October 21, 2025 • 44 mins
Episode Description
What do vampires, werewolves, and dragons tell us about ourselves? In this fascinating exploration of monsters in culture and society, we dive deep into why humanity has always been obsessed with creatures that go bump in the night.
From the etymology of "monster" (Latin "monstrum" - to warn or demonstrate) to modern cryptids and creepypastas, discover how these frightening figures serve as mirrors reflecting our deepest fears, repressed desires, and cultural anxieties. Learn why monsters aren't just entertainment—they're essential tools for processing trauma, establishing moral boundaries, and creating social cohesion. We'll also examine the dangerous consequences of labeling real humans as monsters—and why this rhetoric prevents understanding, distances us from accountability, and can lead to dehumanization and violence.
Key Topics Covered
The Nature of Monsters
What defines a monster and the true meaning behind the word
Categories: supernatural beings, humanoid creatures, the undead, cryptids, and human monsters
Why witches became one of history's most enduring monster figures
The Psychology of Fear
How monsters reflect our fear of ourselves
The intersection of monsters with our anxieties, values, and hopes
Why we're drawn to "delicious fear" in safe contexts
Cultural Function of Monsters
Monsters as warnings that prefigure societal problems
How monster stories help us handle trauma and explore taboos
The role of monsters in teaching moral boundaries and creating in-groups
The Danger of Labeling Humans as Monsters
Why dehumanization prevents understanding
How calling people "monsters" distances us from accountability
The real-world consequences of monster rhetoric
Winning Against Monsters
Classic tactics: hunting, outwitting, finding weaknesses
The power of team-ups, protective magic, and courage
Why we need triumph stories to overcome our fears
Episode Highlights
✨ Monsters are cultural constructs that serve as societal mirrors 🧠 Understanding the Latin roots: "to show," "to warn," "to demonstrate" ⚠️ The problem with labeling real people as monsters 💪 How monster stories ultimately help us find courage and triumph
Episode Highlights
✨ Monsters are cultural constructs that serve as societal mirrors 🧠 Understanding the Latin roots: "to show," "to warn," "to demonstrate" ⚠️ The problem with labeling real people as monsters 💪 How monster stories ultimately help us find courage and triumph
Keywords
monsters, cultural anthropology, folklore, mythology, psychology of fear, cryptids, supernatural beings, werewolves, vampires, social cohesion, moral boundaries, dehumanization, monster stories, horror culture, cultural fears, societal anxieties, creepypasta, witches in history
Connect With UsHave your own thoughts on what monsters reveal about society? Share your perspective and join the conversation!
#Monsters #Folklore #CulturalStudies #Psychology #Horror #Mythology #Podcast
Links
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Vampires, werewolves, ogres, trolls, Dragons, and hell
hounds. Zombies.
Zombies. Ghost Children.
Ghost children. These are just a few of the
things that go bump in the night.
Sarah, we need to talk about monsters.
(00:21):
Yes, we do, because monsters saya lot about who we are as people
and societies. But before we get into the
monsters, let's welcome them to the show.
Welcome to the thing about witchhunts.
I'm Josh Hutchinson. And I'm Sarah Jack O Lantern.
Yay, another kind of a monster. In certain stories, the Jack O
(00:46):
Lantern is a monster or the JackO Lantern is part of a monster.
Yes. Yeah, like you were saying,
monsters do really reveal a lot about our own selves, our
societies and cultures. They reflect our fears and our
own unwanted desires. Fear.
(01:09):
That's something we talk a lot about, on the thing about witch
hunts and the thing about Salem.What happens because of fears?
So what happens if we fear ourselves?
We make monsters. We do.
(01:30):
We fear monsters. We fear they exist.
We fear they're coming for us. They look scary.
They act in intimidating and frightening matters.
They speak spookily and with intimidating, sometimes booming
voices or cackling. They're untrustworthy, they're
(01:52):
full of trickery, and they love to scam and make dirty.
Deals they do. They love to scare.
They can punish us. They intersect with our deepest
anxieties, our cherished values,our repressed desires, and our
greatest hopes. Monsters.
(02:14):
So what even is a monster? I think we all really know it's
a frightful or grotesque imagined or fictional creature,
something that's been invented through myth or legend or just
storytelling. It could be in a movie or a
comic or a book. Like they're everywhere, all
(02:35):
around us, all the time. I see several behind Sarah.
Yes, some of my very favorites. Just a few.
I have more, but I guess you could call them my puppets, but
if you don't like those, you canjust look at my little pumpkins
that I grew. Yes.
(02:56):
Not since you grew in your own backyard.
I did. That's a tiny, tiny little one
too. Yeah, it's not as scary as that
other Jack O Lantern guy I see behind you.
No, that is a that belongs to a very scary monster.
One of my favorites. Yeah, yeah.
So the word monster comes from the Latin monstrum, which itself
(03:20):
comes from monstrare, which means to show, to point out, or
to demonstrate, and from mineo, which means to warn, advise,
admonish, or remind. So monsters are warnings and
admonitions that demonstrate negative aspects of society and
warn us about what could go wrong if we stray from society's
(03:42):
boundaries. And monsters often prefigure
societal problems. They arise at points of societal
stresses. Like what?
Like Godzilla comes from, you know, stress and fear of atomic
weapons, which themselves could be described as monsters.
WMDS are monstrous. And Jaws, because the tourism
(04:07):
they were, they needed that tourism and they were so afraid
that something was going to messup, mess it up.
And what happened? A giant, giant hungry shark
shows up. Yes, it's their anxiety made
manifest. It's a physical embodiment of
our fear and anxiety. Sometimes animals are monsters,
(04:29):
like dress. So where do monsters come from,
Sarah? Well, the big sharks come from
deep, deep down in the ocean, but all the other ones are
invented by people through a myth, legend, folklore, fiction
and conspiracy theories. That's one of the keys there, I
(04:52):
think, that you mentioned is they're invented by people.
These are things. Sometimes a monster could be a
real animal, like a tiger that we say has developed a taste for
blood. That can be a real living thing.
But it's only monstrous because we make it monstrous, and our
fear makes it into more than it is.
(05:16):
And the other thing about these monsters that are man made, they
can evolve folklore and fiction.I was thinking about the
monsters that, you know, have evolved out of the story of
Wizard of Oz over the last 100 years.
Oh, right. Definitely.
Evolutions can come 100 years down the road.
(05:36):
A few 100 years down the road, we still see Frankenstein's
monster is evolving. There's new portrayals of that
all the time. There's all kinds of stories
about giants and all these monsters.
They keep coming back. That's one of the hallmarks of a
monster. You you think you've got rid of
it, but it comes back when society has that same need to
(05:58):
fulfill through it. Or if the box office wants
another hit and fans always loveit, you just always hope that
they leave that open. Well, now it seems like things
don't necessarily need to be left open for a sequel because
back story can be created at anytime.
And there's the prequel, so you can have the origin story of the
monster that you love so much from the original hit movie.
(06:24):
Yeah. So who and what do we find
monstrous? There's a lot of different kinds
of monsters out there. They can be supernatural, like
demons and ghosts, or they couldbe natural, like a Griffin.
It's a combination of multiple natural animals.
Sometimes these recombinations are what makes the things scary.
(06:45):
They you bring in all these enhanced qualities of all these
different creatures and throw them together, and what you get
is monstrous, truly frightening.And some of the fears and the
stories that have been told in witch trial records and accounts
have some of these very scary combo monsters in them.
(07:07):
Yeah, a lot of the humanoid or animalesque creatures that we
call monsters are these combinations.
There's the minotaur, it's a bull and a human.
The Sphinx, it's a lion and a human and a Griffin is a hybrid.
And then you have other humanoids like Slender Man and
cyborgs and space aliens that somehow have our shape but very
(07:29):
different qualities you mentioned.
Monsters that have our shape, but what about humans who end up
taking the form of an animal or a supernatural being?
They lose their humanity and become a monster physically.
Some of my favorite monsters arepeople who become animals.
(07:51):
Like growing up, I was always fascinated with the werewolf.
So the witch, the fictional witch, is one of these types of
monsters. The witch is often portrayed as
being, you know, a green person with a long hooked nose or other
(08:11):
qualities that are so exaggerated that they don't look
human anymore, but just any ordinary witch.
