We have been connecting the monster theory to movies and current events. This week, either connect a text of your own to the theory or expand on one of the points brought up in class this week. In other words, find a text to analyze or find one to support the class discussions for the week.
Make sure to include a link, summary, and analysis. Minimum 250 words.
Professor Ramos' Blog 
I have decided to write my paper about Vampires, mainly the vampires from The Lost Boys and from Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part Two. For someone who loves the old school type of vampire, which for me The Lost Boys represents perfectly; but Breaking Dawn really caught my interest not because of the vampire aspect, it was because I was a teenage girl that did find vampires awesome but all I cared about is if the Volturi was going to kill Bella and Edwards’s baby and if Jacob could just leave Bella alone because she wasn’t interested at all and he couldn’t get it through his head. Anyways, I will get to all that in my actual paper. With this journal entry I will just touch a little on the Vampires “powers” in Breaking Dawn, and how that differs from anything we’ve seen in other adaptations of this monster.
So the article that I read discusses other vampire movies and shows, using sexuality as a main selling point for a movie or a show, getting good looking actors to play immortal beings to draw in victims. The article states that even though the Twilight Saga is done with its books and movies the Hollywood genre for vampire movies will never be the same. Also, the vampires I grew up with before Twilights big break out in pop culture is that they could only hypnotize their victims but in the Twilight series they can also read mines, torture someone by just looking at them, change a person’s mood, etc. After reading monster culture the Twilight saga alone touches on five out of the seven theses.
The Article: https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2012/11/after-twilight-where-do-vampires-in-pop-culture-go-from-here/265393/
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I’m going to write my evaluation on Ted Bundy, a real life monster.
On Jan 15 2018, Tallahassee Florida remembered the attacks perpetrated by Ted Bundy forty years prior. The mix of despise and fear by the public and the media brought about both biographies and horror films. Bundy’s trial was televised nation-wide as he was sentenced to the first of three death sentences.
On Jan 15 1978 Bundy broke into a sorority house, killed two women and hospitalized two more before breaking into another student’s home. “They were all beaten with like a big chunk of firewood, and beaten to death in their beds”, Brent Kellestad from the associated press recalled. This is even more disturbing because there were probably thirty other women asleep or in the area and Bundy brutalized them without the other woman hearing their screams. He was later arrested for another murder in which he had also kidnapped the young girl. Bundy exhausted all avenues of appeal before spending his last days confessing to more unsolved murders. He waited execution for ten years before getting the electric chair on Jan 24 1989.
About a thousand people waited across from the prison in the field during his execution, Kellestad remembers. When it was announced that he was dead, a huge cheer erupted as if a touchdown had been scored in a football game.
https://news.wfsu.org/post/tallahassee-remembers-bundy-attack-40-years-later
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While trying to find an interesting article about monsters, one headline caught my eye: “Visiting professor discusses the monsters of the Bible”. The Bible tells the stories of many demons and monsters so it was intriguing to read what a professor had to say in summarizing them. The professor, appropriately named Esther Hamori, made a very thought-provoking statement about monsters in general: ““Monsters have meaning. Wherever they appear, they reflect something about what their creator thinks, how they see the world…Monsters raise questions. Monsters makes you think” (Sun). The story does not make mention of Satan as the serpent in the Garden of Eden but uses the cherubim as the Garden’s guardian while also referring to angels not as majestic beings with halos but as “deadly, shape-shifting, realm-crossing, divine hitmen” (Sun). Just by these statements alone, the reader’s attention can already be caught by giving bold facts like the angels being hitmen but an observation that can be really surprising is how Hamori states that most of the frightening Biblical monsters in existence come from God, not Satan. This makes even more sense when one considers the fact that even Satan was an angel known as Lucifer. According to Biblical story, when he rebelled against God, he took the angels that sided with him (one third) to his new home of Hell.
What really drew me to this story was how it talks a lot about the Biblical monsters and especially how the first quote I have relates well to the monster theory. This can be explained because Hamori’s quote resonates with the theories that talk about a monster’s role in society. Religious studies is also a fascinating topic to me, an additional reason why I chose this particular article.
https://www.jhunewsletter.com/article/2019/11/visiting-professor-discusses-the-monsters-of-the-bible
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In this article about professional MMA fighter Nate Diaz it explains the fallacies of the United States Ant-Doping Agency and all of their extreme rules. He was tested positive on a banned substance and most would think cause of his history with cannabis but it was actually a type of dietary substance. The UFC is one of the most complicated leagues when it comes to their rules on banned substances other than performance enhancing drugs like steroids they don’t ban things while off competition. The rules for in competition and off completion are 24 hours before your fight you cannot be under the influence of any banned substance.
