Monster Map

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Monster QuestMonsters are becoming more mainstream. Or at least it seems that the ridicule factor, with which I had to deal as a child, has moderated a bit. A friend recently sent me a link to Hog Island Press’s Monsters in America map. No doubt, skeptical persons will dismiss such whimsical charts as a load of hooey, but people continue to see unusual things. Although we don’t subscribe to any television service, it has become clear that ghosts and Bigfoot have become pretty standard fare for reality shows. Lake monsters still make appearances from time to time, and since we aren’t always watching the waters, nobody’s terribly surprised. And who knows what’s flying below the radar at night? People have believed in monsters from the very earliest of times. We, however, live in an age when belief can’t exist without proof, and our world of the plausible has shrunk because of it.

Another problem here is the definition of “monster.” The traditional monster was pure fiction—werewolves, vampires, and zombies simply don’t exist. We tell scary stories about them because it’s fun to be afraid when we know there’s really no such thing. American monsters, on the other hand, are based on eyewitness reports, reliable or not. I grew up literally on the edge of the woods in a rural town and never saw anything cryptozoological in nature. At the same time I learned that it’s difficult to see everything in the woods. I would’ve never guessed, for instance, that the number of deer and bear that were shot each season were only a small representative of their populations. The woods, it seemed, should’ve been much more crowded.

Those who’ve spent time in the woods know that nature doesn’t reveal everything easily. Looking at the Hog Island Press chart, I notice some new creatures (to me) and some surprising omissions. Wisconsin and Michigan, both heavily wooded and (I speak from experience here) areas of strangeness, seem devoid of the creatures so commonly reported. Linda Godfrey has written extensively about the dog-men (or werewolves) not uncommonly reported in both states. I suppose that in making such a map there is an embarrassment of riches. People see things all the time, and urbanites have a difficult time identifying species the naturalist finds, well, natural. One need not be credulous to enjoy the monsters of the natural world. It is fun, in any case, to consider the possibilities, now that monsters have gone mainstream.

National Fear

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Back in my full-time teaching days, the American Academy of Religion and Society of Biblical Literature annual meeting was an excuse to buy books. Not that we were flush with money, but the prices were so good (we’re talking academic books here) that they simply couldn’t be passed up. Those days are long gone. This year I limited myself to a single book: W. Scott Poole’s Monsters in America: Our Historical Obsession with the Hideous and the Haunting. I was not disappointed. Poole gives us a smart study with considerable insight into American culture. Not only that, but it also proved an excellent source of self-understanding. I had never come across the phrase “monster kids” for those of us born in the blue light of the television when the Universal monster movies were released for television viewing in the 1960s and 70s. Poole classifies himself in that camp, and it is clear that we share this “guilty pleasure.”

Categorizing our monsters into types that fit various aspects of the American self-image, we find our national phobias reflected in our fictional fears. Throughout the book the uneasy sense of uncertainty towards sexuality, science, and death, like the revenants described, keep arising from the ground. Although Poole is a historian, it very soon becomes clear that one of the main driving forces behind both identifying and challenging these monsters is religion. It is a view Poole shares with Douglas Cowan and Stephen Asma and other analysts who take seriously the origins of our fears. Monsters creep out of the same mental space as gods. That which is not real is no less scary for its non-existence.

Particularly insightful was Poole’s analysis of the subversive nature of monsters. They challenge convention, forcing a cultural catharsis. The notable exception, Stephanie Meyer’s Twilight series, also has a religious rationale. Meyer, a conservative Mormon, effectively extracts the fangs of the vampire to make it a safe, if not Christian, monster. Monsters make establishment believers uncomfortable, for they remind us of the darkness that always follows the light. Humanity responds with efforts, religious and scientific, to banish the dark. But at the end of even the longest day, night will come. When it does, I would recommend curling up with Poole for an evening of cultural self-understanding. Followed by a bowl of popcorn and a movie from his filmography.