Let's Be Clear:

The title of this course is "The Monsters We Make". From that it should be clear that monsters are constructed, made by men, women and their cultures. This concept is generally termed “social construction”: cultures create and transmit concepts thru mythology.

Monsters are fictional icons of real fears. In this class, our job is to: first simply realize the monster is fictional;  to analyze the story/myth to understand the fear; to realize how (HOW literally; what are the specific tools used by storytellers, authors, film-makers, artists...) people create monsters to define human normalcy.

But don't jump to either conclusion: that normalcy is always good or just or normalcy is always bad and the enemy of freedom or justice. In our culture, loving one's children is the norm and killing them is, thus, monstrous, but Nazi-ism was the "norm" in Nazi Germany and Jews were the "monsters". These two examples alone prove the "norm" is neutral; it can build healthy societies or it can destroy them, or both, or neither.

Monster vs. Monstrous: Literal vs. Metaphoric Meaning

The affix "-ous" means "having" or "characterized by".  It generally operates to note word is being used as a simile or metaphor: if a person does something monstrous then those actions fit the characteristics of a monster; if a person is monstrous, he or she is like a monster. Note that being like something is different than being that thing; you categorically cannot be like something that you actually are. Hitler couldn't act like Hitler; Hitler acted as Hitler.

If I say that someone has a "bulbous nose" it does not literally mean that he has a rounded root wad of a plant growing on his face; it means that he has a nose that physically resembles those characteristics. The relationship is metaphorical and useful; if you have not seen the nose on this person but you have seen a bulb, I can describe the nose to you in a way that is easily imagined.

Are There Real Monsters?

For the purposes of this class, there are no "real", historical monsters.

Of course some cultures believe there are real monsters. One might even say most cultures believe there are real monsters. If you believe that there is an actual, historical Satan, then you believe there are real monsters. If you believe there is a real, historical Bigfoot, then you watch too much TV. But if you believe that "Satan" is actually an iconic or symbolic representation of the concept sin or evil, however, you do not necessarily believe in a real monster; you believe in the concept or idea, and the symbolic figure of Satan is a means of expressing that concept.

For example, Superman is an icon representing  "Truth and Justice" (and in the 1950s this was changed to "Truth, Justice and the American Way"). You can believe in the concepts of "Truth, Justice, and the American Way" and still not believe that there was a historical Superman. Even if you don't believe in a historical Superman, you can refer to him as a convenient means of expressing the concept "Truth, Justice etc"

Icons, be they Satan, Superman, the letter "i" or a stop sign are not the thing itself; they are symbols used to signify the thing.

Monsters and Humans

Hitler may have acted monstrously -- like a monster -- but he was a man, and as yet all cultures define monsters as humanlike, humanoid (humanous?) but still different than man, a separate species or thing.

Medusa may have started as a woman, but by definition she became a Gorgon and thus no longer human -- you cannot have snakes growing out of your head and the ability to turn people into stone and still be a human; it is categorically not possible; she possessed physical qualities humans can't possess, qualities that defy the definition "human". This is true of all monsters, in all cultures (unless the word is being used metaphorically).

Because Hitler acted in ways that are well recorded throughout history -- one might even say common in type, if not degree, and because there is no and never was any evidence that Hitler was not physically a human being (and there was plenty of medical evidence he was a human being), the assumption that Hitler was anything but a human being is unfounded and contrary to existing evidence.

To believe in something that is unfounded and contrary to existing evidence is to believe in what is often called a myth; for this reason, monsters are defined as mythological (note: by some definitions myths can be historically true; we are not using that definition). The difference in Hitler the historical, real man and Hitler the myth, the monster, is exactly this: the belief in existing actual evidence and the belief in that for which there is no existing factual evidence.

Thus, terming real, historical human beings as monsters is the act of myth-making. We've dedicated this course to examining and challenging this myth making process.

By believing Hitler to be a monster and not a man, we conveniently scape-goat his actions as something humans don't or even can't do and thus something we don't need to worry about doing ourselves because we know that we are humans. This is the purpose of monstrosity: to "Other" behaviors and thus distance ourselves from them.

But this Othering process is clearly a double sided sword; it is useful, and it is dangerous.

It is much less scary to think that the monster Hitler killed those poor Jews than it is to think that the German people killed all those poor Jews. This is especially true if, like me, you have both Jewish and/or German ancestry (and Jewish-German ancestry as well, for that matter). Think about it: if a monster killed your people and you killed the monster, the problem is solved, end of story, happily ever after. But if a group of people killed your people for political, cultural and economic reasons, and the other group is still living, the problem is more difficult to solve. It becomes very difficult to live happily ever after because the threat cannot be so easily extinguished.

This is the general use and danger of all myths and all monsters.

What Happened to the Monsters?

All the monsters were killed. That's what happens to monsters. That is their cultural role: to be killed, generally by heroes who are, by definition, everything the monster is not. The hero represents the ultimate normative behavior, everything a person should be in all the ways the monster is everything a person should not be.

Arguably, people label things monsters so that they can kill them and protect the perceived norm. As we said above, the norm is neutral -- sometimes good, sometimes bad, and it differs from situation to situation, culture to culture -- and the purpose of the monster is to define that norm and to show what happens to those who exceed its boundaries.

That's what happened to Medusa and the European Jews alike; they were termed "monsters" and then they were exterminated. Again, the norm is relative.