Abstract
What happens when we imagine the unimaginable? This article compares recent films inspired by H. P. Lovecraft’s Cthulhu Mythos with that author’s original early 20th century pulp horror stories. In Guillermo del Toro’s films Pacific Rim and Hellboy, monsters that would have been obscured to protect Lovecraft’s readers are now fully revealed for Hollywood audiences. Using the period-appropriate theories of Rudolf Otto on the numinous and Sigmund Freud on the uncanny, that share Lovecraft’s troubled history with racist othering, I show how modern adaptations of Lovecraft’s work invert central features of the mythos in order to turn tragedies into triumphs. The genres of Science Fiction and Horror have deep commitments to the theme of otherness, but in Lovecraft’s works otherness is insurmountable. Today, Hollywood borrows the tropes of Lovecraftian horror but relies on bridging the gap between humanity and its monstrous others to reveal a higher humanity forged through difference and diversity. This suggests that otherness in modern science fiction is a means of reconciliation, a way for the monsters to be defeated rather than the source of terror as they were in Lovecraft’s stories.
Highlights
When happens when we encounter the unimaginable? Turning to the fiction of early 20th century author H
We can often read category-breaking as the difference that fires and re-forges the humanity of our heroes. Whether it is monsters in horror or SF, the crux of the value of these othering frames is that they focus our attention on the capabilities of our own species
Seeing the encounter with the other as a bridge to a broader, more diverse humanity is just one way to see the differences between modern SF/horror and Lovecraft’s horror
Summary
When happens when we encounter the unimaginable? Turning to the fiction of early 20th century author H. We see the eponymous demon Hellboy celebrated as humanity’s not-so-secret defender, and Pacific Rim showed humanity defeating an invasion of a Godzilla-like alien with giant fighting robots and alien-inspired consciousness-sharing technology What does this change in narrative say about how genre fiction shapes public perception of the categories of sacred/secular or natural/supernatural?. Modern science fiction (hereafter SF) often relies on building relationships with the non-human, such as in the critically acclaimed film Arrival (Villeneuve 2016) In such works, we find a hope for reconciliation, an optimism that the aliens might reveal our true humanity and help us put our petty human differences behind us. We can often read category-breaking as the difference that fires and re-forges the humanity of our heroes Whether it is monsters in horror or SF, the crux of the value of these othering frames is that they focus our attention on the capabilities of our own species. Science and religion are not rejected but rather embraced as the frameworks by which modern creators like Guillermo del Toro find ways to express the benefits of otherness for expanding our common humanity
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