In a witch trial, somebody, an innocent person, can be turned
into a monster by throwing that label which on them.
That means that they're doing monstrous activities.
And in European Society, that meant that they were in league
(08:34):
with the devil, who himself is like the monster of all time.
And I'll tell you what, when those Puritan ministers in the
American colonies or governors were writing comments about the
women convicted of witchcraft, they weren't saying how
beautiful they were or, you know, complimenting their
extraordinary skills. They tried to dehumanize them
(08:58):
and make them sound scary harmful.
Yeah, that dehumanization, we'llcircle back to that.
So put a pin in it, everybody. Pin.
We'll be right back to that. Sarah, I believe your favorite
kind of monster is the kind thatwas once living and is living
again. That is absolutely right.
(09:19):
The undead. In fact, I'm kind of
disappointed that I forgot to bring my Darrell ear necklace
down here to stick on the books as an Easter egg.
I had meant to, but I love The Walking Dead.
I love Night of the Living Dead.I love it anytime.
I was so, you know, delighted when there was a zombie.
Nocus Bocus. I do love the undead.
(09:40):
I love them fast. I love them slow.
And I love watching stories, reading stories where people are
trying to survive. In a story with the undead, how
do you avoid becoming their victim or becoming that monster
That's it's like, yeah, it's theultimate monster, human monster.
(10:01):
Yeah, and the zombie has become a staple of television and film
and video games. Really, a lot of video games
that aren't really specifically about zombies will put in a
zombie mode just because people love, like, fighting off orgs of
the undead. That really strikes a chord with
people. It sure does.
(10:22):
I mean, how many years has The Walking Dead TV show been going?
But how many comics were bought before that?
That story has been going on fordecades.
That's very true, that one storyand it's definitely, you
mentioned some other great zombie movies.
It's not the only one. No, it's not.
There's always new ones. And yeah.
(10:43):
Some of my favorite monsters areanimals that may not exist.
They occupy this liminal space on the edge of our knowledge of
the wildlife of our planet. They're the cryptids.
They a lot of people believe that they're real.
Other people, not so sure, but things like Yeti and Bigfoot and
(11:06):
my favorite, chupacabras, the goat sucker.
Those are awesome. Well, one of the earliest
Bigfoot monsters that I could think of from like my childhood,
of course, but he just he just wanted to eat and sit on the
couch. He he, but he was working the
house. What's his name are?
You talking about Harry and the?Hendersons.
Oh yes, Harry and the Hendersons.
(11:26):
What a great one. What a great story.
Classic movie. Whose main character dad
actually becomes what you know, a really and actually, more than
one story later on, just a really monstrous character.
But back to Harry. What a fun.
What a fun monster. What a fun monster.
(11:47):
He was part of the family for a while until he had to go back to
his own family. So yeah, but people were hunting
him like he was a monster. That's So who's your favorite
Krypton Buster character? Well, Chupacabras is my
favorite. It's one.
(12:07):
It's just it strikes a lot of fear because it's a creature of
the night, like many of our monsters are.
You, you don't see it. You hear your goat or your
chicken, you know, squealing in the night or squawking, and you
run out to see what's going on. And by that time, the
Chupacabras is way gone. Nobody sees them, they're just
(12:30):
in there. They kill all the chickens and
the goats and then they're gone and they're very frightening,
vicious, pointy teeth. Awesome.
One of my favorite monsters is when you don't realize it's a
monster yet. It's that when you think it's
just a regular animal or just, you know, another community
(12:50):
member, but it turns out, Oh no,not even close.
Yeah, once that dog starts talking to you and its eyes
start glowing red, you know, you've got to get out of there.
And in this day and age, we alsohave digital monsters like
creepypastas. We just did an episode about
Slender Man and he's one of the most well known creepypasta
(13:15):
monsters. Yeah, and he's not even that
old, but he was known so, so quickly.
Like the news of the danger of Slender Man's spread from 2
photographs that were fictional and known to be fictional.
He has that look that is so scary because he almost looks
(13:38):
human, but then you realize he doesn't have a face and he's way
too tall and skinny. It's very slender, and he's got
tentacles that come out of his back.
I mean, without the tentacles, it's just a tall human.
It's Lurch in the woods and you think, OK, I can go up and talk
(13:58):
to that guy. And then those tentacles come
out and whoa, not talking to this guy anymore.
You just wrote a creepypasta story right there.
Yeah, he did. He saw Lurch in the woods and he
turned out to be Slender Man andhe killed you.
Yeah, good. But often we make monsters out
(14:19):
of real animals or real people we can make monsters out of.
You mentioned jaws and sharks before.
Lions, tigers, bears, wolves canbe seen as monstrous.
I love the and I know I just need to do more research on
this, but the Ghost in the Darkness, that film with the
(14:39):
lions and they're trying to build a railroad in Africa.
That's that I that of course, isthat film is vintage now, but I
was on the edge of my seat for that.
I loved it and I've seen it a lot.
Yeah, that's spine chilling. It's again that thing of the
darkness and these stealthy creatures that can just appear
(15:00):
suddenly from nowhere. Almost.
And one of the things about monsters in that, you know, even
though it's just an animal monster, I remember the
characters of that story were. So as it went on, they got more
and more puzzled because seemingly innocent, you know,
saintly characters we're gettinggobbled up like they're just in.
(15:21):
Monsters don't necessarily have a kill list.
Sometimes they do, but sometimes, you know, if they
find you, you're dead. And that was an example of that.
And I loved that feature of the story, too.
But that is a real aspect of monster lore.
And I think that's one of the, you know, one of the very scary
things about Slender Man. Who is vulnerable, who's
(15:44):
vulnerable to the dangers of monsters?
Everybody. Yeah.
Buddy yeah, I also want to acknowledge that for many, many
centuries or probably thousands of years, there have been
monsters terrorizing us on the deeps.
Sea monsters. You see them in the old maps.
(16:07):
There'll be sea monsters here, or in some cases there'll be
Dragons here. But sea monsters were used to
warn people from going to placesthat hadn't been explored
because you didn't know what wasin the unknown.
You you just didn't know. But sea monsters can turn out to
be things like giant squid or giant octopuses, and the Kraken
(16:29):
comes up and takes your ship down with it.
Even though a whale like Moby Dick is a monster story, it's
about a whale and whales. We shouldn't think of whales as
monsters really, but they can bein the right story.
We also tend to monsterize humans, villainous humans, super
(16:52):
villains in the comic books, butreal villains in real life,
serial killers are called monsters.
You look at the Netflix series that's going on right now,
They've got monster, the Ed gamestory on there.
I'm on episode. 5. Oh, you're on Episode 5 of the
Ed game Monster? And didn't they do a Jeffrey
Dahmer before that? They did.
(17:14):
Yeah, yeah. The series, you know,
demonstrating humans doing monstrous acts.
Yes, and I'm going to circle back to this too, because I
don't want to lose what you're you just said that is important,
that they're doing monstrous acts.
(17:36):
And so we label them as therefore being a monster.
But is it appropriate to label humans as monsters?
I mean, there's some people thatare so reviled and do such
terrifying, villainous, murderous things that can you
say that they're not a monster? Think of people like Hitler and
(17:56):
Stalin and all their murderous rampages.
So we we say, should we be calling them monsters?
So then why wouldn't we? Why?
Why would we just say that's theworst kind of human?
Is there a name for the worst kind of human?
It's only devil or monster. It.
There's not a tear below that, Idon't think.
(18:19):
No. Bad bad boy.
Bad girl. Yeah.
Bad dog. Naughty Dog, criminal monster.
It's like a progression in how we.
Oh, thug. Yeah, definitely there and there
and and witches are somewhere inthere and.
So I think, you know, the answerto that is we're going to as a
(18:40):
society where we can use that label to put them very far from
the good people by putting them with the most scary concepts and
threats. It is, but what do we get out of
isolating people in such a way? Cutting them?
We're basically cutting them offfrom humanity at that point.
(19:03):
One of the things that I did when I was prepping for this
chat was I was thinking about winning against monsters and
monsters winning against humans.And that's a whole fun list
we'll probably get to. But you know, I was realizing
that there's this punishment aspect.
