16 Chapter 1

Fear is a Kind of Desire

By Angelica Perez

Overview:

Monsters represent our biggest fears, our repulsion but also our desires and are what keep society attracted to them. The attraction and desire for expression is what keeps the monstrous body alive. These dark desires are what create a monster. This reveals that a monster is kept alive in literature and pop culture because the fear of monsters is really a desire that keeps society entertained.

Essay:

“This simultaneous repulsion and attraction at the core of the monster’s composition accounts greatly for its continued cultural popularity…” (Hensel, Mittman, Asa 52). A simultaneous state of fear, repulsion, and desire exist for the existence of a monster to be kept alive in society. We see this prevalent in the story of Ted Bundy’s case whose horrific crimes catapulted him into infamously. Society’s underlying fascination with Ted Bundy is a driven by a kind of desire.

In “classic readings on Monster Theory” It is through the interpretation of the monstrous body that a monster represents fantasies of what is not socially accepted. The monster demonstrates a safe form of self-expression. In this case Ted Bundy’s popularity only proliferated because of a popular film “Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile” starring Zac Efron. The film arguably romanticized a serial killer. It is through Ted Bundy’s horrendous acts that kept an audience so entertained and launched the film’s popularity within our society. Ted Bundy keeps people fascinated with his story of a guy who visibly seems normal, with the film and news even describing him as charming. What surprises people is that a man with a normal life and college educated can commit these acts.

I start off with the scene in which Ted Bundy is going to a shelter to adopt a dog.His Girlfriend and him bump into a woman who knows Ted Bundy. This occurs after he is considered as a suspect as someone who murdered a girl. She mentions how she knows that it wasn’t Ted because he’s too handsome to commit such crimes. This sets up the rest of the movie in which his outward appearance and persona are what allowed him to dodge suspicion for so long. This scene goes on to show how a dog represents a symbol of emotion, an animal that becomes loyal and attached to a person who displays positive emotions. The actor that plays Ted Bundy emphasizes the outward appearance of charm. The dog as soon as it sees Ted starts barking only at him even though his girlfriend is right beside him. This impacts the rest of the movie in which we see that we can’t assume that Ted Bundy is a good person simply because of his outward appearance. That someone seemingly normal, charming, and educated is capable of horrific acts. The whole attraction to the Ted Bundy case seems to be that his appearance to the world did not match up to the senseless crimes he committed. His desires were deeply hidden, for so long, a secret that he kept getting away with. This relates back to the theme of Cohen’s thesis: fear is really a kind of desire. The fear of Ted Bundy’s crimes are there but what keeps people drawn and attracted to his case in specific. The fear of his crimes are really a kind of desire to keep knowing more, to want to understand, and keep society entertained with the horrible crimes that he committed. Although the crimes are horrible, society is drawn into this case. Arguably it is the fascination that such a normal seeming person could commit such crimes.

The repulsion and attraction of serial killers are what keep names like Ted Bundy infamous. The modern monster is kept alive because of the fascination that people have and continue to proliferate the stories into popular culture. Ted Bundy is a modern monster, and the fears of this monster are a kind of desire.

Works Cited

Mittman, Asa Simon, and Marcus Hensel. Classic Readings on Monster Theory: Demonstrare. Arc Humanities Press, 2018.

Cohen, Jeffrey Jerome. Monster Theory: Reading Culture. University of Minnesota Press, 1997.

“Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile.” 26 Jan. 2019.