Monster Friday: Godzilla

Godzilla

Godzilla is the one of the only traditional film monsters who does not go after the girl. He directs his anger, rightly so, at the society in general. He's helped in this, of course, by being super-sized for a monster. If the Wolfman went at society, he would need at least a crowbar. Godzilla dispatches a train or a building just by now looking where he's going. So as far as any relationship with a woman, he might have serious difficulty in just picking one out of the fleeing crowd.

In a deeper reading of Godzilla,

he could represent the good old USA (destroys cities at first, then becomes Japan's defender) -- but who wants their monsters to be geo-political? Godzilla and his peers were my first exposure to anything Japanese, besides tiny transistor radios. The obvious fact that he was a guy in a rubber suit who was chasing people whose yelling didn't sync with their mouths -- all that didn't matter. He was great, and I wanted to be like him.

He didn't have any of the rules that the other monsters had: distaste of fire, cats, or garlic, harmed by silver or wood, sunlight or moonlight curfews. He could do whatever he damn well wanted. His powers weren't subtle -- he was just really, really big. And that allowed him to take his revenge on all the parents authorities that tried to keep him from going to bed late living in peace.

Again with this model, I'm not sure how Godzilla could get that much blood on him unless he were applying it a handful of victims at a time. Oh twelve-year-old boys with your love of gore. I like the ruined city at his feet, too. But I do have to say, he does look a little chubby in the thighs. Never gonna get the girl with THAT, I can tell you.