Monsters 2

The Standing Rock Indian Reservation is the 6th has the largest land area of any Native American reservation in the US, straddling the border between North and South Dakota. Its residents include the Hunkpapa Lakota, Sihasapa Lakota, and the Yanktonai Dakota.

Earlier in 2016, the Dakota Access Pipeline project began, a project that would extend 1,170 miles along oil fields and bodies of waters near the Standing Rock reservation and carry around 500,000 barrels of crude oil per day from North Dakota to Illinois. Such a project would’ve created many jobs and profit, but at the same time possibly threaten the region’s clean water and ancient burial grounds. The Standing Rock Sioux Tribe filed suit against the project but were denied, leading to many protests and violence.  Sacred lands were bulldozed, protesters were attacked and arrested, and armed soldiers and police cleared encampments. In December, President Obama’s administration shut down the project, much to the joy and relief to many residents, protesters, and bystanders, but the victory was cut short when the new president Trump authorized the construction to proceed.

While the Dakota Access Pipeline is a series of events rather than a human, there are still monstrous traits to what happened during the protests and attempts to stop the construction. The fourth theses could be applied to the government and the Native Americans and their conflict. The pipeline would be beneficial to many people, but there it is also negatively affecting the local residents there. The government and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers shove aside the worries and protests of the natives and push through with the project, disrespecting the people that live there. While a main reason may be the typical “sacrifices must be made for the greater good”, the lack of hesitation and consideration on the government’s part may be that they see the Native Americans as different, unimportant, and maybe even inferior. But the fact that the people, not just involved in the protest and construction, but also around the world through media, can see and witness the almost cruelty of the project, the way it lacks empathy for the people it affects, is rather different culturally and politically from what we would expect or hope to expect from our government.

The pipeline project also works as a threshold of some sort. Theses 5 delves into the concept of monsters patrolling a border, limiting mobility and warning people not to cross the line. The pipeline and protests serves as a warning for both sides; when the protesters try to stand against the government, they get attacked and arrested, a clear warning to stay out of the way. Violence from the government against protests has always been a terrible yet common happening in our history. The pipeline project is no different; in order to keep the reservation’s residents and other protesters in line, they use force where they feel necessary. However, the project serves as a second threshold as well; to see how far the government will go. News articles and videos have been popping up all over social media sites to keep the rest of the country up to date about the events of the pipeline project. Many have heard of and seen the tragedy and violence inflicted upon the protesters, and many are upset at the government’s actions. Obama’s administration halting the project was a huge victory and relief for many around the country, but had they ignored the pleas and culture and lives of the Standing Rock residents, no doubt that would have riled up the country to see their government disregard the people for profit, the native people no less. Faith in the government would’ve been lost, and people would’ve grown negative feelings towards it. Now that Trump’s administration has started up the construction again, it’s hard to say where the threshold lies, knowing Trump’s nature and his ridiculous policies and opinions.

Loosely following theses 7, the pipeline and protests affect our view of the world. No matter how many times it happens, it’s always shocking to see the government disregard the people for profit, to see them use force to take what they want, to taking away homes and hurting the people who try to protect their homes. The fact that the residents that they’re tossing aside for their own gains are Native Americans just make things worse considering the history of the country. While many people see the wrong and cruelty in this situation, there are some who think otherwise; who think that they’re doing the right thing and they don’t understand why protesters are getting in the way. Quoting Lt. Tom Iverson of the North Dakota State Highway Patrol, he said “Law enforcement does not want to be going in there and making arrests. That puts us in harm’s way. It puts others in harm’s way. But unfortunately, they put themselves in that position.”  From his comment, we can see that there are people like him who don’t see the other side of the situation. He seems to think that accepting the pipelines and evacuating is the natural thing to do, that the protesters who are trying to protect Standing Rock are being stupid by being in the way and that doing so gives the government no choice but to cut them down to get past. It’s worth noting that he puts the blame on the protesters for the incidents, that they chose to be there and that gives the police and military no choice but to hurt them. It seems like he doesn’t consider the project and the handling of protesters to be inhumane and heartless, just as many others can’t understand why the government or anyone would see this situation as okay.

The Dakota Access Pipeline project and the devastation of the protesters and Standing Rock residents are not a “monster” as in an entity, but the events overall reflect monstrous qualities and actions of an organization.

Monsters

J.J. Cohen’s article Monster Culture (Seven Theses) introduces seven theses about cultures and its monsters.

In his first theses, he describes methods of burying and dealing with vampire corpses, before going on to explain that monsters, or their bodies, embody fear and negative emotions. The “monstrous body is pure culture” he says, fantasies and mental constructs of humans that serves to symbolize something other than what it really is. Cohen connects the concept of monsters to human emotions and mental states rather than perceiving the monsters directly as just fictional beings.

The second theses confronts the supposed existence of said monsters, with the fact that the “monster always escapes”. In some cases, like the Tibetan yeti, the monster is never found despite the many claims of its existence and the destruction it leaves behind. In other cases, like the ogre of Mount Saint Michael that King Arthur kills, the monster always returns from death, in one form or another. There are also monsters like vampires, which come back every century slightly different depending on the current social or cultural events. Cohen’s theory revolves around monsters existing as fragments and leftover clues rather than the monster itself.

“The monster always escapes because it refuses easy categorization.” In the third theses, Cohen explains the existence of monsters as hybrid anomalies that are excluded from any set systematic structures. Monsters will appear in times of crisis just to disappear back to their secluded origins again, breaking the laws of nature by its very existence. Monsters are not meant to be able to be understood and fit into the categories of life, they’re a mixture thereof, opening up new viewpoints of life and how it works.

