What makes a monster monstrous? Sure it can be something overt like tentacles coming out of its mouth or an extra set of eyes that seem to stare straight into your soul. The thing is both of those traits can describe several species of animals, which are nothing close to monsters when you really look at them. They're just different. Sesame Street and Pixar both have shown us that monsters may not be as horrible as they first appear. Like a the Solifugae, it may look strange at first, but in the end it's just an arachnid that does what arachnids do to survive. For us it may seem strange for something with multiple legs and eyes building a web or paralyzing its victim with venom before devouring it alive. Yes, that may seem strange, but is that really worse than a species that keeps animals trapped in cages their entire lives, only letting them out so they can be slaughtered and turned into tasty treats we often can't finish and ultimately throw away? Who is the monster then? Much like the whole discussion on evil, maybe a monster is just a matter of perception.
I like the idea of monsters though. With it being that time of year, I've started thinking about what it is that makes some monsters frightening while others just seem boring. I guess it comes down to what scares you. It's been said that one of the scariest things out there is simply the unknown. Or as FDR said "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself." That could be taken to mean that fear is somewhat self-generating and perpetually building upon itself. So it could be argued that the scariest monster is the one you never fully see because your mind is going to fill in the gaps and scare you more than anything else lurking out there.
In that idea there are some monsters that are scarier because they're small rather than because they're knocking over a skyscraper. Some people have an irrational fear of spiders or other various bugs. Sure if Cthulhu showed up in Time's Square they would be frightened, but it's the little things that freak them out. With a giant lizard or butterfly attacking it's necessary for it to show of its strength by smashing something. Now if you happen to live in the apartment building next door then that's a pretty good display of power and is probably frightening because most people don't want a build to land on their head. After that initial display of power though you kind of know what to expect and can really plan the rest of your day. Chicago is in ruins so don't go into the city today. Avoiding large monsters is theoretically easier for those not directly under foot. With the little monsters like bugs or viruses you can't always see them, but you know they're nearby. If a giant cockroach attacked New York City most people would get the hell out of there or at least know a general direction to head away from. Now if billions of mutated regular-sized cockroaches started feeding on people's faces where could they go? Let's face it, even though they've cleaned up the city quite a bit, there are cockroaches all over. They will probably outlive us in the event that we get into a nuclear exchange with North Korea. So there are millions of monsters hiding just behind the wall and no matter where you go, they are there.
Of course that's not to take away from the big guys out there. We live in a time where the largest land animal is the elephant. As far as I know elephants pretty much eat fruits and vegetables and like to play in the water. There haven't been too many reports of herds going on a rampage and attacking villages in Africa or India. Now in the ocean that's a different story. I love the water and feel very comfortable near and in it. Still I understand that most things in the water would love nothing more than to eat you, or at the very least bite off a piece of you before deciding if they're going to eat you. The largest creatures in the water are whales, who seem to be pretty content to eat some of the smallest things around. I suppose to krill a blue whale would be Godzilla, but to us we like them so much that there are CDs of whale songs out there. Anyway my point is that we have no concept of something large wandering around that treats us as food. The dinosaurs are long gone and are probably the basis for a lot of the large monster stories we have today. T-Rex was probably something you didn't want to see racing towards you. We know a lot about him now though. Remember what I said about the unknown. The more you know about something, the less frightening it seems (well in theory in anyway). So we know more than ever before about what dinosaurs did when they were walking the Earth. Ultimately they are just animals. Granted they were really large animals. With that knowledge we take it to the next step. What is T-Rex was bigger? What if he never died? What if he got exponentially smarter to the point that he could operate a rocket launcher?
We take the things we know and add our own imagination to it to create something that scares us. It makes me wonder if monsters are required for us as a species. We need the idea of them out there for some reason. The problem is that we have plenty of monsters that wear human faces and it makes me wonder if maybe we use monsters as a way to consolidate our fears into something we know isn't real. There are plenty of things out in the world that we should be afraid of. A monster is a fun way to get scared. In that regard maybe monsters aren't so bad after all.