You know, monsters are punishers, but we want to punish
monsters and we want to punish our most vile transgressors in
(19:26):
our societies. We take it into our own hands.
That's where we get a witch huntfrom, an actual witch hunt
because somebody is trying to punish an alleged witch.
So I just think of punishment. I think that's one of the
reasons, because we're going to punish.
And punish them in such a way that makes them stand apart as
(19:48):
monsters. People, you don't want to try
this at home. You don't want to be like these
folks. So make an example.
But we're also like, we take away their humanity in the way
we recognize it, but then we're also taking, you know, their
punishment. They're losing their identity
and their rights. And, you know, they're not a
part of society anymore. But they never, some of them,
(20:09):
you know, they actually never were.
If they were in there sneaking around doing monster's acts,
they were never part of society.That's a really good point.
And the same with, you know, centering in on the witch as a
monster. This is what people expected
from witches, that they're goingto act so far apart from
(20:31):
society, from human society. They're part of the devil
society, but they're not a part of our society.
They're two different. They have no morals that you
know can be comprehensible to us.
You can't understand the witch. You don't know where they're
coming from. You just know that they want to
be the opposite of the good person that everybody else in
(20:53):
the community wants to be. So we're accusing humans of
being secret monsters? Secret monsters.
Yes, people can act like your friend.
They could be part of your family, and then they turn
around and they cast a spell on you.
Monsters. What do we get out of accusing
the witches of being the secret monsters?
(21:15):
Retribution and possibly the endof a threat.
That's very true because I know in a lot of the witch trials
there were, like in the Salem witch trials, there were
children who were sick and people couldn't figure out why
they were sick. And so they decided that it was
witchcraft that was making them sick.
And what was the cure for witchcraft?
(21:39):
Eliminating the witch. It wasn't more cowbell.
It wasn't a simple fever. It was like you had to get rid
of the source of the magic. It's interesting, you know, with
the witch monster, like we're not going around fearing that
vampires are using the evil eye on us and that our Ant is
becoming a vampire. So let's kill that vampire.
(22:01):
Like when you kill a vampire, it's a known vampire like in
lore or stories, But with a witch, often in these real life
natural world situation, witch hunts, there's no proof you're,
you're never, you're alleging, you're not identifying anything.
Whereas in folklore, stories or fantasies, the witch is revealed
(22:22):
too, just like a vampire, but a serial killer.
They're identified. We know they are, that we're
going to end what they're doing.We're going to restrict them,
we're going to punish them. But accused witches, they're
women, children, men. We're not proving that they're
this witch monster by harming them.
(22:46):
Sure, sure, sure. We've talked about the monster
as a mirror. It reflects our own reviled
qualities, the repressed desires.
And once that we have, the monster is like people, but it's
different in some special way that identifies it, allows us to
say that it's not a human. It has to be a monster to do
(23:09):
such a monstrous thing. And like the monster is a
reflection of individual people,it's also a cultural construct
and a societal mirror, because society's fears and anxieties
feed into the visions of monsters.
It's what is fearing us that actually drives what we how we
(23:32):
shape this, how we make a body for our fear.
And it gives us an opportunity to triumph over a fear because
possibly the monster is not going to win.
And we need that victory, that that's something that we really
crave and hunger for victory over our fear, because then we
(23:56):
can live in peace. Yeah.
And you know, when you think about groups of people that are
feared, there's this conquering aspect.
You know when they become the victims of persecution as a
group, those persecuting or reveling in their triumph that
they're triumphing over a perceived monster.
(24:18):
But how do they overcome a monster?
Oh what a fun list. I just love looking at this.
Well, there's hunting, obviously, because of witch
hunts and other hunting. But you get to hunt, and you
might have a special weapon for your hunt, or maybe you're
hunting for treasure to be the start with.
(24:42):
That's a good point, yeah. You've got it out with the
monster. You've got to confront it.
You've got to fight it head on. This is a premise in every
horror movie. I think that the hero of the
movie asked to actually take themonster on head on.
You can't go around it. There's no running away.
There's no hiding. You've got to directly confront
(25:05):
the beast. One of my, you know, annual
watches for Halloween has a little confrontation like that
in a house and has to do with mypumpkin sucker back there.
But that is, you know, the monster is there to punish the
human in that case. But there's a showdown and you
(25:26):
know he's trying to overcome themonster.
Saint age-old struggle, This manand woman versus monster.
When you're, you know, watching a film, you're waiting to find
their weakness. Are the victims going to find
the weakness of the monster they're facing?
(25:48):
Yeah, same in video games. When you get to the boss at the
end of the level, you got to find its weaknesses.
Do you hit it in the eye? Do you like target the hands?
Do you have to go for the belly?Whenever it it stands up right?
You know, you've got to find a weakness.
It's Is it vulnerable to a stakethrough the heart?
Is it vulnerable to a silver bullet?
(26:09):
You often have to overcome a monster with some kind of
extraordinary means. And as we've seen from 1980s and
earlier and a little later horror flex, you're not going to
outrun them, but you could try. Yeah, you can try to join them.
That is a way of conquering a monster is, you know, changing
(26:31):
teams. And in the witch trials, that's
a transgression. Those who are being examined,
that's what those magistrates are asking them, you know, when,
when did you betray us? When did you join the Devil's
team? Yeah, and you can use magic
against monsters, you can use charms, you can use
(26:55):
incantations. My personal favorite weapon is
to not believe and not fear. That's one of my go to.
I always have that one in my pocket to pull out.
So not believing what you're seeing is the key to overcoming
up. Yeah, that's my that's my
favorite defense. Yeah, yeah, sometimes you just
have to go, you know, through back channels.
(27:18):
But there's so many stories, andI love these, where by the end
they are a believer. Like that didn't work.
The evils like, let me show you what you have to be afraid,
Yeah. That's exciting, but fighting
against a monster can bring people together.
(27:38):
It's a way in both. In like a film, you see teams of
neighbors band together to take on a threat.
You see in real life, people identify, say, a monster like,
say Nazis, and team up and go towar to defeat that enemy.
And it's a way of getting society to stick together and
(28:02):
banned against the common enemy.It's like that in in the movie
Independence Day, when the spacealiens come down to fight the
whole Earth. The whole Earth teams up and
says, we're fighting back. This is our planet.
Yeah, I I love stories where, you know, one person has
uncovered the conspiracy becauseuncovering a conspiracy is also
(28:23):
a way to beat a monster. But what good is that if
everyone around you is still buying the bluff?
If they they, they don't realizewhat's happening.
So getting others to team up with you, that's a fun challenge
in monster stories. Yeah, definitely.
Tattling like, I love it. You know, in stories where
(28:44):
there's the threat of revealing somebody's monstrous identity.
Right. Yeah, that can neutralize them.
Yeah. You can also try to redeem a
monster because we labeled things as monsters when we think
that they can't be redeemed. But if you can find a way to do
it and get them to come to some sense of peace or whatever it
(29:08):
is, put away their violence, then you can defeat them that
way. It's like hand Frankenstein's
monster a flower and treat him nicely and see if he responds.
There's yeah, I love it. There's a fairy tale then I'm
not going to be able to think ofthe name of her right now, but
it's the Dragon movie with Millie Bobby Rohn.
I love that story because the beast, the dragon, has been lied
(29:34):
to and so she's seeking revenge and, you know, murderous.
And the Princess is able to showher like this is actually what
the history is. This is what happened.
And then a Princess teams up with a monster to be the actual
bad guy. So many times there's a monster,
but it's like a screen. There's somebody behind the
(29:56):
curtain. So you see a monster and fear
it, but it's actually the humansthat are really monstrous ones.
Yeah, and I mean, isn't that an oz?
Yeah. Yeah, he's not a wizard.
They they figure him out, they uncover the conspiracy, they
(30:18):
find his secret and that causes him to collapse and he flees Oz.
Yeah, it's fun to flip the coin over and talk about how monsters
win. Oh, they have a lot of tricks up
their sleeves, including tricking people, scaring people,
lying to people. You do so many things.
