Monsters permeate the imaginative narratives of diverse contemporary communicative mediums. They lie at the epicenter of horror movies, folk tales, and popular imaginaries of otherness. Jon Hackett and Sean Harrington take the reader on a journey to explore the diversity of sea monsters—they present us not only with a background from which to understand them, but also with the implications of such narratives in the contemporary world. Beasts of the Deep is an eclectic collection of writings that address the diversity of monstrous characters and their interpretations. The book is divided into four sections that serve to unify its chapters around specific topics. In their introductory chapter, the authors describe the book as a contribution to the study of the sea in the light of monstrous creatures and in relation to popular culture. The introduction briefly presents the reader with an overview of its sections and their chapters, while providing an appetizer for what is to follow.
The first part of the book, titled “Folklore and Weird Tales,” introduces the reader to a less paradisiacal manner in which to understand the ocean. The sea as a place hosting creatures that represent dark human emotions, is illustrated by “‘From Beneath the Waves’: Sea-Draugr and the Popular Conscience” by Alexander Hay. The chapter describes the Nordic reanimated corpses that embody the entrapment of past deeds. However, their symbolism lies in their ability to reanimate in more contemporary narratives, such as the news story that gathered worldwide media attention for the horrific instances of the death of the toddler Syrian refugee, Aylan Kurdi. Similar to other chapters in the book, the monster is used to understand problematics in present-day political and social climates. The ocean also becomes a place of solitude and fear in Harrington’s “The Depths of our Experience: Thalassophobia and the Oceanic Horror.” The ocean as an unknown space brings about metaphors, such as a reflective twisted mirror from which to establish boundaries between what can be known and what cannot. In the last chapter, “From Depths of Terror to Depths of Wonder: The Sublime in Lovecraft’s Call of the Cthulhu and Cameron’s The Abyss,” the sea is presented as an arena for the engagement of audiences by virtue of their emotional connection to its stories.
The second part of the book, “The Depths of Desire,” presents monstrous creatures of the ocean in relation to cultural commentaries of social constructions of gender inequalities. In “Beauty and the Octopus: Close Encounters with the Other-than-human,” Carbone contextualizes the reader’s understandings of the octopus inside tentacle-based erotica and a deeply patriarchal framework. This framework is further scrutinized by “The Octopussy: Exploring Representations of Female Sexuality in Victor Hugo’s The Toilers of the Sea (1866) and The Laughing Man (1868). Ettenfield analyses Hugo’s long lasting representations and condemnations of empowered women. The second part of the book, continues this gendered approach and closes with Mill’s “Psychedelic Deep Blues: the Romanticized Sea Creature in Jimi Hendrix’s ‘1983… (A Merman I Should Turn to Be)’ (1968), Tim Buckley’s ‘Song to the Siren’ (1968) and Captain Beefheart’s ‘Grow Fins’ (1972)”. These are fascinating readings for scholars in diverse disciplines interested in conducting research on gender inequalities in the light of monstrosity.
In “Aquatic Spaces and Practices,” the third part of the book, Hackett and Harrington frame the ocean and its monsters inside the scope of consumer culture. The appeal of the monster has opened new spaces of consumer practices that go beyond the marketplace, and can have ramifications in political arenas. In “Fan Totems: Affective Creatures of Horror and Science Fiction,” Cherry explores the appropriations that fans make in response to their fascination and identification with sea monsters. Mellins’s chapter, “Mermaid Spotting: the Rise of Mermaiding in Popular Culture” is an interesting account of the mermaid as a profession/hobby subculture that promises inspire the reader to learn more about it. “Adventures in Liquid Space: Representations of the Sea in Disney Theme Parks” gives the reader an overview of the ocean as a fantasy consumer space. Brooks describes some of the sea-based attractions offered by Disney while turning the ocean into a “liminal space” (152). Murphy’s “Rivers of Blood, Sea of Bodies: An Analysis of Media Coverage of Migration and Trafficking on the High Seas” is the most politically engaged piece of the volume. The author problematizes the ocean as an audience-consumed space of dehumanization in the light of mediated and political representations of refugees. Imageries of migrants as invaders have proven resilient in history and provide fertile ground for hate and sociopolitical agendas.
The last part of the book, “Screening Sea Creatures” centers on discussions about the use of popular sea monsters as symbols for diverse causes. “Becoming-Shark? Jaws Unleashed, the Animal Avatar, and Popular Culture’s Eco-Politics” (Fuch) and “Songs of the Sea: Sea Beasts and Maritime Folklore in Global Animation” (Fryers) explore the role of media texts (video and film) and audiences in relation to environmental protection and education. The role of the ocean monster as a wrecker of audience expectations is discussed by O’Byrne in “The Mosasaurus and Immediacy in Jurassic World.” Finally, Hunter and Foster present the reader with the intricacies of film production in their chapter “Nessie Has Risen from the Grave.”
Overall, this book is a fascinating and well-curated overview of the different ways in which to examine and understand the monstrosity of the sea and its creatures. Through very engaging research and its use of illustrations, the book is very approachable and enjoyable. But perhaps its most salient aspect, beyond the quality of its content, is the volume’s ability to be multidisciplinary from a reader’s and author’s perspective. The different chapters provide the reader with the necessary tools to take the study of monstrosity beyond the realms of folklore and history by generating provocative questions that can be further explored in diverse areas in the social sciences. The connections with contemporary social issues established by some of the authors are important to generating discussions around the pervasiveness of monstrous representations when applied to peoples and populations. As such, this volume produces in its reader self-reflexivity and introspection concerning culturally embedded understandings of otherness through the popular fascination with the ocean and its monsters. “As indeed, while looking for monsters, we are the monsters” (74).
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[Review length: 1047 words • Review posted on March 28, 2019]