Read Monsters in America: Our Historical Obsession with the Hideous and the Haunting Online
Authors: W. Scott Poole
4
Examples of trends in technology that could be described as “post-human” are too numerous to detail. Miniaturization of parts has made possible the union of technology and the human body, while the interactivity and connectivity of human beings and their computers raises philosophical questions about the nature of mind and consciousness. Biotechnological developments have raised questions about the nature of species and the malleability of human nature. For a full discussion of these examples, see Elaine L. Graham,
Representations of the Post/Human: Monsters, Aliens and Others in Popular Culture
(New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 2002), 2–6; John Harris,
Enhancing Evolution: The Ethical Case for Making Better People
(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2007), 3–4.
5
An interesting counterpoint to this view of progress as monster can be found in Jon Turney’s
Frankenstein’s Footsteps: Science, Genetics and Popular Culture
(New Haven: Yale University Press, 1998).
6
Graham,
Representations,
11–17; Francis Fukuyama,
Our Post-Human Future: Consequences of the Biotechnology Revolution
(London: Profile Books, 2003), 112, 135, 156. See also John Seltin’s discussion of “liberal” and “apocalyptic” posthumanisms in “Production of the Post-Human: Political Economies of Bodies and Technology,”
Parrhesia
8 (2009): 43–59.
7
Michael J. Hyde,
Perfection: Coming to Terms with Being Human
(Waco, Tex.: Baylor University Press, 2010), 222–28.
8
Myra Seaman, “Becoming More (than) Human: Affective Posthumanisms, Past and Future,”
Journal of Narrative Theory
37, no. 2 (2007): 246–75.
9
James Cascio, Post Humanity,
http://io9.com/5533833/your-posthumanism-is-boring-me?skyline=true&s=I
(accessed May 1, 2010).
10
Graham suggests that the idea of the encased and mechanized body has long been not only a human fear but also a kind of mythic hope. See Graham,
Representations
,
181–84.
11
Joe Seltin, “Production of the Post-Human: Political Economies of Bodies and Technology,”
Parrhesia
8 (2009): 43–59.
12
“Portraits in Posthumanity: Aimee Mullins,” Post Humanity,
http://io9.com/5535730/portraits-in-posthumanity-aimee-mullins
(accessed May 1, 2010).
13
TED: Ideas worth spreading,
http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/aimee_mullins_prosthetic_aesthetics.html
(accessed May 1, 2010).
14
Ben McGrath, “Muscle Memory: The New Generation of Bionic Prostheses,”
New Yorker
,
July 30, 2007.
15
See Eric Eckholm, “In Turnabout, Infant Deaths Climb in the South,”
The New York Times
,
April 22, 2007. Notably, so-called cyberpunk literature has, since the 1980s, critiqued the possibility of limited access to techno-biological enhancement based on class and status. Cyberpunk dystopias feature a technocratic society stratified into a wealthy minority with full access to mechanical and genetic modifications and a proletariat denied these advantages due to their lack of wealth and status. A discussion of this genre is in Graham,
Representations
, 194–96. The narrative of the award-winning video game
Bioshock
(2007) also creates a utopia destroyed, in part, by a struggle for genetic enhancements. Augmentation of the body becomes a kind of chemical addiction desperately desired by addicts known as “splicers.”
16
The best discussion of the debate over the fate of humanity in a post-human technological environment can be found in Hyde,
Perfection
, 211–41.
17
My reading of the
Terminator
series is somewhat similar to Elaine Graham’s in
Representations
, 208–10, though I disagree with her suggestion that the series necessarily “glorifies” technology. Her reading seems heavily based on the 1984 film with its hyper-masculine, action-driven story that relies heavily on big guns and big explosions. These B-movie conventions are transgressed in interesting ways in essentially every other iteration of the myth.
