In the movie The Thing we are given the idea of an alien like creature with the ability to take the shape and form of anything it absorbs. It is able to hide itself by copying another creature's appearance and thus trick everyone. The way the creature is treated is as though it defiles a person and goes against everything that man has known. What is the signifigance of this defilement?
We see in the movie that it is fairly easy for someone to fool everyone into believing it is truly one of them and not the Thing, but we also see that it has its own flaws such as the blood test that is performed by McReady. Kristeva mentions that when the defilement issue is brought up men and women are seperated and men are viewed to be right and women to be passive, but possibly because the men truly feel threatened by woman's power and view that it is a power the must be supressed. The way the Thing is treated in the movie is that it is a power that is threatening man and must be supressed and destroyed.
The Thing is a force that man feels threatened by and is a threat to the way the world is run. It could potentially dominate the world and wipe out human kind. The Thing eventually defiles just about everyone until the facility is blown up and our main character McReady and Chase plan to let themselves die basically to prevent it from spreading anymore. Blair had discovered earlier in the movie as well that the Thing could spread over the entire world in just a matter of days. It potentially would defile and absorb every person in the world.
We also see what seems to be the development of a spaceship though and wonder if the Thing was truly just trying to survive and escape rather than seek to dominate everything. We can not get a true sense of the Thing of course because it is in our eyes just a monster a creature that in no way we could get along with or have peace with. But a variety of its actions in the film of course support the fact that its goal was to hide amongst everyone and eventually absorb/infect/defile everyone at the camp.
The Thing is truthfully my favorite horror film and I am glad we got to watch it. =) I hope this post did alright.
You bring up an interesting point: "we can not get a true sense of the Thing." This is what makes The Thing so scary in my opinion, and also another reason why it addresses Kristeva. Inherent in the the traditional masculine fear of the feminine is an ignorance of it. It is the fact that these men do not fully understand The Thing, the same way that a historical ignorance of the feminine, that leads to that fear.
ReplyDeleteThis blog makes alot of great points. I agree with the comment about why the Thing is so scary. The men are scared of the monster because it is the unknown.
ReplyDeleteValid point regarding defilement. It is a strong point to recognize the thing's motives. I believe the monster's survival instincts led it to want to dominate everything so that it could thrive
ReplyDeleteThe Thing is a good metaphor for Wal-Mart and the failings of Capitalism in a post-Keynesian world: mindlessly absorbing everything in its path while we are helpless to stop it. Pretty soon we're consumed too, and we're shopping there and marveling at the low low prices when just last week we complained about the government not supervising their predatory practices closely enough.
ReplyDeletenice to know you, and glad to find such a good artical!.................................................................
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