Since the very beginning of human existence, we have been inventing monsters of all sorts to fit our specific needs; ranging from scaring kids, all the way to entertaining millions of adults over the silver screen. Monsters have to be invented for various reasons regarding our weird norms of society.
Here are some reasons why we invent monsters:
The Minotaur, harpies (Herpes is a different, unrelated modern version), sirens, Cerberus…
… first enter our world at least 3000 years ago, merely invented to tell stories of heroism in a dark world… perhaps to spark hope in the most hopeless situations. In a vicious world of constant war mongering, heroes have to be poked to arise…
Black Annis, Baba Yaga, Namahage, the Boogeyman…
… are the first monsters we encounter in our childhood bedtime stories. They are allegedly the ones feeding on misbehaving children. It is an irony though; to invent monsters to embed fear into our children’s minds to refrain them from doing stupid stuff that might harm them, only to try to convince our beloved ones that monsters don’t exist afterwards. Children are highly susceptible beings armed with an amazing imagination in a world still alien to them. So, it’s no surprise they counteract the newly-introduced fake monsters by inventing imaginary friends whom they can fight these monsters with or just to blame the invisible buddies if they do something wrong to anger their parents.
The devil… and all the hellish demons…
… the devil is the adult version of monsters described just above that goes after adults who misbehave. And, the demons are merely the adult versions of our childhood imaginary friends whom we can fight with or blame if things go south.
Aliens, vampires, werewolves, witches, ghosts, succubi…
… become popular in our adult lives for the sake of adding flavour to our miserably boring lives. In our adulthood, the magical life we first encountered withers away as we start living to graduate, find a place to live, go to work, pay bills, reproduce and get engaged in never-ending routines. Survival had never been this dull in our entire history, so we welcome these work-of-fiction monsters with open arms. And although some of them are derived from mythology, we upgrade or modify them to suit our contemporary taste hence shiny and attractive vampires or alien cockroaches whom we fear and loathe their earthly counterparts. Monsters have become entertainment.
Sociopaths, rapists, racists et al…
… are the real monsters we have been ignoring. They do the most damage to us, but they are not really feared or credited as the others. Is it because they are real?
Real real?
Barış Cansevgisi 