Society is the monsters we create
Frankenstein’s monster is artificial and real while ultimately uncontrollable. Mary Shelley’s pieced together creature represents the creation of the society that we live in, and yet, it is no longer one that we can control. Instead, our creations run amok. Corporations are treated like people. They do not breathe, eat or sleep, and they have gained strength over us. Just as the monster gained strength over others. Unfortunately, Frankenstein’s monster is often portrayed with real human emotions, something corporations severely lack. Frankenstein’s monster is a miracle, and he represents the pinnacle of human achievement – the Godly power of creating life. Shelley’s metaphor was describing the Industrial Revolution.
Werewolves are the uncontrollable change. People feel powerless to stop the change as society moves forward. They begin to fall behind and the undesirable changes are no longer something that they can control. It’s a dog eat dog world, and the transformation is painful.
Dracula sucks the life from his victims. As people are more and more sucked in by their jobs and they lose their social lives, Dracula gains greater power. In the 1980s, there was a 40-hour work week, represented well by the movie 9 to 5 and the paranoia song Somebody’s Watchin’ Me by one hit wonder Rockwell who sings that he is just an average guy who works from 9 to 5. This 8-hour work day gradually turned into 8.5 or 9 hours as companies decided that an unpaid lunch was the way to repay employees for their efforts on the job. This change happened around the time that movies like Bram Stoker’s Dracula, The Lost Boys, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and interview with a Vampire came out. Dracula is a posh, charming monster who has the ability to hypnotize his victims, and his bite, the very thing that kills, is often seen as seductive and desirable. As people strive for the riches that Dracula possesses, they fall prey to the death he promises. In capitalism, people are seduced by the desire to obtain material wealth, and they routinely sacrifice their lives and health, literally through heart attacks, carpal tunnel syndrome and other stress related disease, to it.
Zombies are the mindless consumers in a capitalist society gone global. They go through their unlife searching for brains or human flesh. These are the same things that people are trying to find in a consumerist society, but rather than turn to the living, like the zombies do, they attempt to fill their voids with the lifeless, soulless acquisition and accumulation of things. These things are soon discarded for the next new thing, much like a zombie’s lunch is discarded for the next victim. Both zombie and consumer are left forever dissatisfied and unable to tame their cravings.
Werewolves are the uncontrollable change. People feel powerless to stop the change as society moves forward. They begin to fall behind and the undesirable changes are no longer something that they can control. It’s a dog eat dog world, and the transformation is painful.
Dracula sucks the life from his victims. As people are more and more sucked in by their jobs and they lose their social lives, Dracula gains greater power. In the 1980s, there was a 40-hour work week, represented well by the movie 9 to 5 and the paranoia song Somebody’s Watchin’ Me by one hit wonder Rockwell who sings that he is just an average guy who works from 9 to 5. This 8-hour work day gradually turned into 8.5 or 9 hours as companies decided that an unpaid lunch was the way to repay employees for their efforts on the job. This change happened around the time that movies like Bram Stoker’s Dracula, The Lost Boys, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and interview with a Vampire came out. Dracula is a posh, charming monster who has the ability to hypnotize his victims, and his bite, the very thing that kills, is often seen as seductive and desirable. As people strive for the riches that Dracula possesses, they fall prey to the death he promises. In capitalism, people are seduced by the desire to obtain material wealth, and they routinely sacrifice their lives and health, literally through heart attacks, carpal tunnel syndrome and other stress related disease, to it.
Zombies are the mindless consumers in a capitalist society gone global. They go through their unlife searching for brains or human flesh. These are the same things that people are trying to find in a consumerist society, but rather than turn to the living, like the zombies do, they attempt to fill their voids with the lifeless, soulless acquisition and accumulation of things. These things are soon discarded for the next new thing, much like a zombie’s lunch is discarded for the next victim. Both zombie and consumer are left forever dissatisfied and unable to tame their cravings.