Illustrating the Different 'Monsters' That Can Be Found in Society, Exploring Their Attributes, and Incorporating Them in a Short Video
When considering the normal traits of a monster, characteristics
such as its physical shape, size, and appearance are almost always the first
thoughts that come to mind. Adding to this, the standard stereotypical monster
is usually a hybrid of some sort that is mysterious, a recluse, and dangerous
towards humans, usually murdering them in a brutal manner. Therefore, when
analyzing how society itself is a monster, it important to look past the physical
characteristics and to draw abstract connections that illustrate the different
ways society attempts to trap us. As a result, this analysis attempts to bring
the different examples in the video to light and explain their “monstrous”
characteristics, tying them to the different scholars we have read.
With the opening of the video, the viewer observes the victim facing outwards,
contemplating whether to end his own life and escape the perils of society,
illustrating at once the danger that exist in everyday life, tying in immediately
with the idea that a monster harbors malice towards humans. By then using
the voice over, “some people wonder what brought me to this point, and
in all honesty, I’m not really sure,” there is the suggestion
that the victim, who is never referred to by name in the video, was simply
a random target. This would coincide with other monsters that we have discussed
such as Frankenstein, who when he travels to Switzerland, kills an innocent
child with no real reason.
With the fading out of the initial scene, the viewer is introduced to the
actions that took place the night before, when the victim returned from presumably
a hard day of work, and decided that he would take his life. Upon entering
the scene, we are immediately confronted with three common dangers, debts
and bills, depression and drugs, and alcohol. Beginning with the bills, the
video illustrates the common chore of paying them and making sure that ends
meet, a consequence of our commercialistic society that encourages paying
for items on credit. According to statistics compiled daily from the U.S.
Department of Treasury, the current public debt is an extraordinary 3.7 trillion
dollars, and when combined with the governments debt, an unbelievable 6.46
trillion dollars. This leads to the situation where many cannot pay for the
items they purchased and are then caught in a trap where they are chased constantly
by debt collectors, leading to in the majority of the cases, a total change
in the victim’s life.
Director Michael Moore illustrated an extremely sad but applicable illustration
of how debt can be seen as a killer in the documentary Bowling for Columbine.
In the documentary, he describes how a one-parent family living in a run down
apartment in Flint, Michigan, no longer could afford to pay the rent and had
to move out and live with relatives. Staying at the relatives, the small child,
aged six, found a loaded gun lying around the home, and the next day, when
at school, shot and killed one his classmates. Immediate blame was placed
on the mother who many said should have taken better care of her child, instead
of on the circumstances surrounding the incidence. It turned out, the mother
was part of a Michigan state run work program that found minimum paying jobs
for the unemployed at an upper scale mall over an hour away. Even though the
mother had two jobs, she was unable to afford to pay the rent and in the end,
had she either been unemployed or had work closer to home, would have probably
been able to prevent this from happening. This is essentially an example that
illustrates how a monster can be created from any situation, such as work
program to combat debt, that without due-thought, can create more harm.
Moving on in the video, we view the victim interacting with
the telephone and answering machine. This is a direct reference to the common
argument that has recently appeared where technology is acting in monstrous
ways. Simple examples of this range from virus attacks on personal computers
to large-scale corporate breaches which facilitate identity theft (which in
itself, is an uncanny situation which could be described as monstrous). In
this case, the telephone and answering machine illustrate two of Donna Haraway’s
points, firstly that “modern machines are quintessentially microelectronic
devices: they are everywhere and they are invisible,” (Haraway 153)
and that, Mary Douglas’s concept of the boundaries, essentially what
separates us from order and chaos, are being broken: “high-tech culture
challenges these dualisms [opposites to one another such as mind/body] in
intriguing ways. It is not clear who makes and who is made in the relation
between human and machine” (Haraway 177). By therefore having the telephone
act as the voice of the monster, containing messages of broken love and depression,
the video attempts to show that there is no longer a guarantee of personal
contact when delivering a message and that we have begun to rely on technology
for almost all of our tasks.