18
Greil Marcus,
The Dustbin of History
(Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1995), 28.
abolitionists, and monster rhetoric,
67–70
Abominable Snowman,
133
abortion,
78
,
116–17
,
148–49
,
152
,
174
,
183–84
; as horror theme,
170
,
185–86
see also
birth control
Ackerman, Forrest J.,
187
Adams, Rachel,
90
Adamski, George,
130
Addams, Morticia,
136
Addams Family
,
137
adolescents, popularity of horror films,
17
,
107
,
136
,
160
,
186
Twilight
popularity,
210–13
adventurism, and monster hunting,
132–35
Air Force,
111
UFO investigations,
125
Al Qaeda,
162
Albany, New York,
11
aliens,
97
,
123–25
abductions by,
125–26
in film,
111
Allyon, Lucas,
30
Alvarez, Everett,
157
American exceptionalism,
22–23
American expansion,
65
,
74
see also
frontier
American Monster
,
12
American Mutoscope and Biograph Co.,
84
American Psycho
,
161
American Revolution,
9
,
23
confiscation of Loyalist lands in,
50
American Werewolf in London
,
33
American West,
35
Angel,
211
Angelluci, Orfeo,
130
apocalypse,
209–10
,
216–17
fear of in late twentieth century,
200–204
,
225–26
Arbus, Diane,
138
Aynesworth, Hugh,
151
babysitter in danger theme,
158–59
,
177–79
Bacon, Francis,
10
Bailey, Beth L.,
126
Baker, Howard,
203
Bakker, Jim,
183
Balcerzak, John,
154
Ball, Alan,
215
Baltimore,
187
Banner, Bruce,
118
Bara, Theda,
89
Barlow,
202
Barnum, P. T.,
88
Barnum and Bailey Circus,
88
,
94
Barry, Jonathan,
37
Barry, Marion,
183
Bates, Norman,
139
,
142
,
145
,
161
,
163
,
165
Bauby, Dominique,
223
Bauhaus,
219
Beal, Timothy,
6
Beat movement,
123
beauty,
224
Beecher, Henry Ward,
78
Behemoth,
6
Bella,
212
Bellin, Joshua,
172
Bennell, Miles,
119
Bennett, William,
155
Benz, Julie,
163
Berkowitz, David,
141
Bethurum, Truman,
125–26
Bierce, Ambrose,
73
“Big Bone Lick,”
44–45
birth control,
128
,
148–49
,
170
,
175
birth defects,
2
Bivins, Jason,
186
Bizarre
,
136
Bizarro
,
199
Black Frankenstein,
49
black magic,
41
“Bleeding Kansas,”
67
Bluff Creek,
134
Boone, Carol Anne,
161
Boston Daily Observer
,
18
Boston Linnean Society,
61
Boxoffice
,
114
Boy Scouts of America,
179
Boyer, Paul,
115
Boyle, Danny,
217
Boyle, Robert,
10
Bradford, William,
24
Brady, Matthew,
71–72
brain size, as indication of inferiority,
93
,
95
Bramford building,
175
Brattle, Thomas,
40
Brienes, Weini,
138
Brooklyn,
97
Brooks, Max
Brown v. Board of Education
,
133
Brown, Goodman,
75
Browning, Tod,
91–92
,
76
,
102
,
138
Bryant, Anita,
206
Buddhism,
130
“Buffalo Bill,”
154–55
Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show,
89
Buffon,
43
Buffy the Vampire Slayer
,
193
,
208–10
Bundchen, Gisele,
98–99
Bundy, Ted,
150–52
Bunyan, John,
39
Bunyan, Paul,
36
burial sites, desecrated for medical research,
106
Burke, Peter,
29
Burkner, H. Taylor,
130
Burstyn, Ellen,
167
Bush, George H. W.,
190–91
Cameron, James,
225
Camp Clifton,
180
camp fire stories,
180–82
Camp Ranger,
180
Camp Robert Meecher,
180
Canaan,
39
cannibalism,
31–32
,
88
,
94
,
100
,
154
,
156
,
184–85
,
194
,
217
African fear of whites and,
47–48
Captain America,
117
Caputo, Phillip,
197
Carlson, Allan,
172
carnival exhibits,
64
,
80
,
94
see also
freak shows
Carrie
,
170
Carrington, Dr.,
122–23
Carroll, Charles,
85
cartoons,
137–38
Cascio, Jamais,
222–23
Chang and Eng,
88
Civil Rights era,
132
,
148
,
156
,
159
,
184
Clark, Jerome,
123
Claverack, New York,
44
Clemens, Valdine,
56