A Response to "My Best Friend Is A Monster"

The original post can be found here: http://jesusandpc.blogspot.ca/2012/03/my-best-friend-is-monster.html

This post dealt with the portrayal of monsters in film as striving to seek redemption, its applicability to our own lives, and how these monsters are models for christian values such as love and forgiveness. Although monsters can be portrayed as foul creatures, this post argues that they do have the potential to express emotion, love, and remorse.

I will argue in favour of this post as I too feel that the audience can, in some way, relate to these monsters. As discussed in lecture, we study monsters in order to understand ourselves. When we are confronted with metaphorical monsters, we are attracted to the goodness that they can reflect in us. I believe that often times, monsters are portrayed in film or in literature as 'broken' figures who are not only monsters on the outside but also possess or are faced to deal with 'internal monsters'. Film and literature, such as in Frankenstein and in The Picture of Dorian Gray, depict the monster's internal struggle and the focus on this internal struggle and their desire to seek redemption is a characteristic that attracts the audience - in a sense we live vicariously through these monsters. As an example, the monster in Frankenstein, exudes emotions that are characteristic of a human in his attempt to integrate himself into society. In Kenneth Branagh's 1994 version of the story, as seen in Cowan's (2008) article, the creature even goes so far as to ask about his soul, saying: What of my soul? Do I have one? Or was that a part you left out? Even in the trailer for Dorian Gray he says "I've done dreadful things...monstrous things...and there will be a price". He later says "I have seen my soul, and there will be a price". So this movie, and more specifically, the character of Dorian Gray depicts a monster and his internal struggle and his curse. Characters' concern for their sins and for their soul ultimately ties in to your comment that you made about Christian faith and the belief that repentance for our sins by striving to do better, will render forgiveness. Humanity's tendency to relate to monsters comes as a result of the fact that like monsters, we too, have internal struggles that we must face and come to terms with.