Analyzing why this is monstrous, there are two main reasons,
both revolving around the idea of the uncanny, essentially according to Freud
as something “frightening precisely because it is not known and familiar
[at the same time]” (Freud 195). First of all, it is uncanny for our
lives to be so intertwined with technology as we build up a dependence on
something that is not human, something that is abject. Second, the answering
machine has an uncanny feeling surrounding it, much the same way photographs
do. According to Susan Sontag, “photographs really are experience captured
and the camera is the ideal arm of consciousness in its acquisitive mood”
(Sontag 1). Furthermore, Sontag continues by discussing how “to photograph
is to appropriate the thing photographed,” (Sontag 2) meaning to take
as its own. In this case, the answering machine has “appropriated”
the voices of those who are close to the victim and used it in a way that
further agitates the victim and puts him in a greater state of unease.
The last direct link to a monstrous aspect in the video deals
with drugs and alcohol and its effects, tying in with Mary Douglas’
analysis of the concepts of order and disorder. Essentially, Douglas discusses
how elements outside of natural order frighten us, “symbolizing both
danger and power” (Douglas 94). Taking this one step further, we can
see alcohol as a way to influence our minds and traverse the boundary between
order and chaos, leading us to a situation that can not be reached normally:
“in the disorder of the mind, in dreams, faints and frenzies, ritual
expects to find powers and truth which can not be reached by conscious effort.”
This is monstrous as there is the unknown transitional state that we enter
that reduces our own senses and understanding and causes our behavior to radically
change, essentially changing who we are. Additionally, alcohol can also be
seen as monstrous due to its deadly consequences, ranging from long-term health
problems such as cancer to deadly accidents involving alcohol in one way or
another. Yet again, this links back to the idea that the victim could be anyone
as you can be affected by alcohol even if you do not consume, such as a victim
of a drunk driving accident.
One of the more interesting aspects of the video is some of
the formal elements such as setting and lighting that played a part in creating
the overall mood. The video was filmed in two locations, outside of the Bristol
Center in color and the Dunham basement lounge, in black and white. The reason
behind this was to present the victim contemplating what had brought him to
the point of suicide and to have the black and white segment illustrate the
abstract reasons. In selecting the location of the “home,” the
basement lounge was chosen as it has several similarities with those of a
stereotypical monster’s home, most notably the secluded location and
lack of light. It also has the uncanny similarity of lounges all over campus
making it again a universal image of a home.
In addition to the location, the soundtrack that went along
with the video was chosen because of its lyrics and melody. The song Heartattack
In A Layby, by Porcupine Tree, details the story of a person on the edge of
losing his life and paints a sad image of a yet again, unnamed victim contemplating
his worth, much like the victim in the video does. As the song progresses,
there is a small stanza that goes “If I close my eyes / And fell asleep
in this layby / Would it all subside,” which essentially sum up what
is going through the victim in the videoas he contemplates suicide and reinforces
how deadly the situation is.
The final “horrific” formal element of the video was not actually
caught on tape because of the angle of the lens of the camera. On the table,
there had been some photographs spread out of friends and family which had
the purpose of creating an uncanny feeling because as viewers, we were able
to recognize certain elements of the scene, namely the victim, but could not
place the location or reasons behind the picture. This mystery behind the
photos adds a sense of the uncanny, and as Sontag explains, is due because
they are “miniatures of reality” (Sontag 4) and have captured
part of us in them.
In the end, the main purpose of the video was to illustrate some of the abstract
monsters in society and how when combined, can lead to the point of suicide
or death. While the monster has no physical shape or form, its abstract methods
of causing harm mimic those of a physical monster and in each case, are just
as menacing.
Works Cited
Bowling for Columbine. Dir. Michael Moore. With Michael Moore. MGM, 2002.
Douglas, Mary. Purity and Danger: An Analysis of the Concepts of Pollution and Taboo. New York: Routledge, 1966.
Haraway, Donna. Simians, Cyborgs, and Women: The Reinvention of Nature. New York: Routledge, 1991.
Sontag, Susan. On Photography. New York: Anchor Books, 1977
U.S. Department of Treasury. “The Public Debt Online.”
April 4, 2003. Online