(30:41):
Yeah, they infiltrate. There's been, like, I would say
there's a huge wave of those movies and books coming out
right now where it's an imposterinfiltrating, you know, this
community or family. So that is definitely a way that
monsters try to win against humans.
Speaking of human monsters like serial killers, a lot of them
(31:03):
use those kinds of infiltration tactics to befriend somebody or,
you know, act like they're a person that needs help
themselves and they'll get underyour radar and attack you when
you're not. Expecting it.
Monsters win with poison. They poison.
(31:24):
Do where they can possess your spirit, your soul.
Got it. They are such bullies.
Monsters do not relent, you know?
You have to keep looking over your shoulder or keep running or
keep trying. You know, that's the best.
In stories with fights against monsters, there's all these
(31:46):
attempts to overcome the monster.
Is this going to work? Is this going to work?
Oh, it worked. No, it didn't work.
They just continue to bully and oppress the humans.
And they can lure humans like the Sirens with their call that
wreck your ship against the rocks by luring you in with a
(32:07):
pretty voice. They cause doubt, self doubt,
doubt within bonds. They, you know, divide and
conquer with doubt. They do, and they love to
torment and to play with their food.
Basically they're they're like ayoung predator playing with a
(32:30):
mouse that it just caught or something.
They want to have fun and enjoy because perversely, and this is
part of what makes them monstrous itself, is that they
get off on other people's, like people's pain.
The monsters too. Yeah.
And when we're watching or, you know, in a book or a play that
has this, that can be a natural monster or supernatural monster,
(32:55):
they are tormentors. They are playing with their
food. Monsters make threats.
The threat is so scary because the threat, they get you right,
right in your vulnerable spot, whatever that is.
That those you know, they're notempty threats ever.
It's always the one weakness that the character has.
(33:17):
The monster finds it and holds it over them.
And humans do that to humans as well.
Another thing that monsters do that regular humans don't is eat
people. Yeah, obviously zombies are
people eaters. I really like the first zombie
eating in The Last of Us, but it's not with those undead.
(33:42):
It doesn't stop with the eating.There's more going on there
because of why they are undead and that was really like took it
up a notch. I'm glad you mentioned The Last
of Us because it also shows you that monsters don't necessarily
have to be animal in character. It's the fungus that's really
(34:02):
the monster that controls the dead bodies of the zombies.
It's the fungus that is taking over the world and is the great
threat to everybody who still lives on.
It in fact, in the pilot episodeof the series, they talk about
ergot, the fungus ergot. Do you talk about ergot?
(34:23):
Yeah, that was exciting. I was like, I hadn't played the
video game. So I went into watching that
series really blind and I was excited about that because I
love zombies so much. I wanted to be surprised about
everything. So I was like, oh, what are they
talking about ergot for? Because at that point you have
no idea what has caused the zombie apocalypse on Earth.
(34:44):
Monsters are grabbers. And I was watching the black
foam because black phone too is I'm going to be watching that
soon. They call him the grabber, but
they do they grab. And we can think of so many
monstrous characters that harmedby grabbing and humans being
grabbed. It feels monstrous.
(35:05):
Anyone who is grabbing, you know, it feels like, oh, there
must be a monster. They grab and they take, and
that's what Pennywise the Clown does.
It's what, what's that guy's name?
Snidely Whiplash. He's always taking the women and
tying them up on the railroad tracks.
He's grabbing and taking. He's stealing people.
(35:28):
Yeah, it's so many of these things that we're talking about,
our experiences that people havewith humans.
And so again, it's just demonstrates that these
fictional scenarios that we watch, it's a way for us to cope
with what we're experiencing on this Earth with those that are,
like us, humans. We're all humans, but some of us
(35:51):
are, you know, doing the grabbing and the tormenting, and
others are getting eaten. Yes, that's such a good point
that you bring up. That it's creating a monster is
in part a transference of qualities that we don't like in
humans onto something else, so that the humans are less scary
(36:14):
in comparison. Because imagine if we went
around and thought of all humansas monsters.
Because we all have these inherent qualities in us that we
don't necessarily like, but thatsome people do ACT upon.
I want to talk about fear just like another moment, how like
exhausting it is. Because I think, you know all of
(36:36):
this that we're talking about. I'm always thinking about the
context of accusing innocent people of witchcraft and those
that are accusing, they are coming from a great place of
fear and exhaustion. And I think one of the things
that I want to remind people, seek out and understand those
around you and scenarios around you.
(36:56):
Because if you can put down a little bit of that fear, it's
restful. You don't have to exhaust
yourself with the fear. I think that's a really
important thing to remember about fear.
Yeah, that's really important. And just the way that we can
isolate and ostracize and other people because we don't
(37:18):
understand them. We don't we aren't willing to
take that step to get to know other people who come from
different walks of lives. And we can monsterize entire
classes of people based on our lack of understanding.
Yeah, people are dangerous because they're different.
Danger, lies and actions that harm, not indifference.
(37:39):
Yeah, so I mean, we talked aboutpart of this, but why do we need
monsters? We're trying to reconcile our
fears, the roots of our fears, the threats that we have, the
dangers that we have to move through to live life and enjoy
life. I mean, life is roses, but it
(38:02):
it's also storms. You have both together and
monsters. Help us navigate.
They do. They help us handle traumas,
anxieties. They help us to think about
things that ordinarily are too scary to think about, to face
our fears head on. That's part of the draw of
horror that you have a safe environment within.
(38:25):
You can confront your fears without any actual repercussions
to yourself. And then there's also not just
confirming the fears, but confronting the possibilities.
Like, what can I become? How bad can I be?
What, you know, how far can it go if if these people are doing
this? So I mean, there's that aspect
(38:46):
to like finding those guard rails of how far?
When do we need to stop ourselves and be like, whoa,
whoa, whoa, you know that would be monstrous of me.
Yes, and monsters. We touched on this a little
before, but I wanted to just bring this up again.
They teach us where our moral boundaries lie because a
(39:07):
monster, by definition, is something that is violating.
It's violating our our rules, our sense of order, you know,
our code that we live by. It's the things that we might
have thoughts about but we don'tever want to act on.
It's those that morality, it's aguiding light for how to, you
(39:27):
know, fit in and meet other people's moral expectations.
I do want to circle back to something we pinned earlier that
should pull the pin right back and read the note.
What did we say? What should we label people as
monsters? Or should we avoid monsterizing
(39:48):
people? So why, why, why do we do it in
the first place? Well, we find their behaviours
abhorrent. They're outside of that moral
boundary that we established, and we dismiss people as being
unredeemable. And unable to be understood, we
think, I can't grasp why anybodywould do that.
Why would somebody hurt a baby? Why would somebody hurt a
(40:10):
grandmother? You know, any of these
aberrations that a monster, a person that we end up labeling
as a monster does. It's things that we find we
can't understand because they'reoutside of the range of
activities that we've engaged inour lives.
We don't know where they're coming from.
Well, you have to look at their humanity in the horror of what
(40:32):
has happened. And I'll just pick a, I'll pick
a spiritual ritual abuse case. Generally we, you know, we find
unfortunately, here in the US, violent exorcisms ending the
lives of vulnerable children or the elderly.
We've talked about several examples that have happened this
year in our country. We're not going to understand if
we just say that was satanic. They're evil.
(40:53):
We had to look at what was that person?
What was the boiling point here?What are all the things that led
up to this man harming his grandma?
Because then we can learn how important it is to support our
community members, our children and our families and make sure
people aren't out on the margins, you know, out in the
(41:16):
frays, not getting the supports that they need because it's
humans in crisis. Now, I'm not going to say that's
a blanket statement for every serial killer and atrocious, you
know, behaving human. Every instance is its own
contextualized ordeal. But if we are looking at humans
(41:42):
who are involved in crimes as humans, we can learn how did we
get here? So we don't get there with more
people. That is such a good point
because when you write somebody off as a monster, you cut off
inquiry into, you know, what were their motivations?
What were they thinking at the moment that they did that?
What got them to that point? Is there something, you know, is
(42:06):
there a mental health issue? Is there some other societal
issue that we need to address tohelp people not go down that
road? The.
Answer is yes. Yes, yeah.
