The 1931 film Frankenstein by James Whale is not only a horror movie that continues to be popular today, but it also discusses many issues relevant in society. I decided to look at the film through the Marxist theory and I couldn’t help but see the distinctions between class throughout the movie.

The film Frankenstein shows the discrimination and abuse of cases that often goes unnoticed by people, there is a big distinction between classes in the movie Frankenstein between Henry Frakenstein and his monster. Henry Frankenstein, who is one of the main characters and the doctor who creates the monster, is quite a wealthy man and he uses his wealth and power to get him access to things like laboratories and equipment. Additionally we see Frankenstein doing very terrible things like stealing a body from a graveyard and stealing body parts of people, yet because of his name this often goes unnoticed. On the other hand we see Frankenteins monster is looked at to be dangerous and evil although he really has done nothing wrong. Frankenstein repeatedly problems and attacks his creature and it fights back, Frankenstein does not like what he has created. 

This can be seen as a prime example of Marxist theory which discusses the fact that many wealthy people will alienate the lower class and abuse them with little done, however when there is a fight back by these lower classes then it is a terrible thing. Frankenstein the wealthy doctor is seen to be this genius because of his work and he often does things like attacking the monster with fire which it is scared of. We see Frankenstein’s creature can resemble the working/low class who are often taken advantage of by the high class and used for their gain. Frankenstein’s only purpose with the creature is to prove that he is not crazy and that he can bring something back to life, he does not care for the creature and what he may be doing to it. When the monster fights back against Frankenstein, it is seen as dangerous and must be killed, this is similar to when we see strikes by the working class which by the wealthy are seen as dangerous and the low class are seen as aggressive while in reality it is the working class fighting back against oppression.

I believe that the genre of horror has endured for so long because it gives people a rush of adrenaline when they are watching it, people feel anxious/fearful while watching it, but it is fine because what’s happening in the movie is not happening to them in real life. Additionally a lot of horror movies discuss things that are not known to people and this curiosity is what may make these movies so interesting to people. I somewhat agree with what Wang is saying because we see today that horror movies are really used to give people thrill and fear in their lives while still being safe at the same time. This is partly why horror movies have been around for so long and continue to be really popular.