Thanks for your patience during our recent outage at scalar.usc.edu. While Scalar content is loading normally now, saving is still slow, and Scalar's 'additional metadata' features have been disabled, which may interfere with features like timelines and maps that depend on metadata. This also means that saving a page or media item will remove its additional metadata. If this occurs, you can use the 'All versions' link at the bottom of the page to restore the earlier version. We are continuing to troubleshoot, and will provide further updates as needed. Note that this only affects Scalar projects at scalar.usc.edu, and not those hosted elsewhere.
Sites of Monstrosity in Film: Genres of Horror and their Respective Villains: Hunter Luber, Spanish 058Main MenuSites of Monstrosity in Film: Genres of Horror and their Respective VillainsTitle PagePhysical DeformityMythical Creatures and LegendsInward Monstrosity -- Deformity of the MindMonstrosity of the UnknownMonsters from Outer Space and the DeepMonstrosity of Nature -- Monstrosity of the FutureBibliography and Works CitedHunter Luberc9a5b9be57fe8585fff1ad4885d16901b41882a5Hunter Luber
Sites of Outward Monstrosity
1media/The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Film Poster.jpg2020-04-13T10:44:31-07:00Hunter Luberc9a5b9be57fe8585fff1ad4885d16901b41882a53717611Obvious physical deformity or mutation -- not necessarily of the supernatural kind, yet outside the normplain2020-05-03T13:12:13-07:00Hunter Luberc9a5b9be57fe8585fff1ad4885d16901b41882a5Monstrosity takes many varied forms. It is difficult to set hard guidelines for individual sites of monstrosity. That is to say, monsters do not fit easily into single categories. The lines between different sites and genres of monstrosity are blurred and grey. Many monstrous characters fall into multiple different categories at the same time. However, it is impossible to move forward without creating some set of guidelines by which to consider monstrosity in film.
We shall begin with the first and most obvious form of monstrosity evident in horror films: outward monstrosity. By this, we mean monstrosity that is self-evident in the appearance of a character, creature, or "monster". Generally speaking, outward monstrosity manifests itself in the form of creatures that are large, potentially dangerous, and malformed. However, this is not necessarily a universal rule.Physical deformity or differentiation from the norm here is a must. If a creature looked perfectly normal in the human sense, it would not be outwardly monstrous (unless perhaps we wish to consider humanity inherently monstrous in and of itself, but we will consider that later).
If we begin with the definition that, "A monster is a living being of negative value" (Canguilhem, 28). We can consider this negativity in a few ways. Physical negativity in appearance would qualify as physical deviation from the norm -- that which either challenges general conceptions of beauty or conceptions of what is physically possible. Within the horror genre, outward monstrosity tends to take two forms. On the one hand, we have physical deformity. On the other, legendary or mythical creatures which have become a veritable pop-culture phenomenon in recent decades. Both of these categories challenge our conception of physical norms for human appearance. The ways in which this takes place will be explained in the following pages.