And you know, we need to be careful when we call people
monsters because we don't want to dehumanize and marginalized
(42:26):
entire sectors of our society. We don't want to write off
people. You don't want to say that kid
that did that really wicked thing is a monster or that that
kid is a bad kid. You want to stay with them and
you don't show them the way to be good.
You don't want to hunt monsters.You don't want to fight monsters
(42:48):
because when monsters are haunted, monsters are killed.
And if we're making monsters of segments of our society, this is
the road that we're leading ourselves down, down this
Hunter's path to start thinking them as prey because they're not
like us. And if they're not human like
us, then what's their life worthanyways?
(43:08):
Yeah, absolutely. And I was thinking too, you
know, it is really critical to protect vulnerable people and
children in communities from people who are causing harm.
We can do that and support everybody, but it doesn't you
(43:28):
don't, you know, too many children are being left in very
dangerous situations and interventions.
We need to have the energy and funding and programs and
expertise to support families where they're at and build them
up. This was really fun.
I so glad that monsters intersect with the important
(43:52):
things that we're addressing every time.
It's not fun to say, oh, you know, this is very relevant.
But that creative side of monsters and storytelling, it's,
it is important and it's a big part of our popular culture.
And it was great to get to talk about it.
Be kind, be safe, inquire. Don't label people and have a
(44:22):
great today and a beautiful monster for you tomorrow.
Vampires, werewolves, ogres, trolls, Dragons, and hell
hounds. Zombies.
Zombies. Ghost Children.
Ghost children. These are just a few of the
things that go bump in the night.
Sarah, we need to talk about monsters.
(00:21):
Yes, we do, because monsters saya lot about who we are as people
and societies. But before we get into the
monsters, let's welcome them to the show.
Welcome to the thing about witchhunts.
I'm Josh Hutchinson. And I'm Sarah Jack O Lantern.
Yay, another kind of a monster. In certain stories, the Jack O
(00:46):
Lantern is a monster or the JackO Lantern is part of a monster.
Yes. Yeah, like you were saying,
monsters do really reveal a lot about our own selves, our
societies and cultures. They reflect our fears and our
own unwanted desires. Fear.
(01:09):
That's something we talk a lot about, on the thing about witch
hunts and the thing about Salem.What happens because of fears?
So what happens if we fear ourselves?
We make monsters. We do.
(01:30):
We fear monsters. We fear they exist.
We fear they're coming for us. They look scary.
They act in intimidating and frightening matters.
They speak spookily and with intimidating, sometimes booming
voices or cackling. They're untrustworthy, they're
(01:52):
full of trickery, and they love to scam and make dirty.
Deals they do. They love to scare.
They can punish us. They intersect with our deepest
anxieties, our cherished values,our repressed desires, and our
greatest hopes. Monsters.
(02:14):
So what even is a monster? I think we all really know it's
a frightful or grotesque imagined or fictional creature,
something that's been invented through myth or legend or just
storytelling. It could be in a movie or a
comic or a book. Like they're everywhere, all
(02:35):
around us, all the time. I see several behind Sarah.
Yes, some of my very favorites. Just a few.
I have more, but I guess you could call them my puppets, but
if you don't like those, you canjust look at my little pumpkins
that I grew. Yes.
(02:56):
Not since you grew in your own backyard.
I did. That's a tiny, tiny little one
too. Yeah, it's not as scary as that
other Jack O Lantern guy I see behind you.
No, that is a that belongs to a very scary monster.
One of my favorites. Yeah, yeah.
So the word monster comes from the Latin monstrum, which itself
(03:20):
comes from monstrare, which means to show, to point out, or
to demonstrate, and from mineo, which means to warn, advise,
admonish, or remind. So monsters are warnings and
admonitions that demonstrate negative aspects of society and
warn us about what could go wrong if we stray from society's
(03:42):
boundaries. And monsters often prefigure
societal problems. They arise at points of societal
stresses. Like what?
Like Godzilla comes from, you know, stress and fear of atomic
weapons, which themselves could be described as monsters.
WMDS are monstrous. And Jaws, because the tourism
(04:07):
they were, they needed that tourism and they were so afraid
that something was going to messup, mess it up.
And what happened? A giant, giant hungry shark
shows up. Yes, it's their anxiety made
manifest. It's a physical embodiment of
our fear and anxiety. Sometimes animals are monsters,
(04:29):
like dress. So where do monsters come from,
Sarah? Well, the big sharks come from
deep, deep down in the ocean, but all the other ones are
invented by people through a myth, legend, folklore, fiction
and conspiracy theories. That's one of the keys there, I
(04:52):
think, that you mentioned is they're invented by people.
These are things. Sometimes a monster could be a
real animal, like a tiger that we say has developed a taste for
blood. That can be a real living thing.
But it's only monstrous because we make it monstrous, and our
fear makes it into more than it is.
(05:16):
And the other thing about these monsters that are man made, they
can evolve folklore and fiction.I was thinking about the
monsters that, you know, have evolved out of the story of
Wizard of Oz over the last 100 years.
Oh, right. Definitely.
Evolutions can come 100 years down the road.
(05:36):
A few 100 years down the road, we still see Frankenstein's
monster is evolving. There's new portrayals of that
all the time. There's all kinds of stories
about giants and all these monsters.
They keep coming back. That's one of the hallmarks of a
monster. You you think you've got rid of
it, but it comes back when society has that same need to
(05:58):
fulfill through it. Or if the box office wants
another hit and fans always loveit, you just always hope that
they leave that open. Well, now it seems like things
don't necessarily need to be left open for a sequel because
back story can be created at anytime.
And there's the prequel, so you can have the origin story of the
monster that you love so much from the original hit movie.
(06:24):
Yeah. So who and what do we find
monstrous? There's a lot of different kinds
of monsters out there. They can be supernatural, like
demons and ghosts, or they couldbe natural, like a Griffin.
It's a combination of multiple natural animals.
Sometimes these recombinations are what makes the things scary.
(06:45):
They you bring in all these enhanced qualities of all these
different creatures and throw them together, and what you get
is monstrous, truly frightening.And some of the fears and the
stories that have been told in witch trial records and accounts
have some of these very scary combo monsters in them.
(07:07):
Yeah, a lot of the humanoid or animalesque creatures that we
call monsters are these combinations.
There's the minotaur, it's a bull and a human.
The Sphinx, it's a lion and a human and a Griffin is a hybrid.
And then you have other humanoids like Slender Man and
cyborgs and space aliens that somehow have our shape but very
(07:29):
different qualities you mentioned.
Monsters that have our shape, but what about humans who end up
taking the form of an animal or a supernatural being?
They lose their humanity and become a monster physically.
Some of my favorite monsters arepeople who become animals.
(07:51):
Like growing up, I was always fascinated with the werewolf.
So the witch, the fictional witch, is one of these types of
monsters. The witch is often portrayed as
being, you know, a green person with a long hooked nose or other
(08:11):
qualities that are so exaggerated that they don't look
human anymore, but just any ordinary witch.
In a witch trial, somebody, an innocent person, can be turned
into a monster by throwing that label which on them.
That means that they're doing monstrous activities.
And in European Society, that meant that they were in league
(08:34):
with the devil, who himself is like the monster of all time.
And I'll tell you what, when those Puritan ministers in the
American colonies or governors were writing comments about the
women convicted of witchcraft, they weren't saying how
beautiful they were or, you know, complimenting their
extraordinary skills. They tried to dehumanize them
(08:58):
and make them sound scary harmful.
Yeah, that dehumanization, we'llcircle back to that.
So put a pin in it, everybody. Pin.
We'll be right back to that. Sarah, I believe your favorite
kind of monster is the kind thatwas once living and is living
again. That is absolutely right.
(09:19):
The undead. In fact, I'm kind of
disappointed that I forgot to bring my Darrell ear necklace
down here to stick on the books as an Easter egg.
I had meant to, but I love The Walking Dead.
I love Night of the Living Dead.I love it anytime.
I was so, you know, delighted when there was a zombie.
Nocus Bocus. I do love the undead.
(09:40):
I love them fast. I love them slow.
And I love watching stories, reading stories where people are
trying to survive. In a story with the undead, how
do you avoid becoming their victim or becoming that monster
That's it's like, yeah, it's theultimate monster, human monster.