Nate Diaz fought against Jose Masidaval and although he put up a valiant effort he was ultimately the loser due to doctor stoppage of the fight because his eye was spilt open to severely. Nate was upset because he used a dietary substance that did not show or label the said steroid he was found to be under the influence of. They were said to be fighting for the BMF title due to their both very “Gangster” attitude and although Diaz is infamous for his interview and trash talking skills, Masidaval and his street fighting background ultimately made him the winner of the professional bout. At the end of the fight, Diaz stated he would want to go for a rematch but that he respects the winner of title till then. Until the rematch the fans will just have to wait and appreciate the highlights from the first fight.
https://www.scmp.com/sport/martial-arts/mixed-martial-arts/article/3035732/ufc-nate-diaz-exposes-many-fallacies-usadas
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There is a saying out in the world that has humans at ease, and that saying is “Monsters are not real.” Even though this may be true, the stories and backgrounds of all monsters are greatly unique due to the fact that every monster was created at a time of human suffering. Thus being said, monsters are the quintessential example of how humans felt at the time the story of the monster was created. Therefore, I am actually very honored to show you the story and the horrors of what many people call this creature, “The Rake.” This humanoid being is thought to have the appearance of a tall, emaciated, pale creature that at times can crawl but when attacking, it can be bipedal. Its origins are unknown but fan theories suggest that it has first appeared in the Northern United Kingdom, and made its way somehow to the east coast of the United States in the New England area. Its first reports came around the time of the seventeenth century, but by that time it was only folklore until it attacked an individual. Since then the reports and sightings of this ghastly being have only greatly increased. As time moved on, so did this creature, with new ways of attacking and soon later gaining the name of “The Rake.” I will inform more of this creature and the way it related to the seven theories of the monsters, but as of right now, it is better to sleep with the lights on, as it only hunts at night.
https://monster.fandom.com/wiki/Rake
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In class we have been discussing about different types of monsters and what characteristics make a monster. Recently I have found a documentary about a man who attempted to rob a bank with a bomb. Now, this was no ordinary bank robbery obviously if a bomb was involved. In this situation the bomb was attached to this mans neck and he demanded the bank teller to fill a bag with $250,000 or else the bomb would go off killing him and the people inside the bank.
This documentary is on Netflix and takes place in Lake Erie Pennsylvania. The man who robbed the bank was Brian Wells and he did not attempt to do this for his own purpose but for the purpose of the people behind it. The bomb attached to his neck was set up by a group of people that specifically targeted this man. After Wells left the bank with only $9,000 he was stopped by state troopers and arrested. After that, many more police officers showed up waiting to defuse the situation, but with time running out the bomb eventually set off killing Wells and injuring few people within range of the blast. FBI had got involved to find the people who were involved with the murder and plot of the bomb robbery. Time news did an article about the documentary and stated, “Many leads for potential suspects turned up empty until a local man named William Rothstein tipped off state police to a frozen body in his garage. According to an FBI affidavit, Rothstein said his former fiancée, Marjorie Diehl-Armstrong, had murdered her own boyfriend, James Roden, and stuffed his body in the freezer. Shortly after, authorities arrested Diehl-Armstrong, who later implicated herself and Rothstein in the collar bomb crime.” the death of Roden was because he was going to tell the authorities about the bomb heist but ended up murdered before he could say anything. Later Marjorie was arrested for the murder of Roden and she had confessed to the bomb heist to one of her inmates and eventually the documentary was made decrypting every little detail needed to know about the events that took place. Monsters take many forms and in this case it took the from of a women who manipulated her way into making a ma rob a bank for her own financial gain.
https://time.com/5268006/netflix-evil-genius-collar-bomb/
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Monsters have been a big topic in class lately and the monster I choose to go over was Vampires. The version I choose to focus on a but more closely on was the way the creature is portrayed ion the show What We Do in the Shadows because instead of being scary or off putting they are sarcastic and honestly a bit slow on todays customs. The show is tale of three vampires as we traditionally think of them, being from the 12th century with an eastern accent and usually with a backstory of royalty or a war monger. There is technically a a fourth vampire but he is what the call a energy vampire as instead of only stick to the nights and sucking blood he can walk around during the day and sucks the energy out of people by boring the energy out of them. The show really takes on the theory of wanting to be the monster because it makes looking like a vampire is actually not so easy and actually really funny rather in comparison to vampires in the Lost Boys or even Twilight series. They are still trying to appear menacing with powers like turning into a bat or hypnotism but most of the time they just seem like outcast that just don’t like people. Although only having the one season on fx, the show was renewed for a second in which their antics will continue to grow and play on old traditional vampire stereotypes.
