Who Is The Monster?
“And I saw a beast coming up out of the sea. It had ten horns and seven heads. Each of its horns was decorated with a royal crown, and on its heads were blasphemous names. The beast I saw was like a leopard. Its feet were like a bear’s, and its mouth was like a lion’s mouth. The dragon gave it his power, throne, and great authority. One of its heads appeared to have been slain and killed, but its deadly wound was healed. So the whole earth was amazed and followed the beast. They worshipped the dragon because it had given the beast its authority. They worshipped the beast and said, “Who is like the beast, and who can fight against it?”
-Revelation 13:1-4
My son Henry’s favorite horror movie is the 1954 classic, The Creature from the Black Lagoon. It’s the only horror movie I’ve allowed him to see, and that’s because it’s really much more of an adventure film with a monster than a true horror movie. It shares a lot more DNA with King Kong than it does Dracula, but I bring it up because it’s one of my favorite entries into our next horror subgenre: monster movies.
Monsters are such compelling story devices because they aren’t bound by human limitations. Giant apes, prehistoric lizard people, sentient blobs, shapeshifting creatures from outer space, city-destroying irradiated giant lizards…these things stretch our imaginations farther than we are used to and make the world seem just a little bigger and a little more unpredictable. Really good monster movies use that playfulness to say something; the monster becomes a metaphor.
Consider Godzilla, that great menace whose size and atomic breath have leveled Tokyo countless times over the last 71 years and 38 films. Godzilla originated as a metaphor for nuclear destruction. The first film debuted 9 years after the bombings of Nagasaki and Hiroshima. Godzilla uses atomic powers to destroy cities, and his dark, scaly exterior is said to be inspired by the scars, lesions, and growths suffered by survivors of the bombings. Godzilla is more than just a monster movie–it is a vehicle by which the people of Japan processed their post-war trauma and fears of nuclear annihilation.
Consider further the most famous entry into the monster canon, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. In short, it’s the tale of an ambitious young scientist who becomes obsessed with the idea of creating life by reanimating dead tissue. He is successful and gives life to a “monster” man made of sewn-together body parts. Doctor Frankenstein is quickly repulsed by his creation, and the bulk of the story bounces between Doctor Frankenstein’s attempts to outrun his actions and his monster’s attempts to track down and reunite with his creator. What separates Shelley’s book from most film adaptations is that Frankenstein’s monster is not a mindless, grunting hulk, but is rather articulate, intelligent, and emotive. The creature’s curiosity is consistently met with fear and hatred due to his appearance, and the abandonment of his creator leads him to act malevolently. By the time you’re halfway through the book, you begin wondering which character truly is the monster and which is the man.
Great monster stories show us parts of ourselves that we would rather not acknowledge. They can highlight our greed and selfishness, our unchecked ambition, and our periodic inhumanity. This is what the Scriptures do as well. They hold up a mirror so that we can see ourselves more clearly–even when we’d rather not. Perhaps the greatest “monster story” in the Bible is the book of Revelation. It has everything! Dragons, sea beasts, and multi-headed horrors running riot over the earth. But, like in other stories these monsters too are not what they seem at first. Most scholars believe that the myriad of monsters in Revelation are metaphorical representations of the crushing military and economic power that the Roman Empire had over the world at the time of its writing. Brilliantly, John of Patmos also connected these beasts to the historical imperial powers of Babylon and Egypt because he recognized that these monsters would come back again and again because they are monsters of our own creation.
In that light, the church is in the monster-slaying business. We are called to pull out all the monstrous things that have taken root in our heart–our selfishness, our violence, our greed, our hatreds–all the things that, left unchecked and granted political power will give rise to the monsters of Revelation. We are called to pull them up and replace them with the fruits of the Spirit–love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control–those things which bring about the Kingdom of God.
“I do know that for the sympathy of one living being, I would make peace with all. I have love in me the likes of which you can scarcely imagine and rage the likes of which you would not believe. If I cannot satisfy the one, I will indulge the other.”
-Frankenstein’s monster, Mary Shelley
Rev. Ryan Young