(10:01):
Yeah, and the zombie has become a staple of television and film
and video games. Really, a lot of video games
that aren't really specifically about zombies will put in a
zombie mode just because people love, like, fighting off orgs of
the undead. That really strikes a chord with
people. It sure does.
(10:22):
I mean, how many years has The Walking Dead TV show been going?
But how many comics were bought before that?
That story has been going on fordecades.
That's very true, that one storyand it's definitely, you
mentioned some other great zombie movies.
It's not the only one. No, it's not.
There's always new ones. And yeah.
(10:43):
Some of my favorite monsters areanimals that may not exist.
They occupy this liminal space on the edge of our knowledge of
the wildlife of our planet. They're the cryptids.
They a lot of people believe that they're real.
Other people, not so sure, but things like Yeti and Bigfoot and
(11:06):
my favorite, chupacabras, the goat sucker.
Those are awesome. Well, one of the earliest
Bigfoot monsters that I could think of from like my childhood,
of course, but he just he just wanted to eat and sit on the
couch. He he, but he was working the
house. What's his name are?
You talking about Harry and the?Hendersons.
Oh yes, Harry and the Hendersons.
(11:26):
What a great one. What a great story.
Classic movie. Whose main character dad
actually becomes what you know, a really and actually, more than
one story later on, just a really monstrous character.
But back to Harry. What a fun.
What a fun monster. What a fun monster.
(11:47):
He was part of the family for a while until he had to go back to
his own family. So yeah, but people were hunting
him like he was a monster. That's So who's your favorite
Krypton Buster character? Well, Chupacabras is my
favorite. It's one.
(12:07):
It's just it strikes a lot of fear because it's a creature of
the night, like many of our monsters are.
You, you don't see it. You hear your goat or your
chicken, you know, squealing in the night or squawking, and you
run out to see what's going on. And by that time, the
Chupacabras is way gone. Nobody sees them, they're just
(12:30):
in there. They kill all the chickens and
the goats and then they're gone and they're very frightening,
vicious, pointy teeth. Awesome.
One of my favorite monsters is when you don't realize it's a
monster yet. It's that when you think it's
just a regular animal or just, you know, another community
(12:50):
member, but it turns out, Oh no,not even close.
Yeah, once that dog starts talking to you and its eyes
start glowing red, you know, you've got to get out of there.
And in this day and age, we alsohave digital monsters like
creepypastas. We just did an episode about
Slender Man and he's one of the most well known creepypasta
(13:15):
monsters. Yeah, and he's not even that
old, but he was known so, so quickly.
Like the news of the danger of Slender Man's spread from 2
photographs that were fictional and known to be fictional.
He has that look that is so scary because he almost looks
(13:38):
human, but then you realize he doesn't have a face and he's way
too tall and skinny. It's very slender, and he's got
tentacles that come out of his back.
I mean, without the tentacles, it's just a tall human.
It's Lurch in the woods and you think, OK, I can go up and talk
(13:58):
to that guy. And then those tentacles come
out and whoa, not talking to this guy anymore.
You just wrote a creepypasta story right there.
Yeah, he did. He saw Lurch in the woods and he
turned out to be Slender Man andhe killed you.
Yeah, good. But often we make monsters out
(14:19):
of real animals or real people we can make monsters out of.
You mentioned jaws and sharks before.
Lions, tigers, bears, wolves canbe seen as monstrous.
I love the and I know I just need to do more research on
this, but the Ghost in the Darkness, that film with the
(14:39):
lions and they're trying to build a railroad in Africa.
That's that I that of course, isthat film is vintage now, but I
was on the edge of my seat for that.
I loved it and I've seen it a lot.
Yeah, that's spine chilling. It's again that thing of the
darkness and these stealthy creatures that can just appear
(15:00):
suddenly from nowhere. Almost.
And one of the things about monsters in that, you know, even
though it's just an animal monster, I remember the
characters of that story were. So as it went on, they got more
and more puzzled because seemingly innocent, you know,
saintly characters we're gettinggobbled up like they're just in.
(15:21):
Monsters don't necessarily have a kill list.
Sometimes they do, but sometimes, you know, if they
find you, you're dead. And that was an example of that.
And I loved that feature of the story, too.
But that is a real aspect of monster lore.
And I think that's one of the, you know, one of the very scary
things about Slender Man. Who is vulnerable, who's
(15:44):
vulnerable to the dangers of monsters?
Everybody. Yeah.
Buddy yeah, I also want to acknowledge that for many, many
centuries or probably thousands of years, there have been
monsters terrorizing us on the deeps.
Sea monsters. You see them in the old maps.
(16:07):
There'll be sea monsters here, or in some cases there'll be
Dragons here. But sea monsters were used to
warn people from going to placesthat hadn't been explored
because you didn't know what wasin the unknown.
You you just didn't know. But sea monsters can turn out to
be things like giant squid or giant octopuses, and the Kraken
(16:29):
comes up and takes your ship down with it.
Even though a whale like Moby Dick is a monster story, it's
about a whale and whales. We shouldn't think of whales as
monsters really, but they can bein the right story.
We also tend to monsterize humans, villainous humans, super
(16:52):
villains in the comic books, butreal villains in real life,
serial killers are called monsters.
You look at the Netflix series that's going on right now,
They've got monster, the Ed gamestory on there.
I'm on episode. 5. Oh, you're on Episode 5 of the
Ed game Monster? And didn't they do a Jeffrey
Dahmer before that? They did.
(17:14):
Yeah, yeah. The series, you know,
demonstrating humans doing monstrous acts.
Yes, and I'm going to circle back to this too, because I
don't want to lose what you're you just said that is important,
that they're doing monstrous acts.
(17:36):
And so we label them as therefore being a monster.
But is it appropriate to label humans as monsters?
I mean, there's some people thatare so reviled and do such
terrifying, villainous, murderous things that can you
say that they're not a monster? Think of people like Hitler and
(17:56):
Stalin and all their murderous rampages.
So we we say, should we be calling them monsters?
So then why wouldn't we? Why?
Why would we just say that's theworst kind of human?
Is there a name for the worst kind of human?
It's only devil or monster. It.
There's not a tear below that, Idon't think.
(18:19):
No. Bad bad boy.
Bad girl. Yeah.
Bad dog. Naughty Dog, criminal monster.
It's like a progression in how we.
Oh, thug. Yeah, definitely there and there
and and witches are somewhere inthere and.
So I think, you know, the answerto that is we're going to as a
(18:40):
society where we can use that label to put them very far from
the good people by putting them with the most scary concepts and
threats. It is, but what do we get out of
isolating people in such a way? Cutting them?
We're basically cutting them offfrom humanity at that point.
(19:03):
One of the things that I did when I was prepping for this
chat was I was thinking about winning against monsters and
monsters winning against humans.And that's a whole fun list
we'll probably get to. But you know, I was realizing
that there's this punishment aspect.
You know, monsters are punishers, but we want to punish
monsters and we want to punish our most vile transgressors in
(19:26):
our societies. We take it into our own hands.
That's where we get a witch huntfrom, an actual witch hunt
because somebody is trying to punish an alleged witch.
So I just think of punishment. I think that's one of the
reasons, because we're going to punish.
And punish them in such a way that makes them stand apart as
(19:48):
monsters. People, you don't want to try
this at home. You don't want to be like these
folks. So make an example.
But we're also like, we take away their humanity in the way
we recognize it, but then we're also taking, you know, their
punishment. They're losing their identity
and their rights. And, you know, they're not a
part of society anymore. But they never, some of them,
(20:09):
you know, they actually never were.
If they were in there sneaking around doing monster's acts,
they were never part of society.That's a really good point.
And the same with, you know, centering in on the witch as a
monster. This is what people expected
from witches, that they're goingto act so far apart from
(20:31):
society, from human society. They're part of the devil
society, but they're not a part of our society.
They're two different. They have no morals that you
know can be comprehensible to us.
You can't understand the witch. You don't know where they're
coming from. You just know that they want to
be the opposite of the good person that everybody else in
(20:53):
the community wants to be. So we're accusing humans of
being secret monsters? Secret monsters.
