluidly adapted to fit the crime or deed reported. The word itself brings both condemnation and fascination for its intended subject. The hallmark of Interdisciplinary Press lies in the breadth of studies on Monsters gained with each conference proceedings; always fascinating, enlightening and tapping into the rich cultural vein monsters offer. The papers in this collection were presented originally in Mansfield College, Oxford, in September 2006. Our many delegates are scattered across four continents - a geographical cross section of academia - offering a wealth of cultural diversity and disciplines. Scholars of film, literature, popular culture, history, law, politics, philosophy and art came together for an intensive four days of presentation, discussion, deliberation and informal conversation, while in the historically gothic and academic environs of Oxford. As with all Interdisciplinary.net conferences, friendships were forged, and new and innovative projects were born. Not all participants at the conference submitted their papers for this collection, but those who did, a vast majority, represent an accurate account of the conference. Contributors were asked to submit their papers as presented with a view to give a ‘virtual snapshot’ of the proceedings. When coalescing the papers into one volume, which would accurately reflect and thematically link the papers included proved to be an enormous challenge. Some of the papers included bled across many of the thematic frameworks of each section. The result intended for both authors and readers of this volume is to approach each section as its own development on the titled theme, while connecting with the over-arcing theme of the entire collection. I can only hope that readers and authors who undertake reading the entire volume will not view my selection process as dogmatic, but rather, thematically interpretative. Part 1 consists of (In)Human xii Introduction ______________________________________________________________ Monsters seen in the media; from paedophiles to gay murderers, child abusers and the horrors of visual plasticity, to television’s portrayal of the morally ambiguous. Part 2 examines the visual monsters in our culture, from video and online games and body horror to dog-headed women and in the morphology of modern advertising. Part 3 returns to the roots of established ‘otherness’, examining the magical and female figures, the wonders of the east in Beowulf, extremes and otherness and the fearful appearance and sexuality of Japanese ghosts. In Part 4, idols are re-examined from a post/modern perspective, in fiction, film and art. Particular emphasis is placed on Shelly’s Frankenstein and his monster throughout. Section 5 casts an eye to monstrous nationalism, from the wilderness of Australia’s outback to World War I, encompassing the scientific age of the 1950s to the modern American classroom. Sections 6 and 7 question the monster as an oppositional character or force, offering different readings on pain, pleasure and celebration – how we come to regard and respect the existence of our m o nsters. Section 7 views the monster as a theological entity through the ages – debating monstrosity, akin to evil, being an eternal essence existing through many gods and within many religious faiths. The vast terrain contained within these pages could not be regarded as a definitive text or framework for studies on monsters and the monstrous. The sheer volume and cultural exploration in studies on monstrosity disallows such categorisation. Like evil, the monster’s bedfellow, it is in some ways an inexhaustible field of study, a continuous narrative intertwined with human existence. I have always defended the study of monsters as an arguably (un)pleasant re-examination of human history, narrating fears, cultural translations and anxieties, desires and forbidden dialogues. It is with this belief that I cast the prognosis that our reflections are monstrous only because they reflect our true nature. I wish to thank my fellow authors and colleagues for their papers and their patience during the time it took to bring this collection together. Sorcha Ní Fhlainn, Trinity College, Dublin. Ireland. Section 1: (In)Human Monsters Loving the Alien: A Moral Re-Evaluation of Paedophiles David White Abstract: Paedophiles are widely regarded as the most morally repugnant people.