matter out of place*

musings on monsters, robots, cyborgs, and other interstitial beings (*Mary Douglas, Purity and Danger)

[profmonster]

“Can I bring him to show-and-tell on Monday?”

Much of our understanding of the monstrous foregrounds how we react with fear, horror, and/or rejection when confronted with beings that disrupt our understanding of the world.  Mary Douglas teaches us that culture “cannot neglect the challenge of aberrent forms” and for that reason must have ways for dealing with the dirt that confronts and contradicts the “positive pattern in which ideas and values are tidily ordered (p. 48).”  Responding to the anomalous in fear or terror reveals just how seriously we take these cultural systems of order that organize our lives.

At the same time, Douglas also reminds us that our encounters with ambiguity -- entities and experiences that do not fit into our pre-conceived categories -- can be sources of wonder.  Ambiguity reminds us that the world is far richer, more complex, and filled with possibilities than what our understanding allows.  In imposing systems of order upon the world, we limit the potentiality that the world offers to us.

This is my way of introducing you to a wonderful film, Tim Burton’s Edward Scissorhands (1990).  Edward -- created but left unfinished with makeshift cutting implements for hands -- is initially received by the neighboring surburban dwellers as an object of curiousity and wonder.  For the inhabitants of this tidy, ordered, routinized world, Edward introduces a creative, imaginative sensibility into a place where diversity has been reduced to a palette of pastels painted on otherwise identical houses.  He has the capacity to make a difference because he is genuinely different.

It is not long, however, before the neighborhood turns on Edward.  Mary Douglas also teaches us that systems of order are invested with power and that power is exercised to preserve the system.  Anomalous difference is threatening and while Edward’s scissorhands are easily imagined as weapons, it is not a physical danger that he poses but a social, cultural, and “moral” danger.  This danger is that his existence exposes the limits of the cultural system of order itself: that there are sources of life, joy, and love that exist beyond what the system allows or can imagine.

[dinosaurtheories]

Is a Monster Association monstrous?

Within the popular anime series that I had made a post about before “One Punch Man”, I made a brief mention of a “monsters association” within the show that existed to stop the heroes of the show. This posed an interesting question that was asked by @Profmonster, if following Mary Douglas’s notions that “monsters are beings out of place in a system of order”: are monsters that create their own system of order (such as the “monsters association”) still considered monstrous? My initial reaction is to say that yes most would still be considered as monstrous for the repeated transgressions of other’s systems of order. These monsters may see themselves as non-monstrous within their own system of order, but if they continue to transgress other’s systems of orders, I would certainly still consider them monstrous. This is a very interesting question though and I’m curious to hear other’s thoughts and opinions.

[profmonster]

Is it possible for Bad Horse to be both the monstrous Thoroughbred of Sin and the HR manager for the Evil League of Evil?

[dinosaurtheories]

The Monstrous Joker

One of my personal all time favorite “monsters” in every sense of the meaning is the Joker. More specifically, the Heather Ledger adaptation of the Joker from the 2008 The Dark Knight film directed by Christopher Nolan. To better understand what a monstrous figure in society is, Mary Douglas writes that monsters are “beings out of place” that transgress boundaries in relation to a system of order set in place in which they reside in or are associated with. Within Gotham City, there is a system of order practically ran by organized crime leaders and gangs. Among all these monstrous groups plus the crooked police officers, and even “crime-fighters” that could be viewed as monstrous within Gotham, the Joker for me still stands out as the clear monster detached from any system of order. Throughout this film not only is the Joker the main antagonist due to his repeated and horrific transgressions of civil law, but also for his transgressions in which he causes the other organized crime leaders and gangs’ trouble as well. Joker fits within no system of order on either side of those trying to prevent chaos or cause more chaos, and It is stated all of Joker’s actions are transgressions to further develop his own monstrous tendencies and planning to disrupt all systems of order.

Joker also makes the effort to disrupt to the legal and civil system of order set in place in Gotham by threatening or paying off police officers and judges to secretly work under and for him. Establishing a criminal monstrous figure having forced connections within the very system of order that is supposed to be fighting against and rejecting him as this monster. Which would be another major transgression within the many systems of order he is interrelated with, and a transgression that is not repeated much by many other monsters to this extent.

[profmonster]

[profmonster]

“At some point, someone is going to have to draw the line and that is always going to be me.” -- Buffy, “Selfless”

One of the complexities of exploring boundaries and the monstrous is understanding that being on one side or the other of a boundary doesn’t necessarily make one “out of place” or a monster.  For example, crossing the boundary from “the living” to “the dead” doesn’t mean one is out of place.  It just means one has moved from the category of the living to the category of the dead.

