In class discussions I found myself consistently referring to Buffy the Vampire Slayer because it is my favorite television show but also because of its ability to strongly and successfully humanize monsters. I did not recall another example of something that relates to society’s relationships with monsters until beginning this project and recalling how monsters related to my childhood.
I don’t remember how old I was, but I do remember vividly, if I concentrate very hard, the moment someone attempted to enlighten my young elementary school mind.
There was an assembly at school one morning. A powerful black man was addressing my peers and I. What grade I was in, I do not know but I do recall his passion and how he treated us like adults. The connections he was drawing for us were universal yet also beyond our years and reach, but on some level they stayed with me, even after all these years.
He was speaking on bullying, a big call to action kind of thing and brought up Walt Disney’s Beauty and the Beast. He didn’t play anything for us, because it was the 90’s, but he quoted with much conviction the lines. Slowly and distinctly he spoke, “We don’t like what we don’t understand in fact it scares us and this monster is mysterious at least.” Looking back I wonder if he was waiting for us to put the two together. He certainly was inviting our eyes to have the spark of realization, the “ah-ha” moment, I doubt many of us did but I commend his efforts for they were of a crucial subject matter. Yet for some reason I also feel assemblies on bullying are often more for the bullied than they are for an entire student body, to prepare them for an understanding of why things are.
This makes me wonder if stories of monsters are more for the creatures of the darkness than they are for the humans.
Cited: Beauty and the Beast. Dir. Gary Trousedale, Kirk Wise. Perf. Richard White. Walt Disney Pictures, 1991.
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