Susan Sontag's "Seven Theses on Photography" offers a framework for understanding how images shape our perception of reality. When applied to the persistent presence of monsters in popular culture, particularly in film, her ideas illuminate how these creatures are not merely fantastical beings but potent metaphors for our collective anxieties. The enduring appeal of monsters, from Frankenstein's creation in 1931 to the xenomorph in Alien (1979) and the creatures of modern horror, suggests that they serve a crucial cultural function: they externalize and give form to the fears that simmer beneath the surface of everyday life. This essay will argue that cinematic monsters, by embodying and amplifying societal anxieties about the unknown, the other, and the breakdown of order, function as a form of collective catharsis and a mirror to cultural anxieties, as suggested by Sontag's observations on photography's relationship with truth and representation.
Sontag, in her first thesis, posits that photographs are not simply depictions but are "the image of an experience which the camera describes." This is profoundly relevant to understanding monsters. A monster on screen is not just a creature; it is an image that crystallizes a specific fear. The Frankenstein monster, for instance, can be seen as a manifestation of anxieties surrounding scientific hubris and the potential for creation to turn against its creator, a fear amplified in the post-WWI era. Its cobbled-together form reflects a disquiet about the fragmentation of the human body and identity. Similarly, the alien in Alien, a creature of pure, biological terror, embodies primal fears of invasion, bodily violation, and the unknowable threat from beyond our terrestrial boundaries. The film's visceral depiction of the creature's life cycle – impregnation, gestation, and violent birth – taps into deep-seated anxieties about reproduction and the corruption of the natural order. These cinematic representations, much like Sontag's photographs, offer an image of an experience, an experience of dread, of being overwhelmed, and of facing the unthinkable.
Furthermore, Sontag's idea that photography has become a way of "recognizing" the world, even if this recognition is superficial, finds resonance in how we consume and interpret monster narratives. We "recognize" the traits of our fears in these creatures. The zombie, popularized by films like George A. Romero's Night of the Living Dead (1968), represents anxieties about conformity, the loss of individuality, and the terrifying prospect of a mindless horde overwhelming civilization. Its slow, relentless march signifies an inexorable threat, reflecting societal unease about mass movements and the erosion of personal agency. In the Cold War era, this fear of overwhelming, unthinking masses was particularly potent. More recently, creatures like the shapeshifting entities in John Carpenter's The Thing (1982) play on fears of infiltration, paranoia, and the inability to trust even those closest to you, a sentiment that resonated during periods of intense political and social suspicion. These monsters become recognizable signifiers of cultural anxieties, allowing audiences to confront these fears in a mediated, and therefore safer, environment.
Sontag’s assertion that photographs "are proof that the thing happened" can be reinterpreted for cinematic monsters as a form of cultural “proof” of our anxieties. While the monster itself is fictional, its presence in our cultural consciousness serves as proof that the underlying fear it represents is real and pervasive. The sheer volume and variety of monsters in cinema – from the supernatural to the extraterrestrial, the psychological to the biological – attest to the breadth of human apprehension. The werewolf, for example, taps into fears of the primal, untamed beast within us, the loss of control over our baser instincts. The ghost story, a perennial favorite, speaks to anxieties about death, the afterlife, and unresolved trauma. These narratives, by giving concrete form to abstract fears, allow for a communal processing of these emotions. Watching a horror film is often a shared experience, a collective confronting of fears that, in its shared vulnerability, can be strangely cathartic. The monster, in its terrifying otherness, paradoxically draws us together in our shared human experience of fear.
Ultimately, cinematic monsters, much like the photographs Sontag critiqued, are not neutral representations. They are constructed images that reflect, amplify, and engage with the anxieties of their time and culture. By externalizing our deepest fears, monsters allow us to confront them, to study them, and perhaps, through the cathartic experience of viewing, to gain a semblance of understanding or control. They are the visual manifestations of what troubles us, the tangible forms of our intangible dread, proving, in their own way, the reality of our fears and the enduring power of cultural narratives to shape our perception of the world and ourselves.