With the recent concerns on public health and safety caused by Ebola, I started to think: “Aren’t all these germs and viruses mini-monsters?” Germs, diseases and all that nasty stuff is seen as scary and as a threat to the human race. The most destructive disease that was known to cause so much havoc and destruction was the Bubonic Plague of the Middle Ages. Writers from that time describes how “Fathers would abandon their sick sons…” and how a city would fall into complete chaos because of this disease. Then the question is raised, isn’t that part of what a monster does?

Monsters are known to disrupt or sometimes destroy public order, cause panic, destruction, fear and essentially be an enemy of a human-being. With this in mind one can argue that humans deal with monsters on a daily basis whether it be your own immune system fighting off these nasty germs or a country fighting to keep its people safe from a killer disease.

To me, it’s amazing to see the amount of media attention the recent Ebola outbreak has received and the amount of worry it has caused within our own society. With reports of this disease spreading, many are scared, horrified and praying that they never have to encounter this seemingly threatening, microscopic monster:

Just look at it! this monster is not even visible by the human eye and yet it is capable of causing, God forbid, as much chaos and maybe even more destruction than a traditional monster like Godzilla or Frankenstein who are 10,000x larger and maybe even more than this microscopic organism!

This new perspective on what a monster really is challenges what many would have considered a monster to be. Maybe size doesn’t really matter when creating or labeling something as a killer monster…

“I am Legion”

Mark 5:2-5 “When Jesus got out of the boat, a man with an impure spirit came from the tombs to meet him. This man lived in the tombs, and no one could bind him anymore, not even with a chain. For he had often been chained hand and foot, but he tore the chains apart and broke the irons on his feet. No one was strong enough to subdue him. Night and day among the tombs and in the hills he would cry out and cut himself with stones.”

In Greek mythology and in many folktales, monsters are often animal-like creatures with the strength and physical physique that are threatening to humans. However, in religion a monster can include someone who is being possessed by a demon or demons. It’s no longer a religious idea but instead it has become part of today’s media culture. In Hollywood especially where the monster is no longer a 100-foot tall, man-eating, beast-like alien like in the 2008 movie Cloverfield directed by Matt Reeve. Instead, we now see monsters as being a person who has lost all free will and under a demonic possession of pure evil. For me personally, these types of monsters are the ones that scare me the most because it displays what a human being is capable of when he has lost all rationality.

Since the real scene from The Exorcist is too scary, I decided put this one.

Similar to the example in the beginning, the possessed showcased in movies like “Paranormal Activity,” “The Exorcist” and “Deliver us From Evil” display supernatural powers that may consist of levitation and abnormal strength that along with loss of morals and consciousness can lead to the harming of others. For me this form of monster is the scariest because it shows how vulnerable we as humans can be to the unknown. And people may argue the authenticity of demonic possessions and whether they are real or faked but like much of the world, religion has taught me that our soul and well-being can be easily affected by evil forces and spirits.

To a certain extent, one may even argue that religion is one of the founders of this idea of a monster-like human that is pure evil and capable of unimaginable torment and fear to the rest of society.

When we think of MONSTERS, our minds automatically wander and think of those creatures and beings that are psychotic, evil, fear-inducing, “ugly,” and probably one of the last things we would ever want to see in our life! These images can range from iconic figures like Freddy Krueger and Godzilla to mythical ones like dragons and Medusa. However, we tend to forget about monsters like James P. Sullivan, Mike Wazowski and all the other workers in Monsters Inc. To me, it is weird how these “Monsters” that ranges from a Medusa-looking receptionist to a Cyclops-like assistant can be main characters in a movie intended for children. Nevertheless, the director Pete Docter is able to take these and other characters that may provoke fear to any youngling at the beginning of the film but by the end of the movie give a child a new favorite character and cause us to ask the question “What is a monster?”

In the animated film Monsters Inc, James Sullivan and Mike Wazowski are two workers in an electric company that produces power by scaring children all over the world around bedtime and storing their screams to convert into energy. However, the plot takes an unexpected twist when a child (shown above) enters the world of Monsters and causes widespread panic, chaos and fear in Monstropolis.

In my opinion this movie helps raise the question “What is a monster and how does it look?” If I were to show you this picture and ask you to determine if he looks like an evil and mischievous monster solely on this image (left) and on no prior knowledge of the movie, what would you say? Personally, I would say “OF COURSE!!! WHO WOULDN’T?”

But what if I showed you this picture (right)? Now, what would you say? To me, the question of “what is a Monster?” should be classified as a philosophical question that one may never be able to solve. To the workers of Monsters Inc, the children were seen as Monsters and vice-versa. To some extent, this movie shows that a monster may be described as a creature whose intentions are unknown and different from the norm whether it is physically or psychologically.