Proletarian Monsters

[Jimmie Higgins]

So which monsters in pop-culture, literature, or myth are the ones who'd side with the proletariet in a revolution?

My first vote:
https://d1466nnw0ex81e.cloudfront.net/n_iv/600/809725.jpg
Created by the emerging ideas of bourgeois science and thinking; directly created by an upper class scientist; made by piecing together parts of various lower-class people; eventually seen as a threat to the tranquility and happiness of the upper-class scientist who conjured him faust-like; the creature first tries to negotiate and come to an agreement with his creator; the scientist betrays the deal when he comes to realize that if he agrees to the demands the creature might eventually reproduce and come to replace the present society; betrayed, the creature deems that only the forcible overthrow and destruction of the scientist will suffice.

[Il Medico]

I think werewolves could be on side, since they're generally portrayed as the simple everyman adversary to the fancy upper class vampires.

http://static.comicvine.com/uploads/original/7/74295/2309659-the_wolfman_wallpaper_887856.jpeg

[Comrade Dracula]

I think werewolves could be on side, since they're generally portrayed as the simple everyman adversary to the fancy upper class vampires.

Awkwardness ahoy!

In any case, my vote goes to zombies.

[Il Medico]

In any case, my vote goes to zombies.
While zombies are indeed literally the masses, they're always portrayed as the mindless masses, wantonly consuming and in desperate need of being controlled, which is pretty much the antithesis of a class conscious proletarian revolution.

Plus, I doubt they'd take sides or even understand there was sides. They'd probs just eat everyone.

[Os Cangaceiros]

Cenobites!

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/7/72/Cenobite.jpg

Actually probably not.

[Jimmie Higgins]

Cenobites!

Actually probably not.

LOL, yeah they're probably petty-bourgeoise.


While zombies are indeed literally the masses, they're always portrayed as the mindless masses, wantonly consuming and in desperate need of being controlled, which is pretty much the antithesis of a class conscious proletarian revolution.Post-Romero, this is true, but in the earlier versions and definately the carribean myths, Zombies were portrayed as enslaved by some conjurer and forced to do their bidding... brought to life to work, and live only to work. Alienation in myth-form. Obviously slavery was a huge influence on this myth, but then in the early 20th century it became a metaphore for de-skilling of labor and the routinization of production... interchangeable beings with all induvidual characteristics taken from them so they become objects to complete the tasks desired by their master.

But can zombie be awoken from the zombie-state, can they become consious? In many of these tales the zombies turn on the master in the end - the spell broken.

Post-Romero-zombies are usually seen and interpreted as mindless consumers (of flesh, and then braaaains). Romero said he always rooted for the Zombies though, so I don't know if this view really tells the whole story of the zombies in his movies specifically.

[Jimmie Higgins]

What about Godzilla?

[Il Medico]

What about Godzilla?
Eh, considering that Gojira is representative nuclear weapons and the devastation they reap and that said nukes are the ultimate weapon in the arsenal of bourgeois nation states, I would think Gojira would be their greatest weapon against the revolution (at least in the original context).

Of course, Gojira does get to play hero against greater threats in later films, so there's a chance, but I don't think it'd be likely.

[Il Medico]

On a similar note, what about the Giant Claw? Sure it never showed any suggestion of sympathy for the working class cause, but it did seem to instinctively attack the seats of bourgeois power.

[Jimmie Higgins]

On a similar note, what about the Giant Claw?
Holy shit, I'd never even heard of that one and had to look it up:
http://tcmmoviemorlocks.files.wordpress.com/2008/11/claw003.jpg
Yay! Now I have a new monster movie to watch this October!


Sure it never showed any suggestion of sympathy for the working class cause, but it did seem to instinctively attack the seats of bourgeois power.

LOL, well I guess then we'll have to include any alien or force of nature in Roland Emmerich movies then...

http://img2-1.timeinc.net/ew/i/2013/03/26/Independence-Day.jpg

Do we support the Mummy against the colonial pith-helmets in the name of anti-imperialism? I definitely support the Creature from the Black Lagoon against the racist and imperialist oppressor - them with their rape-fear racist myths.

Is the Shark from Jaws a metaphor for capital: all it does it eat and make more of itself?

[Trap Queen Voxxy]

The apes from the Rise of the Planet of the Apes, clearly.

PLeWbA8hHao

If you don't believe that James Franco started the revolution, you should be shot.

http://www.mamapop.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/James-Franco-Hasty-Pudding-.jpg

[Il Medico]

Holy shit, I'd never even heard of that one and had to look it up:
http://tcmmoviemorlocks.files.wordpress.com/2008/11/claw003.jpg
Yay! Now I have a new monster movie to watch this October!

It's a pretty famously bad z-movie. Pretty damn entertaining, the sort of thing you can sit there with friends and go all Mystery Science Theater on.




LOL, well I guess then we'll have to include any alien or force of nature in Roland Emmerich movies then...

http://img2-1.timeinc.net/ew/i/2013/03/26/Independence-Day.jpg
Well, hostile aliens are usually an outside oppressor group that are trying to wrest control of the world from the human ruling class. Like, dunno, space aristocrats or something.


Do we support the Mummy against the colonial pith-helmets in the name of anti-imperialism? Are we talking about specifically the Karloff/Fraser Mummy or just general mummies as a modern horror monster?

[Rafiq]

Vampires can be Marxists and werewolves anarchists.

[Art Vandelay]

We need to create our own proletarian monster. Rumor has it he stalks the streets at night, with a hammer in one hand, a sickle in the other. Where ever surplus value is expropriated, wherever a class has monopoly on the means of production, wherever capital is reinvested, he is there.

[Il Medico]

We need to create our own proletarian monster. Rumor has it he stalks the streets at night, with a hammer in one hand, a sickle in the other. Where ever surplus value is expropriated, wherever a class has monopoly on the means of production, wherever capital is reinvested, he is there.
Sounds more like commie Batman than a monster.

[Art Vandelay]

Sounds more like commie Batman than a monster.

Well I guess I know what I'm being for halloween...

[ChrisK]

These guys.

http://images1.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20130629053046/poohadventures/images/thumb/0/08/Orcs_-_two_towers.png/1000px-Orcs_-_two_towers.png
The poor guys get such a bad rap all because they're controlled by the leaders of industry.

[GiantMonkeyMan]

We need to create our own proletarian monster. Rumor has it he stalks the streets at night, with a hammer in one hand, a sickle in the other. Where ever surplus value is expropriated, wherever a class has monopoly on the means of production, wherever capital is reinvested, he is there.
http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3515/3954234779_0dddcd1f9f_o.jpg

To be honest, I don't see proletarians having anything in common with monsters. We're the monster hunters. We destroy capital with its werewolf hunger and the vampires of aristocracy which leech off the working classes.

[ChrisK]

Not a monster, but definitely on our side:

http://mascherato.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/buffy-wallpaper-buffy-the-vampire-slayer-2103075-800-600.jpg?w=300
She wins by sheer awesome.

[Quail]

Although sadly Sarah Michelle Gellar is a massive Republican :crying:

[Brutus]

9mm's thing reminds me of Gramsci from spaced: http://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&source=web&cd=1&ved=0CCoQtwIwAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DCwZ xnMEIOwA&ei=2CgAUtmXAoW2hQfC0YDwAQ&usg=AFQjCNG7BR8xBCSQykiCgBGHohZ8K1sz-A&sig2=tXhlcQzddShhTv-dv_0Vcw

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

Morlocs, of course.