Yes, people can act like your friend.
They could be part of your family, and then they turn
around and they cast a spell on you.
Monsters. What do we get out of accusing
the witches of being the secret monsters?
(21:15):
Retribution and possibly the endof a threat.
That's very true because I know in a lot of the witch trials
there were, like in the Salem witch trials, there were
children who were sick and people couldn't figure out why
they were sick. And so they decided that it was
witchcraft that was making them sick.
And what was the cure for witchcraft?
(21:39):
Eliminating the witch. It wasn't more cowbell.
It wasn't a simple fever. It was like you had to get rid
of the source of the magic. It's interesting, you know, with
the witch monster, like we're not going around fearing that
vampires are using the evil eye on us and that our Ant is
becoming a vampire. So let's kill that vampire.
(22:01):
Like when you kill a vampire, it's a known vampire like in
lore or stories, But with a witch, often in these real life
natural world situation, witch hunts, there's no proof you're,
you're never, you're alleging, you're not identifying anything.
Whereas in folklore, stories or fantasies, the witch is revealed
(22:22):
too, just like a vampire, but a serial killer.
They're identified. We know they are, that we're
going to end what they're doing.We're going to restrict them,
we're going to punish them. But accused witches, they're
women, children, men. We're not proving that they're
this witch monster by harming them.
(22:46):
Sure, sure, sure. We've talked about the monster
as a mirror. It reflects our own reviled
qualities, the repressed desires.
And once that we have, the monster is like people, but it's
different in some special way that identifies it, allows us to
say that it's not a human. It has to be a monster to do
(23:09):
such a monstrous thing. And like the monster is a
reflection of individual people,it's also a cultural construct
and a societal mirror, because society's fears and anxieties
feed into the visions of monsters.
It's what is fearing us that actually drives what we how we
(23:32):
shape this, how we make a body for our fear.
And it gives us an opportunity to triumph over a fear because
possibly the monster is not going to win.
And we need that victory, that that's something that we really
crave and hunger for victory over our fear, because then we
(23:56):
can live in peace. Yeah.
And you know, when you think about groups of people that are
feared, there's this conquering aspect.
You know when they become the victims of persecution as a
group, those persecuting or reveling in their triumph that
they're triumphing over a perceived monster.
(24:18):
But how do they overcome a monster?
Oh what a fun list. I just love looking at this.
Well, there's hunting, obviously, because of witch
hunts and other hunting. But you get to hunt, and you
might have a special weapon for your hunt, or maybe you're
hunting for treasure to be the start with.
(24:42):
That's a good point, yeah. You've got it out with the
monster. You've got to confront it.
You've got to fight it head on. This is a premise in every
horror movie. I think that the hero of the
movie asked to actually take themonster on head on.
You can't go around it. There's no running away.
There's no hiding. You've got to directly confront
(25:05):
the beast. One of my, you know, annual
watches for Halloween has a little confrontation like that
in a house and has to do with mypumpkin sucker back there.
But that is, you know, the monster is there to punish the
human in that case. But there's a showdown and you
(25:26):
know he's trying to overcome themonster.
Saint age-old struggle, This manand woman versus monster.
When you're, you know, watching a film, you're waiting to find
their weakness. Are the victims going to find
the weakness of the monster they're facing?
(25:48):
Yeah, same in video games. When you get to the boss at the
end of the level, you got to find its weaknesses.
Do you hit it in the eye? Do you like target the hands?
Do you have to go for the belly?Whenever it it stands up right?
You know, you've got to find a weakness.
It's Is it vulnerable to a stakethrough the heart?
Is it vulnerable to a silver bullet?
(26:09):
You often have to overcome a monster with some kind of
extraordinary means. And as we've seen from 1980s and
earlier and a little later horror flex, you're not going to
outrun them, but you could try. Yeah, you can try to join them.
That is a way of conquering a monster is, you know, changing
(26:31):
teams. And in the witch trials, that's
a transgression. Those who are being examined,
that's what those magistrates are asking them, you know, when,
when did you betray us? When did you join the Devil's
team? Yeah, and you can use magic
against monsters, you can use charms, you can use
(26:55):
incantations. My personal favorite weapon is
to not believe and not fear. That's one of my go to.
I always have that one in my pocket to pull out.
So not believing what you're seeing is the key to overcoming
up. Yeah, that's my that's my
favorite defense. Yeah, yeah, sometimes you just
have to go, you know, through back channels.
(27:18):
But there's so many stories, andI love these, where by the end
they are a believer. Like that didn't work.
The evils like, let me show you what you have to be afraid,
Yeah. That's exciting, but fighting
against a monster can bring people together.
(27:38):
It's a way in both. In like a film, you see teams of
neighbors band together to take on a threat.
You see in real life, people identify, say, a monster like,
say Nazis, and team up and go towar to defeat that enemy.
And it's a way of getting society to stick together and
(28:02):
banned against the common enemy.It's like that in in the movie
Independence Day, when the spacealiens come down to fight the
whole Earth. The whole Earth teams up and
says, we're fighting back. This is our planet.
Yeah, I I love stories where, you know, one person has
uncovered the conspiracy becauseuncovering a conspiracy is also
(28:23):
a way to beat a monster. But what good is that if
everyone around you is still buying the bluff?
If they they, they don't realizewhat's happening.
So getting others to team up with you, that's a fun challenge
in monster stories. Yeah, definitely.
Tattling like, I love it. You know, in stories where
(28:44):
there's the threat of revealing somebody's monstrous identity.
Right. Yeah, that can neutralize them.
Yeah. You can also try to redeem a
monster because we labeled things as monsters when we think
that they can't be redeemed. But if you can find a way to do
it and get them to come to some sense of peace or whatever it
(29:08):
is, put away their violence, then you can defeat them that
way. It's like hand Frankenstein's
monster a flower and treat him nicely and see if he responds.
There's yeah, I love it. There's a fairy tale then I'm
not going to be able to think ofthe name of her right now, but
it's the Dragon movie with Millie Bobby Rohn.
I love that story because the beast, the dragon, has been lied
(29:34):
to and so she's seeking revenge and, you know, murderous.
And the Princess is able to showher like this is actually what
the history is. This is what happened.
And then a Princess teams up with a monster to be the actual
bad guy. So many times there's a monster,
but it's like a screen. There's somebody behind the
(29:56):
curtain. So you see a monster and fear
it, but it's actually the humansthat are really monstrous ones.
Yeah, and I mean, isn't that an oz?
Yeah. Yeah, he's not a wizard.
They they figure him out, they uncover the conspiracy, they
(30:18):
find his secret and that causes him to collapse and he flees Oz.
Yeah, it's fun to flip the coin over and talk about how monsters
win. Oh, they have a lot of tricks up
their sleeves, including tricking people, scaring people,
lying to people. You do so many things.
(30:41):
Yeah, they infiltrate. There's been, like, I would say
there's a huge wave of those movies and books coming out
right now where it's an imposterinfiltrating, you know, this
community or family. So that is definitely a way that
monsters try to win against humans.
Speaking of human monsters like serial killers, a lot of them
(31:03):
use those kinds of infiltration tactics to befriend somebody or,
you know, act like they're a person that needs help
themselves and they'll get underyour radar and attack you when
you're not. Expecting it.
Monsters win with poison. They poison.
(31:24):
Do where they can possess your spirit, your soul.
Got it. They are such bullies.
Monsters do not relent, you know?
You have to keep looking over your shoulder or keep running or
keep trying. You know, that's the best.
In stories with fights against monsters, there's all these
(31:46):
attempts to overcome the monster.
Is this going to work? Is this going to work?
Oh, it worked. No, it didn't work.
They just continue to bully and oppress the humans.
And they can lure humans like the Sirens with their call that
wreck your ship against the rocks by luring you in with a
(32:07):
pretty voice. They cause doubt, self doubt,
doubt within bonds. They, you know, divide and
conquer with doubt. They do, and they love to
torment and to play with their food.
Basically they're they're like ayoung predator playing with a
(32:30):
mouse that it just caught or something.
They want to have fun and enjoy because perversely, and this is
part of what makes them monstrous itself, is that they
get off on other people's, like people's pain.
