My God I've Created a Monster!

1. “Unable to endure the aspect of the being I had created, I rushed out of the room, and continued a long time traversing my bedchamber, unable to compose my mind to sleep.” (Mary Shelley's Frankenstein)

2.   “We knew the world would not be the same. A few people laughed, a few people cried, most people were silent. I remembered the line from the Hindu scripture, the Bhagavad-Gita. Vishnu is trying to persuade the Prince that he should do his duty and to impress him takes on his multi-armed form and says, "Now, I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds." I suppose we all thought that one way or another.” (J. Robert Oppenheimer 1965)

 

  

3. What's number 3 going to be? What is the next invention that epitomises 'Man' playing 'God' through the use of technology? Perhaps the omnipotent Internet? Maybe TV?

 

Do monsters really exist?

“This thing of darkness I acknowledge mine.”

‘Monsters are our children. They can be pushed to the farthest margins of geography and discourse, hidden away at the edges of the world and in the forbidden recesses of our mind, but they always return. And when they come back, they bring not just a fuller knowledge of our place in history and the history of knowing our place, but they bear self-acknowledge, human knowledge – and a discourse all the more sacred as it arises from the Outside. These monsters ask us how we perceive the world, and how we have misrepresented what we have attempted to place. They ask us to reevaluate our cultural assumptions about race, gender, sexuality, our perception of difference, our tolerance toward its expression. They ask us why we have created them.’ (Cohen 1996 university of Minnesota)

Illustration of a feminine monster

This is "Myra" by Marcus Harvey.  Based on the police mugshot of Hindley at the time of her arrest, Harvey reworked the image using the plaster-cast of a child's hand.  The image caused outrage when it was shown at the 'Sensations" exhibition at the Royal Acadamy in 1997, and had to be protected by glass and security guards after atempts were made by visitors to the exhibition to deface it.  David Lee, the editor of Art Review back in 1997 was quoted as saying:  "It was said at the time that this work was exploring and examining pedophelia and aspects of child abuse.  It wasn't actually doing anything of the kind. It was merely exploiting a very famous image of a very infamous subject in order to advance the career of the artist."

 

all things rolled into one

This is from a guy called apatheticash. Its part of a series of drawings he did called 'The bloody chamber series'. You should go and check them out:

http://apatheticash.deviantart.com/gallery/

This post comes via Will.

He is having trouble getting on this blog and has asked me to repost this.


http://www.popmatters.com/pm/post/137079-visceral-games-body-horror-and-the-monstrous-female-body 

Fatal Frame: Feminizing the Final Girl

http://cerise.theirisnetwork.org/2007/10/05/fatal-frame-feminizing-the-final-girl/

click the link above for an article by Jenni Lada that may be of interest:

"The premise of the “Final Girl” feminist film theory is that, through a surviving female lead character in a movie, the audience is able to investigate the nuances of the film and deepen the terror experience in a way that would not be possible if a man were to take the lead. Moreover, many argue that the way the final girl is created and fights the villain allows the opportunity to make her more masculine.

The Fatal Frame series of video games challenges this notion through the lead characters and the manner in which they dispatch the ghostly villains that surround them. With this shift, Temco is challenging the notion that the final girl needs to become masculine. This makes the argument that a girl does not need to tap into or mimic some sort of masculine behavior pattern in order to face and defeat a fearsome opponent."

...or does it just allow game designers the excuse to design lead female characters as cute, 'virginal' and naive, sexually pleasing to a male audience, and unthreatening to a female audience, thereby merely enforcing existing gender stereotypes?????

Judy Chicago and the monstrous feminine?

Remembered another interesting artist http://www.judychicago.com/

She has worked in an unusually wide range of media, including ephemeral pyrotechnic and atmospheric displays, live performances, painting, drawing, printmaking, sculpture, and both individual works of art and mixed media installations drawing on crafts such as china-painting, ceramics, needlework, tapestry and glass.

'The Dinner Party' was a mixed media tribute to the cultural achievements of women in history, created with assistance from hundreds of volunteers during the late 1970s, and is definitely worth a closer look...