The fourth theses brings up an eye-opening fact that can be applied to our current day situations; the fact that monsters are monsters because they’re different; be it culturally, politically, racially, economically, sexually, or anything. In famous cases like the Bible or the French crusades celebration, groups of people are described as “monsters” to dehumanize them, villainize them, and justify wrongful acts against them. In America, Native Americans were coined savages to make colonization seem the right thing to do, and make colonists seem more fit and proper for owning the land. Time and time again, we see humans dehumanize and monsterize other humans for being different, a common factor being fear. They fear people who are different, who think differently, who are abnormal in their eyes, even if they aren’t harmful. Many minority groups are discriminated against and oppressed simply for existing. Furthermore, we have people titled as monsters to differentiate them from common people; for example, people like to call Adolf Hitler a monster, say that he wasn’t human, attempt to disconnect the man from anything related to them. But all they’re doing is denying that Hitler was human, that he was just like any other human, he could love and laugh and the things he did were what he thought were right. Monsters aren’t their own separate being; they’re made up of multiple already existing life forces, bits and pieces taken here and there to form an entity, leading to many stories of monsters trying to find out reasons for its existence.

The fifth theses explains how monsters are more than just a fear factor; oftentimes, they serve as a warning sign on the threshold to the unknown. Stories like Jurassic Park show how some lines aren’t meant to be crossed, and that curiosity brings demise. There are limits to any kind of subject that could bring curiosity; science, politics, society, history, anything that has a border that is risky to cross. Often times these borders are set for social trafficking, especially women. They could also be set to discourage certain social actions, such as incest or interracial marriage. Women in Salem were hanged for crossing social norms and attempting dependence, but were accused of sexual relations with the devil. Fear and corruption brings humans to try and destroy monsters and anything related to said monsters.

While monsters are usually set up to enforce and discourage “forbidden practices”, they can have the opposite effect as well. The knowledge of something that shouldn’t be done, and the yearning and envy of the freedom and status of a monster that represents such a thing can evoke desire, and forms of escapist fantasies. In some cases, the monster can serve as an alter ego, based off certain emotions, or represent a place of freedom and joy. At the end of the sixth theses Cohen asks the reader if monsters really exist, before dropping a thoughtful comment: “if they did not, how could we?”

The seventh and last theses are of how monsters affect us. Being figments of our imagination, with no solid proven facts but rather piled up facts that formed an entity, monsters make us think about how we perceive the world, make us reevaluate our views, they question their existence and why they were created; not just by their original author but by us, each individual human, who have constructed the monsters based off stories we read.

Assignment 3

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UbQgXeY_zi4

In Caravan Palace’s music video Lone Digger, the viewer is started off with three identical dark blue cats dressed in dark blue and red jock jackets, light blue pants, and red sneakers walking towards a bar. They walk in unison on two legs like humans, hands in pockets. The small window of the door opens to reveal the lower face of a bull, presumably the bar bouncer. The middle cat licks his right paw, revealing animal tendencies despite being dressed and walking like humans, as the bull then opens up the door and lets them in. As the cats pass through the door, the last one through glances in slow motion at the bull who looks back, arms crossed and watching. Still in slow motion, the cat returns its gaze back to the front, reaching and pulling a comb out of his pocket as the bull closes the door behind them. The door’s neon symbol of the song’s album cover is reflected in one of the cat’s eyes as they draw near, before showing the three cats fixing themselves up before pushing the doors open. It opens up to a dark bar, dimly lit with neon lights. At the center, a gazelle dances in a caged cylinder, two alligators sitting right in front. The cats glance around, observing the various customers in the bar, all animals with human qualities. The cats start walking, the one in the front turns back and motions to the other two before jerking his head the dogs as the camera shifts to the middle doberman, who is looking at the approaching cats and puffs out an O-shaped ring of smoke in time with the music. The three cats leap into the seats of another round table and proceed to glower at the three doberman in the table right across. The obvious cat versus dog stereotype is shown here, but we aren’t given any more context to whether or not the two sides have deeper grudges, as it seems like the cats came into the bar looking for the dogs. The middle dog with the cigar narrows his eyes at the cats, but his two companions are occupied with the drinks. The zebra waitress servers the cats their drinks which can be assumed to be milk. The cats start downing shot glasses of milks, closely watched by the dogs. When the cats have finished their bottle, the dogs call for a waitress but trip her as she walks by, causing her to drop the tray and spill milk all over the three cats. Angered, the middle cat stands up and flips the table over, an obvious show of aggression. As the zebra picks herself off the floor, she is confronted with one of the snakes which has approached and assumed a striking pose, a display of predator versus prey. The snake is shown to be unable to restrain its predatory instincts when it sees a potential prey fallen on the ground, showing a lack of animal instinct restraint despite being dressed like humans. The cats and dogs walk up and stare eachother down as the bull starts dragging the snake away, but the cat flicks out its nails and slashes the dog across the neck, causing a bloody fight between the cats and dogs, with the bull and snake on the side. This causes blood to splatter over all the customers and the bar, as well as the gazelle who seems to be oblivious as she keeps dancing. After a bit more dancing, the gazelle slows down and turns around, finally realizing the blood everywhere and the bodies of all the customers sprawled on the ground, and the camera blacks out to end. This video seems to be a show of animalistic instincts and irony, as although the characters are all walking and dressed like humans in human environments, they still act like animals, shown by the cat that licked its paws. The cats and dogs still have the stereotypical feud, and the snake couldn’t contain her predatory instincts upon seeing the fallen zebra. The bloody scene can be taken as a pun or irony, as they can be considered to be animals despite their human characteristics as the fight breaks out, but similarly humans will commence in violent fights, and can be called “animals”. So this video about animals dressed like humans makes on think about humans that act like animals.