The monsters too. Yeah.
And when we're watching or, you know, in a book or a play that
has this, that can be a natural monster or supernatural monster,
(32:55):
they are tormentors. They are playing with their
food. Monsters make threats.
The threat is so scary because the threat, they get you right,
right in your vulnerable spot, whatever that is.
That those you know, they're notempty threats ever.
It's always the one weakness that the character has.
(33:17):
The monster finds it and holds it over them.
And humans do that to humans as well.
Another thing that monsters do that regular humans don't is eat
people. Yeah, obviously zombies are
people eaters. I really like the first zombie
eating in The Last of Us, but it's not with those undead.
(33:42):
It doesn't stop with the eating.There's more going on there
because of why they are undead and that was really like took it
up a notch. I'm glad you mentioned The Last
of Us because it also shows you that monsters don't necessarily
have to be animal in character. It's the fungus that's really
(34:02):
the monster that controls the dead bodies of the zombies.
It's the fungus that is taking over the world and is the great
threat to everybody who still lives on.
It in fact, in the pilot episodeof the series, they talk about
ergot, the fungus ergot. Do you talk about ergot?
(34:23):
Yeah, that was exciting. I was like, I hadn't played the
video game. So I went into watching that
series really blind and I was excited about that because I
love zombies so much. I wanted to be surprised about
everything. So I was like, oh, what are they
talking about ergot for? Because at that point you have
no idea what has caused the zombie apocalypse on Earth.
(34:44):
Monsters are grabbers. And I was watching the black
foam because black phone too is I'm going to be watching that
soon. They call him the grabber, but
they do they grab. And we can think of so many
monstrous characters that harmedby grabbing and humans being
grabbed. It feels monstrous.
(35:05):
Anyone who is grabbing, you know, it feels like, oh, there
must be a monster. They grab and they take, and
that's what Pennywise the Clown does.
It's what, what's that guy's name?
Snidely Whiplash. He's always taking the women and
tying them up on the railroad tracks.
He's grabbing and taking. He's stealing people.
(35:28):
Yeah, it's so many of these things that we're talking about,
our experiences that people havewith humans.
And so again, it's just demonstrates that these
fictional scenarios that we watch, it's a way for us to cope
with what we're experiencing on this Earth with those that are,
like us, humans. We're all humans, but some of us
(35:51):
are, you know, doing the grabbing and the tormenting, and
others are getting eaten. Yes, that's such a good point
that you bring up. That it's creating a monster is
in part a transference of qualities that we don't like in
humans onto something else, so that the humans are less scary
(36:14):
in comparison. Because imagine if we went
around and thought of all humansas monsters.
Because we all have these inherent qualities in us that we
don't necessarily like, but thatsome people do ACT upon.
I want to talk about fear just like another moment, how like
exhausting it is. Because I think, you know all of
(36:36):
this that we're talking about. I'm always thinking about the
context of accusing innocent people of witchcraft and those
that are accusing, they are coming from a great place of
fear and exhaustion. And I think one of the things
that I want to remind people, seek out and understand those
around you and scenarios around you.
(36:56):
Because if you can put down a little bit of that fear, it's
restful. You don't have to exhaust
yourself with the fear. I think that's a really
important thing to remember about fear.
Yeah, that's really important. And just the way that we can
isolate and ostracize and other people because we don't
(37:18):
understand them. We don't we aren't willing to
take that step to get to know other people who come from
different walks of lives. And we can monsterize entire
classes of people based on our lack of understanding.
Yeah, people are dangerous because they're different.
Danger, lies and actions that harm, not indifference.
(37:39):
Yeah, so I mean, we talked aboutpart of this, but why do we need
monsters? We're trying to reconcile our
fears, the roots of our fears, the threats that we have, the
dangers that we have to move through to live life and enjoy
life. I mean, life is roses, but it
(38:02):
it's also storms. You have both together and
monsters. Help us navigate.
They do. They help us handle traumas,
anxieties. They help us to think about
things that ordinarily are too scary to think about, to face
our fears head on. That's part of the draw of
horror that you have a safe environment within.
(38:25):
You can confront your fears without any actual repercussions
to yourself. And then there's also not just
confirming the fears, but confronting the possibilities.
Like, what can I become? How bad can I be?
What, you know, how far can it go if if these people are doing
this? So I mean, there's that aspect
(38:46):
to like finding those guard rails of how far?
When do we need to stop ourselves and be like, whoa,
whoa, whoa, you know that would be monstrous of me.
Yes, and monsters. We touched on this a little
before, but I wanted to just bring this up again.
They teach us where our moral boundaries lie because a
(39:07):
monster, by definition, is something that is violating.
It's violating our our rules, our sense of order, you know,
our code that we live by. It's the things that we might
have thoughts about but we don'tever want to act on.
It's those that morality, it's aguiding light for how to, you
(39:27):
know, fit in and meet other people's moral expectations.
I do want to circle back to something we pinned earlier that
should pull the pin right back and read the note.
What did we say? What should we label people as
monsters? Or should we avoid monsterizing
(39:48):
people? So why, why, why do we do it in
the first place? Well, we find their behaviours
abhorrent. They're outside of that moral
boundary that we established, and we dismiss people as being
unredeemable. And unable to be understood, we
think, I can't grasp why anybodywould do that.
Why would somebody hurt a baby? Why would somebody hurt a
(40:10):
grandmother? You know, any of these
aberrations that a monster, a person that we end up labeling
as a monster does. It's things that we find we
can't understand because they'reoutside of the range of
activities that we've engaged inour lives.
We don't know where they're coming from.
Well, you have to look at their humanity in the horror of what
(40:32):
has happened. And I'll just pick a, I'll pick
a spiritual ritual abuse case. Generally we, you know, we find
unfortunately, here in the US, violent exorcisms ending the
lives of vulnerable children or the elderly.
We've talked about several examples that have happened this
year in our country. We're not going to understand if
we just say that was satanic. They're evil.
(40:53):
We had to look at what was that person?
What was the boiling point here?What are all the things that led
up to this man harming his grandma?
Because then we can learn how important it is to support our
community members, our children and our families and make sure
people aren't out on the margins, you know, out in the
(41:16):
frays, not getting the supports that they need because it's
humans in crisis. Now, I'm not going to say that's
a blanket statement for every serial killer and atrocious, you
know, behaving human. Every instance is its own
contextualized ordeal. But if we are looking at humans
(41:42):
who are involved in crimes as humans, we can learn how did we
get here? So we don't get there with more
people. That is such a good point
because when you write somebody off as a monster, you cut off
inquiry into, you know, what were their motivations?
What were they thinking at the moment that they did that?
What got them to that point? Is there something, you know, is
(42:06):
there a mental health issue? Is there some other societal
issue that we need to address tohelp people not go down that
road? The.
Answer is yes. Yes, yeah.
And you know, we need to be careful when we call people
monsters because we don't want to dehumanize and marginalized
(42:26):
entire sectors of our society. We don't want to write off
people. You don't want to say that kid
that did that really wicked thing is a monster or that that
kid is a bad kid. You want to stay with them and
you don't show them the way to be good.
You don't want to hunt monsters.You don't want to fight monsters
(42:48):
because when monsters are haunted, monsters are killed.
And if we're making monsters of segments of our society, this is
the road that we're leading ourselves down, down this
Hunter's path to start thinking them as prey because they're not
like us. And if they're not human like
us, then what's their life worthanyways?
(43:08):
Yeah, absolutely. And I was thinking too, you
know, it is really critical to protect vulnerable people and
children in communities from people who are causing harm.
We can do that and support everybody, but it doesn't you
(43:28):
don't, you know, too many children are being left in very
dangerous situations and interventions.
We need to have the energy and funding and programs and
expertise to support families where they're at and build them
up. This was really fun.
I so glad that monsters intersect with the important
(43:52):
things that we're addressing every time.
It's not fun to say, oh, you know, this is very relevant.
But that creative side of monsters and storytelling, it's,
it is important and it's a big part of our popular culture.
And it was great to get to talk about it.
Be kind, be safe, inquire. Don't label people and have a
(44:22):
great today and a beautiful monster for you tomorrow.
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