Monsters have ideally inhibited the world that we live in. They often take the humanlike shape or other forms of visual representation that coincide with the current culture and surroundings. They tell the evil story of a nation politics, culture, nationalism, and surrounding. However, what they often depict as monstrous and revolting is usually a mirroring image of the human society. In the real sense, we not only live in a world that has numerous monsters, but we are often the monsters ourselves. In most occasions, the monsters are created by the society. Anything that stands out from the ordinary and expected features in terms of human beings or others, are shunned and this often brings out the defensive side of the creature therefore creating the monster. Therefore, more often than not, the monster is as a result of the society and therefore is the society.
Movies in the early 20th century brought a new meaning to science fiction to the movie culture, which has lasted until to date. This included blockbusters like King Kong, Frankenstein, and Metropolis. In this paper, emphasis will be laid on the movies Metropolis and Frankenstein and how the society and culture often create the monsters.
In the movie Frankenstein, the mad scientist ends up creating a being to appeal his mother’s death (Frankenstein 1931). He views himself as a God rather than man when he decides he wanted to create life. Frankenstein successfully creates a monster in the movie then abandons it after realizing how unfit it was for the normal society due to its abnormal features. Victor’s greatest mistake was not creating this creature out of dead body parts but abandoning it.
Ideally, in the surface of the movie, the being is the monster of the novel. This is due to its obvious grotesque and absurd features and its inhumane behaviors towards humanity and society. However, on deeper investigation, the mad scientist is the greatest monster in the movie. His arrogance and need to be loved and become famous in the society drives him to do monstrous things to become like God. Due to his obvious prestigious education, he believes he has all the skills to create human life and live in fame and wealth as a result (Frankenstein 1931). To complete his plan, he results to grave robbery not discriminating even that of his friends. The fact that he disrespects burial rights and resting of dead souls reveal the true monster hidden beneath the human being. At this stage, he also ignores his family and focuses selfishly on his goals to create human life.
After he completely puts the dead body parts together and electrifies the being, he realizes what a grave mistake that he had committed. This is the point at which he would have amended his wicked ways by loving the being and protecting it from the harsh claws of the society. Instead, he abandons it and later engages in a quest to kill it since it does not befit the society in any way (Frankenstein 1931). When he meets with it, he says extremely mean things to further triggering the monstrosities it commits. When it kills his brother and the Frankenstein house servant is convicted, he does not share his knowledge to exonerate the girl. This shows that he has absolutely little or no humanity to do such deeds and continues to let the people that he cares about most suffer. Even when the monster begs him to create a mate for him, he shreds every last piece of parts that would have successfully made her leaving the being to live in solitude, shunning, and hate for the rest of its days.
The movie Metropolis bears the same imagery of segregation, neglect, as well as unfairness. The mad scientist in Metropolis is Rotwang who lives in a rugged house in the middle of the city (Metropolis 1927). He is responsible of the technology used in running the city. In the futuristic setting, the city is flourishing in wealth and excess filled with pristine skyscrapers and extravagant wealth. However, the low class citizens who live below the city are the people who bear the burden of the smooth running of the city with their hard work and unbearably inhumane living conditions (Metropolis 1927). The people below have extremely poor housing and work unrelenting hours to a machine that services the city. As a result, the dwellers below are filled with despair and in the verge of starting an uprising, which would have brought grave consequences to the dwellers.
A woman Maria realizes the damage that would occur as a result of the uprising and urges the people to reject such thoughts and actions for their own good. The mad scientist above and the ruler of metropolis device a plan that will backset all efforts that Maria had been making with the people below (Metropolis 1927). Rotwang creates an android that can copy the exact feature of a human being to a robot. They copy Maria’s features to a robot and set it off to disrupt the harmony existing below even with the suffering. The new Maria provokes the workers to cause uprisings and promotes outrageous sexual behaviors among men.
The people realize something wrong with the new Maria and rumor starts going round that she may be a witch. Finally, they capture the robot and burn it at the stake. The movie represents different monsters, which may include the humongous machine and at some point the robot Maria (Metropolis 1927). These two monstrosities are created by the society’s elite who live happily above without a care for the welfare of most of the population. The scientist may have created the monsters but the society happily accommodated the results of his work but in the real sense, they are the monsters. The let people suffer and die in inhumane working condition while they live in excess for their own personal gain.
Monstrosity is because of the cultural construction of the society. The mad scientist’s experiments in these movies represent the outstanding embodiments of certain people in the society. The society also always seems to shun and punish anything that falls beyond or above certain normality in the community. Instead of embracing and appreciating difference and diversity, many people tend to punish such individuals.
In conclusion, humanity needs to be extremely cautious of whichever steps taken to create new advancements in the name of making life better. Inventers unlike Frankenstein and Rotwang should seek a morally correct route to achieve progression. To ascertain that the steps of the plan are harmless, they should shy of selfishness and personal gain. They should also respect the humanity and original cultural values. Efforts have been directed to curb negative influences and results begotten from some results of experimenting scientist. An example is human experimentation leading to psychological and physiological harm. However, the only way to curb and control such instances is building and reinforcing morality in experimenting minds. This will go a long way towards creating environmentally safe products that will improve the quality of life for humanity.
Works cited
Metropolis. Dir. Fitz Lang. Perf. Brigitte Helm, Alfred Abel, and Rudolf Klein-Rogge. Pan Canadian Film, 1927, Film.
Frankenstein. Dir. James Whale. Perf. Boris Karloff, Colin Clive, and Dwight Frye. Universal Pictures, 1931, Film.