It is that which does not fall comfortably into either category that is often considered monstrous.  Vampires are monstrous because they are neither living nor dead -- they are undead.  Hannibal Lecter is monstrous not because he is “sane” or “insane” -- rather, it is that he is both at the same time.

One of the reasons Buffy the Vampire Slayer is such a great television series is because of how it explores this ambiguity.  Buffy slays the demons, fights on the side of good, indeed, she sacrifices herself for her friends, her family, and for all of humanity.  But that does not make her unambigiously good.  She has to make awful decisions. She has to do bad, terrible things.  She has to live with the darkness and power that make it possible for her to protect what is good.

In this sense, Buffy isn’t on either side of the boundary between good and evil, the human and the demon.  She lives on that boundary, establishing this boundary by policing and patrolling it, and in drawing this line makes human community possible.  But it also excludes her from fully being part of that community.  As she tells Xander, “Human rules don’t apply.  There’s only me.  I am the law.”

[profmonster]

@thetominatortwo‘s post about Sam the Robot and Sam’s endearing infatuation with a toaster reminds of a darker robot trope: the manner in which mechanical beings are referred to as toasters as a way to dehumanize them, that is, to exclude them from moral consideration.  In Battlestar Galactica, “toaster” is the favored derogatory moniker for the Cylons.  And in the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode “The Measure of a Man,” Data is referred to as a toaster during a trial to determine whether Data is the property of Starfleet or if he has the right to determine his own fate.

Referring to robots and mechanical beings as toasters -- mere appliances -- reduces them to functions, to property, to labor.  And as this conversation between Picard and Guinan reminds us, the etymological root of “robot” -- rabu -- is slave.

[profmonster]

Mary Douglas teaches us that systems of order are necessary.  She also teaches us that dirt -- “matter out of place (p. 44)” -- is relative to a system of order.

The moral responsibility that arises from this understanding is to recognize that while systems of order are necessary in general, specific systems of order can be oppressive.  Dirt, monsters, beings “out of place” bear that oppression.

Hedwig and the Angry Inch is one of my favorite films.  It poses the following question: How does one find one’s place when one is systematically positioned as “out of place”?  “Hedwig is like that wall /  Standing before you in the divide /  Between east and west / Slavery and freedom / Man and woman, top and bottom / And you can try and tear her down.”

On August 13th, 1961 A wall was erected Down the middle of the city of Berlin The world was divided by a cold war And the Berlin wall Was the most hated symbol of that divide Reviled, graffitied, spit upon We thought the wall would stand forever

And now that it's gone We don't know who we are anymore Ladies and gentlemen Hedwig is like that wall Standing before you in the divide Between east and west Slavery and freedom Man and woman, top and bottom

And you can try and tear her down

[profmonster]

The Sum of Our Programming: Finding Humanity in Emotional Labor — Lady Science

Data paints. Plays music. Deals poker. Drinks at the bar. Tells jokes (or tries to). Dances. Keeps secrets. He cares for his friends. He creates a child. He experiences romance, and loss. He has a cat. Yet, during seven seasons of network television, Data’s exact nature remains a strangely open ques

A thoughtful discussion on how the figure of the robot -- or this particular robot, Data from Star Trek: The Next Generation -- can help us to reflect upon what makes us human.  As Baudrillard points out, the robot “is a worker” who is created to labor (Baudrillard 178).  The author argues that what makes Data an interesting figure -- what makes him approach, and perhaps cross the boundary between the machine and the human -- is that he performs emotional labor, attending to the emotional needs of others.  In other words, he cares.

This passage seems especially appropo for the situation we find ourselves in, especially since emotional labor is undervalued (or not valued at all):

“To be human is to be a member of a community, a crew, that cares for each other and works hard to take care of each other. Data, like all human women, has struggled to prove himself a sentient being in the eyes of the law, but this is only a necessary, not sufficient, condition for humanity. Data continually searches for his humanity by enacting and improving his performance of emotional labor, just as we too look for safety, security, friendship, and love by caring for the emotions of our families, colleagues, neighbors, and friends.”

[profmonster]

Since we never saw the end of M. Night Shyamalan’s The Village (or most of the other films), here it is.  And here is the article that I discovered it in: Emily Todd VanDerWerff, “M. Night Shyamalan’s The Village is an underrated masterpiece” in Vox: https://www.vox.com/2015/9/11/9309749/the-village-shyamalan-good