Creature from the Black Lagoon

-
This week, we watched the film Creature from the Black Lagoon, and read two chapters from Carol Clover's Men, Women, and Chainsaws. 

Though this movie cannot exactly be classified as a slasher film, it is interesting to consider its relation to the genre, along with other "occult" films. There is really no "final girl" like character to be found in the film. There is but one significant female character, and unlike a final girl she shows little in the way of perceptiveness, intelligence, or assertive authority against the monster. Instead, she seems more similar to the supporting characters in your typical slasher, who are picked off one by one. Her burgeoning femininity reinforces this connection, and puts her at odds with the typical "boyish" final girl archetype. However, like the final girl, she does ultimately survive the monster. It is not of her own wit or intelligence though, as she is rendered a damsel in distress that the men of the film take it upon themselves to rescue.

More than the explicit sex of the characters, the film's exploration of gender and sex through personality and symbols is interesting to contemplate. Most obvious is the dynamic between the masculine, assertive, prideful Mark, and the more feminine character of David. While Mark wishes to hunt the creature and penetrate it with the most phallic of weapons, David would prefer to take photographs; to remain a "feminine" spectator rather than engage the creature in a "masculine", destructive manner. As the film progresses, Mark's borderline obsession with harming and capturing the monster becomes more and more apparent, and tension grows between him and David. His eventual demise could be seen as a direct result of his urge to kill the monster. On the other side of things, David slowly comes around to using violence against the creature. While in the end he joins the others in violence against the creature, he is ultimately the one that stays the hand of his compatriot as he is about to deal the killing blow; something the late Mark surely would have foregone.

Considering old "cheesy" monster flicks like this one through an academic lens can reveal so much more than is easily and readily apparent from a cursory viewing. The use of analogues, symbols, and narrative devices to piece together an account of the film centered on sex and gender theories gives the film an entirely new meaning. In these cases, I find the aspect of intentionality interesting to contemplate. My initial impression would be that the director of this film did not place each of these elements precisely and deliberately, but rather inserted them as a result of their own internalized constructs of sex and gender. In a way, I feel that the "unintentional" aspects of an art can in a way reveal just as much as what is purposely communicated, in terms of the creator's mind, culture, and beliefs.  

Comments

  1. afreketeJune 9, 2020 at 11:30 AM

    This is one of the most classic of the 1950s monster movies in that it established many of the tropes and the formulas for films that came after it. I think that part of the reason that it feels cheesy to contemporary viewers is that its formulas have been so overused in film and television at this point. I think your point about gender and the film is very astute as it was made when gender was very much beginning to be in flux as the immediate postwar period gave way to the social change of the 1960s.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Hereditary

-
The film Hereditary  provides a good medium with which to test and observe Barbara Creed's many ideas on the monstrous feminine. The movie also lends itself to interpretations based on Carol Clover's ideas of the "occult", perhaps more so than last week's film, Creature from the Black Lagoon". The film is a clear example of the "monstrous mother" trope in horror cinema. One of the central arguments Creed utilizes is that of the "abject", the definition for which she largely borrows from Julia Kristeva's work. This abject is "the place where meaning collapses," but most importantly, it represents a boundary between the self and the "other". The corpse is the ultimate in abjection, Creed asserts. It is at once a person, and not a person at all. There are several examples in Hereditary where horror is derived from this sort of abjection. Firstly, the grandmother's open casket near the beginning of the film caus...
Read more

Blaxploitation and Ganja and Hess

-
It was interesting to explore the phenomenon of Blaxploitation this week, and to consider how the unorthodox Ganja and Hess  works into this preexisting framework. One stark difference I noticed was the absence of a real "other/monstrous" and "good/normal/human" dichotomy. As Benshoff observes, "...there are few 'normal' people in the film--no professor Van Helsing out to kill the vampires...". Instead, the film's focus remains with the antiheroes. The narrative structure and pacing of the film is also quite unusual, as drawn out philosophical musings are interspersed with violent killings, and clinically edited fast-paced sequences. The lack of a true "good" and "evil" in the film can make it at times appear confusing, but moreso compelling in its deviance from the norm. The non-linear and open structure of the film lends itself to many different interpretations.  According to Benshoff, "In general, blaxploitation f...
Read more

Human Roast Pork Buns and Violence in Film

-
Human Roast Pork Buns  is a bizarre mix of slapstick comedy, trite cliches and horrible, horrible violence. I must confess, slasher and gory horror is not my usual preference when it comes to film. That said, this film may rank among the most disturbing I have seen in terms of raw violence.  As the police crew searches the beach and discusses the evidence, the film's tone seems to be rather campy, with elements of dark humor. However, the scenes of the murderer turned shop owner and human meat caterer seem to have a different tone entirely. At some points it feels as if the scenes are taken from different films entirely. While the police are involved in comedic hijinks and ogling the boss's female companions, the shopkeeper murders his victims one by one in increasingly gruesome fashion. This juxtaposition of comedy and horror can provoke a feeling of utter disgust that I don't think would be so easily achieved without this device. Cutting from the police team's shena...
Read more