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I decided to write on “doctor sleep” only because it’s in connection to king and kubrick films. These never really show the actual monster but let you create it on your own.
“Doctor Sleep” connects the visions of Stephen King and Stanley Kubrick with his own style, made most popular in Netflix’s “The Haunting of Hill House.” It is a blend of the three as it’s forced to pay more homage to Kubrick’s vision than King was in his book, which served purely as a sequel to a novel that the filmmaker had drastically changed when he adapted it in 1980. Flanagan was tasked with making a sequel to a film that stays loyal to a book that ignores the changes made in the first movie. Different characters are in different places at the end of the book and film versions of “The Shining,” and Flanagan has to tie the two together. For example, King’s original book ends with the explosion of the Overlook Hotel. We all know that Kubrick’s “The Shining” does not. And while one can sometimes feel Flanagan struggling to satisfy both King and Kubrick fans when he really should be trusting his own vision, he’s talented enough to pull off this difficult blend of legacies. Danny Torrance figuring out how to control his “shining” powers and capturing the ghosts that haunt him, we’re re-introduced to an adult Dan. he’s basically using alcoholism to hide his trauma, and he reaches rock bottom when he takes money from a single mother with whom he just had a coke-addled one-night stand. He jumps a bus to New Hampshire, where he tries to find stability, joins AA, and makes a friend named Billy, before getting a job at a hospice, where his shining power allows him to help people on the edge of death cross over. There’s a respectful solemnity to these scenes that emerge from Flanagan’s empathetic and emotional side. The idea that someone who learned through trauma that ghosts are real could comfort those wondering what happens after death is one that Flanagan takes seriously.
https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/doctor_sleep
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In class we have been talking about “Monsters”. We made a list at the beginning of class where we just shouted out the first thing that came to our minds. Once we got to about 150 different types of monsters we stopped. We talked about characters from movies, politicians in todays world and even just people who have done terrible things to make them fall under the category of monsters. I really enjoyed this segment of class because I could not stop thinking about all the different types of monsters there really are.
One of the biggest that stood out to me and got me thinking the rest of the we was fear. I believe fear is a monster we should conquer. Fear is an unpleasant emotion caused by the belief that someone or something is dangerous, likely to cause pain, or a threat. fear is “a chain reaction in the brain,” according to How Stuff Works. Fear begins with a frightening stimulus and ends with your body preparing to protect itself from danger. You feel dread, anxiety, and panic. Your heart races, your breathing quickens, and your muscles tense up. We create these fears from movies, Our parents, and just feeling uncomfortable. I believe people should be open about their own fears and express them. Talking about your fears and trying to become more comfortable with them with help you cope with the anxiety.
https://www.verywellmind.com/what-is-the-fear-of-monsters-2671891
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This week we have been talking about monsters and what defines a monster. For this week’s journal I decided to write on a monster that happens to be a person. This person happens to be Jeffrey Dahmer whom many consider to be one of the worst monsters that has been caught. Dahmer would be considered a monster due to his numerous acts that society frowns the major ones being acts such as murder, cannibalism, pedophilia. All these acts he has done through his years that he was living in society. Dahmer was sent to prison for 16 murders he committed and would serve just 2 years of his numerous sentences. All the acts he committed has caused that even other inmate who have also committed crimes to be repulsed by his actions and have even gone to the point of being attacked by fellow inmates. It seems that even though they the prisoners were in the same situation Dahmer was not one of them as he was attacked. He eventually died on the second time he was attacked and died on his way to the hospital from sever head trauma cause by an inmate.
We see this person and we label him as a monster, but the question is what makes a monster? Fortunately for us ‘Monster Theory’ can help us identify why he is considered a monster. Thesis III ‘The Monster is the Harbinger of Category Crisis’ applies to this person, as he is hard to put into a category, he is a person, but he has done things that no human should do so what is he if not human? Thesis IV ‘The Monster Dwells at the Gates of Difference’ also applies to Dahmer as he went against the norm, and this thesis is about those that are different are to be considered monsters. Thesis V ‘The Monster Polices the Borders of the Possible’ once again applies to this person as there are certain ‘borders’ that one does not cross to avoid being labeled a monster, Dahmer crossed those boundaries that consisted of murder, cannibalism, and pedophilia and so was labeled as a monster by society. These are some of the Thesis that can be applies to Jeffrey Dahmer to explain as to why the man was labeled as a monster by society.
Link: https://www.crimemuseum.org/crime-library/serial-killers/jeffrey-dahmer/
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