Tag Archives: stranger things

“Disgust recapitulates phylogenesis,” Flusser says.¹⁾Vilém Flusser and Louis Bec, Vampyroteuthis Infernalis: A Treatise with a Report by the Institut Scientifique Recherche Paranaturalist, trans. Valentine Pakis (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2012), 11. Not only that, disgust hierarchizes; it indexes our departure from other forms of life and as such situates the human subject on a pedestal. The further removed from us an entity is, the more disgusting it is. Or so the theory goes. The spectrum of disgust and fear is not linear, however, but rather is horseshoe shaped. While mollusks may be the furthest away from us and are thus portrayed as the “[m]ost disgusting of all,” this account seems wrong; we are still intricately connected to them and fear is likely not our first reaction.²⁾Flusser and Bec, Vampyroteuthis Infernalis, 11. The monsters we fear most do not seem to be the creatures that are least like ourselves, but rather are the creatures that are most like us. Indeed, they are us. 

When looking at monsters in popular media — the Demogorgon from Stranger Things (2016- ) or the unnamed monsters from A Quiet Place (2018) — our Xenophobia stems not from the sight of an entity radically unlike us, but rather from the sight of an entity that is almost us; an “incomplete” or “degenerate” human.³⁾Ibid., 12. For humans, “life — the slimy flood that envelops the earth (the ‘biosphere’) — is a stream that leads to us.”⁴⁾Ibid. If we take seriously this view, then the implications become apparent. If there are different “evolutionary possibilities” or pathways down which “life” could go and we take a teleological view of one of them — the endodermic pathway — wherein “[w]e are [life’s] goal,” it ought not surprise us that creatures that have not attained the goal of humanity despite wandering our forsaken path disgust us.⁵⁾Ibid., 8; 12.

More specifically, if we are the supposed endpoint of the endodermic pathway, the “pinnacle of evolution,” another creature following the same path that is superior to us is abjectly terrifying. Indeed, God has been bested. Seeing how the humans are picked off by the unstoppable “death angels” in A Quiet Place or how Hawkins is infested with Demegorgon(s) in Stranger Things, the fear that perhaps we are not so special becomes foregrounded. Indeed, the true, a-teleological meaning of evolution smacks us in the face like a Lovecraftian monster actualized. Where Lovecraft’s monsters are indescribable, however, the “incomplete” or “degenerate” human is on display and forces us to confront our own cosmic facticity, our absurd existence. The force of the cosmic Other rests in its relentless destruction of all that is human. It decenters and decouples the human subject, knocking us from our pedestal of significance and forcing us to reconsider our Being.

While its existence is a threat, we are made better for it. The Xeno, ultimately, is the mirror humanity gazes into and no matter how hard we try to smash it, we will never succeed. The Xeno is unstoppable…