The Big Bad and the Big "Aha!": Metamodern Monsters as Transformational Figures of Instability (original) (raw)

2018, Holy Monsters, Sacred Grotesques: Monstrosity and Religion in Europe and the U.S., edited by Michael E. Heyes (Lexington Books)

The monster as a literary metaphor, it has commonly been observed, may represent individual or social anxiety, the resistance to change, and the threat of transformation—as in the threat of physically or psychologically becoming the monstrous Other. Such transformation is seen as threatening in contexts when stability is desired. However, the monster is also deployed occurs in situations in which instability and transformation may be valenced as spiritually productive, such as is found in mystical encounters. In currents of today’s popular culture, mystical activity and spiritual realization, far from being considered rarified states available only to ascetics, are increasingly portrayed as available to ordinary individuals. In this essay, I track the monstrous figure in American popular spiritualities as an intertextual creation contributing to a contemporary rescripting of notions of spiritual transformation. I utilize critical theory of metamodernism to unpack a new manner in which today’s monsters provide fruitful instabilities necessary for both personal as well as social transformations. One exemplar of such a metamodern monstrous is found in Buffy the Vampire Slayer, the popular American television show that ran from 1997-2003 and enjoys a continued cult following. Recognized as one of the first television efforts to focus on sacred/religious/spiritual content in a decidedly secular setting, Buffy has been the subject of numerous theoretical treatments, a few of which have applied monster theory (Santana and Erickson 2008, 2016; Schofield Clark 2005). However, none has yet situated the show, nor the monstrous Other in general, within a metamodern epistemic shift. I connect these pieces to suggest a means of understanding the increasing comfort with monsters’ multivalence—as enemy, lover, friend, provider of Gnostic wisdom, and productive destabilizer.