Vagina Dentata...The Play

I found this, a play called Vagina Dentata...http://www.volcanotheatre.co.uk/298/past-productions/vagina-dentata.html

Frida Kahlo

Ive previously looked into the artist frida kahlo and her work. I came across this passage which also links to the monstrous feminine, thought it was quite interesting

http://womensstudies.byu.edu/KristinaGibby_FridaKahlo/

monstrous feminine

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yH8yuld4DUE

Looking at the film Teeth and exploring into the Vagina Dentata Mythology thought it had some relevance. Dawn is her chastity group's most active participant. But she discovers she has a toothed vagina when she becomes the object of violence and experiences both the pitfalls and power of living the vagina dentata myth.


http://ezinearticles.com/?The-Truth-Behind-Teeths-Vagina-Dentata-Mythology&id=1279230
Interesting site about the myth. 

Red Cap

Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm wrote ‘Little Red Cap’ in 1812, who included the folk tale ‘Little Red Riding Hood’ in their collection Grimm’s Fairy Tales after revising it, changing the ending to the Huntsman’s rescue, the conclusion more commonly known today. This is referred to in the poster by the date, the title, and the text “Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm present”.

The tagline is taken from the stated moral of the earliest printed version of Little Red Riding Hood:

“One sees here that young children, especially young girls, pretty, well brought-up, and gentle, should never listen to anyone who happens by, and if this occurs, it is not strange when the wolf should eat them. I say the wolf, for all wolves are not of the same kind. There are some with winning ways, not loud, nor bitter, or angry, who are tame, good natured, and pleasant, and follow young ladies right into their homes, right into their alcoves. But alas for those who do not know that of all wolves the docile ones are those who are most dangerous.”
Charles Perrault, 1697

The quotations in white that form the small print of the poster are quotes from the second edition of Jack Zipes book ‘The trials and tribulations of Little Red Riding Hood’ (1993). In the book, Zipes explores the origins, meanings and various versions of the story.

- Isaac Livingstone, James Tubb.

Monstrous Feminine and The Descent

Found an interesting essay at www.pleasantfluff.com that looks at films such as The Descent and Ginger Snaps, discussing how these films relate to ideas about the monstrous-feminine. The author, Aiyesha McInerney, references the work of Barbara Creed and Carol Clover, and notes how these two theorists' work is indebted to Mulvey's Visual Pleasure and the Narrative Cinema.

http://www.pleasantfluff.com/2009/09/24/female-subjectivity-as-primal-sisterhood-from-feminist-film-theory-to-feminine-horror-in-ginger-snaps-and-the-descent/

Dyadic mothers

'Smiling a tight little smile, in a toneless voice, Louise Fletcher forces Jack Nicholson to take his tranquilizing medication. With the same smooth, bland expression, she will later order his lobotomy'

ALJEAN HARMETZ for the NYT 1975

 link : http://www.littlereview.com/goddesslouise/articles/nyt1175.htm

Louise Fletcher's performance of this character is a great example of the dyadic mother.

From a video game percpective I think the two biggest dyadic mothers must be SHODAN and GlaDOS.

Interestingly in System Shock 2 SHODAN is interacting with a character who is male (you the player)

while in Portal GlaDOS is interacting with a female character (schell/you)

SHODAN is megalomaniacal in her interaction saying things like:

'You move like an insect. You think like an insect. You ARE an insect. There is another who can serve my purpose. Take care not to fall too far out of my favor... patience is not characteristic of a goddess.'

Whereas GlaDOS intereacts on a far more grounded level with constant digs at the players weight/family and education:

"You're unlikeable. It says so right here in your personal file, unlikeable, liked by no one. A bitter unlikeable loner who's passing shall NOT be mourned. SHALL NOT BE MOURNED. That's exactly what it says. Very formal. Very offical....It also says you were adopted, so that's funny too."

I am going to talk further about my research into both of these mother figure AI's on thursday and try to come up with a sold reason for the different treatments depending on the antagonists sexuality.

Hansel and Gretel

Funnily enough just came across this...going back a little but still relevant

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nlfnhVsbyeQ

Who's the monster here?

Thought it really went with the whole monster theme. and the twist of how the story changes around.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2cXDgFwE13g

Film Posters

  

My film poster, based on the film 27 dresses and the life and times of Schlitzie Surtees, a performer from the film 'Freaks", who was always costumed as a girl or toddler.  Horrible (and undignified) dresses all round!