Monsters carry our psychological baggage, which is perhaps why so many of them are so large.
Although we feign fear in public daylight, in the private dark we gravitate in their direction. From earliest childhood, we devour monster books and movies, monster snacks, and all manner of monster merch. We delight in hearing and telling stories about creatures who are sometimes like us and sometimes as far from ‘us’ as our imaginations can travel.
We enjoy monsters as straightforward villains within a narrative, or as symbols of circumstances (climate change) or belief systems (colonization). We admire their energy, their potency, the way they drive events and force the protagonist to fight back. Monsters make things happen, even if those things are Bad.
We enjoy their visual style, their grotesque flair. Oh, what big teeth (and claws and eyes and tentacles). They’re overgrown and ugly and misshapen but they don’t care. For monsters, physicality equals purpose. If they have fangs, they bite. If they have talons, they eviscerate. If they can liquefy into slime, they ooze into any convenient orifice. As soon as they step from the shadows, or remove the mask, or shift back into their true form, they make their intentions absolutely clear. Monsters show you who they are and what they want to do to you. They’re honest.
We enjoy the thrill. When you face a monster, your heart races, nothing else matters, all your petty worries fall away, all pretense. You must bring your wholly-focused A-game, or die. And you’ll be transformed for the better by your ordeal. Your monster picks you, challenges you, leads you through the fire and turns your leaden parts to gold. This is an act of love.
Children openly love their monsters. Kid lit is full of front-facing fearsome yet secretly adorable creatures like the Gruffalo, who encourage storytellers and their audience to explore the more challenging aspects of a child’s life. These monsters form a fellowship of misfits, seeking friends, unsure of family relationships or their place in the world, worried about their anxiety or other issues scaring people away, beholden to bizarre appetites. They offer valuable life lessons, reassuring children that it’s okay to be bold, different, to lean into your inner weirdo, and that you don’t have to be 100% pretty and nice for others to love you—as long as you don’t actually Eat Pete. Monsters RAWR.
Teens adore their monster role models too, which is why so many horror movies target that demographic. Monsters grow, shift, change, slough, transforming faster than even the most hormonal teen. In their final form, they live the teenage dream, raucous, confident, unconventional, unique. They enjoy flexing their superpowers, smashing through constraints rather than trying to crush themselves to fit parental expectations. If it’s first love you’re after, they also make brave, enigmatic romantic heroes—far better to give your heart to a fae or lycanthrope than any of the sticky, stinky boys on the school bus.
It’s harder for a middle-aged woman to find a rewarding monster match. We need more from our monsters because we’re more monstrous. Age does that. Historically, a woman who was still alive and kicking post-50 was suspected of having supernatural powers. How else would she have survived the slings and arrows of outrageous patriarchy? By definition, we must be undead.
As the years tick by, we automatically become crones, witches, succubi, Jenny Greenteeths. I find myself increasingly simpatico with the soucouyant, a Caribbean vampire. By day, she pootles around in her crone suit, wings concealed under her sagging breasts and menopausal belly fat. She’s a feeble old woman, lacking the power to compel even a casual male gaze. Totally harmless. But, at night, she sloughs her wrinkled skin and becomes—whatever she wants to be.
Sometimes she’s a fireball, a miniature meteorite. Sometimes she’s a seductress. Sometimes she seeks out other villagers because she wants to suck their blood, other times she batters down their doors ready to avenge a past wrong. She’s fueled by a whitehot sense of injustice and she is not going to let them keep getting away with this shit.
Supposedly, the only way to kill a soucouyant is by distracting her with a tedious but necessary task that no one else will do (usually involving clearing up spilled rice) long enough for her enemies to locate her discarded skin and fill it with salt. This prevents her from returning to her human form. But a soucouyant is smarter than her foes. Come daylight, she can occupy the skin of any one of her victims, jumping from body to body, staying one step ahead of her pursuers, until the world she lives in burns.
So, yeah, definitely Team Soucouyant. She embodies things that are absent in my life right now. We’re made of the same meteor dust but she is stronger and more ferocious than I. Her supernatural powers take the weight of my rage and grief so, for a time, I can fly free. Yet, like all monsters, she also represents a warning, of a time or a self to come. If I fail to heed her portents, horror lies ahead. I can ride along with her adventures at night but when morning comes I must put my monstrosities to rest and return to my human skin, however painful the compromises.
I love her for me.
Which monster do you want in your life?
As a trans person, I really connect with the story of Frankenstein. I am the scientist and the creature rolled into one, giving myself life even if the townsfolk react to my mere existence with horror. Love this article!